gamescom review blog post

collections/_article/review-gamescom-2024.md

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+---
+title: "Gamescom 2024"
+excerpt: "Back from gamescom, ready to report."
+categories: ["events"]
+author: Nat
+image: /storage/blog/covers/gamescom-2024.webp
+date: 2024-09-02 18:00:00
+---
+
+Gamescom is more popular than ever. It used to be that you could hide from the masses flooding the entertainment halls by going to the indie area, and playtest one of the few games exhibiting in that much calmer space. Squeezed between the retro, education, and job-market booths, I recall not that many people even knew of its existence - the entire hall was classified as the family-friendly one. 
+Nowadays, the [Indie Arena Booth](https://indiearenabooth.de/gamescom2024/games) alone featured 170 developers, and found competition in multiple other indie groups occupying similar amounts of floor space.
+
+Between these conglomerates and the country/state booths, we managed to count 9 Godot games, some familiar faces as well as a few surprises among them. Regrettably, we are sure to have missed some - if only events would release the exhibitor list with a note on engine technology used. One can only dream… Unless? 
+
+Since most gamescom demos are still online, here our incomplete list for you to playtest:
+- [Cocolation](https://cocolation.com/)
+- [Crown Gambit](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2447980/Crown_Gambit/)
+- [Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1978150/Kamaeru_A_Frog_Refuge/)
+- [Kohlrabi Starship](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2337990/Kohlrabi_Starship/)
+- [Koira](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1626620/Koira/)
+- [Oddventure](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1235710/Oddventure/)
+- [PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2956040/PVKK_Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant/)
+- [Spindle](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1386750/Spindle/)
+- [Yarn Guardians](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2928940/Yarn_Guardians/)
+
+*Did you too exhibit a Godot game at gamescom and want to be added to this list? Email [nat@godotengine.org](mailto:nat@godotengine.org) with a link to your demo.*
+
+Another thing we discovered in the trade area: the big players in this industry are starting to take us more seriously than ever. This is in line with our GDC experience back in March. Let's see which of the meetings lead to future collaborations; however, even just hearing about publishers and tool providers that they are looking into supporting Godot, upon request from their developers, is amazing news. 
+
+<div class="preview-image-container">
+    <img alt="Attendees standing on a private patio in front of the Haxenhaus" src="/storage/blog/gamescom-cologne-2024/meetup-1-gamescom-2024.jpg"/>
+    <img alt="Attendees sitting down to have dinner" src="/storage/blog/gamescom-cologne-2024/meetup-2-gamescom-2024.jpg"/>
+    <img alt="Juan and Emilio speaking with attendees" src="/storage/blog/gamescom-cologne-2024/meetup-3-gamescom-2024.jpg"/>
+    <img alt="Meetup view at night" src="/storage/blog/gamescom-cologne-2024/meetup-4-gamescom-2024.jpg"/>
+</div>
+
+On Thursday evening, we hosted our own off-site Godot mixer, and attendance was great! Sitting on the outside patio of the Haxenhaus, an old GDC Europe staple location as we were told, we got to enjoy plenty of food and drink - courtesy of our longtime sponsor [W4 Games](https://www.w4games.com/). 
+
+It is always a pleasure to meet our community face to face, and we are flattered that many of you seem to agree. Thank you to all attendees for sharing your personal Godot Engine stories with us, we learn a lot from these conversations every time. For the next events, we might need more sponsors to be able to accommodate more than “just” 50 of you. 
+
+To meet a few more community members, we also assembled Friday afternoon at the aforementioned Indie Arena Booth. Despite having to yell-talk and running out of goodies to distribute, we had a lot of fun helping fellow developers network and mingling ourselves. Considering the amount of people that showed up, we were almost concerned the Germans would come after us for “unlawful assembly” or “blocking the exit paths” - luckily for us, nothing of that sort happened and instead we got to take a big happy group picture:
+
+<img alt="Meetup picture taken at the Indie Arena Booth" src="/storage/blog/gamescom-cologne-2024/group-gamescom.jpg"/>
+
+What event would you like to see us attend next? Tell us on our official forum! Bonus points if you know a local user group or creators who would help us staff a booth, and a sponsor to help with the related expenses. 
+
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