Hull at alt.ctrl.gdc

Game Developers Conference, or GDC, is probably the biggest gathering of game developers in the world. I've been lucky enough to go a couple of times and it is a fantastic conference. 

One of the attractions of the conference is the side-exhibitions that they organise. One is called alt.ctrl.gdc and it is a showcase for wacky game controllers and games with novel gameplay. 

It just so happens that a couple of years ago I was part of the Spooky Elephant - Beard Bandit team taking part in Global GameJam and we created a novel game with wacky game controllers. As you do.

I've not got particularly fond memories of the actual competition to be honest. I was the single point of failure who's dodgy hardware design caused the project to falter. However, we did win an award for Most Ambitious Failure. 

But we are not ones to give up. Simon and Jon continued to work on the software and I did some modifications to the hardware, ending up with a working configurable joystick and a game to go with it.

The great news is that last year Simon submitted the game and the joystick to the GDC organisers and the game has been selected for showcasing at GDC 2016. This of course means that someone from Hull has the chore of going to San Francisco and showing it off, but Jon has manfully stepped up to the mark and will be taking the hardware and the game to show off. You can find out a bit more about the game here.