Get In The Game has been a very interesting one this time, as it opened up to the Yorkshire and Humber region, and we had a lot of companies applying that weren’t traditionally game developers. Vision+Media are pretty orward looking when it comes to development, so GITG has always been a pretty good deal for developers: Not only do the successful ones get the prototype funding, but they get to keep their IP too.

The final pitches happened late in March, and we’ve had time to feed everything back to the companies. Phil Gaskell, head of XDev Studio Europe had this to say just after everyone had pitched: “I saw some really promising work today. We’re certainly going to be looking further into certain projects, and there’s a chance some of them might make it all the way to PlayStation”

Giong further back into GITG2, the workshop was much bigger than it’s been before, with agile training and some especially effective, but also nerve wracking pitch training, in which people were placed in front of a camera to pitch, only to watch and analyse the tape afterward. Everyone returned a month later to pitch for real money with a game idea, and ultimately five were selected from that first batch of pitches to receive £10K of prototype funding each, going through several subsequent stages on the way to the final pitch improving their pitching skills, knowledge and their prototypes.

It’s been arduous at points; as you can see by the posts below, the dummy pitches to Sony producers were an especially harsh step in the process, but ultimately a valuable one in focussing everything the companies had learned.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid we can’t reveal whether or not any of the prototypes have been picked up by Sony, but some very promising projects came out of the past 8 months. I’d like to thank all of the companies for taking part: It’s All In The Game Baby, Savvy Productions, Pixinworks, Milky Tea and Grant Midwinter. You all did yourselves proud with the prototype funding, and we wish you the best of luck taking your projects further.

Ok So we’ve had the dummy pitch – a great idea because it stops us making big mistakes too late.  However – with now only 2 weeks to go not the initial 3 proposed, there is so little time to do changes, and the potential for gloom to creep in is high.

Spoke to the other groups  involved and I think we all feel battered and bruised after – such positivity from our Execs over the past few months – the Sony rep in the team meeting was not keen on the constructuve bit if constructive criticism and it seems other companies too are baffled a little by confliciting opinion.

We are keen to get this right and I just pray our super positive exec is really on the same page as Phil @ Sony or we may have been the wildcard who went feral.

And Pete @ Sony – I’d stick with the day job and leave any dreams of a career in diplomacy far behind!

On the bright side – we knew our presentation needed tightening so with solid feedback now, we’re bang on track to condense the pitch for clarity and really get a chance to shine.

We know from the mountains of research we have undertaken that the future will include a section that is this shaped in it’s desire to extend the PS experience  in the way we are working towards – but will it be with Sony PS?  time will tell

As the date for our pitch gets closer and closer the work gets more hectic! After opting to use Unity instead of Phyre Engine we have had no more technical issues however and now it is just a case of time and preference.

We also decided that regardless of the fact that this only a pitch (something we have to keep reminding ourselves off) we want to make it look as good as we can (the bain of artists!) . This has thrown up lots of new questions, such a s shall we bake lighting or use real time lighting? Should we use Normal Maps? How far can we go with these textures before they become a strain on the engine? All to be considered and tested but fortunatley these are all just aesthetic issues and not project halting!

Wer also decied that we wanted to make a fully functioning prototype for our pitch. Something we wnated to do to prove to ourselves that we can make a good efficiently and produce it to the standard that we envisaged when the game was concieved. We’re pleased to say that despite the whole process being quite alien to us we have had some great help and we are now a lot moe confident we can do this than we where when we started.

As it stands we are now in theprogramming phase, fingers crossed this goes well!

Thanks, Milky Tea

Pitch day  - and despite setting out with acres of time, cars, vans and lorries decide they want to make the journey to Liverpool with us – slowly!! and a 90minute journey takes 180minutes and we miss our slot.

first rule of pitch sales techniques…don’t be late.  Oooops. F***

Any nerves we felt on route, were smoked and bitten away, but on arriving at Sony Liverpool, we become serene, and giggly.  It’s a calming building and, though we have genuine doubts as to whether what we want to pitch is of any interest AT ALL to Sony and the guys at Pixel Lab, we’re ready to go for it.  We’ve some nifty slides and a ripomatic we’re proud of and even I’ve grown a set of balls!

