Games Croatia in Japan for the first time!

The Croatian video game industry was officially showcased for the first time at BitSummit in Kyoto, Japan!

As an official partner of Bitsummit, the Games Croatia project had its own booth where the participants of the summit had the opportunity to learn more about the Croatian video game industry and play the video game Go Home Annie, which is scheduled to be released soon.

BitSummit, held every July in Kyoto, is Japan's leading trade show for independent video games. Kyoto is the headquarters of Nintendo, the creators of Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda and many other famous video games.

Masahiko Murakami, one of the main organizers, officially invited the Games Croatia project to be Bitsummit’s partner for this year’s edition of Bitsummit. In cooperation between the Croatia’s biggest gaming Incubator PISMO and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC), representatives Benjamin Noah Maričak, in charge of video games and new technologies at HAVC , and Mateja Olujić, 3D artist of the video game Go Home Annie, were sent to promote the Croatian video game industry at Bitsummit.

The participants of the summit and the Japanese media expressed great joy when playing the video game Go Home Annie. In addition to Croatian video games, other aspects of the Croatian video game industry were also promoted. Such as the efforts and successes of the Croatian government in the development of the Croatia’s video game sector, like the co-financing of the development and production of video games by HAVC, and the phenomenal work of the Incubator PISMO as one of the best examples of incubators for video games in all of Europe, and the construction of their new gaming campus.

"Many meetings were held at the fair: with publishers, investors, representatives of educational institutions for video games, representatives of other world fairs, marketing and PR agencies for video games, Japanese independent video game manufacturers, media, etc. The contacts that were made will greatly help in the positioning of the Croatian video game industry to the Japanese and Asian markets," said Benjamin Noah Maričak.

The Bitsummit trade fair was founded in 2012 to give independent video game developers the opportunity to present their video games to the world. Over the years, the fair has hosted many prominent guests from major companies such as Sony, Nintendo, SEGA, Bandai Namco, Valve, etc. With the support of leading video game manufacturers and publishers, BitSummit has established itself as one of the leading video game fairs in Asia.

Games Croatia, a project of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, is intended to promote and further develop the Croatian video game industry on a national, European and global level. The goal of this initiative is to bring together all key stakeholders in the Croatian video game industry, and provide a platform for local game developers, organizations, and other stakeholders in the sector to gain visibility and support in their networking efforts within the global video game industry.

Many key stakeholders view the Games Croatia project as vital for the growth and development of the Croatian video game industry, such as The Croatian Game Development Alliance (CGDA), Reboot, Gaming Incubator PISMO, HU-IZ-VI Association, and the CeSF (Croatian eSports Federation).

Go Home Annie is a video game created by Misfit Village and the lead designer is Mladen Bošnjak. The video games was developed within the Incubator PISMO in Novska, Croatia. Go Home Annie received production funds from HAVC, at the Public Call for Video Game Development and Production in 2021. The publisher is Nordcurrent Labs.

Story: A twisted first person horror adventure. As an employee of the SCP Replication Division you are tasked with testing artificially developed paranormal events. Solve puzzles, converse with anomalous entities and untangle the secrets behind the Replication Division.

The game is scheduled to be released later this year for PC and consoles.

Cover Photo: Benjamin Noah Maričak and Mateja Olujić at BitSummit 2024.