Technically Games Schedule

Lightning Talks

Keynote

Art

Security

Programming

Other

How to Champion the Narrative together

Anniemay Parker

Narrative Designers worldwide work hard to champion the narrative of their latest project. But how do they do so? Communication! That's how! This talk aims to provide questions Narrative Designers can ask themselves and their team to leave meetings with clear goals and even clearer design documentation

Faster than ECS in C# & Unity

Dan Violet Sagmiller

A VERY QUICK explanation of how to get faster performance in Unity than DOTS can get and why DOTS works. - I will not be able to explain clearly about how it all works but will give you the bare minimum needed to know why and how

Await Async Adventures: Applications of asynchronous programming

Jay Wingate

Asynchronous programming is a nifty tool to have on your belt. Here's a 5 minute crash course into some interesting applications and a few considerations to have when working with the flow of time in Unity

Test Driven Development for the games industry

George Adcock

A brief introduction into TDD. With real life examples of how some of these principles can be used and addressing some of the hesitation by the games industry

What Not to Do While Making Games

Sammy Sen

When making games, avoid trying to do everything yourself to prevent burnout and ensure high-quality work. Don’t skimp on art and sound, as they are crucial for player engagement. Always listen to player feedback and keep mechanics simple to avoid confusion. Optimize performance for smooth gameplay and don’t rush to publish—thorough testing is essential. Effective marketing is key to building awareness and community. Lastly, maintain a clear vision to keep your game focused and appealing

User Interface: A Cinematic Perspective

Shaun Yue

Games and films share an overlapping space in creating immersive fictional worlds. There is constant interplay between the two mediums both in creative techniques and narrative content. This presentation will focus on the specialised process of designing UI for feature films. It will highlight the differences in methodology between game development and film-making, but also highlight how this unique process might inspire a novel approach to designing game UI

Comedy through Controlled Randomisation

dweedes

In the context of videogame text and dialogue, a controlled randomisation system generated infinitely better with more hilarious results (and is more fun to work with) than anything AI-generated

Learn to write branching, interactive narratives with Yarn Spinner in 5 minutes

Paris Buttfield-Addison

In 5 minutes, I will teach you everything you need to write branching, interactive narratives using the free an open source tool, Yarn Spinner (which we wrote for our game, Night in the Woods). You can turn these narratives into anything from a game, to a simple HTML-based story, to a printable choose-your-path book. It's fun, free, and easy!

Implementation IS Sound Design

Max Kearney

Technical implementation of sound effects and music for games is often thought of as a separate process to the asset creation stage. However, using implementation software like FMOD and WWise as part of the sound design process can open up many new options and ways of interpreting assets and source. This talk will showcase some ways to merge these two halves to create a more integrated and holistic pipeline for game audio

The communistic approach to working as a solo developer

Ben Naulls

Are you a solo programmer who wishes that their boring grey blocks would look less like boring grey blocks? Are you a solo artists that dreams that their doodles would move on screen by themselves? Stay tuned to find out how YOU can use this revolutionary technique to fill in the missing elements in your games! ... AND MORE!

Haptic Holograms

Ben Koder

Have you ever been to IMAX as a kid and reached out to touch that glass logo that rotates in front of your face before the movie starts, only to be disappointed when nothing happens? No? Just me? Well fine, I made it happen anyway! In my lightning talk I’ll be teaching you about a hodge-podge of prohibitively expensive frontier technology I had the joy of wiring together to make what IMAX can’t; Holograms. you. can. FEEL!

Using Digital Tools for Rapid Prototyping in Tabletop Game Development

Jackson Heenan

In 2020, as tabletop gamers adopted digital tools in a shift towards online play, in-person development on Armello: The Board Game also had to make a huge pivot. Using Tabletop Simulator, nanDECK, and Google Sheets, King of the Castle Games spun up a zero-budget process for rapid prototyping and iterating on a game with over 450 cards, 136 map hexes, and tens of thousands of eager fans. The process was so quick, cards could be generated and playable in under five minutes. So, pull out your phone if you’d like to submit some card data to a live virtual tabletop

Lightning Waiting List!

You

We're full up on speakers but our waiting list is still open - we'll get through as much as the waiting list as we can and if we don't get to you we'll give you a chance to present online and be included when we publish talks online!