A couple of weeks ago, I travelled to Brighton for my yearly trip to Develop. Â This is the sixth year Iâve attended, and the second that I have gone as an attendee, instead of a volunteer. Itâs interesting to look back and see just how the industry has changed over that time, and the trends and companies that have come and gone.
For a few years VR was all the rage, and it was about to make us all millionaires, luckily this year wasnât quite so VR heavy. The indie track is growing in popularity, however, with brutally honest stories of how everyone makes mistakes, but itâs ok, which is quite refreshing.
As Iâve said before, I always prefer stories and theory talks as opposed to technical talks, so I really enjoyed most of the indie talks. For the Friday, I was given a full pass by someone who had to go home early, so I could see some of those talks too.
I particularly liked a talk on urban design in games. I play a lot of city building games (A LOT) so I found this incredibly interesting. The speaker discussed how cities, towns, and villages must make sense, they must have been built in that place for a reason, and ancient reasons are often quite different to modern ones. Cities are made more interesting by incorporating a variety of styles, after all every single house wasnât built at once and different districts may house a different class of person.
There was also a talk on how to pitch your game to investors and publishers, which I found very useful, it basically boiled down to being prepared, knowing your stuff, and being human. By being honest about your failures and communicating your passion, people will be much more likely to warm to you.
I was able to try out a few games and tech demos on the show floor, I did some VR sword fighting with a guy in a motion capture suit which was pretty awesome. Although Iâm not really sure about the practical applications of this, youâre unlikely to be able to afford all that equipment. I also tried a VR puzzle game called Tin Hearts, where you move around pieces of a toy box in order to direct a little trail of tin soldiers to a door, in a Lemmings style.
A final piece of knowledge that I gained from the conference was that I should maybe think about a change in career path. Obviously I still want to work in this industry, but when speaking to recruiters and other professionals at a Women in Games breakfast, I said that Iâm not sure whether I want to go further down the programming route or the artistic one. It was suggested to me that I become a technical artist instead. So I need to fully understand what this entails and get better at programming!