Reporting live from Casuality 2008 in Amsterdam

Hi All, I'm at the Casuality conference at the moment (on their free Wifi). I flew over from Exeter in about 1.5 hours so that was good.

Today I've sat through some interesting presentations on the important of character and story in games, funware (e.g. facebook is actually a game), how to reach the other 80% of gamers, and how Dream Chronicles was developed. I also got a free vegetarian lunch at the Big Fish Games presentation about how they run their business.

The presentations were pretty good and I've met some interesting people like the designer of the Virtual Villagers games and the designers of The Scruffs amongst others. People seem know know about Fairway Solitaire and are complimentary which is nice. It's also been good to meet lots of the BFG people who I've only communicated with by email.

Later I'm going to a party at a Tapas bar and staying at a friend who lives here.

Anyway, if you are serious about casual game development it's probably worth thinking about going sometime.

See you later...

[edit]OK, I went to post this earlier but the wifi failed or something! So anyway, been to the BFG party and met the designer/programmer of Master of Defense along with some other nice people and then managed to get a tram back to my friend's house (wasn't easy as I'm a tram noob)

How much free food is there?

well last night I had a free meal (salad+pizza+drinks) at an Italian restaurant. Then today I had a free lunch at the BFG presentation, then after the conference I had a free tapas meal (all sorts of food) and free bar at the BFG Party. There was also a Real and MSN party on after that but I didn't go. Tomorrow there's another free party but I'll hang out with my friend instead. (I'm on his wireless now, I'm glad I took my Macbook Pro, nice and light and just plain cool).

You in Amsterdam? cool. Don't do anything I wouldn't do ;-D

So I assume that's nothing right? as in don't do nothing ;-)

The first taxi driver I got (who I'm sure drove me round in circles a bit) tried to sell me some coke within about 2 minutes...

I hope they hung you up and beat you for the sins against gaming you've created.

True. Some sort of spanking is in order, but what do you suggest be done about him flooding these forums with 14105 <- !!!!!! posts? I know it sounds unbelivable but see here

I prefer Fanta.

Also some people wanted to go to a coffee shop but I said I don't do caffeine.

Ok so first up today is a talk about Hints in games (and if you really need them), the a sound workshop, then a talk on letting the player win, one on Korean localisation and another on international portals. I might leave early though and go to a museum or something...

ROFL ;)

Sounds like an awesome event! I'll have to make some more games and get my rear end over there next year. :)

> I might leave early though and go to a museum or something...

Why, is it boring?

The last two lectures are about international markets, and even though I *should* listen to them, I don't feel like it.

So I just got a sneak peak of Azada 2, it's going to be excellent!

Next year it's going to be in Hamburg, so maybe not as much fun, who knows...There's also one in Seattle in July (but I've booked a family holiday the same week) and one in Kiev in October.

Wonder why they don't have one in UK...

That woudl be good, I might see about going to some shows int he UK soon, any good one's coming up people know about?

I don't think the UK has any. :/

I mentioned to a few people about doing one in London and htey thought it would be cool, but it's not on the agenda right now.

SAND had an games day with talks and stuff

who is "SAND"?

Anyway day 3, There's a couple of interesting talks today such as Passion vs Profit by Reflexive, and then I'll be flying back. It looks like today is a bit slower so far...

passion vs profit, hmmm, wonder which was EA would swing on that?

oh, while you're there, do you mind finding the people who make all those "find the hidden objects" games and break their legs for me? They're so boring and overdone now it's just not funny anymore, check out the top bigfish 100, there are far too many similar games in there.

They'll keep getting made for as long as people are willing to pay for 'em.

> who is "SAND"?

Gotta be this: http://www.sand.org.uk/

andy_mc: GfK has it correct. I'm not making one (at the moment if that's any consolation to you.

I met the guy from Sandlot who made Cake Mania today and the guy who made the new Monster Mash Tower defense game (both Russians) and we had lunch in a nice cafe (I had a pancake with raisins and a hot chocolate, like a big kid ;-))

The first lecture was the designer of Peggle talking about how the made Peggle "extreme" and got it on Steam and how it did REALLY well. Also the Reflexive talk about pasion vs profit was great, and I got some neat photos of this chart which showed which of their games made money and which didn't (yes even the big companies make losses, they just keep on trying and as long as the majority make money, they stay in business)