Halfway Checkpoint Activated!
Unlike so many hapless Nottinghamites on the Broncomatic from Day One, we've done the distance and lasted out to Level 3! The October drizzle hasn't been enough to defeat the gamers of Notts, and Thursday proceeded on apace with talks, demonstrations and games, games, games aplenty within that big white boxy construction.
While people learned to build simple torches with the IET and designed highly unsafe but crazy-fun racetracks and levels with CryEngine and 'Tiny Invaders', we had a chat with Jakub Dvorský from Amanita Design and got to view their new charming puzzler Botanicula and also got to chat a bit more about the development of his film Kooky, which also got its UK premier here at the Broadway Cinema later on that day. As an added bonus, we also got a first showing of Samorost 3, the latest incarnation of the Samorost series, which I'm personally looking forward to...
Continuing the cinematic mood, we all piled over to Antenna for a TV Dinner with Eric Chahi for a DVD extra-like commentary rundown on his classic game Another
World', but with added curry! Getting fed and filled up with knowledge at the same time - well, getting some nosh while watching Eric get nommed on by aliens. And like soul food, there's also something oddly comforting in watching a game's creator have to restart bits of his own game again and again to get past certain baddies. See, Past Me, it wasn't just
you – those bits really were tough. Those flipping caves with their frondy ceilings and floor mouths! Still, we made it in the end. There's another TV Dinner at 12 today, if you fancy some cheap grub and learning about Naughty Dog's Uncharted 3...
We also learned a bit more about the Naughty Dog studio yesterday from their clash of styles with Belgian art house developers Tale of Tales. Punk rock-style collaborations in video games? Art meeting play? Some interesting stuff was bandied about in another of GameCity's excellent interactive debates. Give them both a gander and make up your own mind...
Nicely, a bit of yer dad's generation was preserved, with Gambling Lambs bringing the tent the best in old and new boardgames for you to play in the main tent, and with Mondo Comico providing the same from their shop in town today. Get rolling those dice and get in on the fun! And if that's not to your taste, how about being enlisted as a real-life secret agent for the day? Speak to the Covernomics operatives in the Main Tent, comrade. This video may or may not self destruct in ten, nine...
Returning to the antics of Thursday, with the aid of wallFour, the GameCity tent was turned into an early 80's planetarium of dots as we all waved our red laser pointers at the big screen and had a go at some of their up to 100-player laser screen projector games. I think we conclusively proved that too many hands don't always make light work, with a simple jigsaw taking a little more time than usual to put together when being nudged only by tens of tiny pricks of light. Kinda like helping a hundred grannies to put together a picture, when they all know best where each piece has to go, and most of them are wrong. The rest, of course, were happily laser pointing pretty patterns on the walls, floor – or each other's anatomy. More standard laser battle fare was waged afterwards and finally, the dreaded Boss Renga and his circular machinations were finally defeated with the help of a horde of pointers, players and lasery beatdowns. We lasered him up good! And, we also heavily lasered GameCity Director Iain Simons' crotch. Which, as he admitted, was the smaller target.
Finally, the night wound down with an informal gawp at the shiny new HD version of Stranger's Wrath, moseying its way over to Playstation 3, and even got to check out some never-before-seen concept artwork, development work and Easter Eggs! Yeehaw! Y'all can check out how this mighty purty critter is shaping up in the Main Tent on Friday, y'hear?
Well, I'm exhausted at this point, but still possessed with an unnatural vigour and a need... For gaaames! I'm looking forward to seeing Zombies galore infest the Square again – remember to turn up for the pageant in zombie costume! Or if you already are heavily zombified, GameCity can provide those final little make-up touches for you before you hit that catwalk. I'm also looking forward to finding out Several Amazing Things About Tetris, and hearing Charlie Higson, he of Fast Show and James Bond books fame, giving a macabre reading of his new novel The Fear at 8.30 in the Square. And even now, I really can't decide whether I'll be checking out a chat on Scare Tactics in videogames, or going to play a game of Cat On Yer Head. Wherein you imagine you have a cat. On your head. If only I could decide! I need more brains. Braaaains...
As usual, check the full running order. And as for you, see you in the Square…
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