Systems & Stories Salon: game design roundtable

SGA General 28.05.2026.
Time 2 PM - 5 PM
Language English
Location American Resource Center, Ložionica
Price free
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Systems & Stories Salon: game design roundtable

If you've ever wanted to sit down with people to have a serious discussion about level design, in-game economics and narrative while someone keeps popping in to explain why a tutorial is, in fact, an emotional experience — this is the event for you! The Systems & Stories Salon brings together industry veterans and all the curious people who want to hear how the creative chaos of game development unfolds. No one is going to monologue with a 94-slide PowerPoint, so this is an opportunity for everyone to engage in a discussion that can go from "how to design a good quest" to "is the loot box the evil wizard of modern design." It all depends on you!

During three hours, the participants will use Mentimeter to choose topics, ask questions and determine the direction of the conversation. The audience, therefore, becomes the game master of this session. We are expecting a mix of serious industrial topics, spontaneous digressions, probably a few “that reminds me of Dark Souls” moments and at least one person who will try to explain why inventory systems are actually the philosophy of life.

The space will be organized so that everyone can see each other and engage in conversation without feeling like they are in a school class, and there will be enough time to exchange ideas, disagreements and mini-conspiracy theories about why players always ignore the NPC who gives the main quests.

At the event, the on-call conversation starters will be:

  • Steven Slater, Lead Level Designer, The Game Bakers (Francuska);
  • Sava Minić, Lead Game Designer, Nordeus;
  • Stefan Čupović, Senior Game Designer, Stygian Software;
  • Lena Glišović, Head of Gaming, Radionica Krug – Glitch Studios

IMPORTANT: The seats are limited, so register as soon as possible!

Add the event to your Google Calendar at this link.

Steven Slater’s participation in the event was made possible through the Game Caravan project, which is implemented in cooperation with the French Institute.

Steven Slater,
Lead Level Designer, The Game Bakers
About the lecturer

Steven’s been working at The Game Bakers for the past 10 years, where he had the chance to work on Furi, Haven and Cairn. On Cairn specifically, he spent most of his time trying to facilitate the work of their level design team, setting up the workflow, guidelines and reviews, which meant a whole lot of time spent looking at rocks. He also spent time with the 3C programming team to test, tweak and fine-tune the climbing gameplay, which did not mean a whole lot of time asking for unreasonable new climbing features, of course.

Sava Minić,
Lead Game Designer, Nordeus
About the lecturer

Sava is a Lead Game Designer at Nordeus, currently shaping the player experience for the football management hit Top Eleven. He transitioned to this role after 10 years as a software developer, bridging a decade of technical expertise on multiple f2p projects with a creative vision to build fun and engaging games for a global audience.

Stefan Čupović,
Senior Game Designer, Stygian Software
About the lecturer

Stefan Čupović works as a Senior Game Designer and Developer at Stygian Software. Since 2014, he has been working on the post-apocalyptic RPG series Underrail, and primarily deals with narrative, quest and level design, but also gameplay mechanics, programming and scripting. He has always seen games as a complete package: gameplay, graphics, sound, story – the whole experience, and is generally a fan of various game genres and art forms. He originally channeled his gaming creativity through level editors for strategy games such as Heroes of Might and Magic 2/3, Starcraft, Age of Empires 2 and finally Warcraft 3, purely for his own soul, and thanks to the indie revolution, he got the opportunity to professionally make role-playing games in Serbia, which once seemed impossible.

He is currently developing Underrail 2: Infusion, which should be even more post-apocalyptic and fun than its predecessor.

Lena Glišović,
Head of Gaming, Radionica KRUG - Glitch Studios
About the lecturer

Lena is a Software Engineer from Zlatibor, currently living in Novi Sad. She works in game development as a Game Developer and Fortnite Creator. She is known as the creator of the first branded Fortnite game in the Balkans, Gold Gondola Adventure, which represents a milestone in regional innovation in the field of gaming and tourism. She is also the creator of KPOP Team Deathmatch, a Fortnite game that gained global attention after being noticed by Fortnite and Netflix, and then selected for the Netflix Picks category within Fortnite. The game has achieved 62.4 million minutes of gameplay and gathered over two million players. Recently, her game Galactic Domination was also recognized by Fortnite and Star Wars, and was included in the Star Wars Standouts category, while the project gained additional attention after it was reposted by Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games. Lena is an alumna of the Fortnite Creative Fundamentals, Game Crafting and Unreal Fellowship: World Building with UEFN (2024) programs, organized by Epic Games, 3Lateral, Materriya Talent Development and SGA.

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