Creativity in games has recently undergone a renaissance due to Indie developers, new formats, smaller budgets and online distribution channels as well as mainstream innovations. So contemporary game design is a challenging mix of cutting edge tech versus old school techniques like storytelling and game play. Come and be inspired by some of the world's most innovative and successful game designers offering their own top tips, and insight.
The term "Metaverse" seems to be a pretty common buzzword these days. But what does it really mean? And why are people so obsessed with metaverses, what makes them so good at whipping up frenzied fandoms? In this presentation, futurist and senior producer Sarah Brin demonstrates some of the historic lineages of expansive story worlds, and distills some key design principles for creative technology practice, world-building, and meaningful connections with audiences.
Takeaway:
Machinations have worked with hundreds of game designers to stress test their game economy design. During this time Machinations have developed the Manifesto of a sustainable Web 3 Game Economy Design. This Manifesto includes the core pillars that any Web3 game must achieve to create a sustainable economy along with some best practices that you can put into practice to prepare your own game economy.
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One of the main challenges that faces a designer is aligning the team towards a common goal. This talk will introduce numerous approaches to aid with this, in order to empower others and maximise collaboration. Supported by development anecdotes, it will account for a variety of disciplines and typical scenarios throughout various stages of development.
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The session will go over Electronic Art's approach to inclusive design through our Inclusive Design Playbook. Inclusive Design is about designing for as diverse a range of people and abilities as possible. It is a philosophy that encourages us to consider how gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, socio-economic background, culture and customs, body shapes and sizes, religious beliefs and other characteristics shape the way we interact with the world. We believe that games have the power to transcend society as the characters we create and the stories we tell can positively impact the world around us. By involving diverse perspectives, amplifying the voices of all players, and ultimately helping to build muscle memory with game teams, we make sure everyone in our communities feels welcome. This talk will emphasize why we need to recognize that every action carries an impact on the wider community, and we’ll keep pushing ourselves to improve in this area for our players.
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In this fireside chat, members of the Award-winning Arkane Lyon studio team, including this year’s Develop Star Award recipient Dinga Bakaba, discuss some of the development challenges and successes they had during production of DEATHLOOP.
Discussion topics will include:
This panel will change how you look at making your next game.
This is the story of how user research led to the creation of the opening hours of “DEATHLOOP” during the last months of the game’s development, and how those hours, and eventually the entire game, were reshaped a piece at a time by continued research. It is told by Arkane Lyon’s Campaign Director, a developer who stands at the nexus between level design and narrative design, who had to level up her competency in user experience design overnight to meet the challenges the game faced. In this lecture she will walk you through this harrowing process, where dramatic changes to the game were equal parts overwhelming successes, and revelations of dreadful new issues.
Takeaway:
Despite being two industries focused on creativity, new technology and playfulness, fashion and games were two worlds that, for a long time, were totally separate. This changed rapidly as we moved our lives online in the pandemic, and created a surge of interest from the fashion world in what games could mean for their brands and collections. From Balenciaga's FW/21 runway show existing within Unreal Engine, to designers partnering with Animal Crossing creators to bring their collections to life in game, the fashion industry has never been more interested in games as a medium. Many game developers are stepping into this world, through partnerships, metaverse experience design or simply through more considered approaches to the fashion in their games.
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This lecture explores the processes that Supermassive Games employs to craft branching narrative adventures, and examines techniques for creating horror in the Dark Pictures Anthology. This talk contains some mature content.
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The world we live in, both physical and digital, is built on cultural and societal considerations. These considerations shape the meta verse and the possibility space of what it can become. In this talk, Brenda Romero asks who determines what those considerations are? What gets left out, and what gets brought in? Our metaverses are mirrors of their creators. This time time, let’s do it right.
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Part 1 - Accessible Accessibility: Where do you start?
Presented by Cari Watterton, Rebellion
Accessibility can be intimidating if you don’t know where to start – but whatever stage of development you’re in, you’ll be able to get something out of this talk. We will cover why Accessibility is important, how to get started with designing and implementing features, user testing, and building a culture of accessibility across a whole studio. From her experience working in indie startups to large scale game development teams, Cari demonstrates an accessible process for getting started with Accessibility.
Part 2 - Designing for Dyslexic Players
Presented by Alastair Low, Lowtek Games
Ally will talk about his experiences while playing games as a dyslexic player and the troubles the disability can cause. Some are obvious but others area little less so. We will look at current trends towards game accessibility with examples of where its has been done well and where it hasn't. What might games accessibility ;look like in 5 years, will platform holders or middleware solutions make the change thats nessasery for wider adoption? Text to speech is one of the most usefull tools at a dyslexic persons disposal and its great seeing this show up in some of the blockbuster titles. The talk will touch on general good practices for game accessibility but with a strong emphasis on the dyslexic player.
Takeaway:
Part 1
Part 2
Kris is showcasing the audio pipeline for recording and implementing vehicles into the Farming Simulator series.
He discusses his audio teams’ approach to recording tractors, detailing the equipment, techniques and conditions that are used to capture the sound of these complex machines.
Next, he demonstrates how audio recordings are edited and processed to make high quality audio assets. This includes effective processing, semi-automated editing using custom actions within Reaper and some tricks & tips on how to create perfect seamless loops.
After this, the real-time processing of Farming Simulator vehicle audio is explored in detail. He demonstrates methods for analyzing on/offload audio recordings to extract useable EQ profiles, which can be used as a basis for real-time processing to create a dynamic load sound.
