And so it came to pass that I arrived not only to GameCity, but also Nottingham for the first time.
I shall use this as my primary excuse for missing most of the first session I had intended to join - Guardian Breakfast. It was shame to come into this late as there seemed to be some reasonable topics being proposed by the compere and the assembled crowd either had little to offer or were nervous speaking out loud in public.
It was tricky from this to "gauge the temperature" of the gathered representative's of society's gamers. It was particularly interesting that when the question was posed "who has had any stand-out moments in gaming the last 12 months?" there was very little response and almost as little to the question "which games are you particularly looking forward to in the next few months." I wasn't sure whether to be worried about the state of gaming that there was so little affecting the most core group of players. As I say, perhaps it was that most people were a little nervous to speak out on the first morning (or maybe didn't want to admit in front of the hardcore that their most anticipated game is Pokepark Wii:Pikachu's Adventure).
Still, having got my bearings - and had a cup of tea - I headed off into the unfamiliar streets to find the GameCity lounge. Sadly, without camera on this first day I cannot share with you the GameCity tent, but suffice it to say there is a gleaming Bedouin palace in which the GameCity organisers have gathered gaming pods, a huge screen, music and a colouring-in and writing table for Saltsman's Ideas Bucket: from which videogame creator Adam Saltsman and musician Rebecca Mayes will attempt to craft a game during Friday's event.
The games being played on the big screen had two things in common: chaos and carnage. I managed to get in a few games of Sky Kids - A 25 player air race to the finish. It took most new players the first two rounds to figure out which avatar they were controlling and then a further few rounds to fathom the controls. Once this phase had passed I applied myself and managed to climb the scoreboard, finally reaching 1st place and then deciding to retire as champion in my own consideration!
There were a number of indie and university graduate games on display. Here are some of the highlights with which I managed to get hands-on:
Yours truly snapped while trying out ColourRunners
It was tricky from this to "gauge the temperature" of the gathered representative's of society's gamers. It was particularly interesting that when the question was posed "who has had any stand-out moments in gaming the last 12 months?" there was very little response and almost as little to the question "which games are you particularly looking forward to in the next few months." I wasn't sure whether to be worried about the state of gaming that there was so little affecting the most core group of players. As I say, perhaps it was that most people were a little nervous to speak out on the first morning (or maybe didn't want to admit in front of the hardcore that their most anticipated game is Pokepark Wii:Pikachu's Adventure).
Still, having got my bearings - and had a cup of tea - I headed off into the unfamiliar streets to find the GameCity lounge. Sadly, without camera on this first day I cannot share with you the GameCity tent, but suffice it to say there is a gleaming Bedouin palace in which the GameCity organisers have gathered gaming pods, a huge screen, music and a colouring-in and writing table for Saltsman's Ideas Bucket: from which videogame creator Adam Saltsman and musician Rebecca Mayes will attempt to craft a game during Friday's event.
The games being played on the big screen had two things in common: chaos and carnage. I managed to get in a few games of Sky Kids - A 25 player air race to the finish. It took most new players the first two rounds to figure out which avatar they were controlling and then a further few rounds to fathom the controls. Once this phase had passed I applied myself and managed to climb the scoreboard, finally reaching 1st place and then deciding to retire as champion in my own consideration!
There were a number of indie and university graduate games on display. Here are some of the highlights with which I managed to get hands-on:
Yours truly snapped while trying out ColourRunners
ColourRunners (this is the best link I can find) is an inventive final-year games design course project by Hannah Payne and Harry Corr. The game requires the player to traverse a monochrome town, able to walk only on painted surfaces . The player paints their own path in search of hidden 'tags'. Visually the stark monochrome aesthetic and clean building lines are reminiscent of Mirror's Edge. Hannah told me "we wanted to do something simple with lots of visual feedback." I did try to talk to Hannah and Harry about how it reminded me of Wizball on the Speccy, but when I saw their blank, young, young, young faces I realised this was probably not a reference that would get me far. The game is very attractive looking indeed and I think could find an audience among players, if developed, although in its current form the lack of distinctive colour means that the opening scene showing the locations of the markers for the hidden tags is largely unhelpful once the player is on the ground and searching for familiar landmarks.
I also spoke to Ben Bradley, creator of Substream. The game is a 3d flying shooter with a couple of nice twists. The first is that the whole game world is repeated to the left and right of the player, meaning that some enemies can only be destroyed by attacking a parallel version of itself to the left or right of the player, creating some interesting strategies in the game-play. The second is a relationship between the shooting action and the soundtrack. Although this was difficult to hear in the noisy atmosphere of the GameCity Lounge, Ben spoke of his enthusiasm for the games relationship between the atmosphere and setting and the soundtrack. The final version is said to contain all kinds of tracks even venturing into Tango territory...
I also managed to get a brief hands-on of Avoid, to be the first game from small games developer Nerf Games. This is closest to capture the flag taken to its most pure form. 4 players each try to avoid floating squares on a colourful geometric grid. When a shining white light appears, each player must try to grab the object and bring it back to their goal. General feedback was that some form of tackling move is really needed and the guys from Nerf Games were all on hand, enthusiastically taking on board all comments and promising to look into the suggestions made. It's a game that's great fun with 4 players on screen - sadly I didn't get the chance to try it with less players, such was the popularity of the game at the time.
I also managed to have a look at Lego Universe but didn't get much time with it. I'm hoping to get a second look because my first impression was that the game compared very poorly to the excellent standard of platform games produced by Travellers' Tales. This is being produced by an entirely different company and is being pitched as a Lego-based MMO for young players. Graphically, however, it seems to bear a heritage more akin to Playstation Home and the controls were awkward - although it could be that I am less familiar with claw-shaping my hand around a PC keyboard for gaming these days. The game has been clearly designed with protection of young minds as a foremost concern. Player names are chosen from a pre-defined menu and the chat window restricts the player to a predefined dictionary of words. One player next to me was unable to explain that he was playing at Game City because "City" was not in the allowed words list. Sadly then I shall not be able to discuss my experiences in Scribblenauts of dressing the player in stockings, handcuffs and a blindfold. *sigh*
All pictures in this post courtesy of GameCity with thanks
I also spoke to Ben Bradley, creator of Substream. The game is a 3d flying shooter with a couple of nice twists. The first is that the whole game world is repeated to the left and right of the player, meaning that some enemies can only be destroyed by attacking a parallel version of itself to the left or right of the player, creating some interesting strategies in the game-play. The second is a relationship between the shooting action and the soundtrack. Although this was difficult to hear in the noisy atmosphere of the GameCity Lounge, Ben spoke of his enthusiasm for the games relationship between the atmosphere and setting and the soundtrack. The final version is said to contain all kinds of tracks even venturing into Tango territory...
I also managed to get a brief hands-on of Avoid, to be the first game from small games developer Nerf Games. This is closest to capture the flag taken to its most pure form. 4 players each try to avoid floating squares on a colourful geometric grid. When a shining white light appears, each player must try to grab the object and bring it back to their goal. General feedback was that some form of tackling move is really needed and the guys from Nerf Games were all on hand, enthusiastically taking on board all comments and promising to look into the suggestions made. It's a game that's great fun with 4 players on screen - sadly I didn't get the chance to try it with less players, such was the popularity of the game at the time.
I also managed to have a look at Lego Universe but didn't get much time with it. I'm hoping to get a second look because my first impression was that the game compared very poorly to the excellent standard of platform games produced by Travellers' Tales. This is being produced by an entirely different company and is being pitched as a Lego-based MMO for young players. Graphically, however, it seems to bear a heritage more akin to Playstation Home and the controls were awkward - although it could be that I am less familiar with claw-shaping my hand around a PC keyboard for gaming these days. The game has been clearly designed with protection of young minds as a foremost concern. Player names are chosen from a pre-defined menu and the chat window restricts the player to a predefined dictionary of words. One player next to me was unable to explain that he was playing at Game City because "City" was not in the allowed words list. Sadly then I shall not be able to discuss my experiences in Scribblenauts of dressing the player in stockings, handcuffs and a blindfold. *sigh*
All pictures in this post courtesy of GameCity with thanks
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