Chrimbo Newsletter

Posted on

Special Offer on New Desks! Bristol Games Hub is offering 5 desks to new residents at half-price for the first month i.e. just £55 (that’s internet, all bills, tea &coffee and of course a desk and chair). Please email Debbie if you’re interested debbie at aurochdigital dot com (Update! Four desks have gone now – so just one left!!)

SW Freelancer/Company Dev Directory
If you’re looking for people to help on a project, or you are available for work – put your details in. Please only list info you’re happy to have in the public domain: http://bit.ly/bghdirectory

SW Game Dev Jobs Facebook pageFind roles and post new openings here…

Next Games Hub Anti-Social: 29th Jan 2015, 7.30pm

We will be giving more info about what is in the session in the January newsletter. There is a lot happening in early 2015, so do watch this space! If you want to do a talk – drop us an email to geoff at aurochdigital.com with the idea and info.

Dev Scene News

Siobhan Reddy to Judge Digital Challenge

Siobhan Reddy of Media Molecule is confirmed as a judge for the Green Capital Digital Challenge! Time to get in the action before the deadline closes and the spaces fill up! https://www.bristol2015.co.uk/digitalchallenge/

Peter Simon (Demon Apathy) – Silly Village

Hey everyone! My interactive children’s book, Silly Village is finally finished! Check it out if you have an iPad and a kid. Or just an iPad.
It’s a tiny tale about a bunch of forest animals who are…well, not the brightest.
Hope you’ll enjoy!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/silly-village-tale-brainless/id944638587?ls=1&mt=8

Auroch Digital’s GameTheNews.net Listed in Nominet 100

Auroch Digital are honored to have been included in the 2014 Nominet 100 – a list of technology organisations, companies and individuals doing amazing things for the social good with tech. Auroch Digital were included for our GameTheNews.net project, which is exploring newsgames as a means of engaging people with real-world issues via gaming. There is more information on the nomination here and the full list is here.

Make It: Technobabble – Online free game maker for kids

Aardman have just released a public beta version of a game making and digital creativity tool they are making for the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/make-it-technobabble-game-maker
We’ve been doing lots of user testing which going to feed into the release version to be launched in February. All thoughts from Bristol Games community appreciated, please email: George.rowe@aardman.com

Queen of Code – Lux and the shadowmaker Crowdfunder

Constance Fleuriot is one of the women making games who have joined the Queen of Code initiative recently launched by Creative England and Crowdfunder UK to encourage more women into developing their own game projects. Now live on Crowdfunder UK, her game, Lux & The Shadowmaker, has until December 22nd to hit its target of £5000 – achievable if 172 people each pledge £20!
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/lux-and-the-shadowmaker
There’s more information about the game itself on PrettyDigital.co.uk or follow@prettydigi for updates. The first phase of development of Lux & The Shadowmaker will focus on making the mac/pc game, with plans for an immersive VR/Oculus Rift version as soon as possible.
Constance is more than happy to talk non-stop to anyone who is interested in the story of the game and how it will look, feel and sound.

Jobs & Opportunities

Creative Industry Finance Loans

Creative Industry Finance is an Arts Council England initiative, delivered by Creative United, offering business development support and access to finance for creative industry enterprises – including games! Find out more at https://www.creativeindustryfinance.org.uk/

Reach Robotics

Adventurous Android and software developer position open at Reach Robotics, we’re developing the world’s first gaming robots. Have a look at our main site here: www.reachrobotics.com for context and job description here:www.reachrobotics.com/openings

Playwest/UWE Games

PlayWest / @UWEGames have an exciting opportunity for a Unity dev to work modelling (bringing to life) live data from Bloodhound SSC and it’s world land speed record. Full ad. will be live imminently and I’ll update this post with details, but until then, if you’ve done “pretty” or “realistic” or even “FAST” In Unity there could be a 24k fixed term post at Frenchay campus with us, with potential for more work with PlayWest in future….oh, and access to the 1000mph car, the team and the achievement of involvement with this prestigious project itself! Any questions, tweet @andy_m_k / @playwesthq

Daredevil Project

The Daredevil Project is a venture-backed start up based in the PM Studio building a competitively social mobile app. We’re on a fast paced journey and looking for a Backend Developer to make a significant contribution to our team.
The ideal candidate will be managing all of the backend requirements for the app and our online presence. We’re after an excellent communicator who wants to help define the business, own the backend development and work closely with our frontend team. Contact us: mark@daredevilproject.com

Events

What an adventure! Bertram Fiddle launched on iOS.

Rumpus is proud to announce that the first episode of our point and click series staring Bertram Fiddle, leading Victorian explorator can now be found on the App Store. To our delight we even got featured on the front page!
The game is currently on launch sale at £2.99 for the rest of December so if you fancy a bit of adventure then now’s the time to get our little quirky game.
Get it here.

Opposable Games to host South West VR Conference

On February 24th, 2015, Opposable Games is to host the inaugural South West VR Conference at the At-Bristol Science Centre with guests including Oculus, Alchemy VR, Unity, The Imaginarium, Bossa, nDreams, Tammeka Games, Ana Ribeiro, Fire Panda, Triangular Pixels and many more to be confirmed. With a large focus on narrative and storytelling, SouthWest VR will look at the ways in which virtual reality is set to shake up the entertainment industry by completely transforming the way we interact with films, games, TV and animation. Early bird tickets are on sale via Eventbrite until 24th December, visit SouthWestVR.comand follow @SouthWestVR for more info, or get in touch with Dan Page if you’d like to speak, sponsor or exhibit.
We recently worked with local firm Simpleweb on a prototype augmented reality game for McDonalds by the name of Picca Pirates, you can read all about it from Simpleweb’s perspective here. Make sure you check out the presentation for an interesting look at how social games in “restaurants of the future” can feed useful data into a CRM.

Quick Links

Thanks all!