One of the highlights of the Digital Dragons game conference is the Digital Dragons Awards. The gala takes place each year on the penultimate night of the conference in the main theater at the ICE Krakow Congress Centre. The awards look back to games released in the prior year, so to be eligible for an award this year at Digital Dragons 2025 a game must have been released during 2024. Outside of the Best Foreign Game category, the other requirement is that the game have been developed by a Polish game company. This isn’t as restrictive as it may sound at first, because if you know your game developers you know that a lot of big-name game developers come from Poland – CD Projekt, Techland, 11 bit studios, Bloober Team, People Can Fly, just to name a few – as well as large number of smaller studios and indie developers. If you play games, odds are that you’ve played more than one made in Poland.
There were seven major awards categories, with the Polish game development community voting for the nominees in each category via a survey provided by the conference’s organizer, the Krakow Technology Park. A panel consisting of game developers, media, and game development professors from academia that selected the winners from the five nominees in each category. Winners receive what has got to be one of the coolest trophies in the industry – a golden dragon egg with the hatchling’s tail poking out through the top. Look even closer and you’ll see that the tip of the tail is a mouse-pointer.
The gala is a slicky-produced affair on par with similar events such as The Game Awards. Digital Dragon attendees have free access to the gala, so it was a packed house filled with nominees, game devs, press, other industry types, and me. In addition to the energetic music that you can hear thumping between the presentations at any livestreamed gaming event, the awards ceremony this year had a special musical treat. Game music composer Floex (Tomáš Dvořák) provided several musical interludes of music from and inspired by games, as well as a couple of pieces to close out the gala. What made the musical pieces extra special is that they were performed primarily using orchestral instruments, and that the percussion was provided by a robot.
The winners for the major categories are listed in bold below along with the other nominees for each reward:
Best Polish Game
- Age of History 3 - Łukasz Jakowski
- Forgive Me Father 2 - Byte Barrel
- Frostpunk 2 - 11 bit studios
- Nobody Wants to Die - Critical Hit Games
- The Thaumaturge - Fool's Theory
Best Polish Game Design
- Age of History 3 - Łukasz Jakowski
- Frostpunk 2 - 11 bit studios
- Nobody Wants to Die - Critical Hit Games
- Sumerian Six - Artificer
- The Thaumaturge - Fool's Theory
Best Polish Visual Game Art
- 63 Days - Destructive Creations
- Forgive Me Father 2 - Byte Barrel
- Frostpunk 2 - 11 bit studios
- Nobody Wants to Die - Critical Hit Games
- The Thaumaturge - Fool’s Theory
Best Polish Game Audio
- 63 Days - Destructive Creations
- Forgive Me Father 2 - Byte Barrel
- Frostpunk 2 - 11 bit studios
- Nobody Wants to Die - Critical Hit Games
- The Thaumaturge - Fool's Theory
Best Polish Narrative
- Frostpunk 2 - 11 bit studios
- Nobody Wants to Die - Critical Hit Games
- The Thaumaturge - Fool's Theory
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Reckoning of New York - Draw Distance
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Purgatory - Different Tales
Best Polish Mobile Game
- Clash of Destiny: Good vs Evil - BoomBit
- Endless Drive: RPG - Orbital Knight
- Jigsaw Puzzles 3D - Fuero Games
- Luxury Rush - Fun Monkey
- Mafia Rivals: Grand Wars - Gamesture
- Tomorrow: Online Survival - Rage Quit Games
- Wizard Whiskers - Orbital Knight
- Zozole Run - Vivid Games
Best Foreign Game
- Astro Bot - Team ASOBI
- Balatro - LocalThunk
- Black Myth: Wukong - Game Science
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - MachineGames
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 - Saber Interactive
As you can see, Frostpunk 2 did quite well. To the surprise and delight of the crowd, it seemed that the entire 11 bit studios team was in attendance and they all took to the stage to accept the prize when they were awarded Best Game Audio. Then they won Best Game Design and everyone returned to the stage again. And then they took the top prize of Best Game and it was time for the entire team to hit the stage again and bask in their win and the applause of the crowd, which not only recognized their accomplishment but got swept up in the joy of the moment of seeing the people who worked on the game sharing the exhilaration of their win together as a team. It was a moment that caught the spirit of the gaming industry far more naturally than having a person or two shake the presenter’s hand and give a quick thank you or two. And in keeping with a Digital Dragons tradition, 11 bit studios donated one of the prizes that comes with the top award, a top-of-the-line development rig, to the indie dev awarded the Community Favorite prize the next day as voted on by the entire Digital Dragons attendee list.
While I would have loved to see Indiana Jones and the Great Circle win Best Foreign game since I thought that MachineGames did a fantastic job of creating a game that is worthy of being a film in the beloved franchise, it was admittedly really special to see an indie game like Balatro beat out the heavyweight competition it faced to take home the prize.
Speaking of indies, one of the signature features of Digital Dragons is its Indie Zone. Most of the first floor of the event’s location is occupied by the Indie Zone, where literally dozens of indie games are on display and attendees can chat with the devs and get some hands-on time with the games. A select committee of judges spends their time immersed in the Indie Zone on the first day of the conference, and then meets before the awards gala to select the top three games. This year the Indie Dragons Awards went to:
1st place: Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken (scriptwelder)
2nd place: XYZ (Screen Tear Studios)
3rd place: ARMS OF GOD (Dark Jay)
You can imagine how thrilling it is for an indie dev (and some of them are truly one person teams) to get that level of recognition in front of the large audience in the arena and those watching the livestream from home.
Once the awards were all handed out and Floex brought the ceremony to a musical close, it was time for the audience to head to the after party. And as for those of you reading at home, you now have a list of some great games to try out yourself.