State of Play Indie Game Seminar!

I attended first State of Play indie game seminar last Friday in DIT Aungier St. The event saw a range of companies and small developers describe their journeys of success or not into the independent games industry.

Some of the companies who attended included Weeman Studios, BitSmith Games, SuperFunPlay, Open Emotion, Redwind Software and Digital Arrow. For a full list check out the State of Play link. There was also a demo section where some people got to showcase and demonstrate their games. I was very lucky to have had the chance to showcase Mamga Surge and it was a valuable experience. While the demo segment was a little shorter than I would have liked, several people were able to test out Magma Surge for the very first time. I was greatly boosted by the positive feedback and return with renewed vigour for getting the game completed.

The main seminar itself was also a very interesting and entertaining experience. The different presenters all had unique and inspiring stories of success and failure. There was a lot of valuable and important insights into the world of indie game development in Ireland today. Notable speakers included Paddy Murphy from Open Emotion, a truly inspiring story of how an obvious messer can achieve great things. Open Emotion is a great example of how through trial and error, they have managed to build a successful game company recently winning £250,000 contract with someone we shall call their 'Confident Benefactors'.

Owen Harris from Bitsmith Games was another interesting and ongoing tale of a very recently formed company going through the ropes. Bitsmith was formed by 3 members from my masters course who are working on a game called Ku. This is an action RPG for the iPad which is based on traditional Irish mythology.

Liam McGarry from WeeMan Studios provided and educational look into the inner workings of a company responsible for the highly anticipated Galactic Racer. Liam really demonstrated the importance of being a cheeky bastard and not to be afraid of chancing your arm.

One thing that the seminar really illustrated is what can be achieved with a limited budget. There is a huge amount of resources available to Irish game developers. One thing that can be said by our current government is their commitment to the development of this sector of the economy. The seminar finished with a panel discussion made up of an esteemed and notable people from the Irish games industry. This was a fun and informative look at the some of the people currently championing the gaming cause in Ireland today. One of the most memorable moments was the knowledge that Enda Kenny mentioned the fact that he had 'killed zombies in Dublin!'

Afterwards there was a shindig in the Solas Bar around the corner at which numerous pints were consumed over tales of conquering galaxies, starting companies and general banter.

Overall I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to taking part in similar events in the future!

Musings and Masters Project

Well its been a long while since Iv blogged about much, this mainly due to the fact that my Masters project is taking up so much of my time. So I haven't really been gaming too much to be honest. The usual Minecrafting continues as does some messing with some indie games but I haven't had the time to sit down and get lost in a digital world in quite a while. I'm halfway through Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, so I really want to get through that before I go and get Skyrim and Mass Effect 3. Of course Ill have to get AC Revelations when that badboy comes out too. I'll be needing a new PC soon also as my original gaming machine is now permanently moored in my parents home in Co Meath. Generally I'm excited with the new games set to come out over the next few months, once my masters is done in January, I'll finally have some time to go and get stuck back into my favourite pastime and then describe it all in detail for the amusement of the internet.

With regards my masters project, its starting to move along nicely. Its morphed from a single person project to 3 member team jobbie. There is now a coder and a sound guy, so between us we have been taking the game a lot further than it would it have been possible with just me. There is now a test version working on the iphone and soon to be one for the android. We now have a decent production pipeline and level production now a relatively fast process. So once the tweaking of the game play has been finished and the levels are being created, Iv a bit juicy report to get done. So itll be a busy Christmas and but 2012 will a good year of gaming and blogging.

So while this blog has been quiet, I have been writing in the dev blog for my game. There is also a website and Facebook page so please check 'em out!