Just written about this for the Guardian, but let’s put it on Hookshot too, for heaven’s sake. Best of British is a collective of small UK game studios who meet once a month to gossip and compare development notes. It’s partly about trying to raise the profile of indie games creation in Britain, but a big part of it is providing networking possibilities for lone coders who work from home and don’t get to see other industry lurkers that often.
“I joined Best of British simply because I knew many of those involved and they were all really great people,” says Moo Yu, who works at Mind Candy during the day, but codes his own indie projects in the evenings. “I thought that a group of highly talented people meeting periodically and chatting about what they’re doing and how they can help each other out couldn’t be a bad thing”.
This weekend, the organisation is running a 48-hour game jam in the Mind Candy offices. The idea behind Bobhack (on Twitter you can follow the #bobhack tag for updates) is for each studio to contribute two or three mini games to a Warioware-style collection, hacking them together and then getting the complete thing out on iOS devices within a fortnight. The theme is ‘summer sport’, so we’re hoping for lots of International Track and Field style antics. “I’ve done 48-hour game jams before, and they’re great fun,” says co-organiser Alistair Aitcheson (pictured above), creator of iOS title, Greedy Bankers. “What sets this one apart is that we’re all working towards the same goal, rather than competing, so it feels like a big adventure! I’m looking after the back-end framework, so there’s a certain amount of responsibility on my part. I really want this to be an awesome showcase of our talents in one pocket-sized package, so I’m doing my bit to make sure the whole project fits together smoothly and is ready to impress!”
You can follow the weekend via comments and photos sent to Bob’s Facebook page. What can we expect to witness in these regular reports from the two-day event? According to Spilt Milk Studio’s Andrew Smith, it’ll be the sight of a dozen coders, “getting stuck into some worry-free hardcore speed-freak pizza-powered beer-fuelled game making!” Okay, you may want to be careful when checking that out on Facebook.
