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cyangames
Created : 11 July 2014
 
System : Android

Back from Game Dev Con!

and home from Brighton, back in paignton, ahhh, nice :)

Soo, yeah, I headed off to develop conference for my first visit to a large indie event this week and had a pretty nice time!

The expo itself had a lot of indie games using nifty controllers such as the occulus rift, old novint falcons and the prototype morpheus product which i got to try out. The expo in general was split for into 2 sections.

Stuff That was awesome and Stuff that was really awesome for other people with massive budgets, aka not me.

So, the awesome stuff first.

All the games I played there were a lot of fun to play. My favourite of the bunch was, unsurprisingly, the most retro game out there which boiled down to multiplayer, competitive geometry wars. The game is called Aperion Origins and, the mobile version is still pretty nice to play but I mentioned to the devs there that they should really port to the OUYA when the full game is complete. I think I spent an hour or so solely on that game and beat the devs at it, yay!


Most of the other games were, due to the nature of the controller set-up, were more along the lines of exhibition pieces. There was an excellent pod racer game to play, which used a combination of an occullus rift and 2 novint falcons to really make you fee like you were inside a cockpit, racing away. Great fun but, yes, sadly I doubt many people have that set-up.


The Morpheus offered a more immersive experience than the occulus rift, as soon as I strapped it onto my head the resolution was larger and the game designed for it really showed off it's potential. Luging down a street avoiding on-coming traffic is pretty exciting!


I was able to catch up with my bro and play on his game he's developing, imagine lylat wars crossed with outrun and you're close to the ideas he has for it. It's rather nice.


I showed some of my friends they are eveywhere, they liked it and pointed some bits out which I needed to change around which is always handy. Showed it to some people I didn't know and they seemed to enjoy it also, which is cool.


Hung around and had some drinks with other indie devs and that was nice, some pretty crazy conversations happenned that night for sure.


Briefly met one of my favourite developers, said Hi and thanks for making his game as it influenced Super Grid Run massively so ,that was great, I was pretty drunk by then though


Met a lot of people who gave me pointers with adding accessibility into games, so, yeah, that was good to get some advice again.

The only bits that I didn't get were some o the expo bits 'n' bobs that seemed way out there. There was one guy manning a stall which had no-one go to it, the poor guy! Some characters attempting to sell gambling inside games which isn't really my cuppa tea and another chap who was letting people know about a tv advertising service that started off at £75,000!

Still, everyone there was friendly enough, there was a vast amount of coffee ,water and booze to be had during the whole thing and I hope I can head back over there next year. It comes highly recommended!

It seems that the Brighton Indie Scene is getting larger according to a few people so, that's good for them

 

Comments


Friday, 11 July 2014, 17:15
Jayenkai
Sounds awesome!
Maybe some day I'll get out to an expo or two...
Friday, 18 July 2014, 18:49
steve_ancell
I didn't even know there was a devcon in Brighton, and yet I bloomin' live here.
Saturday, 19 July 2014, 17:30
cyangames
Next year! The expo is free to attend and it was awesome. I really hope to go there again next time!
Saturday, 19 July 2014, 18:35
steve_ancell
Was it in the Brighton Centre on the seafront by any chance?, they do a lot of conference type stuff in that place so I would assume they would hold an event like that in there.
Sunday, 20 July 2014, 00:29
cyangames
Just next to it in the hilton. I stayed at the youth hostel of course though Train was 70quids sooo...

Brighton seems to be like paigntons big brother, haha!
Sunday, 20 July 2014, 16:43
steve_ancell
Out of all the cultures in this Bohemian city, I have only ever met one other coder other than my nephew Dan.
Sunday, 20 July 2014, 16:52
Jayenkai
Might be something to watch out for in future, Steve!!

Would love to get out to something like that, and the longer I spend stuck in the house, the more random events seem to be occurring, practically on my doorstep!! There's even a Manchester ComicCon, now.. This weekend.. Can you believe that?! So unfair.
I guarantee, the day I'm feeling better and more capable of visiting these things will be the same day they all bloomin' well disappear again...