Welcome to the Brighton, UK Chapter!

Join us. We meet up to share information, learn about new techniques and opportunities and come together as a network of developers - generally over a beer or two.

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Brighton discussion forum

Chapter Team

Primary co-ordinator: Martine Parry (MD, Kezos Ltd)

Backup co-ordinator: Brian Rodway (MD, Affinity Studios Ltd)

Map & Contact Details for Usual Pub for Socials - The Lord Nelson, Brighton

Multimap
www.localpub.com/brighton/lordnelson
www.ultimatepubguide.com

Map & Contact Details for The Eagle Pub, Brighton

125, Gloucester Rd, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 4AF [map]

Next Meeting

Date: Tuesday 11th April, Social from 7pm

at the Lord Nelson Pub in Brighton - see details in side-bar.

Apologies as Martine and Brian can't make this one but you are welcome to meet up without us, although if you are coming on your own there won't be a point of contact, but many of you already know each other so that shouldn't be a problem this time.

We are, however, organising a sponsored presentation with Eidos/SCi for later this month - and that means that there should be free drinks so keep your eyes peeled on this site.

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Summary Reports

• 15th March - Developing for PLAYSTATION®3, George Bain, Developer Support Manager , SCEE Technology Group

A new platform always presents new challenges and opportunities for game developers. This technical presentation introduces PLAYSTATION®3. The presentation will provide an overview of the system architecture including the Cell processor and the new graphics processor (RSX) along with the Blu-ray storage medium. It will also include information about the new development tools and is aimed to give developers an insight into PLAYSTATION®3 title development.

George has been working for SCEE since 1997 and manages the Developer Support team providing first class support services. A well-known face among developers through on-site visits and in-house consultancy, he has presented at numerous venues including local IGDA chapters, GDCE, AGDC, KRI and SCE Developer Conferences.

Thanks to NCSoft Europe for hosting the event.
See you there from 6.30pm. Presentation starts at 7pm. Followed by drinks in a local pub!

• Date: 9 February 2006 - Emerging Issues in Game Design - Ernest Adams

This lecture delivered on every issue promised. We had over 30 people crammed into the Board Room at Climax Racing Studios in Hove with very little standing room available even.

Just to recap: This lecture discussed the important emerging issues for game design at the moment. Among them: sex in games; the consequences of blurring the boundaries between in-game and out-of-game events in MMOGs; the end of graphics as a dominant force in selling games; new roles for AI; new forms of interactive narratives; procedural content generation; games as art; and above all, the arrival of the mass market, in the form of casual players.

Ernest Adams is a game design consultant, writer, and teacher, working with the International Hobo design group. He has been in the game industry for 16 years, and was most recently employed as a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions on the Dungeon Keeper series. For several years before that he was the audio/video producer on the Madden NFL Football product line at Electronic Arts. His website is at http://www.designersnotebook.com.

• 1st November '05. Theme: Members Brainstorm 2006 Event Topics and Speakers.

Thanks to the 15 members who showed up to give me their thoughts on what IGDA Brighton should be about and what topics should be on the agenda for next year.

An issue raised by a number of people was that we need more links to other organisations in Brighton. These include universities, research orgs and other creative areas.

We were in general agreement that we should have events on topics that include: Mass Market Games, Design Techniques, Skills & Training and that we should have speakers from industry.

David Amor, MD of Relentless Software, was the first major developer in Brighton to offer their support in hosting an event. Thanks David!

Other events held since inception of the Chapter in 2003 include:

• 21st March '05 - Theme: Introducing the PSP - mini-presentation
• George Bain, Developer Support Manager SCEE Technology Group. joined us to present the PSP. It's quite a revolution having such a good 3D rendering on such a small package.
• 13th December '04 - Theme: Roundtable: User interfaces for 3D 3rd person MMORPG - PC and Mobile Handset . 17 People turned up for this meeting to set a new record. It was a very interesting roundtable, and hopefully there'll be another one soon.

Users want more interaction but don't want the complication. No matter how cool the interface is, it seems less of it would be better. Consistency of UI across the mobile handset and PC causes added problems. Add the complexity of the MMORPG and its UI components to the melting pot and even more issues appear.

What's the first thing a user sees?

It's the user interface and yet it is often the last to be thought about by the developer. Just like the artistic packaging for a PC game, the UI can help to set the mood for the rest of the game. For better or worse, the impact of a user's first impressions can have an astounding effect on the rest of the gameplay and game sales.

• 26th April '04 - Theme: Cross-Platform Gaming With most of the 9 people attending having arrived towards the end of the evening, there wasn't a good opportunity for Tom Gordon to give his presentation.  However, Tom has kindly provided a link to a larger text that would have formed its basis: http://www.news0r.com/columns.php?p=1740.
  Attendees: Crosbie Fitch, Brian Rodway, Peter Brophy, Tom Gordon, Bobby Hirst, Peter Lemon, Matt Whiffen, Andrew Lemon, Andy Smith.

• 23rd Feb '04 - Theme: Developing Games on a Shoestring. Kerry Fraser-Robinson, MD of RedBedlam (Brighton) provided a great start to the evening relating his experiences developing their Roma Victor MMOG whilst minimising development costs through use of open source tools and middleware, flexible labour (outsourcing, overseas labour markets, telecommuting, etc.), and general self-sufficiency. Also interesting support from his colleague Robert Hayes (Business Director). With attendance of 13, we had plenty to talk about. Many thanks from myself and Brian Rodway to everyone else who joined in the fray: Lewi Lewis, Ben Gray, Ian Barber, Peter Brophy, Emily Brown Tom Gordon, and Willam Latham.

• 14th Jan '04 - An enthralling rountable - With attendance eventually reaching 14 we had to move to a bigger table! Thanks to Brian, Lew, David, Ben, Ian, Martine, Darren, Julie, Caspar, Carl, Paul, Lee, and John for participating. Special thanks to Darren Barnett and Caspar Gray of SCi Games for leading a most interesting discussion and enumeration of the critical aspects for getting a game pitched successfully. And not least, many cheers for providing several rounds of drinks to make this business a pleasure!

• 8th Dec '03 - Another great session! - Thanks Brian, Lew, Ben, Ian, Martine, and Darren for bringing a myriad of topics and points of view to an enthralling discussion last night at the Lord Nelson. With representation from the mobile gaming, 3D animation, coding, business, and publishing sectors of the industry, we covered a lot of ground and had the opportunity to see things from a variety of perspectives.