Bristol Games Hub December Newsletter – News, Jobs,Games and More!

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Bristol Games Hub Directors and residents wish you all a happy festive season and all good things in 2014!  
 
Firstly, we have a couple of tickets spare for our Christmas party at the Spiegeltent this Thursday so if anyone would like to join us, please get in touch with me asap. Tix are £55 each and includes bubbles on arrival, 3 course meal, crazy entertainment, a swing band and lots of dancing! 26 of us are going so it’ll be a great night and I’d really like to sell these on for a couple of our friends that have had to drop out due to a family bereavement.

 
There will be no December social so the next anti-social will take place at the end of January now.  We’ll also be announcing how we’re planning to take part in the Global Games Jam 24th to the 26th January at the Hub – so keep the date free! 
 
 
Auroch Digital – Bristol
Auroch have a couple of openings. Please see Job Opportunities below for deets 😉
 
Nine Worlds Geekfest Talks All Online Now…
Auroch Digital worked with the Wellcome Trust to curate events at the Nine World Geekfest and all of the videos are now online:
– How to Write for Video Games – featuring Rhianna Pratchett (Tomb Raider) and James Swallow (Deus Ex:Human Revolution) – http://bit.ly/17iUn4T
– How to Fund Your Game via Kickstarter and Crowdfunding – Featuring Jan Wagner (Shadowrun Online) and Alex Harvey (Tangiers) – http://bit.ly/1691Ous
– Cyberpunk 2077 Developer Session
– Cyberpunk – The Dystopian Prism (with Cory Doctrow and Charles Stross & more…)
– Why we are fascinated by Disease (with Plague Inc & Project Zomboid Developers)
 
Explay Festival
The ExPlay 2013 movie is now uploaded! We also have our official pictures online, so please share if you care. Many thanks for all our supporters, sponsors, speakers and of course visitors this year! It really was our best year to date! Have a great festive break and see you again in 2014… oh, and if anyone has any ideas or comments about what they might want to see at next years festival, then please email info@explay.co.uk 
 
ExPlay 2013 in film – http://youtu.be/PKLzi4-RRmo
ExPlay 2013 in pictures – http://www.flickr.com/photos/111421995@N04/
 
Force of Habit – Bristol
Over the past eighteen months we’ve been part of the team working with Simon Roth on his game Maia and are happy to announce that it is now on Steam Early access. Sales this first week have been amazing and the game is now funded to completion.

As a bit of a wind down for Christmas we’ve been experimenting with ZX Spectrum graphics emulation in OpenGL. If you’d like to read about how we’ve done it, Ashley has written a blog post.

Have a lovely Christmas everybody. Big hugs. Kiss. xoxo etc.

Mutant Labs – Plymouth
Mutant Labs has released a version of their game, half-inch heist, for the Leap Motion. Called Half-Inch Heist Turbo, it uses the Leap Motion controller. a video can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN3DrVq06zg

A press pack can be found here: http://halfinchheist.com/turbo/press_pack.zip

Static Games – Bournemouth                                                                 – Static Games Ltd. gets an honourable mention in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Pitch Video Challenge with a new, as yet unannounced title! The next step is stage two, the Project Blueprint Challenge.

(link: http://staticgames.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/microsoft-imagine-cup-pitch-video-challenge/)

– Static Games’ fun farm and genetics simulator, “Mendel’s Farm” is now on Valve’s Steam service as a Greenlight concept! This is the first step in getting a title “greenlit” and will introduce the game to a huge audience worldwide who can comment, rate and make suggestions about what will appear in the final game — we would love to hear from everyone!

(link 1: http://staticgames.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/mendels-farm-steam-greenlight/)

(link 2: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158549153)

Pocket Gamer Connects: 20-21st January 2014 – Vinopolis – London

Brand new for 2014 comes Pocket Gamer Connects, a global mobile games conference from Steel Media, the publisher behind Pocket Gamer and PocketGamer.biz.

Building on our experience of running the leading mobile games industry portal alongside some of the best industry networking events, we believe we can bring something fresh to the conference scene that will be genuinely useful, engaging, and enjoyable.   

What is PG Connects?

