I decide to take a break from my regular technology concerns and take a day off to visit indie games conference Feral Vector. The conference program was packed through the whole day with 20 minute talks (making it a little tricky to judge when to leave for things like lunch). The programming was really good and the shorter format made it feel more lively that other recent events I’ve been at like State of the Browser.

The venue was the Crypt on the Green aka the crypt of St.James in Clerkenwell, which is a pretty great venue and particularly in the summer has the advantage of having the church grounds/public park. In terms of layout though the talks were in the sideroom with the far larger room being given over the game demos. So the talks were packed all day while the main room always felt empty. A swap on the day might have worked a lot better. The small mezzanine used as a tea room also ended up feeling like a sauna.

In terms of the demos I liked the folk games tutorial of Turtle Wushu and I real liked Night in the Woods which felt like a platforming Slackers that was in the same cultural space as Gone Home. Hohokum was very weird, it definitely has that play feel but lacks enough feedback to make you feel like you’re actually interacting with the world.

I didn’t see all the talks so I’m going to talk about the ones that I liked. Standouts were Tim Hunkin on the arcade game booths he builds. The units are witty takes on conventional games of physical strength and dexterity. Adam Hay gave a great overview of how music and audio design has developed in videogames and was the closest that the event came to a technical talk. The explanations of the different synth chips versus sampled sound was interesting along with the way that sound design was initially a technical challenge due to hardware but then becomes a simulation challenge once hardware ceases to be a limit.

There were a few performance pieces (and quite a few journalists or writers in here): Christos Reid oscillated between confessional and an analysis of autobiographical games, making lots of good points but never really being clear about what any of it meant. Alice O’Conner mixed spoken word performance of mod readme files with her confession that she was losing interest in gaming and an awkward attempt to contextualise the readme file writers; the recital element was the strongest. Hannah Nicklin gave the strongest performance on the subject of how games break for her but the strength of the performance robbed the analysis of power as you ended up appreciating the delivery but feeling that the material lacked the depth and reflection it deserved. You felt that it was more about hitting a beat than exploring an idea. Near the end of the day James Parker did a puppet show Q&A that took a few easy pop shots but was also laugh out loud funny; his turn actually did the best job of marrying form and material.

Tammy Nicholls talked about world building and how it is valuable to both game depth and play as well as the commercial aspects of intellectual property but never really got into the details so I felt I was hearing half an argument. I often find that a good narrative and deep background carries you through some poor gameplay but perhaps it is undervalued in terms of game development.

Luke Whittaker talked about working on the game Lumino city and why for this game and previous game Lume the studio have focussed on physical materials translated into a game format. While the details of laser-cutting cardboard to make the city were fascinating I’m not sure really whether any meaningful justification for the approach was offered except the aesthetic which seems to be partly a nostalgia for a certain era of animation. However there’s no denying that the aesthetic is unique and its worth looking through the screenshots on the site.

There was also an interesting piece on combining art styles by SFB Games and collaborator Catherine Unger which again had a little bit of technical detail as to the issues and the solutions.

Finally there was a talk about physical puzzle rooms, a genre I don’t like even in digital format, but it did mention the interesting intersection between immersive, participative theatre and physical gaming. This was relatively new ground for me (although obviously people have raved about Secret Cinema). I was interested by the idea of things like 2.8 days later and the Heist. Not enough to want to participate yet but definitely more curious about the possibilities.

I think the talks were all recorded, although the room was often in darkness to make the projection work so I’m not sure how that worked out.