Event organiser David Hayward’s vision for Bit Of Alright, his latest gathering of London’s vibrant indie development community following last year’s World of Love, was that it would be a conference unlike any other.
“Sitting in conference sessions isn’t ‘maximising your takeaway’,” he wrote by way of explanation on the event’s website. “More often than not it’s filling your head with fluff from talks that speakers threw together in the night. So less of that.”
Less of that indeed. Stepping into the grand Battersea Arts Centre to be met with the din of 30 or so recorders - as iOS developer Appatta’s Dan Wiley demonstrated music learning aid My Note Games to an eclectic audience - it appeared from the outside that Hayward would make good on his promise. Chaos reigned as multiple activities took place in the main hall, the noise from other happenings bleeding into whatever session you happened to be concentrating on, but despite sounding like a recipe for disaster the effect was one of excitement, not distraction. Whether or not Bit Of Alright’s speakers had constructed their talks prior to the night before wasn’t quite so clear, however.
Adventure puzzle game developer Richard Perrin delivered an impassioned session on what game designers can learn from the fearless, and “criminally overlooked”, interactive fiction scene. Taking five of his favourite interactive fiction games (Vespers, Slouching Toward Bedlam, 9:05, Spider And Web and The Baron), he considered how IF took sophisticated concepts such as unreliable narrators, unforeseen consequences from player actions and morality choices without judgement, in its stride while mainstream games rarely, if ever, dealt with such things effectively.
In fact, lists became a bit of theme for the day. Size Five Games’ (formerly Zombie Cow Studios) Dan Marshall’s slot was titled Tea And Death, and attempted to examine videogames’ treatment of death and why it so often undermines good story telling. Marshall rattled off a number of games citing why he felt they worked or not, and the audience called out their examples in return. The impromptu forum was heavy with problems and light on offered solutions, but where else would it be possible to hear Uncharted’s narrative delivery, so often interrupted by untimely death, described as, “Like being told a story by a crack-head uncle”?
Attendees try Introversion's Prison Architect
There was more interactive fiction, and more death – specifically Aeris’ - in I Get So Emotional Baby, a presentation from animation and game studio Littleloud’s Simon Parkin and Kerry Turner that explored games which evoke emotions more complex than triumph or bloodlust. So a selection of predictable examples – Ico, Shadow Of Colossus and Braid – were discussed alongside more surprising inclusions: Turner describing the sense of joy she felt at discovering the simple escape route from Photopia’s apparently endless maze (we won’t spoil it for you here). It was an enjoyable, and heartfelt, session, but telling a room full of indie developers that games can do more than shooting and shouting whiffed of preaching to the converted.
Developer and Gametoilet author Jerry Carpenter’s talk was one of the day’s highlights. Taking the audience through a number of the flash game ideas that litter his blog (410 to date), Carpenter’s slightly manic presentation style perfectly complimented some wonderfully amusing game ideas including Animal FarmVille, Mr Crow and Optimal Area Tester. But it wasn’t just an exercise in laughter; Carpenter’s talk made a serious point about the value of ideas (and the less serious point that running dry is, in fact, less traumatic than being raped by a bear).
Cliff Harris motivates the crowd.
Immediately following Carpenter was Gratuitous Space Battles developer Cliff Harris’s talk, How To Get Out Of Bed And Finish A Complex Indie Game. One of the event’s more traditional sessions, complete with Powerpoint bullet points and budgeting, it was also one of the few sessions that actually delivered some practical advice for developers – dour though its message may have been.
“The summary of this talk is basically that you’re all fucking lazy and you should work harder,” Harris offered by way of encouragement. The main thrust of Harris’ criticism was that indie developers often set their sights too low and that with discipline a small team or lone programmer can take on less focused larger studios (“Most of the time, most of the people aren’t working…At Lionhead, I would often skateboard around the office with a lightsaber in one hand”). Spending money on the best software, hardware and even office chair were all cited as sound investments, too, along with starting work at 9am, not 10am, while in order to be a success, you apparently have to be in the top one per cent of developers. In a peculiarly stern way, it was an uplifting wake-up call.
The day also included an ongoing zombie LARP, various parlour games including spoon and fruit-based balancing challenge ‘lemon jousting’ and a box stacking task in the middle of the hall, and live game and tech demos – Introversion’s Prison Architect, a sound installation using position tracking globes and Johann Sebastian Joust, a PlayStation Move version of the aforementioned lemon joust, among them - taking place in the same hall as many of the sessions. At times, as grown men in crowns armed with Nerf guns ran in between the gathered attendees pursued by hooded zombies, the event drew uncomfortable parallels with a children’s party. But ultimately its verve reflected the spirit of indie development better than a more traditionally structured gathering.
“The thing that a lot of people come to these things to do is to socialise; break off, have a coffee with someone, go up the pub or just hang around in the foyer talking to people,” Frobisher Says developer Honeyslug’s Richard Hogg, and one of the people behind indie game night The Wild Rumpus, told us. “If you did that at a normal event where you’re just sat in a room listening to talks, you feel like you’re being naughty! Whereas here, because there’s lots of different things going on at the same time, and David [Hayward]’s made it deliberately quite chaotic, it feels like it’s okay to just bumble around, and walk in and out of talks.”
Despite the large number of indie developers based in London, the scene only now feels like it’s coalescing. It’s a disparate collective of prolific and risk-taking developers and events like Bit Of Alright offer the perfect opportunity for like-minded creators to share their ideas. Perhaps more importantly, however, it also allows them to feel part of a vibrant and growing community.