2026-07-21 –, Talks Room 1
Mindful Game Dev: Building Better Games Without Burnout
Sonal Kalra
Game development is creative, technical, and deeply rewarding but it can also be mentally demanding, especially for indie developers, open-source contributors, and small teams working with limited time and resources. This lightning talk introduces practical mindfulness tools that Godot creators can use to manage stress, improve focus, and sustain creativity throughout the development process.
Attendees will learn simple techniques such as mindful pauses, breathwork, and intention-setting that can be used before coding, debugging, playtesting, or collaborating with a team. The session will connect mindfulness to real developer challenges like creative blocks, decision fatigue, perfectionism, and burnout, offering practical ways to stay grounded while building meaningful games.
EZPZ Lemon Squeezy - Embedding Lua for in-game and inspector scripting!
Tom Schulz
Have you ever wanted an in-game scripting language in Godot? Have you thought about having code snippets in a node's inspector? In this talk we'll take a look at just how easy it is to embed Lua into your game!
Godot in the Classroom
Erin Uptegrove
Sharing my journey as an art teacher going from Blender's BGE to Unity to Godot in the high school setting and why Godot is the better choice today.
All
Sonal Kalra is the Boston-based founder of CONNECT Meditation and a certified meditation teacher. She blends Eastern wisdom, modern science, psychology, HR, and trauma-sensitive practices to help leaders, teams, and communities build clarity, resilience, focus, emotional intelligence, and authentic connection.
I am a Massachusetts artist and educator with a BFA in Illustration from Maine College of Art and a MAT in Art and Design Education from Rhode Island School of Design. I have been teaching art since 2008. Currently I teach game dev to high school students using Godot, along with other digital arts classes. I also record tutorials for Xogot.