April Newsletter
Next Games Hub Anti-Social: 30th April, 7.30pm
This month we’ve got:
Special Effect – How they are making games accessible for all!
Check this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uhsUKFDiso – and see the joy that Ben (who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy) gets from being able to play games. We can help that happen for more people!
Special Effect‘s Barry Floyd is coming along to talk about their important work and how we can help in their mission. Special Effect’s mission is, “…to enable anyone, whatever their physical disability, to enjoy video games and leisure technology. But we’re not just doing it for the sake of fun. By giving people the means to participate, we’re kick-starting rehabilitation, self-esteem and, most importantly, inclusion.”
So join us on the 30th April at 7.30pm – we’ve got a buzzer! The entrance is off Thomas Street, just up from the junction of Thomas St/Stokes Croft, above what was DHS Heating. After the chat, the usual rounds of networking, socialising and chatting video games!
Games Hub News:
April Unity meetup – D- D- Double the talks!
We are back and this time around we have not one but two talks lined up for you to enjoy. In the first talk Tim Wicksteed from Twice Circled will talk about how to achieve a resolution independent interface for your Unity game. In the second one Pretty Pixel will give demo their crowd funded Unity game Lux and the Shadowmaker. The meetup is talking place the 22nd of April at the Bristol Games Hub and starts at 7.30. As always signup is through our meetup page.
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 page – Find roles and post new openings here…
Dev Scene News
Looking for Investment? Apply for VentureFest!
Venture Fest is now welcoming applications to exhibit at the Engine Shed event on the 9th June. The events sees a wide range of tech entrepreneurs and investors converging on Bristol to discover what’s next and who to invest in. They have 20 slots for the Start-Up Village and 10-12 slots for the Investor Pitches. They’re estimating over 1000 visitors on the day. If you wish to exhibit there, then the deadline for applications is 24th April. Apply for the Start-Up Village here, and the Investor Showcase here, both can be accessed from their website.
Green Capital Digital Challenge
See how this event is shaping up and learn about the three games groups who’ve been flying the flag for gameplay in the competition! Watch short film here.
Free Game Book!
A new academic book covering how to apply a wide range of research methods to games and game culture has just been published. It includes one chapter written by Bristol-based game academic and designer Nathan Hook. The book is published as a free download, with print-on-demand hard copy also available. More info can be foundhere.
Auroch Digital
It’s been a busy month for us – as well as releasing the mobile version of Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night with Games Workshop, we’ve also been working with BBC Radio 1 (along with amazing help from Force of Habit & Peter Simon) on a newsgame for the election. You can check that out here. We’ve going to have even more cool news coming soon, so sign up here if you want to be among the first to know!
Rumpus
The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle has been released on Steam. They’re getting some great reviews and have partnered with Deck13 in Germany to help market the game in Europe.
Opposable Games
The Opposable Games team have been incredibly busy beavering away developing our tactical sci-fi action game Salvaged, and boy is it looking good. It’s a little unconventional in terms of how the game is played (single screen, dual screen, dual monitor or VR), and after our initial testing, we decided to have a pretty big rethink about exactly how the game works. Our resident writer-designer Daniel Dowsing has detailed our thought process in a couple of new blog posts, which you’ll find below:
‘Lost and Found’: New Salvaged Part 1
‘A Place in the Universe’: New Salvaged Part 2
One of our rather awesome 2D artists, Lewis Gilliard, has been creating some pretty special pieces of Salvaged promo art, which we’ll be releasing on a weekly basis. Make sure you like us on Facebook and sign up to the Salvaged Newsletter to keep up and as they’re sure as heck rather purrdy.
If you don’t know much about the game already then a good place to start would be to meet Salvaged protagonist Alex Pieterson. Finally, we’re getting into the Instagram thing, so do give us a follow for a few exclusive bits and bobs of concept art (and most likely some stupid photos of Joe Blakeston).
PS – LASER QUEST PHOTO
Nathan Hook has self-published his board game Magus
Jobs & Opportunities
Ground Shatter
Are looking for a junior Unity programmer to help out with SkyScrappers and more. Take a look here: http://groundshatter.com/jobs.html
Aardman
Any freelance developers on here with experience of making games or interactives with three.js / WebGL and available soon? Please get in touch ASAPgeorge.rowe@aardman.com
Play Nicely
Play Nicely are looking for a Unity developer to work on a mobile app. If interested, please email becky@playnicely.co.uk with a CV and links to any relevant work. Thanks!
Rancon
Hi! Here at Rancon we’ve got lots of exciting Unity and C# based projects coming up, with the I additional Flash and Xamarin project for good measure. Check outrancon.co.uk for details. So we’re after any freelancers in and around Cheltenham who might have availability across the next 6 months for a few days at a time. Emailrob.mason@rancon.co.uk to find out more.
FireTechCamp
Have paid tutor posts in camps for kids learning tech including game dev; https://firetechcamp.com/camp-instructor-job-application
Events Diary
Unity Meetup (22nd April, 7.30pm)
Next Unity meetup will take place the 22nd at 7.30pm. See above for full info. Sign up page is here!
Anti-Social (30th April, 7.30pm)
Special Effect are coming along. See above for full info.
Quick Links
- Ideas on making creative teams.
- The writer will do something (for games writers…)
- Minimum sustainable success