BAF

The Bradford Animation Festival was a rather interesting experience despite being slightly irrelevant. Why? Because pretty much all of it was focused around the gaming industry, an industry that right now doesn't appeal to me. Paradoxically though, as a result of the Animation festival, I addressed my then nebulas thoughts on what games could be and I rethought my whole stance on the gaming industry and thus came up with a hypothetical reason as to why the gaming industry could appeal to me one day! Now seeing as these new thoughts are fully discussed in an earlier post entitled "I'm not a gamer anymore but I've only now realised now how genius they are" I won't digress. I will however go further into what prompted this epiphany and in doing so discuss what really stuck out for me at BAF.

The day kicked off with Amanita Design talking about Machinarium their latest creation. This point and click adventure had already picked up an award for best visual art at this years independent game festival. Upon hearing this my ears were already pricked! The game involves the guiding of a rather cute robot through a fantasy world of scrap metal mountains and weirdly quaint industrial landscapes. The game is in effect a rather endearing interactive cartoon. What really caught my attention though was the soundtrack. It was composed by the Czech musician Floex, who used a variety of different sounds and effects to create a highly atmospheric patchwork of sounds. The attention to detail with the soundtrack and the careful artistic approach taken with the design made me again consider my thoughts on what games could be; a work of enlightening and uplifting art rather than another mindless addiction.

The other speaker that really stood out in my book was Ian Livingstone O.B.E. As the the co founder of Dungeons and Dragons, Games Workshop and key member of Eidos interactive (responsible for the landmark game, Tomb Raider) it is certainly safe to say that this man was probably one of the most experienced members of the gaming industry around. He communicated two very valid points to me. Firstly he catalyzed my undecided thoughts on how computer games could appeal people other than nerdy teens and antisocial adults. Simply by listening to such an interesting and educated speaker who was obviously very into his games one began to realize that all sorts of people could be gamers. Then when he came out with facts such as 25% of gamers are in fact girls and theories declaring that computer games were the only entertainment medium that almost by definition got more entertaining due to technology I again realized how games could easily be so much more than what they are now and more importantly so much more creative and artistic.