So, yes, we’ve pitched a banana in an apple flavoured world – but what a buzz! I love pitching (I know, I am getting help for this one)

As we crack on with the pitch, I realise that our ethos, our desire to push boundaries and try something slightly left of field is, though probably not what Sony want, it is something that we will persue beyond this pitch and this process has helped define a future vision for Savvy that, if Sony don’t buy it, we will continue down this road.  Which, again, we have GITG and Northwest Vision and Media to thank for – an opportunity to think big and plan bold.

The 6 (or was it 300 panel members (felt like a lot around that table)) gave us a really exciting, thorough, uplifting and heated gentle grilling which is exactly what we needed.  And the two or 3 unanswerable questions  - that were asked (you know the kind, small matters like business models, making it pay…..) took us to the heart of the holes in our pitch idea…. holes we knew were big ones, and that we weren’t sure we could fill.

By the end of the session we knew that we were knocking on the right doors in terms of the sorts of products we wanted to develop, in terms of what shape we thought the future might become and we knew that Sony would hear our pleas again but now wasn’t the right time.  Marcus had made a convincing technological knowledge and plan, Richard proved the possibilities with some wider research and a good deal of gaming knowledge and I, well, I got all over excited and empassioned… it’s a flaw.

Rather ill advisedly, I found I could no longer contain my over theatrical nature and left thanking them for listening and saying that although it was a wild card – wasn’t development about pushing boundaries? and the chance to try something different?  - and if funding like GITG wasn’t the chance to aim high and wide what was?  And anyway what did they have to lose?

I was thankfully rescued by the team from climbing my soap box (which in the absence of one may well have become the conference table…. and we left, knowing we’d blown it but were strangely ok with that; in the time we couldn’t have done more.

Half way down the M62 (Where were all the cars from earlier!!!) Marcus had a Eureka moment and we found a plug for a big hole and realised what we were missing… c’est la vie.

So what happened?

When, late Friday evening, 2 days later, I got a call to say that no one was more surprised than the panel of judges to be giving us one of the 5x 10k to take our ideas further……. we were for a very brief moment Speechless!

We know we have something, we know what we have is potentially really exciting, we think it might be exciting to Sony, but to be honest we are the banana in a box of apples……

An interesting development process ensues, I think we’ve spent the 10k in advance on post it notes and midnight oil, so it is a relief when we meet a fellow pitcher Onteca at the Media Festival and realise we’re all up against it.

We are keen to move across into the gaming world,   traditional gaming is, we think and (have some evidence to support),  open to moving in to entertainment that is defined beyond what is know and labelled as traditional gaming…… but as a company with an expertise in cross platform narratives and technology development, how far across do we go?

Lots of time spent debating the lines between entertainment and gaming, passive and active engagement and where narrative fits in.  So much so that I find myself sitting with an equally scary bunch of gaming types at a Matt Costello event @ the BBC organised by NWVM…………  Inspired? Terrified? Who Knows.

I also attend  narrative in gaming event with a fab company (what the hell are they called? he looks like Matt Lucas with curly grey hair) who help me through designing a shoot ‘em up – at the beeb – another NWVM event.  Am I any the wiser?

And how exactly is this helping? Sometimes not knowing what you don’t know is a distinct advantage.

Day 3 of the GITG sessions  @ FACT and we learn from different companies the tricks of the trade, the intricacies of the gaming world and the pleasures and pitfalls, blitz games and media molecule take us through some of their work… and I survey my Savvy team and realise I am the only member without a Playstation (shameful truth laid bare!) –  in this building probably, so tonight it is to be Christmas and Little Big Planet is moving in.  My 7 year old leaps for joy and promptly teaches an old hand new tricks.  And I am excited at the possibilities beyond the titles that are held within this Pandoras box.

The hi-light “defining the X statement” was a really useful pitch – a gaming shaped log line and elevator pitch exercise that has proved absolutely vital in defining our product.  more useful stuff to take away

All the companies  eagerly await the session from Staff at Playstation and are disappointed to find that Enda’s summing up probably gives us more direction and insider information, but we leave with a burning desire to get in the game when 14 (or is it more?) companies become the winning 5

Where to start?! We never assumed making a game would be easy, in fact we always thought it would be very difficult, but we never really saw the problems we encountered coming (exporting, temperamental software, late nights etc etc, it hurts thinking about it). However, despite our tenatative start we are now at full steam and very excited about the game we hope to produce thanks to our dedicated and imaginative in-house team and a very helpful programmer!

