One of the best parts of last month's Interactive Festival was the number of enthusiastic and excited people who introduced themselves, who asked questions and who want to get involved. Involved in the industry, involved in creating games, involved in next year's festival - and even involved in SG.biz.
The following piece is from such a person. Charles, e-mailed us prior to the EIF and asked - very nicely - and then more urgently - and then accompanied by several bottles of fine wine and cigars - if he could send us a piece on the festival.
We are, of course, keen to encourage and foster young talent and since we've now polished off the wine and smoked so many cigars we feel sick, we present Mr Lees-Czerkawski's thoughts on EIF08...
AN IMPRESSION FROM THE OUTSIDE
Several weeks ago I attended Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2008, an event allowing video game companies to showcase their work, and also giving guests the opportunity to try out the latest games, hardware and peripheral devices.
The main floor of the event was dominated for the most part by Nintendo, featuring an array of DS units running various casual games along with the recent sense and brain training titles, categorised as serious games. Wii Fit was also available to try. However, the thing I will never forget about this area of the show was the hugely frustrating meditation simulator, whereby the user is required to sit on a balance board, keeping as still as possible. A candle is displayed on screen and as the sensors in the board detect the slightest movement, the candle flickers and goes out. It is an interesting idea and although sitting completely still is quite unnatural, the challenge is surprisingly compulsive.
The impressive stall for the DS Cooking Guide was placed neatly in the centre of the main exhibition floor and included a number of DS units running the Guide along with a small kitchen where cookery demonstrations took place throughout the day. Although theoretically not a game, Cooking Guide is very popular and you have to admire Nintendo’s diverse attempts at reaching out to non-gaming audiences.
Other sections of the main floor housed playable builds of the upcoming PS3 title Little Big Planet, which is essentially a puzzle platformer but allows for a huge range of customisation options, with world creation being the integral asset to the gameplay. Xbox 360 pods were also available to play and stalls representing companies such as The Creative Assembly and Codemasters gave prospective game designers like myself the opportunity to network and gather information.
A trip downstairs to the Dare to be Digital exhibition really highlighted the talent that exists in this industry in Scotland. Dare to be Digital is a competition which involves a number of students from the UK forming teams, who are then each required to design and implement a game during the subsequent ten week period, a very short time for game development! The public could try the games and then vote for their favourite. Games entered into the competition spanned a range of genres from Puzzle and Action Adventure, to the immensely popular First Person Shooter. All were excellent, but the one game that particularly impressed me was the game Grav from the Scottish team Contrived. It was an FPS which involved using a special rifle with the ability to shoot two magnetic beams, positive and negative. These beams charge objects within the game environment – opposites attract and equals repel of course – and from then on you, the player, must accomplish a number of tasks such as solving elaborate puzzles involving locked doors and destroying guard robots. This is all done with the controlled movement of objects using the magnetic charge. If you charge a boulder and a robot oppositely, the boulder will collide with the robot, blowing it to pieces.
Although the game certainly requires some practice for the player to become proficient, it was incredibly entertaining and – for my money - much more imaginative and fun to play than the commercial, multi million pound driving game running on the Xbox 360s upstairs. Well done to Contrived and a shame the final votes did not go their way.
At the very end of the day I attended a conference regarding careers in the games industry and got the chance to meet some interesting and helpful individuals. They confirmed my suspicions that the industry has evolved over recent years and is still changing. Creative Designers are no longer necessarily full time programmers but are usually people with a multitude of interests and skills. I was told that all life experience goes into the creation of a top game – and you do not have to begin with writing algorithms in order to explore the mass potential for rich, compelling game design, an inspiring thought for all creative individuals whose skills may lie elsewhere, eg in film, writing or art.
Charles Lees-Czerkawski
http://gamesecosse.blogspot.com