Finally, he details the implementation process for vehicles, covering the use of in-game parameter changes and sound modifiers. This brings the recordings and audio assets to life, creating a sense of dynamism and interactivity in-line with real world tractors.
Takeaway:
In this session, I'll be going through hints, tips, and weird things that help to manage ADHD and distraction, especially in these pandemic-infused times. Through my journey with diagnosis, I'll go over how I have maximised my hyper-focusing tendencies for a career in Game Art and Art Direction, as well as giving you some tools to structure your approach to game development and art more successfully.
Takeaway:
In early 1992, id Software had just shipped their latest 2D platform games and were ready for something different. Having released the first texture-mapped 3D shooter, Catacomb 3D, just a couple months earlier, they were planning what their next project would be. Wolfenstein 3D was an ambitious design for an MS-DOS PC in 1992. There were no GPUs, most games were 320x200 pixels, a lot of memory was 4GB, and mice were rarely used. Follow the journey that the four founders of id Software took to create a watershed moment in gaming history that showed the world that the PC could play a new kind of game that no other machine could replicate. Game designer, programmer, and id Software co-founder, John Romero, will take the audience through this short seven month timeline and show you just how much happened during Wolfenstein 3D's development rollercoaster ride.
Total War is a franchise with a 25-year-old history, with layers and layers of complexity and depth, accompanied with a complicated set of rules. This could be quite intimidating for someone to try for the first time. With Total War: WARHAMMER III we set out to create a campaign specifically for people to learn the game. This was the birth of the Prologue campaign. The challenge was to create something that would appeal to our hardcore audience but also provide a platform for those new to the franchise. This requires the team to understand the audience experience; a challenge for a team who knows the game in and out. In this talk we’ll go through the process and exploration in creating the Prologue campaign; bringing different people from different teams together to delve into the challenges and to try different approaches. It was important for us to hear from everyone, recognising that a good idea or approach could come from anywhere – that diversity of perspective was essential when looking at different audience experiences. We considered the different ways individuals learn, how we could teach to adapt to these learning styles and enhance the tutorial overall. We’ll look at how we worked with User Research experts to test the tutorial and gain invaluable feedback, focusing on clarity of information balanced with immersion in the experience. Overall, this talk will delve into the different iterations of the prologue that we explored, the different challenges and considerations, and how we finally landed on the end experience.
Takeaway:
In this talk, Eevi Korhonen discusses the storytelling techniques used in Returnal and how they were utilized to craft its haunting story. The talk journeys through the challenges of telling a story in a game with fast-paced action gameplay and a roguelite structure all the way to how the team managed to combine elements from various genres to create the strange cocktail that makes up Returnal.
Takeaway:
We're used to bad acting and dialogue in games; they're usually just cut scenes in between the action. But when believable human conversations are a central part of a game's experience, how do you make sure you get authentic performances? How do you create conversations that flow like real human interactions? And how do you make sure that translates in-engine? In this talk Director Luke Whittaker and Creative Producer John Lau discuss create immersive, human-feeling conversations at the heart of State of Play's interactive drama South of The Circle, and how they tried to avoid the pitfalls of modern video game performances. From casting, to rehearsal, performance capture, and the development of a unique conversation mechanic, Luke and John discuss the things their team had to learn in order to ensure that South of The Circle's animation and interactions did justice to its incredible cast, including actors from Bohemian Rhapsody, Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey.
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Develop:Brighton offers you an inspiring mix of top-notch speakers, practical how-to sessions, insights into the latest trends and technologies, plus fantastic networking opportunities. Find out about the different conference pass options and prices here or...
Register NowWe are so lucky to have Develop here in the UK. It’s a unique event where you can come and discover new things with people who care passionately about video games. It’s a sea full of new ideas.
Jonathan Smith
TT Games
Develop is the must-attend event for the games industry in the UK. It’s where we all come together and learn from each other. It’s the best way into the industry and it’s the best place to learn from your colleagues.
Hannah Flynn
Failbetter Games
If you really want to have a good interface with the British game developer community then this is the place to come.
Kate Edwards
Geogrify
There really is a huge mix of people at Develop - loads of peers that you can learn from and the perfect blend of every element of game development as well.
Alex Moyet
Curve Digital
I’ve been to every single Develop in the last 12 years. One thing you get here is networking - you will meet the most amazing individuals in the video games industry.
Kish Hirani
Terra Virtua
Develop:Brighton is especially unique - it’s by the seaside and there’s a lovely relaxed tone that goes with that.The talks are cool, the networking is cool and having the opportunity to catch up with people – that’s always the excitement for me!
Sean Murray
Hello Games
I absolutely love coming to Develop, it’s a brilliant, brilliant conference – you just know you’re guaranteed to meet everyone.
Jo Twist, OBE
Ukie
Develop is important – the networking is very important. And go to talks they’re inspiring and get your creative juices flowing, they can make you think and you’ll learn how other people do things.
Jason Kingsley
Rebellion
Develop is an excellent way of catching up with people – there’s a really nice community feel here.
Mike Bithell
Mike Bithell Games
It’s really nice to see some of the younger people in our studio come to Develop, interact with other people in the dev community and make new contacts. I think it’s really important to learn from other people.
Abbie Heppe
Media Molecule
There are many ways you can be part of Develop:Brighton - including taking a booth in the Expo or choosing one of the many sponsorship opporunities during the event or at the Star Awards.
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