The Indie Games Room is an area inside of Adelaide’s AVCon reserved for showcasing independent games to AVCon attendees. I’ve been involved in showing games within IGR for the last three years, helped organise it in 2011 and am supporting this year’s organiser.
Expressions of Interest(EOI) for this years Indie Games Room(IGR) are now open and will be open till Friday 16th May at 5pm ACST. Given my involvement with IGR I’d encourage game developers to consider submitting an EOI for this years show. I think’s it’s a valuable experience and I want to provide a few reasons as to why this is the case.
It’s a deadline!
Festivals and shows act as great reasons to get stuff done. They provide you with a deadline to plan and work towards. Unlike any arbitrary deadline you may construct for your team an event actually has real world weight and importance. Failing to meet that deadline also has consequences beyond the disappointment of not meeting them.
Understanding your own game
The EOI process tends to take people longer than expected to complete. This is especially true this year as we’ve front loaded the EOI with details that would usually be asked for later. Running through this process is important as it helps you understand your own game. For example, when writing a short description of your game you will likely think about:
- What is the most succinct way to describe the game?
- What is the most important thing to highlight when describing the game?
- What makes my game interesting? How do I clearly articulate this?
- What other games are similair to my game?
- Is there a way for press to access the information I’m entering beyond contacting IGR?
By showing your game you will also see other interpretations of it, beyond helping you refine and improve your game these interpretations also help in strengthening your vision of what the game is and isn’t.
Meeting other developers
Talking to developers every year, many of them say that the best part of the room is meeting and networking with other developers. The number of games being shown at IGR is quite high and as such there is a large crowd of developers who are actively creating. In order to help facilitate networking we are intending on running a developer only event on either the Friday or Saturday night.
Motivation
Most people make games in order for them to be played. Seeing people play your game and be excited about it really helps in maintaining motivation after the event.
Other things
Beyond the points raised above there are other reasons to be apart of IGR. I’ve listed these below.
- Receive Press about your game
- Find bugs, test changes – You can make changes on the Saturday night and then see them in action on Sunday
- Advertising – In the past developers have taken email addresses of fans, handed out pamphlets and more
- Find Employment – Several developers have found employment through contacts met at IGR
Thanks for reading. You can find links to submit an expression of interest on the Indie Games Room website.