Welcome to your weekly snapshot of the most interesting games and play experiences I’m exploring, from video games to escape rooms to anything in between.
Top story: London Games Festival
London Games Festival goes from strength to strength. I attended many events across the week including Screen Play, which looks at how film and games intertwine and New Game Plus which highlighted lots of exciting games on the horizon.
A highlight for me was the Strange Play Showcase at Theatre Deli, which was filled with indie experimental stuff. As someone who likes to make small, weird things (that often never go public) it was particularly inspiring.
I also attended the “Self Publishing Toolkit Live Sessions” which had some great insights that I’ll be passing on to my consultancy clients.
Great work to the Games.London team!
This week
Government announces £30 million boost for UK games. London Games Festival secures future funding, as well as new grants available for aspiring developers. Love to see it!
What caught my eye: Imprinted is a detective game where you play entirely inside their fictional computer operating system. It looked really cool at LGF, and resonated with the sort of work and ideas we’ve had at The Detective Society over the years.
Will it be good? At the time of writing, I am eagerly watching out for Peter Molyneux’s new game - Masters of Albion - launching into early access. In my eyes, Molyneux is a legendary figure responsible for launching entire genres with classics such as Theme Park, Theme Hospital and Black and White. Although he is criticised over the years for over-hyping his games, hence me watching closely to see how this new one does.
More Detective work: Another game that was showcased at London Games Festival was revealed by Scriptic. The game seems to take place on your mobile phone, where you interact with crime scenes in a sort of immersive real-life way. It uses real video and stars Ralph Ineson. We got treated to a trailer, which doesn’t seem to have made its way online yet. One to keep an eye on!
This got me thinking: One surprise from the Strange Play Showcase was a tiny game called Advisor: Elderly Paradigm. It takes around 10-minutes to play and got me fully immersed. Tip: wear headphones and play it in one go. I don’t want to spoil what it’s about, but I will say that it asked some hard-hitting questions of me. This one comes with a content warning because it contains themes of death, suicide and assisted dying.
These are just a few snippets from the tumultuous melting-pot of London Games Festival. If you didn’t get to anything, I highly recommend it for next year.