event

Unofficial UK Games Fund Workshop – Monday 11th April, 7pm

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Note: this is not an official UK Games Fund event, nor will anyone from the fund be present.

The UK Games Fund is a newly established grant from UK Games Talent and Finance CIC with the aim of helping to develop the UK games development industry, particularly those in the early stages. 

Grants of up to £25,000 will be awarded to help new and young development businesses create working prototype games. If you have a project which is further along the development process which needs support, they are also going to be awarding a limited number of grants for up to £50,000 and will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

For full information and how to apply click here.

To support this, Bristol Games Hub is running a one off workshop for applicants and those interested in applying.

UK Games Fund Workshop – Monday 11th April, 7pm

The UK Games Fund recently held a series of workshops in Edinburgh, London, and Manchester, James Parker of Ground Shatter and the Bristol Games Hub was able to go along and hear in more detail the assessment criteria for applications. With the cooperation of the UK Games Fund itself, he has been able to get hold of the slides from the presentation and will be doing a “bootleg” version of the workshop at the Bristol Games Hub. If you are applying or thinking or applying, then this is an ideal opportunity to ideal more about how best of focus your time and effort when it comes to making your application.

If you are planning to attend, please familiarize yourself with the details of the fund and how to apply  the link below first. We will be looking more closely at the assessment criteria and rather than covering the publicly available information here, so an understanding of what is required before attending the presentation is essential:

www.ukgamesfund.com/how-to-apply/

If you have any questions please bring them along with you and James will do his best to answer them.

For more information or to RSVP go to the Meetup Page.

 

News Update! Raise Finance for your Creative Business

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A couple more bits of news! First is this…

Helping you to raise finance for your creative business

Turning a bright idea into a commercial success can be a challenge, especially for a creative business. Creative England and the Creative Industries Council are running a free event to help you learn how to access different forms of finance and grow your company.

The event features:
Revolution Software’s Charles Cecil MBE. Find out how he raised £100,000s through crowd funding.

  • Panellists include:
    Phil Geraghty – MD, Crowdfunder – Crowdfunder has raised £1.5m for campaigns since launching, and has the potential to help you too.
  • Darren Westlake – CEO, Crowdcube – With Crowdcube, Darren is determined to solve the lack of financing options for small businesses. He started his first company aged 26 and has since successful built and sold two companies
  • Jenny Tooth – CEO, of the UK Business Angels Association. Jenny has over 20 years’ experience in helping SMEs access investment.
  • Irene Graham – MD of the British Banking Association. Irene works specifically with SMEs to help them navigate the financial landscape.
  • Caroline Norbury MBE – CEO of Creative England, an organisation that has invested over £14,400,000 into the games, TV, film and digital media industries.
  • Sarah Thirtle – Head of Business and lending programmes for Creative United, specialist in finance for the creative industry.

Taking place at Facebook, London, on March 19th. Click here to see the full schedule and to book your place: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/finance-your-creative-business-tickets-15974293542

Second is:

Bristol Media have a survey up – help them out if you can by completing it! https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BristolMediaBarometer

Full Indies UK & Bristol Games Hub Event Round Up

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24th April was last month’s Bristol Games Hub’s monthly antisocial, a night of games, drinks and pizza in association with Full Indie UK. After much games and alcohol assisted merriment, ten indies showed off their current projects and talked through some of their insights into the development process, before adjourning to the pub. The speakers and their projects are linked below.

Gareth Jenkins (36 Peas) – One Spear Arena
http://onespeararena.com/

Caspian Prince (Puppy Games) – Battle Droid
http://www.puppygames.net/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qObkxxxjyFI

Jake Birkett (Grey Alien Games) – Regency Solitaire, and the mobile port of Puppy Games’ Titan Attacks
http://www.greyaliengames.com/

Nils Hellberg (VODO) – Presented on his work with VODO, a publisher of multidisciplinary indie bundles
http://vodo.net/

Rich Bumpkin (Bumpkin Brothers) – Space Farmers
http://bumpkinbrothers.com/spacefarmers/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syPuG9_zoJQ

Alastair Aitcheson – Tap Happy Sabotage
http://www.alistairaitcheson.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZasqaLeszU

Heather Cooper (Auroch Digital) – Chainsaw Warrior
http://chainsawwarrior.net/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef8NEL37uIc

Damien Sturdy (Sturdy Games) – Red Forest
http://sturdygames.co.uk/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8YpNlsj218&list=UUKHU7OvxDBnn7uLdmpzbnig

Ashley Gwinnell (Force of Habit) – Timmy Bibble’s Friendship Club
http://forceofhab.it/

James (Opposable Games) – Salvaged
http://www.opposablegames.com/

Thanks to all the speakers & Full Indie UK

Monthly Unity Game Devs Meetup at Bristol Games Hub Restarting on Wednesday 23rd April from 7:30pm

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Unity is a powerful and easy to learn game engine for 2D and 3D development that is becoming more and more popular. On top of that it offers a very capable free version and can build to a wide range of platforms including, desktop, mobile and web.

This free monthly meetup is to support the sprawling community of game developers that use Unity in Bristol. The goal is to create a place where new and experienced Unity users can share their experience and knowledge with each other. The programme for each session will roughly be:

  • 19.30-20.30 Talk on a Unity related topic. The first one will be an introduction to Unity for programmers and non-programmers alike.
  • 20.30-22.00 Mingling and mind sharing between the attendees. If you are facing any issues or have made a cool game prototype this is when we would like to see and talk about it!
  • 22.00-??.?? We end the event with a trip to the local pub for those that fancy a pint or two.

The meetup is run by Alexander Birke and Sam Chester, both local developers that use Unity in their daily work. On top of that Alexander has been teaching and given talks on Unity for over 4 years. The talks at the first couple of sessions will therefore be held by Alexander on a variety of topics.

Please sign up on Eventbrite here as we’re expecting a good turnout;http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/monthly-unity-game-devs-meetup-tickets-11268569595

Games Jams with Orangutangs – Thurs 24th 1pm

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We’ve organised for an interesting speaker to come to the hub next Thursday (24th) at 1pm, Hanna Wirman.
She’s got all sorts of stories from her recent work in Hong Kong, running Games Jams with Orangutangs, and other crazy stuff.
You can of course just come along, we’ll also have people from downstairs and the Pervasive Media Studio but it’s open to all so if interested you might want to book a seat at
http://hannabristolgameshub.eventbrite.co.uk/ – Tickets are free but places are limited!
There may be tea and cakes provided by the downstairs lot as well, in case you need another reason to come along.
See you there!
(This is a joint event with the Digital Cultures Research Centre)