Develop:Five - Chris Parsons, Revelation Games

Every week, we ask some of the best game development minds five questions in a feature we are calling Develop:Five. This week, Chris Parsons of Revelation Games answers our five question blog feature.

1. What’s your earliest memory of playing video games?

My earlier memory is starting up my TRS-80 before breakfast, inserting the Donkey Kong cassette tape, having breakfast, getting dressed for school, and coming back to the computer when it had just finished loading. At that point I usually had 5 minutes to play before I had to leave for school! It was about 1983 I think.

2. What are you most excited or annoyed about in the games industry today?

The barrier to entry has never been lower, which is both a good and a bad thing. Whilst I’m delighted that the rise of the “free" engine has made it easy for people to make good games, it’s just as hard as ever to make a great game, and great games get missed amongst the sea of good ones, which is a shame.

3. Tell us about a life-changing or special moment you've had at Develop:Brighton in the past?

I’ve only been once, but really valued the camaraderie and humility of the UK indie dev scene - some great conversations and mutual support.

4.  What are you most looking forward to at Develop:Brighton 2017?

Meeting more developers like myself and sharing tips and stories!

5. Which game developer would you most like to meet and why?

Shigeru Miyamoto - a legend of design. I’d love to pick his brains about the essence of great game design and thank him for writing the first game I remember playing!

Chris Parsons makes deep, characterful and procedural games with friends. After beginning his career in AAA games 20 years ago, he built a software development company from scratch, before coming back to games in 2011. He released Sol Trader in 2016 and is the early stages of his next game: Ealdorlight.

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Find out more about Develop:Brighton and Mark's talk here

Develop:Five - Mark Sorrell, Rovio

Every week, we ask some of the best game development minds five questions in a feature we are calling Develop:Five. This week, Mark Sorrell from Rovio answers our five question blog feature.

1. What’s your earliest memory of playing video games?

Playing Superman on the Atari VCS when I was about four in 1980ish. It was the first game I played where you could walk off the side of the screen and it didn't loop or block you, there was actually another part of the world to explore. Which at the time was basically witchcraft.

2. What are you most excited or annoyed about in the games industry today?

I'm mostly excited about the incredible breadth of experiences and possibilities in the panoply of things that we call videogames and mostly annoyed about the lack of words to describe them. Having spent considerable time in Finland, Finnish has different words for playing a musical instrument, playing without explicit purpose, like a child does, or playing a competitive game, along with others. In English we have none of that subtlety, which leads to a lot of needless arguments and slows down the progress of the medium(s).

3. Tell us about a life-changing or special moment you've had at Develop:Brighton in the past? 

In truth, there is no one stand out moment. Develop has been more like a clock, parcelling out my time in the industry, allowing me to see how things have changed, how I've changed, how the industry has changed, and how it hasn't, catch up with old acquaintances and meet new ones. For me it's less an instrument of change and more a device to measure it.

4.  What are you most looking forward to at Develop:Brighton 2017?

I know you want me to say Tetsuya Mizuguchi but the real answer is the ten minutes directly after I've finished my talk. The buzz when you come off stage is _the_100_emoji_

5. Which game developer would you most like to meet and why?

I have no idea what his English is like because my Japanese is non-existent, but presuming we could actually communicate, Yasumi Matsuno, the game director of Final Fantasy 12, which for me is the most forward thinking and visionary game ever made. I want to know how he managed to believe in his vision so completely.

Mark Sorrell is Head of Studio at Rovio's London Studio, a new venture set-up to build mobile F2P MMO games. Over the last two years, Mark has helped Rovio complete the transition to a true F2P company, as Vice President, Product. This comes after a career spent making games for unusual platforms, customers and business models. 

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Find out more about Develop:Brighton and Mark's talk here

Develop:Five - Leanne Bayley, We Heart Dragons

Every week, we ask some of the best game development minds five questions in a feature we are calling Develop:Five. This week, Leanne Bayley from We Heart Dragons answers our five question blog feature.

1. What’s your earliest memory of playing video games?

I spent a lot of time as a kid watching my mom play games on a ZX Spectrum (that apparently only worked in thunder storms when I wanted a go!), but I think I got into games with either Alex Kidd or Sonic the Hedgehog on the SEGA Master System.  I honestly can't remember which I played first, but these were the two games that cemented gaming as a hobby for me.

2. What are you most excited or annoyed about in the games industry today?

It still really annoys me that mobile games are judged as not being 'real games' by so many people.  We all know not to judge a book by its cover yet so many people will dismiss a game because of the platform it's released on.

3. Tell us about a life-changing or special moment you've had at Develop:Brighton in the past?

Develop:Brighton 2015 was a pretty special year for me.  My team won the Develop Game Jam with our pebble themed game Tiny Golem and my soap box rant about why hiring parents is good for your studio won me a talk slot for the following year!

4.  What are you most looking forward to at Develop:Brighton 2017?

Catching up with and making new industry friends is always a highlight of Develop:Brighton!  This year I'm also looking forward to my talk on how we have done F2P with Glyph Quest Chronicles and showing off our newest project Space Krieg.

5. Which game developer would you most like to meet and why?

Hidetaka Miyazaki, because Dark Souls! 

Leanne Bayley is co founder of award winning micro indie games studio, We Heart Dragons.

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Find out more about Develop:Brighton here