This year I went to Pocket Gamer in London. It was a great opportunity to see what kinds of games were on show, as well as to meet people from the industry. I had a lot of fun seeing the variety of different games being shown, as well as listening to a few talks by industry professionals.
The first thing I always do at any convention is look around. I found a lot of amazing looking games, and I even had a good at playing one of them. The one I played for a little while was 'Tangle Tower' by SFB Games, which is on the Nintendo Switch. It was a mystery game, where Detective Grimoire and his partner Sally are hired to investigate the murder of a painter called Freya Fellow. The game had a lot of fun mechanics, like moving to different rooms by dragging a slider, and even mixing and matching a statement to find the truth.
Sadly, I didn't get to play much of this game, as there was a talk on about Video Games art. Listening to it was really interesting, as it was about how to make a design readable and interesting to look at. This included everything from colour theory (about how different colours can help each other stand out) and even how to lay out a game effectively. It also taught me to take the layout of a game into consideration when design a character's colour pallet.
The next talk I originally wasn't going to stay for, but my curiosity took over. It was about adult games, and how the market is vaster than it's given credit for. Although I have no interesting in adult games, it was interesting to hear how some companies have turned games around and made millions off them.
The final talk I listened to was about how developers and publishers should have good relationships with each other, and how to achieve this. I found it interesting to hear about how to maintain a good relationship on both sides, which is important when creating a game. This actually helped a lot when I was learning the industry pipeline and all the jobs within a games' development.
Pocket Gamer was an amazing event full of a variety of games and companies. I was a great chance for me to see what kind of games are being created, what kind of jobs are available, and also to see so many people from the industry in one place.
My favourite part of Pocket Gamer will always be the variety of games being displayed, and I hope to go to more conventions like it in the future to keep undated on trends.