On Saturday, I went to my first Full Indie Summit with UBC’s AMS Game Development Association.
Prior to going to the event, I was JUST starting off with game dev, how to use Unity & C# etc. I’ll admit that I don’t play as many games as I should (my mom would disagree but you know what I mean, everyone at the summit knew every game in the market, and there was me- I didn’t even know what Firewatch was). I definitely felt intimidated but was only later on greeted with wonderfully kind faces and suddenly, I felt like I was part of something, and that felt great.
The full list of speakers are listed here. but I particularly enjoyed Kevin Regamey’s (Power Up Audio) talk. He started the whole summit, but he left the bar of standards so high that I was simply in awe. His talk was powerful and engaging. As a noobie game dev, I had no idea how great of an impact audio can have on a game but now, I definitely have a better idea of it. Seriously, when the summit video gets released on youtube, you need to check out his talk. He is a talented speaker with great stage presence.
I also loved Marc ten Bosch’s (Miegakure) presentation. Here is a video of what he roughly spoke about. The video is needed simply because the 4th dimension is incredibly intriguing coming Bosch. But from me, I can only describe it as pure magic.
Lastly, I enjoyed Nels Anderson’s talk on Firewatch. He was a game designer of Campo Santo’s Firewatch. Let me tell you, I couldn’t stop googling and watching videos of Firewatch ever since I stepped out of that summit. The game is beautiful and I can’t believe I have never even heard of it before. The moment I have some more free time, I will make buying & playing Firewatch my top priority.
The talks were then followed by some amazing game demos, free food & free booze (Ah that underage life). I’m so glad I was introduced to Vancouver’s wonderful indie game dev scene and I can’t wait to go back next time. I am now more excited than ever to work on my own game! :)