  • Two Content tracks – “East meets West” global publishing stage and our How to be an Indie Rockstar stage
  • Stunning location in the heart of London
  • A jam packed day of fringe events including our Very Big Indie Pitch and a Pocket Gamer Drink up
  • Interactive workshops
  • Exciting exhibition area and top notch networking
  • Awesome Pocket Gamer Party – to end all parties!

Who should attend?

Like most of the activities under the Steel Media banner, Pocket Gamer Connects aims to be an inclusive event, providing something of value to a wide range of industry players.

However, the two core focal points are global game publishing strategies (particularly in key Asian markets) and providing a survival guide for indie development studios. All of which means it’s especially useful for the following groups.

The Very Big Indie Pitch – 20th January 

Following the success of our three Big Indie Pitch events in 2013, we’re bringing an even bigger and better version to the PG Connects schedule.

The Very Big Indie Pitch will be exactly what it says on the tin: a mammoth developer pitching competition open to all types of independent developers, wherever they are.

We have 80 big name speakers from the global mobile world inclusing representatives from Tencent, Kakao, Perfect World, Halfbrick, Rovio, and King for what promises to be an unmissable mobile games conference. ready to take to the stages onTuesday 21st January

On the content side, speakers from platform holders Amazon and NTT Docomo should guarantee a fresh perspective to the global publishing track, while cool indie studios such as I Fight Bears, MediaTonic, Lemon Moose Games, Remode Studios, and Remote Control keep things game-centric.

Elsewhere, Berlin-based Wooga, St Petersburg’s Nevosoft, Lisbonian Miniclip, and Metaps of Tokyo further add to the international credentials, whereas representatives from Channel 4 and UKIE ensure the British end is kept up.

PM Studio
Squidsoup: A light work in progress

Mon 16 – Tue 17 Dec, 16:00 – 22:00, The Eye, FREE

Following the huge success of their captivating Submergence installation, Award-winning international artists Squidsoup have continued in residence in Bristol Temple Quarter’s The Eye, using the same hardware system to explore digital materiality, decay, granularity and movement in physical space.

As a special Festive treat, for two nights only, Watershed and Squidsoup are inviting audiences to step back into 8,064 dynamic points of light to experience this new work in progress.

Like Submergence, visitors will walk into a virtual world where pixels on a screen are replaced by thousands of points of light floating in space. Shapes and images will slowly appear, wrap around and dissolve, suggesting form, presence and movement within physical space.

http://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/4588/squidsoup-a-light-work-in-progress

The Pervasive Media Studio will be taking a break from our lunchtime talk and Open Studio Friday programme over the Christmas period but will be back with a vengeance in the new year.

Lunchtime Talk: Kim Plowright

Friday, 10 January 2014 1:00pm – 2:00pm, Pervasive Media Studio, FREE

Drawing on her experience of working as a Producer and New Media Consultant for Channel Four, Hide&Seek and Storythings, Kim Plowright will be talking about the life cycle of projects – from development to post-release.

http://www.pmstudio.co.uk/events/fri-10012014-100pm

Lunchtime Talk: ‘Recife: The Playable City’

Friday, 17 January 2014 1:00pm – 2:00pm, Pervasive Media Studio, FREE

In an exciting change to our usual format, this week’s lunchtime talk will showcase ideas in progress from Watershed’s collaboration with the Brazilian city of Recife.

In partnership with the British Council and Porto Digital in Brazil, we are bringing together artists, creative producers and creative technologists from Pernambuco (Brazil) and the United Kingdom, to develop new ideas that use creative technology to explore the theme of the Playable City.

http://www.pmstudio.co.uk/events/fri-17012014-100pm

 
Job Opportunities
 
Auroch Digital
Auroch Digital have an opening for an experienced designer/producer for a 3 month contract initially, starting in January. Be part of a growing indie studio working on a wide variety of games projects. The role will be based at Bristol Games Hub. Please send CVs and a covering letter to debbie at aurochdigital dot com by 5pm on Wednesday 18th December, with interviews taking place on Thursday 19th. 
 
We also may need a HTML5 programmer for a spot of contract work starting very soon… please let me know if interested.
 
That’s it for 2013!  We look forward to working with you all in 2014 😉