AdventureX 2023
The other weekend I went down to London for AdventureX 2023. The last one I went to was, I think, 2019 and was super impressed with how the conference has grown since then. The organisation was terrific and the general vibe was electric. All in all it was further validation that the adventure scene is not just alive and well but, importantly, is set to continue its steady rebirth and discovery by new audiences.
My task was to appear on Seoirse Dunbar’s panel (along with Dave Gilbert, Charlotte Sutherland and Tom Hardwidge) to discuss the small matter of surviving as a solo developer. These things always sound easy until you’re sat in-front of what turned out to be quite a sizeable crowd! I’m pleased to report it went pretty well and the feedback afterwards was good.
Charles Cecil also did a talk regarding their new Broken Sword Reforged project which was masterclass on how to do these things. He made the point that people new to the genre don’t always understand how the classic Point and Click UI actually works. It’s a fair point. I’m sure the talk is up on YouTube by now and well worth a watch… (as are the others).
Speaking of Point and Click, Charles and I arrived late (and snuck into the back of the lecture hall) to watch Francisco González’s super interesting talk which, amongst other things, looked at the history and evolution of Point and Click itself. A little way into this up popped a slide showing Beneath a Steel Sky and we were credited with being the first such game to feature the ‘Two Click’ interface. Charles and I looked at each other. Both of us remember the meeting, back in the early 1990’s, here in Hull, where we all realised it was possible to reduce the interface to this simple form without actually losing anything. Before this, PnC games had retained the text adventure Verb-Noun parser system where you got to Open/Close/Push/Pull/Etc., whatever it was you wished to interact with. But there was no need as it was obvious that you wanted Open a closed door, or Pull a lever. It was a kind of eureka moment in retrospect. Crazy for us then, to sit in a lecture hall, decades later, and see a direct reference to this discussion.
This coming weekend, Charles and I will be down in the midlands to appear at Crash Live where the two of us will discuss our experiences back in the 8-Bit era; pre-Revolution. If you thought the early ‘90’s was a long time ago, then this is even further back in history! Given the euphoria of Crash Live’s sister show, ZZap! Live, back in August, this one should be very bit as good. No doubt it’ll be streamed :)