In conversation with: Damir Veapi

The first time I met Damir I thought he looked rather confused. It was at a workshop organized a few weeks before the Global Game Jam 2014 – not even a year ago but it seems like I’ve known him for much longer. Long enough to know that behind that confused appearance hides someone who likes games so much that he has the answer to almost any question concerning them and their development, or can at least point you in the right direction.

It looks like it’s all started with Twitter for him – the community involvement, that is. His love for games had started long before Twitter existed, when he was about 5 years old and was spending entire days at a gaming place in his neighborhood, playing games on Sega and PlayStation, but that’s another story. The one that we are telling here started somewhere around 2011/2012 when he opened up a Twitter account. A few days after we had this talk, he tweeted “Actually, giveaways brought me to Twitter in the first place. And then I discovered the wonderful gamedev community here.“ Some of the people he followed that had the biggest influence on him at that time were Shams Jorjani from Paradox Interactive, Christer Kaitila creator of one game a month challenge, and Andy Moore. Andy Moore was having 15 minutes game jams that he would stream on the internet. “It was extremly fun and motivating for me to watch it. At one point in time he made Jam O’Clock, a one hour game jam. That was my first game jam; I made a terrible game but I was happy ‘cause I made something.”

Another person that was kind of important at that time was Peter Molyneux or more precisely a Twitter account created as a parody of Peter Molyneux, @PeterMolydeux – an account that tweets crazy game ideas. “Somebody came up with an idea of making a game jam based on those crazy ideas.” “The MolyJam?” “Yes. I think it was on 30th of march 2012. I didn’t have time to participate but I watched some of the streams and it looked quite interesting. That may have been even before the Jam O’Clock, I can’t really remember.” But he does remember that he was really excited just by watching it, so much so that he wrote to a professor who was teaching game development at the Metropolitan University, which Damir was attending, asking him if they can organize something like that. The professor was interested but didn’t know who would want to do that. “He thought that I just suggested it and expected someone else to do it. But I took that upon myself.” So the first game jam that he organized was in May of 2012, the Metropolitan Game Jam (MGJ) and it wasn’t connected to any known game jams. “We wanted to gather people from Belgrade who wanted to make a game during the weekend.” “How many people were there?” “I think 16. Some of them were from the university but some of them weren’t.” “Did you announce it somewhere?” “Yes, I think it was on the ITDogadjaji website.”

After the MGJ he thought that it would be good to have a regular meetup, which is why he started holding game development workshops with Aleksandar Manja, whom he met at the MGJ and Nemanja Stojanović, whom he met at the University. “Those workshops were intended to be a place where we could all gather two times a week to exchange knowledge. We had git and flixel workshops, a sound workshop, 3D modeling workshops.” “How many people attended those workshops?” “In the beginning there were about 15 of them and later that number decreased to 10.”

Around the time of the MGJ he made a group on Facebook called Game Jammers Serbia, with the idea to have a place where game developers, jammers, could connect. This is what is today known as Game Developers Serbia. “I got the idea from McFunkypants, his sharing of articles and links for game development. So after the MGJ I invited people to join. In the beginning, the group was small and only I posted links. The idea was to share development progress with each other and get feedback.“ The group now has more than 700 members, half of them have joined in the last 6 months.

In January 2013 the first Global Game Jam (GGJ) in Belgrade was organized, again at the Metropolitan University. GGJ is a 48 hour game jam that happens around the world in physical locations. It was announced in the Facebook group and this time there were about 25 jammers. “Did you participate?” “No. The only game jam that I did participate in was the Metropolitan Game Jam, I couldn’t really manage organizing and participating at the same time.”

The workshops continued regularly after the GGJ and the next game jam was Indie Speed Run. A few weeks before that, Damir met Miroslav Gavrilov. Miroslav had recently moved to Belgrade from Novi Sad and had the idea of organizing game development classes. He found out from a friend that some workshops were being held at the Metropolitan University. “He came to our workshops and he liked the way people shared their game ideas. Since I wanted to organize workshops to prepare people for indie speed run and he wanted to hold classes, we started working together. And became friends.”

In December 2013, Damir and Ranko Trifković organized a game developers meetup at the Metropolitan University. “I met Ranko at the first GGJ.” Even before that, Damir knew of him since Ranko was writing reviews and D&D articles for Gamer magazine. “It was fascinating for me to meet someone whose work I’ve read as a kid.” There were about 50 people at the meetup, some of whom saw the announcement on Facebook, and some they invited personally. “It was great! We borrowed consoles from friends, we had two Wiis and one PS3 so people could play games and chat along the way, and we had a promotional poster for global game jam so I took it and started running around the room like this—” he stands up and starts demonstrating. “Ok, you don’t have to run here, I get it!” “As Ranko said, nobody left the meetup without having met someone new. That was also the first time that I met Slobodan Stević and that I saw Switchcars.”

