So it’s late summer 2009 and there’s an advert on the NWVM site which Savvy decide to pitch to develop a Sony Playstation project… And yet we are a company that developed from broadcast narrative through creation of a digital toolkit towards cross platform narratives – online on mobile, radio, TV. So why does gaming appeal? Well, Savvy’s main aim is to put its audiences at the heart of the drama – with interactive experiences that engage and entertain… and, well, the gaming industry has been getting this right for rather a long time. They also have an audience who expect and are willing to pay for content and who are creating key online communities, and as 6% of the bbc iplayer traffic comes through the PS3, the boundaries are definitely blurring and we like blurry. What’s not to like? I think there’s a lot to compliment our current work and interactive dramas and narrative games are closer than the terminology would seem to suggest. So we applied…..

Five teams have now been selected to receive £10K in development money from Northwest Vision and Media and Screen Yorkshire. These companies will spend the next few months pulling out all of the stops to get their game concept to the next level, ready to pitch again to Sony in March 2010…

Of 12 companies that got through to the intial pitching stage, 4 North West companies and one company from Leeds were selected. These are (in no particular order) Milky Tea (Liverpool); Savvy Productions (Manchester); Connect2Media (Manchester) Pixinworks (Liverpool) and Grantmidwinter (Leeds).

Sony, Northwest Vision and Media, Pixel-Lab and Screen Yorkshire were all blown away by the quality of these ideas, and can’t wait to see them grow.

All companies involved will be encouraged to blog on the site, so watch this space!

Northwest Vision and Media will be holding a session on narrative in videogames on the 28th of October in Manchester. Here are the details:

As we move into true episodic games and digital distribution this session will explore the importance of narrative in videogames. Matt Costello, whose best-selling and award-winning work across all media has meshed game play, technology and story, will lead an engaging and thought provoking discussion around how and why narrative can be used to sell games in a digital age. For more information about the event please click here: http://www.visionandmedia.co.uk/page/the-importance-of-narrative-in-games

Following this Visionary Session Northwest Vision and Media are also going to be hosting a workshop on structuring scriptwriting for videogames, run by scriptwriting agency International Hobo. For more information about this course, which will take place on 12th November, please contact Amalie Roberts (amalier [at] visionandmedia [dot] co [dot] uk).

This is the second Get In The Game scheme I’ve been involved in…but my first Get In The Game launch event. FACT, Liverpool was a great venue, I thought, and what with the enormous cinema-sized screen and the presentations being run off a PS3 it allowed time for some super-sized game playing silliness before the event kicked off…

After Enda’s introduction we heard from Clemens Wangerin, SCEE, who gave an entertaining and informed presentation on what Sony are looking for out of this project, especially interesting were the hints dropped about where Sony are aiming to take the PS3 through new platforms and its new PSP Mini store…

I hope that the event got people’s creative juices flowing. We’ve already seen the applications start to come in. Sony have already seen and been blown away by the quality of the ideas generated last time around, so here’s hoping we can do that again. Remember to adapt your idea to what Sony are looking for, and you could be making the game for real! The deadline for submitting your ideas is 2pm Friday 25th September… get applying!

Enda Carey opened the night, speaking on how the programme will run:

Here are Clemens slides, detailing a lot more about what Sony are looking for:

We launched Get In The Game 2 at FACT in Liverpool on Tuesday night, with about 40 people from Northwest companies in attendance. A few photos are up on Flickr.

Enda Carey from Northwest Vision and Media, and Clemens Wangerin from SCEE took people through the project, talking about the process for GITG and what Sony are really looking for to go on PSN. Clemens also showed videos of some games currently in development for PSN, which we’ll be posting along with the slides soon.

The presentations all ran relatively smoothly from a PS3; we’re actually quite impressed that one can be used for showing slides and video, as it gives the proceedings quite an informal and friendly feel. Kind of like showing your friends cool stuff online, instead of being the speaker with powerpoint.

If you want to apply for GITG, you can do so directly via Eventbrite here, or if you’re more comfortable with a word document, you can download this one and either email it to amalier [at] visionandmedia [dot] co [dot] uk, or print and post to Amalie Roberts, Northwest Vision and Media,BBC Building, Room LG45, Oxford Road, Manchester M60 1SJ.

The deadline for applications is 14:00 on Friday, September 25th.

Get in the Game gave us a unique opportunity to step away from contract work for a while and focus on our game proposal. Over the months we have really defined the project from a design and production point of view. We used the time to go away and concept an area of our game and produce artwork for this segment. After our final production meeting it was suggested we focus our efforts on our pitch and the accompanying PowerPoint for the final weeks of ‘pre-production’ and we were keen to act on this advice. We got some great one to one quality time with Matt Southern to help us sort the PowerPoint. 100s of slides and two ripomatics later we were ready to go.

