GameDev Fest 2026
Kazakhstan's game-industry festival: an indie demo zone, artists and comic creators, a startup alley, a VR zone, Game of Drones and a panel on the systemic development of GameDev in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.
Festival zones
Booths of indie teams, developer clubs and education initiatives: play demos and talk to the authors.
Kazakhstan comic authors, illustrators and merch: prints, stickers, posters — and the artists in person.
Projects and studios on the alley screens: a showreel of jam games, demos and team presentations — from indies to major studios.
Immersive VR demos: put on a headset and try virtual-reality projects on site.
Robot football arena: short play sessions and demos. The final — on the main screen.
Programme
What uniting the studios of Kazakhstan and Central Asia brings · building a local publisher · investing in GameDev · growing talent: education and incubation.
Speakers
15+ years in the global games industry: publishing, marketing and strategy. Built Nintendo's and Tencent's partnerships with publishers worldwide.
Ex-CEO AppQuantum, ex-GM Playrix — ran a unit of 17 studios. Now producing Grand Mobile 2.
IT producer and 3D expert. Builds an AI platform for training GameDev specialists.
Designs mechanics and location visuals for Chef & Friends.
Announcements on Digital Creative Industries: the GameDev centre, the accelerator, Digital Bridge 2026, Creative Eurasia.
“DarkSwitch: from idea to worldwide release” — a Kazakhstan studio's AA project from concept to global launch.
“AI without the hype: putting it into PC game development”. 19 years in GameDev.
“Gamification, briefly” — how game mechanics work beyond games.
“Visual novels as a base of the creative economy”. Initiator of VN JAM CA.
Who is on site
The GameDev competence centre at Astana Hub: education, community and project support from idea to release.
KBTU's teaching lab: student prototypes and R&D — Illusionary Manor, Iz, Emberbloom, The Train Parable.
The Nazarbayev University student community: from jams to game showcases and playtesting.
Data Trader — a cyberpunk strategy about mining and trading data, already on Steam.
An Almaty visual-novel publisher — the genre VN JAM CA grew around.
The Almaty game developers club — a game-zone participant.
Startup alley
Main screen — a showreel of every jam game, ±200 Kazakhstan jam projects non-stop. On the alley screens: