Games City Festival

Quick blog post time!

So basically uni is starting to swing into full work again, unfortunately I am not. Mixture between a flu and also just feeling rather unmotivated this year has meant I have fallen a little bit behind.

Currently, there are a few upcoming interim deadlines, and whilst we do not have to submit anything for these, doing so only hurts our chances of passing the course. And it's almost all paperwork. So much paperwork. Lots of boring documents to fill out here 'n there, and not really a great deal of time for working on the blog. Or, rather, nothing interesting enough for a blog.

Fortunately though, I do have something I can talk about! Games City Festival! It's been going on for several years now at Hockley, Nottingham, the creative arts district of the city. Last year I was a volunteer but because I live on the other side of derby, getting in was a pain, so this year I've instead gone sheerly as a visitor, and went to go see a few devs and games!

RPG addicts beware! Mordheim Warband Skirmish, Legendary Games 2016

Firstly, by Legendary Games, a company that work in Confetti's "Antenna" building. Naturally, we were encouraged to look up these guys because they use the same building as we do, and they happened to be showcasing their new tablet game Mordheim! The game itself isn't entirely original, rather they got licensing from Games Workshop to turn the already popular board game into an RPG for tablet devices. As you would come to expect from an RPG, the tutorial took a long time. I only played one other mission after the tutorial before I thought I had better get a move on or else lose time. I had a talk with the developers, got a lot of answers from two of them, a bit of insight to the game and the company and was offered to join an alpha testing team! Shame I don't own a tablet, but for sure I'll keep my eye on that one. The team seem very open for people to try out their game, so by all means take a look at Legendary Games to get involved! It seemed like a very nice project that needs a little bit of polish. (They also want level designers. Take hint, readers!)
Currently the game is only available on iOS, but they do plan to expand further into the games development cycle.

This game is beautiful. I loved it. Lost Words, Sketchbook Games 2016.

Second, a truly beautiful game called "Lost Words." This was a very atmospheric platformer. Unironically words don't quite do this game justice. It's a subscriber to the train of thought that Games are Art, a somewhat controversial topic over the recent gaming boom, but when you see a game like this you struggle to argue with it. The character assumes the role of a girl, presumably a younger girl, or young adolescent, as she writes in her journal. The words spring to life and influence the way you traverse the page as a doodle to reach a tear in the page and progress. As an example, the written word "Open" is interactable, and when dragged to a doodle of a gate locking the player from the next page, the gate springs to life and opens! It's so simple but so natural! And very beautiful too. The game takes a darker turn when we find out that the girls grandma, who seems to have been pivotal in her career as a writer, has had a stroke, and the demo ended there. Those darn cliffhangers, right? The game is still in production and he claimed it wouldn't be finished until August 2017, so hopefully I don't forget about this one. Despite being in production, apparently it has already won awards, which is a little strange.
(One last side note, really awesome, the creator of this game has worked in tandem with the musical composer who worked on the very popular indie gem "Thomas was Alone." When I was told that, I could almost immediately recognise the similarities.)

Whilst I didn't directly play the third game, I watched a friend play and had a small natter with the developer of a cute puzzle game called "Redirection." You learn about the small robots you have to save quickly, and through the tutorial are clued into their programming and how they function. The robots always move straight ahead until they can no longer, in which case they turn right until they are met with a path in which they can continue to move straight ahead. Doing this, the player must guide these cute little robots to a zone where they can be rescued. I don't remember from what, exactly, but they're cute and you feel encouraged to save them by looks alone. Again, it was another example of a very basic idea that after a game or two just feels second nature as a mechanic to complete the puzzle presented.
Oh, and between you and me, the developer of this game was extremely eager to get some youtube lets players try out his game and get some viral marketing going. Take a look at the steam page to pick up a copy and get in touch with the developer directly!

Whoops, a little blurry! The Last Leviathan, Super Punk Games 2016

And lastly, a physics? based game called The Last Leviathan. Perhaps a simulator might be a more apt tag. Or a builder. The dev team was small, and the game had been in production for quite a while, but it was very reminiscent of an early access game. It seemed, frankly, finished, with a fair chunk of content, but I can only assume not enough that the developers feel happy releasing it yet. If you can imagine Kerbal Space Programme, but pirate ships, bam. That's The Last Leviathan. Perhaps this is reductionist or offensive, in which case honestly I am sorry. I wasn't the most clued in unfortunately, there wasn't a tutorial present that wasn't on laminated cards, but you can get into the swing of building your own ship somewhat quickly. And similar to KSP, there's quite the learning curve involved. When I was happy with a ship I had made, I was told to put it to sea and see how it handled. And boy did it handle poorly. It wasn't balanced properly which made the movement feel clunky, and the weapons I had equipped weren't capable of dealing with the AI ship spawned in, so I was torn apart pretty quickly. Had I not had other exhibits to visit though, I would have gone back, changed the ships design and weaponry, and it seems like a game you could get lose days to easily. In fact I think I could quite happily sit down and play this on its release.


A part of me wishes that I would have visited more days, but with the looming deadlines and travel times I thought against it (and partially regret it.) But I had a fun time! Games City Festival happens every year and every year there are new and exciting things to check out! A huge announcement this year was a new development team moving to Nottingham called "Sumo Games." As it turns out, they had a talk we were supposed to attend but I wasn't aware of the fact we were required to be there until the day after. (Lecturers, if you are reading this, please do not penalize me too hard!) So who knows what new and exciting things they could be bringing to the festival next year? With any luck, a few of us from this course may even wind up working and presenting on their half! That would be exciting!

The next blog post will likely be something I've wanted to talk about for a short while on HUD and UI philosophies. Until next time!