{"id":40,"date":"2016-09-30T10:43:05","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T09:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wearecentrifuge.com\/?p=40"},"modified":"2017-01-02T12:00:20","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T12:00:20","slug":"egx-adventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/30\/egx-adventures\/","title":{"rendered":"EGX Adventures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team IFX just got back from EGX<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 in Birmingham (or Brimingham as it said on all the wristbands.) Not only do we make games but we love playing them and attend all four days of the event every year. We loved it when it was at Earl\u2019s Court in London \u2013 as it felt like a holiday and we could explore our nation\u2019s capital in the evenings. However, since they knocked down Earl\u2019s Court – going to Birmingham doesn\u2019t feel the same. It\u2019s not that far from where we live.<\/p>\n

One of our main reasons for going is for the Developer and Rezzed sessions \u2013 awesome presentations and Q&As from actual successful game developers. It is always useful and informative for game developers like us. Everything from how to get a tax rebate to attracting YouTube stars to play your game on screen to their thousands of subscribers \u2013 there\u2019s something for everyone.<\/p>\n

At Earl\u2019s Court these events were held in separate lecture theatres away from the noise and bustle of the main arena where all the massive games stands were. At the NEC though the Rezzed sessions are in an open area right next to the huge Virgin stand holding Destiny \u2013 Age of Iron competitions every 10 minutes. Each one ended with ear-splitting explosions after an enthusiastic countdown \u2013 and the whole thing was compered by an over-excited MC on the mike.<\/p>\n

This meant that it was very difficult to hear what was happening on the Rezzed stage \u2013 especially during question and answer sessions where the presenters needed to be able to hear members of the audience too.<\/p>\n

The main developer sessions were enclosed \u2013 by a curtain \u2013 but disturbingly near to the Gfinity e-sports arena where EnVyUs<\/u><\/a> were annihilating all\u2013comers in the CS.GO Invitational Tournament. This was also loud. (I do love watching esports though \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

But niggles aside \u2013 we had a good show. It was the first time that I had attended the Investment Summit \u2013 held in a nearby convention suite. I listened to talks by investors and publishers, such as Debbie Bestwick from Team 17<\/u><\/a>, \u00a0about how to get your company ready for investment and what investors look for in a company and their products. Some said they never touch free-to-play games like Interference<\/a> \u2013 but others, such as Saad Choudrie, CCO of Miniclip said \u201cFree-to-play? Bring it on!\u201d I got chance to have a chat with him over lunch and he gave us some good advice. To summarise (and quote Shia LaBeouf) \u201cJust do it!\u201d We are doing okay and if we get the iOS and Android apps out then people will come to us! Apparently<\/p>\n

Nathan also got a pass to the Trade Zone which amazingly cost nothing!(Pro tip – just email EGX and\u00a0ask for one – they just need a link to your LinkedIn page to see you are a legit indiedev) \u00a0It also came with two free days in EGX itself. The trade zone was a room where you could schedule meetings with any backers you met. Sadly, as we only found out about this and the summit the week before we went \u2013 all the available appointments were gone. We\u2019ll know for next year though!<\/p>\n

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Nathan enjoying VR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As indie game developers ourselves we spent most of our time in the Rezzed and Leftfield zones where there were some amazing and different games on show. Nathan enjoyed Unseen Diplomacy<\/u><\/a> as he got to crawl around an empty square with a Vive VR headset on \u2013 saving the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We could see what he was doing on screen and it did look impressive. He didn\u2019t have any problem motion sickness with the VR in this game \u2013 as he was moving around with the action in the game. It\u2019s the ones where you are sitting down while things move around you that cause him problems.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed playing The Little Acre<\/u><\/a> which was a point and click adventure game and I had a go at Yooka Laylee<\/u><\/a> which was also very fun. I liked that it had books and pages to collect.<\/p>\n

Our favourite Rezzed session is always the funny \u201cPitch Your Game Idea\u201d one \u2013 where you can just turn up and pitch a crazy idea for a game at a panel of experts. It is expertly\u00a0MCed by Jon Hicks (@MrJonty ) from Gamer- Network<\/u><\/a> \u2013 as are all the Rezzed sessions. They pick a favourite and give them a bag of swag from EGX. This time Nathan decided to have a go and pitch his \u201cBond Villain Simulator\u201d \u2122 The experts seemed<\/em> very impressed and he won a bag of goodies \u2013 along with a couple of other hopefuls. The other winners were a small boy who pitched a zombie game set in a shopping centre called “Shop\u00a0’til You Drop” and the other guy pitched\u00a0a game that ran through the history of game design. \u00a0They both sounded excellent.<\/p>\n

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Nathan receiving his swag from Jon Hicks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nathan was very pleased with the reaction to his idea – one that’s he’s been talking about in the Centrifuge office for quite\u00a0a while. He might even make a prototype now! I\u2019m sure you can\u2019t wait to see that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Team IFX just got back from EGX\u00a0 in Birmingham (or Brimingham as it said on all the wristbands.) Not only do we make games but we love playing them and attend all four days of the event every year. We loved it when it was at Earl\u2019s Court in London \u2013 as it felt like … Continue reading “EGX Adventures”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[10,3,4,6,5,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wearecentrifuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}