By Kieron Gillen on July 22nd, 2010.
The Fable 3 demonstration starts a little late, due to Peter Molyneux being a little too reliant on his SatNav. Which is the sort of thing which strikes me as a workable critique of the “bread-crumb” hand-holding in Fable 2, but we’re probably denying the existence of that non-PC Game. Which is going to make writing about the first public European showing of Fable III, it brings directly to mind its direct prequel.
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By Kieron Gillen on July 21st, 2010.
The Microstudios panel proved to be the most controversial and widely talked about at Develop 10, but the exchange of commentary followed by detente wasn’t all that was worth taking away from the gathering, where Beatnik‘s Robin Lacey (Plain Sight), Positech‘s Cliff Harris (Kudos, Democracy, Gratuitous Space Battles), Introversion‘s Mark Morris (Darwinia, Defcon, Uplink) and Hello Games‘ Sean Murray (Joe “They’ll all be in” Danger “if there’s not a PC port”) talked about the state of the Microstudio. Starting with what a microstudio is anyway…
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By Kieron Gillen on July 15th, 2010.
I zombie-walk into the back of the hall, to have Doublefine’s industry-legendtm Tim Schafer on stage saying something along the lines of “You always have something to learn about hard drinking from the British”. As a pallid spirit powered solely by the ghost of spirits, I fear he has nothing to learn from me – bar, don’t do it. However, we do learn from him – not least, the first information of the four (count ‘em!) games Doublefine are working on.
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By Kieron Gillen on July 14th, 2010.
Hot news from the develop free delegate lunch. Of the two varieties of cake provided, the micro-chocolate cakes disappeared with unseemly haste into the ravenous maws of sugar-depleted developers. Their attention turned to micro-Pavlova, which were in turn devoured. At the time of writing, it’s impossible to ascertain whether this famine of micro-chocolate cakes is due to a difference in the supply of the two cakes, or whether there has been a fatal overestimation of the micro-Pavlovas amongst the games industry community on the part of the Develop Caterers.
By Kieron Gillen on July 14th, 2010.
The day’s first Keynote is from Bioware, with Dr Greg Zeschuk is flying solo, as Ray is up to day 5 in the world series poker. I’ve just arrived in Brighton to find myself staring at the title: “Creative Game Development: How We Do It At Bioware”. And I’m sniggering to myself like an nine-year old, because I’m wondering whether it’s going to be a guide of how they “do it” at Bioware. Tell me about the romance options, Dr Greg!
Alas, the reality is a little more prosaic.
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By Kieron Gillen on July 14th, 2010.
Ed Vaizey has appeared at the Develop conference in Brighton to confirm that not only does he play console games, but he confirms that Miyamoto’s designs are suitable for casual incompetents. “I play Super Mario Wii,” said the UK Culture Minister, “That’s all I’m capable of”. We tried to reach Nintendo for comment, but failed, because we didn’t try very hard. He also faced stiff questioning from TIGA on the issue of tax-breaks for games development, but argued that the general breaks for business were competitive adding that he didn’t rule out the possibility that the situation could change if the Games Industry managed to rally more convincing argument and “his door was open”. But I wasn’t really paying very much attention.