Stepping in at the 11th hour, as I rested in my sick bed, Steve – Citrus Suite’s own Super Mario (a bit inappropriate considering the pitch was to Sony) – did the presentation and as the icing on the cake we showed a simple demo illustrating gameplay on the target hardware. Seeing that Sony are still talking to us I guess Steve stuck to the script!

It’s been great to be part of this process and I’m sure Get in the Game will go from strength to strength. Thanks for inviting us along.

Chris Morland

Well the final presentation to SCEE and the GITG panel was given on Wednesday 22th and luckily, due to an afternoon appointment, Catalyst were able to go first. I had rehearsed the presentation several times and had decided to do the whole presentation on the PS3. This enabled me to show the slides, images and the ripomatic movie all on a HUGE HD screen and controlled using the PS3 pad. My script was prepared and printed and ready to go. I know the argument of should you read from a script to present or memorise your presentation will always rage but through numerous presentations I feel more comfortable with my script printed in front of me. I’ve seen too many speakers lose it during presentations and stage fright and winging it are no way of providing confidence. The mocked up PS3 screen shots worked well and the ‘photo gameplay talkthrough’ did exactly what it needed to do. The feedback from the panel was positive and also provided some new areas of consideration. Overall I was pleased with the final presentation and hoped the panel thought it was polished and professional. Besides the nerves that are always there for these type of presentations, I really enjoyed it and felt happy that I had conveyed what we want to do with our game. The project as a whole has been enlightening and it has been great to see things from the other side of the fence and being able to explain something simply is actually harder than you think. It doesn’t matter how many time you do something, you can always learn more and improve.

I appreciate that I haven’t mentioned the name, type or style of game I’ve been working on and this might frustrate some readers, as my comments without being put into context may appear very vague and pointless. However IP protection is something I feel strongly about and without signed publishing agreements, it’s really the only thing a developer has.

Now it’s just a case of watching my inbox to see what the final decision on moving forward will be…..

Cheers,

Ivan

The final Pitch to the Sony executives happened last week. We had achieved everything we wanted to and I had practiced the pitch many times to ensure the key points would be covered. I also ensured I incorporated the feedback from the previous meetings.

I made sure I left early to avoid possible delays on the M62. Luckily I was OK and had time to have a tea at McDonalds close to the Sony offices.

The plan was to show the powerpoint presentation which includes a video file. This part should all work fine. The game itself had developed a long loading delay due to all the new artwork we had added in. So we devised a way for me to load the game and leave it in the background until needed, I would then press a key and it would play the game. I knew from a previous meeting that my laptop worked on the big Sony screen. When I went into the room I discovered they had an even bigger and newer screen and typically my laptop refused to work with it! We eventually used the original screen but then my laptop forced itself to change modes and so my mid presentation video did not play and I had to come back to windows and run it through media player. Then the game crashed and had to be re-run due to the mode changing. Even with all these issues I was able to stay on message and deliver my pitch. The game seemed to be well received and now we wait to see if Sony wants to move ahead with us on the title.

The key insight I have leant through this whole process is that my team and I have to own the game idea, concept and plan for making it happen. It’s no good hoping someone else has the answers for you. The various meetings helped identify areas we had not defined and resulted in a crystal clear plan for the game.

• My advice to others would be;
• Understand the technology you’ll be coding for.
• Know your target market and define why your game will stand out and be different.
• Work with people who can create great results, both visually and coding wise.
• Create a buzz within the team about the game and get everyone singing from the same song sheet (with the aid of an X Statement).
• Don’t be afraid to change things. If areas need to be improved, removed or added, then do it.
• Get plenty of feedback. Not just at the meetings but from other game players and friends.
• Do your best to clarify the end vision for the game, visually, audibly and if possible with a simple game play prototype.
• Spend your budget wisely. Until your game is green lighted and given full funding it’s best to spend with caution. We used freelancers for the artwork, so when they were done on these jobs we did not have to keep paying them.

We’ve enjoyed the whole process, it’s been exciting to be involved. Finger crossed now for Carnage!

Rick Vanner

Financial Director

The Game Creators Ltd

First Person Surgery  – It’s a matter of life and death.

There’s been a lot of bloodied action in Onteca’s ‘This is Surgery’ operating theatre over the last few weeks. We’re now all quietly confident that we could successfully undertake a coronary bypass op’ (off pump obviously – so you can see the heart beat) with possibly a small tonsillectomy thrown in for good measure.

Since our practice pitch, we’ve been working on Player journey experience from Newb House Trainee to potential Lead Consultant, developing artwork and watching numerous research YouTube surgery vids in our lunch hour.

We recommend : http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-6218906821548692571&hl=en for the non squeamish amongst the ‘Get in the Game’ companies.

We’ve now got a ‘This is Surgery’ Lead Consultant Surgeon to mentor Player progress

and a Super Surgeon to make career progression just that little bit more painful.