We have spent a lot of time on the design of the prototype, with the main emphasis on the gameplay and how to make it fun! We decided from day one that if we ourselves wouldnt want to play the game, then why bother? We always find that enjoyment in our work poduces the best results and to deliver the strongest game we could this was essential!

One area we found required most development was the control system. Despite our concept being quite straight forward the control shave always been a sticking point. They are quite complex, but we recognised that they also need to be fluid and easy to pick up. After several drafts and advice from some external sources we feel we have finally nailed it, until the next tests that is!

When we started this project our aim was to produce the game using Phre Engine, something that at first seemed a great idea but we had many many issues, mainly with exporting and once we got past one hurdle another appeared in its place. Because of this and because of our time constraints we decided to make the switch to Unity and speaking as one of the artists I could not have been happier, much easier:).

As I said, the project is now going from strength to strength and we as a team are really enjoying ourselves. Fingers crossed we can deliver the prototype we hope too.

Chris, Milky Tea

Dave Crook

Co-founder & Art Director. Pixinworks

Hi all, am posting a few thoughts and observations.

My little gang of industry veteran reprobates and I,  are in the process of building a development team here in Liverpool. With the aim of enriching that core team with additional experienced and new talent alike.

There is a lot of talent and opportunity here on our modest little island. And with the excellent support of North West Vision & Media and Pixel Lab, to help nurture the seeds of our various endeavours, we are heading into a rebirth of the small developer as an important element in the growth of digital games development.

The Get In The Game initiative 2009, is an excellent step towards that success.

October workshops & Sony presentation – A very useful set of workshops.

Always good to brush up on existing skills and learn new approaches. Been in Games Development for over 17 years and never stop learning. Always something new to pick up on.

The Agile Development workshop – Very interesting, in that it keeps you up to date on how the process has evolved. Youre able to discuss with other Developers various peaks and pitfalls in a general sense. And a reminder of some of the exercises that can readily illustrate to your own teams the benefits of a healthy process.

The Pitching workshop – Well what can I say … seeing yourself on screen … not a pretty sight. Joking aside, the workshop is an very good thing to do. You have an objective and creative environment within which to try out approaches, and see how others tackle a pitch.

The Sony presentation – Always good to get observations from a major publisher. Lets you see where theyre coming from and what drives their decision making process.

Initial pitch day – 20 minute slot, which we hit (phew) … seems like a long time, but don’t be fooled, it goes quickly. You have to stay focussed, if you run over too far you risk losing your audience. On reflection we had our point across at about 12 minutes. Food for thought when tackling the big pitch in March.

Intial pitch day + 1 – Gathered the troops to go over where we’re at and where we want to be. (Build on that core focus). Waiting for the decision in December … tick tock … tick tock

Team was elated when we got the good news of being accepted for the GITG commission. Week before Christmas, consolidating existing material & feedback.

The 10k commission gives us a certain amount of breathing space mentally as well as on a day to day basis.

Christmas period – Pace yourself … Time off to decompress, step back. Important to give a clearer view of how to tackle the next stage. Sometimes you need to stand still, however pervading the sense of urgency. To be honest, as anyone reading this will know, you never stop thinking about what youre doing. It’s a creative process, we never truly switch off. We can only ever dial it down.

Post festivities - Started back in on pitch production schedule

3 months – 10k – small team. ‘Its all about getting the point across ..’

We had decided on an x-movie. A mock-up of visual style  and gameplay (In the same way a movie would approach a ‘sting’ ‘teaser’ or ‘full trailer’)

Form follows function – The function of the pitch, is to get a feel for the game across in the strongest and most succinct way …. So the best form in our experience, is a mock-up

Ask yourself … What is the seed … the essence of your game … the very core of ‘what you do’ …. Figuring out your hook, to differentiate you from other products.

The quicker you draw in your audience, the better.

Experience has shown that the x-movie is the best way to get your point across in a timely fashion. A playable game level prototype is what you tackle when youre ‘green lit’. That not to say it should be discounted … If your team already has such a thing in the works then it all adds to the pot.

