Hey Folks,
As promised, here’s my breakdown of the next show that I attended, Update. Enjoy!
A fantastic show organized by Andrew Bennison and his team. Narcissus went down a storm and my talk about learning through teaching was well received. Got a bit more time to play some absolutely awesome games and to actually have a break for lunch. Here’s the list of my favourite games from the show:
Alone – A super spaceship game that puts you in control of a vessel with a thoroughly enjoyable control scheme. Only way I can explain what it feels like to play this game is WHooooaahAHOoohohoahhoooahoooAHHHOOOWWoAAHHH (Same noise cartoons make when stepping on banana skins). Just the right mix of chaos and control. The version I played was apparently not the regular speed, actually sped up by the developer. Totally get why the folks at Laser Dog added it – playing the levels at normal speed for Narcissus lose their challenge after 3 years!
Check out their slightly teasy (3 seconds of clear footage) but atmospheric trailer:
Shu - This game was just adorable. The basic premise is you have different characters that can create multiple paths through a level space. Character design and animation rivals that of Gorillaz, with chunky 3D environments and silky smooth 2D animations. Hats off to whoever did those animations – totally nerded out to them. Gameplay is similar to DinoRun with the exception that the more friends that die from the smoke, the harder you have to work to complete sections. Rather than simply riding a bridge of warm air, you have to traverse platforms and mazes below, a frantic but manageable task.
Here’s an early trailer (a recent one hasn’t been released)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCNoaQzwUk
A Pixel Story – Awesome idea with a tremendous attention to detail. Gameplay involves moving between different levels of visual fidelity. Characters are cute and staring seagulls that track your movement are creepy as hell. The thing I’d love to see would be objects changing their state moving between the different resolutions (e.g. a sphere would be harder to move at a lower resolution as it would have jagged edges, or a slide in the HD world becoming a set of stairs in the low rez world). A lot that can be done with this game and I look forward to seeing where it goes!
http://www.lamplightstudios.co.uk/apixelstory/
Another fantastic part of Update for me was I got the opportunity to do my first industry talk about learning how to programme by teaching 7-17 year olds. Didn’t expect a full house and since the room was roasting I kept slurping my jug of water mid presentation. Went really well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWeWamqJY0o
Once again, can’t thank Andrew enough for the event – few people appreciate how much time and investment he put into event (2k of his own savings just spent the bar tab – WHAT). Really was a great event and will happily pay my way at future events. For those interested, here is their website:
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