Agenda 2025

/dev/games

(more talks to be announced soon)

  Breaking the Mold: Career Shifts in the Games Industry Eleonora Lucheroni, Michele D'Antimi & Fabrizio Marocchino
(Ubisoft)
  10 Tips for Building your Game Career Luke Savage
(Epic Games)
  Generative LLM Agents that run on-device in real time Piero Molino
(Studio Atelico)
  Don't Forget, NPCs Need Love Too Tommy Thompson
(AI and Games)
  Culture first: how strong teams lead to better games Stefano Cozzi
(Freelance)
  Lessons from 14 Years of Developing nCine, an Open-Source 2D Game Framework Angelo Theodorou
(Freelance)
  A very simple Entity-Component System implementation in C++ Davide Amato
(Tiny Bull Studios)
  Boost your indie production by boosting your indie structure Tommaso Bonanni
(Caracal Games)
  Garbage Collection in Unreal Engine Andrea Barillari
(Warner Bros Games)
  Serious Games to promote Cultural Heritage. The case study of CREAMARE Marco Cozza
(3D Research srl)
  Demystifying Vulkan Ray Tracing Gabriel Sassone
(The Multiplayer Group)
  Building the Ultimate Display: current challenges in Immersive Technologies Luca Surace
(USI Lugano)
  Enemies With Purpose: Designing challenges that engage players Diego Ricchiuti
(Caracal Games)
  State of the art: the game developer perspective Carlo Ivo Alimo Bianchi
(Storm in a Teacup)

Eleonora Lucheroni

Eleonora Lucheroni is a Producer and Business Development Manager in the video game development industry. Since 2021, she has been part of Ubisoft Milan, where she oversees large-scale international projects such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Mario + Rabbids. With over twelve years of experience, she has worked in top Italian studios and international settings. She has held roles ranging from marketing and PR to business development and production. Passionate about gaming and with a dynamic communication style, Eleonora brings a well-rounded perspective to the industry.

Luke Savage

Luke Savage is Education Advisor at Epic Games, working with universities and colleges around the world to build the next generation of talent. He previously ran the PlayStation First developer program at Sony Interactive Entertainment, helping students develop and publish games on PlayStation. Prior to that, Luke worked in skills development across the UK, building training programs for the Film and Video Games industries.

Piero Molino

AI expert with 15 years of experience. AI PhD., Stanford Post Doc, worked at Yahoo and IBM Watson. Founder of Uber AI, authors of Ludwig (12K stars on GitHub), and founder of Predibase, AI infra company. Created GARP, the first Real Time Generative Agents simulation that runs on-device.

Tommy Thompson

Dr Tommy Thompson is the founder of AI and Games, a company that provides consultancy, training, and development support for artificial intelligence in the video games industry. He is largely known as a content creator and producer, running the AI and Games YouTube channel for over 10 years, plus a weekly newsletter on AI in the games industry, and is the lead organiser of the AI and Games Conference in London. Before working in the industry, Tommy was a university lecturer and researcher for 10 years in computer science, AI, and game development.

Stefano Cozzi

Stefano Cozzi has over 12 years of experience in the video game industry, with key roles at Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games. At Blizzard he acted as as Assistant Community Team Manager Europe for flagship titles like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo 3 and StarCraft II. From 2015 to 2018, at Riot Games, he served as Publishing Manager for emerging markets, playing a pivotal role in the European communities of League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra, and Teamfight Tactics. For over six years he has been teaching at Università IULM, focusing on corporate culture and team building. Currently, he works as a consultant for both gaming and non-gaming companies, helping improve employee retention, corporate culture, and talent acquisition.

Angelo Theodorou

Angelo Theodorou is a game industry rendering engineer with experience at ARM, NaturalMotion, Frostbite, and The Multiplayer Group. He is the author of nCine, an open-source 2D game framework, and has a deep passion for real-time graphics, low-level programming, and performance optimization. A longtime enthusiast of the Amiga and the demoscene, he has been an Arch Linux user for over twenty years. He enjoys exploring cutting-edge graphics techniques, studying engine programming topics for nCine, and contributing to his open-source projects.

Davide Amato

Game Programmer at Tiny Bull Studios with 2+ years of experience in the industry, passionate about everything related to programming and game development.

Tommaso Bonanni

Creative Director and CEO of Caracal Games, a studio he founded 10 years ago to bring unique gaming experiences to life. He has designed and worked on titles like Downward and OkunoKa and more, driven by a constant pursuit of new creative challenges. After releasing the Game Boy title 2021: Moon Escape on multiple platforms, he is now working on Star Overdrive, a sci-fi open-world game inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, set to launch on April 10, 2025, with the goal of taking players even further.

Andrea Barillari

UI/RPG Programmer at Warner Bros Games, he worked on Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and Mortal Kombat 1.

Michele D'Antimi

Michele D'Antimi is an experienced professional in Game Design, Game Programming, and digital innovation. Holding a degree in Computer Engineering, he has worked with renowned development studios, contributing to the creation of critically acclaimed video games on an international scale. He has also been a professor at IED University in Rome, where he taught Game Design and scripting courses, while supervising thesis projects focused on gaming. Currently, he is a Senior Game Designer at Ubisoft Milan.

Marco Cozza

Marco Cozza is a passionate software engineer specializing in Extended Reality, serious games, and interactive multimedia solutions for Cultural Heritage promotion. He earned his Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Calabria in 2015 and has been the CTO and Project Manager at 3D Research since 2014. Over the years, Marco has played a key role in numerous national and European research projects, combining cutting-edge technology with innovative storytelling to bring history and culture to life. Currently, Marco is leading the CREAMARE project, in which 3D Research is developing a Serious Game on underwater cultural heritage, leveraging immersive technologies to enhance public engagement and awareness.

Gabriel Sassone

Principal Rendering Engineer at The Multiplayer Group, he's been Senior Rendering at Avalanche Studios.

Fabrizio Marocchino

Fabrizio Marocchino is a highly skilled game designer with a strong technical background and over 12 years of experience in the video game industry. With deep expertise in game and level design, as well as deep knowledge of game engines, he has played a key role in the development of critically acclaimed titles. His ability to balance creativity with technical precision has led to the successful execution of complex gameplay mechanics, combat systems, and immersive level experiences.Currently Fabrizio is covering the role of Senior Game Designer at Ubisoft Milan, where he owns combat mechanics and boss fights design.

Luca Surace

Luca Surace is a PhD candidate in the Perception, Display and Fabrication group at USI Lugano. He works on leveraging visual perception for computer graphics applications. He did research visits at Disney Research Zurich, working on color grading; and at University of Plymouth, working on emotion recognition. Before his PhD, he worked on computer vision for aircraft inspection and obtained a MSc in computer science from Università della Calabria.

Diego Ricchiuti

Diego Ricchiuti is a Creative Director with over 16 years of experience in the game industry directing projects like Star Overdrive and A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, working for companies like Ubisoft and Techland. Diego is also an internationally published books author with Game Design Tools and The Game Business Guidebook. Currently Diego is Senior Consultant for Focus Home and other publishers, he is also the founder of Game Forensics a boutique consultancy agency for the tech world focused on user engagement and satisfaction.

Carlo Ivo Alimo Bianchi

CEO and Game Director of STORM IN A TEACUP, he was Senior and Lead Artist at Ubisoft, Square Enix, Warner Bros Games, Crytek and others.

Sponsor 2025

/dev/games