Game developers meetup, December 2013. (photo: Damir Veapi)

I found out about the GGJ somewhere in November 2013 but since I didn’t know anything about the local game community, I didn’t think anyone was hosting it here. I was of course surprised to find out that Belgrade was already registered as a location on the GGJ site and that it was the second time that the jam was being organized in Belgrade. This jam, held in January 2014, was different from its predecessor in a few ways: participants had the opportunity to make board games as well as video games, there was a one hour radio slot within the GGJ radio (conversations with participants), there were consoles borrowed from GameS that people could play on in the break room and there was an Oculus Rift, from COFA studio, that people could make games for, or play COFA’s game Awakening of Heroes on.

Global Game Jam 2014. (photo: Ivan Notaroš)

“Have you heard of A Maze?” I asked him at some point at the GGJ. “No?” “It’s an independent games festival, happening in Berlin in April. I’m planning to go.” He looked interested, and a month later, he sent an email to a google group asking if anyone else would like to go. “At first I wasn’t really sure what it was but then I got more into it and started gathering people and organizing the trip. Since then, gamedev travels have become my favorite thing.” “Why?” “Because you go to new places, and meet people from there who make games. I consider myself a shy person when talking to people except if it is about games – then I become more open.” 11 people travelled from Belgrade, 6 by train, 4 by car, and 1 by plane, and one guy was already in Germany. We gathered in Berlin, some with our baggage and some without it. “I was thrilled, by the whole concept of the festival, the way everybody was open… basically everyone there is your friend. Everyone is interested in what you do.” “What did you learn there?” “That you have to save money for A Maze,” he laughs. “I met a lot of people. The spirit there was amazing, I would love to see more of that here. Every indie developer working alone or in a small team, especially if they find it hard to make money, can meet the people that were in the same position as they were and see that they got out of it and can get the support. If people there like your game, they will spread the word about. And even if you don’t have a game, I think it would be cool to go, because I find those people really inspiring.”

A Maze 2014. (photo: Nenad Ognjanović)

During the spring and summer of 2014, Damir was a part of Level Up Serbia and he was involved in organizing the parts of StartIT and Mikser festivals devoted to games. There was a game expo during each of the festivals dedicated to games made in Serbia. Anybody could show their game at StartIT but on Mikser festival there was a competition on the topic of Utopia. The jury that selected the games for the expo consisted of Rami Ismail, Chris Priestman, Vladan Joler and Miljana Jovović. There were also prizes: a few GameMaker licences, a few Construct licences, GameS voucher for shopping in GameS stores and a course of choice at Crater VFX training center. The two events were just two weeks apart. “I felt really exhausted after these festivals. I realized that I wanted to spend more time focusing on my games so I decided to significantly reduce my involvement in organizing events.”

“What would your advice be for people who are just starting with game development in Serbia?” “First of all, to join the Game Developers Serbia group on Facebook. Then to go to some of the festivals in Europe that are connected to game development. I don’t think people should be disappointed if someone else is making something similar to what they are making, ‘cause you never know where it will go. I make things that I want to see exist and that’s why I don’t think it’s a problem if someone does something that I wanted to do. Ideas are everywhere but it’s hard to actually do something with that idea. Anyone who is making games has a lot of unfinished projects behind them, a lot of ideas not realised. It’s important to finish things.“

“What are some online places where you find all of the answers?” “I mainly follow people on Twitter and I read the gamedev part of reddit. Twitter is a good way to communicate with the global game development community, but Facebook is the way to communicate with the local community.” “So if someone has any questions they can contact you?” “Yes, via Twitter or Facebook.”

Apart from having almost every answer, to questions concerning games of course, it seems to me that Damir has mastered the art of asking. He is not afraid to ask anyone anything nor does he get discouraged if he doesn’t get the answer, he’ll just find it elsewhere. Although there is a whole book on this subject, talking to someone in person who has that way of thinking can mean much more sometimes.

“Through all the events and workshops that I organized I feel like I’ve experienced big personal growth. I started as a very introverted, very quiet person, who doesn’t hang out with a lot of people and today I’m in a position where I communicate with so many people that I don’t know anymore what I said to whom, and they think of me as someone who knows almost everyone who make games here, in Serbia. What I want to say is that involvement in the community can help you grow as a person, not just as a game developer.“

Copy-edited by Ana Čomor