Scotland's Games Ecosystem Cluster
The 2012 TIGA Awards nominations have been announced, with several Scottish companies and teams included. There are several categories where Scotland is well represented - most notably the student games category which, thanks to Dare to be Digital, we dominate almost entirely. However there are many categories which rather inexplicably don't include any games from …
Continue reading "Scottish Companies Nominated In TIGA Awards"
Following over a year of email campaigns and fan requests, the coveted video-game film epic finds a home in Scotland's original game making hub. Indie Game: The Movie follow's the story of the makers of Fez, Super Meat Boy and a handful of other people who dedicate their work to the creation of their own …
Continue reading "Indie Game: The Movie Comes To Dundee with NEoN 2012"
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young game designer, in possession of a good idea, tends to do nothing with it. Ever. Except in the pub, when they moan to friends that they can't get funding, that games don't make money these days and that now they've mentioned it aloud, it will be …
Augmented Reality is one of those technologies which tends to polarise opinion. Many people scoff and shun the technology as irrelevant to 'proper' games and label it awkward, inconvenient and nothing more than a jumped up QR code. You friendly neighbourhood Scottishgames.net tends more towards the optimistic and impressed side of things. When Augmented Reality …
Continue reading "Mental MonstAR Motoring Outplay Augments iPhone Fun"
'Development Hell' is a well-known term for the painful gestation of a Hollywood movie. Whether modern AAA games suffer the same problems from concept to release, I don't know personally but I am certain that they do. I am currently reading Tales From Development Hell, and whilst the movie industry is not the games industry, there …
Continue reading "Steve Hammond’s Manual Override – Developer Hell"
A week ago, the second Turing Festival took place in Edinburgh. The inaugural event in 2011 was astonishingly good. Diverse, eclectic and expert, it pulled in speakers and participants from a huge range of disciplines and, almost uniquely, seemed to focus on a speaker's ability and knowledge, rather than job title or employer. I spent …
Continue reading "Compendium Of Interest – Turing & Technology & The World Of Tomorrow"
You may remember that Scottishgames recently introduced Steve Hammond into the fray as a guest columnist, giving you insightful and surprising tidbits into the Scottish game industry's origins. We've also had the wonderful Phil Harris reporting from this year's Edinburgh Interactive, reporting the gig like you were actually there! Now we add a new guest …
If you’re reading this, Dare will probably be in full swing already. if you’re yet to go though, allow me to get you in the mood by sharing what makes this year’s even so important. Prologue This is the third Protoplay I’ve attended in person. I first found out about it almost four years ago, …
Back from lunch and into the fray with Are Computer Games Art? Chris Bateman @SpiralChris International Hobo and Ren Reynolds (@RenZephyr) Virtual Policy Network got a good response from the audience. Hell, yes! We thought computer games were art. Hosted by Ren, he posed the question to Chris who started with Ernst Gombrich’s Meditations …
Continue reading "Art, Squirrels and the New Reality – Edinburgh Interactive (Session 3)"
It may seem like there's a LOT going on in August. EIF is coming, Dare is rapidly Protoplying (yes, Protoplying) into something of real significance and now, the Turing Festival has a half day of interactive entertainment thought leaders, luminaries and speakers, all appearing in Edinburgh on the 23rd of August, for the astonishing price …
Continue reading "The Most Awesome Games Event In The World. Ever."