In addition, what I have observed over time, is that a small team helps you to focus on what is essential for the core concept and not stray into areas that lead away from the core concept … the thing that will get your overall point across. (Yes you have to speculate to accumulate, but its good to have a process in place that allows you to form and discard potential ideas in a timely fashion, without incurring too high a cost)

The X-Statement is very useful in the early stages to help get this across and keep the team focussed.

So the lions share of the work for us, is on the x-movie. With the coders looking at potential ‘off the shelf’ tech alongside our own core tech aims. In parallel with this the game designer fleshing out the game structure. Its important to remember, each area feeds off the other, gameplay can help develop visual content, which can help develop core tech and visa versa * …

On the grown-up side of things, working up the budgets for pre-production and production.

* In the early pitch brainstorming stages (scribble talk scribble talk) its better to have more content and be able to trim it back, but you have to balance the production of these elements with a weather eye on the timeframe/overhead investment.

Don’t forget the Iterative Process – Step back regularly to make sure youre on track, or how much benefit a divergence would gain you … review … and move forward.

Midway point - Update meeting with Commissioners/exec producer. Excellent feedback.

We’re halfway now, all looking good …

.

Hello everyone. First and foremost, apologies for the distinct lack of updates from the Grant Midwinter camp since we got the good news. While I’d like to say that we’ve been on a 2 month celebratory bender, the reality has been far less glamorous.

We approached the pitch with some fairly grand ideas for Rough Diamond, and putting together a gameplay mechanism that will do justice to our vision has been our main consideration since getting the green light from the powers-that-be.

This is our first stab at a game of this scale, and I’m glad we didn’t make any assumptions about how straightforward building a game from the ground-up actually would be!

Perhaps an analogy will help to explain what making a basic game engine entails: Imagine yourself at home with friends, when someone has the grand idea of playing a board game. Great! Except that, after searching high and low, you can’t find one anywhere. ‘Nevermind,’ you think, ‘We’ll just make one up’.

As a group, you cast your minds back to every positive gameplay experience you’ve ever had, lifting out the best mechanisms from each individual title; part X from Monopoly, component Y from Connect 4 etc. You cobble together your hybrid and begin playing, stopping frequently to change certain rules and reaffirm others. Finally, after many false starts, you complete an entire game.

It probably won’t be of much surprise to you to learn that this first playthrough will NOT be fun. On top of that, the considerations that you make while playing will potentially be completely different to those that you originally set out to achieve. In short – this is not the game you set out to create.

So you sit back and consider what you can hone, tweak or cut loose before giving it another go. Maybe you’ll be lucky and strike gold with this version. We didn’t.

During the development process, which is still far from over, we have toyed with, and eventually abandoned, around six very different gameplay mechanics – before finally, hopefully, cracking it with our seventh. At some point or other, each one one of the previous six incarnations had felt like ‘the one’ – and it can be heartbreaking when you realise that the idea you pinned such great hopes on crumbles at the seams when given ruthless testing.

If this design process has taught me anything, it’s to not be precious. Gameplay is absolutely paramount, and we have a huge graveyard of discarded Post-it notes, home made currency and hand-drawn boards on the office floor that prove that we’ve paid our dues in this respect!

As gutting as discarding one of your ‘babies’ is, being willing to hack off any dead limbs has been a vital part of Rough Diamond’s development thus far, and every step has brought us closer to the game we always set out to make – with gameplay at its absolute heart.

Much love

Jim

Day 2 of Training and it is pitch practice day.  Having been pitching and won many commissions with the BBC,  this is an easy day for me and I wonder what I’ll get out of it.  I also sadistically love public speaking so no sweat there too, but Marcus – the head of all things technological at Savvy is sweating gently at my side.  So the camera comes out and there’s a big screen view of our attempts – and even I feel nervous, but it is excellent training from a journalistic  bent and we all learn loads and improve hugely.

The great surprise to us at Savvy – was that,  I, having always pitched solo and always taken on that public facing role, Marcus and I did really well when asked to pitch as a team – adopting different roles (we are very different) and personas to illustrate the pitch “Sell me a favourite game” (Monopoly)  and we realise that this might be a way forward…… for the company.  If we don’t get through the next stage – then this made 3 days away from the offices absolutely worth it!! When else would we get this kind of an opportunity.  Surprising place to learn something that will change our working practices as a company way beyond any future work with Sony Playstation….  And for once, the alien company in this exciting mix of gaming world inhabitants starts to feel very much at home… Bring it on