CiGA Indie Game Alliance
The full schedule for the 2026 CiGADC Developer Conference is now public! This year, CiGA has invited guests from around the world, each a distinguished representative in their respective fields of the industry. They will share insights on titles including "Limbus Company," "Slay the Spire," "Vampire Survivors," "Sifu," "Shape of Dreams," "Doki Doki Literature Club!," "Longyin Lizhizhuan," and "Palworld." Through firsthand experiences shared by these industry leaders, attendees will gain valuable knowledge and wealth of experience across various domains such as game development and publishing.
Below is the complete schedule and topic introduction for the 2026 CiGADC:
From "Home Behind" to "Longyin Lizhizhuan," the studio founded by a husband-and-wife team has created three games over ten years that achieved both critical acclaim and strong sales. At the 2026 CiGADC Developer Conference, Zhu Chen, Designer & Programmer at TppStudio, will analyze the creative intentions, development journeys, successes, and lessons learned from "Home Behind 1 & 2" and "Longyin Lizhizhuan." He will share and discuss the team's insights and experiences from a decade of making indie games.
The success of "Sifu" is not only due to its immersive climbing gameplay but also its marketing efforts. The French indie game studio The Game Bakers has its own publishing team, relies entirely on self-funding, publishes its own works, and maintains independent operations. In this talk, Lauranne Cauduro will review the marketing campaign for "Sifu" and discuss the crucial role its immersive and intuitive climbing mechanics played in the game's success.
Founder and CEO Yang Zhenghua (Z) will share how his personal experiences influenced his original motivation for founding the company, and how Serenity Forge implements the vision of "creating meaningful, thought-provoking experiences" in game development and publishing. Through titles like "Doki Doki Literature Club!" and "Bloom & Remember," he will explore how games can touch players through emotion and narrative, and how the team stays true to its creative direction and continuously adapts its practices amidst a changing industry and global market.
Platforms grant everyone the right to list their games, but they don't equip anyone with the ability to understand overseas players. Steam is not a strategy. How can Chinese developers translate their product logic into community language and consumer contexts that Western players can engage with? Listen to the insights shared by Vladislav Tsopljak, CEO of Goldpact Goblins.
The Korean indie game "Shape of Dreams," released in September 2025, is undoubtedly one of the representative indie titles of the year. Within a year of its release, "Shape of Dreams" continuously iterated on the game with four major version updates. From the initial project conception of "Shape of Dreams" to its first-anniversary update, Shen Enxie, CEO of Lizard Smoothie, has many thoughts and summaries to share. At this conference, he will present a talk titled "Shape of Dreams — Areas Where We Could Have Done Better."
Casey Yano, co-founder of Mega Crit Games, will engage in a live conversation with Daniel Robson, Editor-in-Chief of IGN Japan. The two will discuss the nearly decade-long development journey of the "Slay the Spire" series, exploring topics such as the birth of classic gameplay, refinement of core mechanics, inheritance and innovation in sequel development, and the experiences and reflections accumulated by an indie team during long-term creation, all from the perspectives of game design and independent development.
"Staying Independent, Embracing Complex Challenges: The Growth and Transformation of poncle" — Maintaining an indie game positioning doesn't mean Everythinggj remains simple; on the contrary, being independent means the studio must make its own judgments while shouldering more responsibilities and coordinating more resources. Growth isn't just about getting bigger; it's about redefining independence amidst complexity: establishing necessary processes and collaboration mechanisms while preserving the initial creativity, flexibility, and unconventional spirit of an indie game studio.
How can a game that has been live for over two years capture players' attention once again? Bucky, known for his work on "Palworld" and "Craftopia," has become a prominent public face for Pocketpair. At this conference, Bucky will take the stage to deliver a talk titled "Palworld 1.0 — Reigniting the Hype," sharing insights into the publishing and communication strategies behind this major update.
From the封闭 company of "Lobotomy Corporation" to the urban stage of "Library of Ruina," and then to the road trip of "Limbus Company," Project Moon has spent ten years building a complete and coherent narrative universe. Project Moon's success is inseparable from Kim Ji-hoon's pursuit of unique worldview storytelling. He draws creative inspiration from literature, mythology, and philosophy to craft dark and dystopian worlds.
Special thanks to our conference partner, Epic Games Store, for their strong support of the 2026 CiGADC! Epic Games Store is a global digital distribution platform for PC and mobile games. As of 2025, the platform has reached 317 million PC users, with a peak monthly active user count of 78 million. In 2025, player spending on the platform totaled $1.16 billion, showing stable year-over-year growth.
Epic offers a revenue share policy where developers keep 100% of the first $1 million in earnings per game each year. Games launched simultaneously on the Epic Games Store also enjoy discounts on Unreal Engine licensing fees. Combined with the "Epic MegaGrants," "Free Games Program," and curated promotional events, the Epic Games Store continues to help developers reach global players, boost visibility, and enhance long-term engagement.