The three of us are back in Edinburgh after a few days in Nottingham at the fabulous Game City Festival. We were really pleased to be invited to Game City and given a pretty blank slate to play with. It gave us a great chance to experiment with a few ideas we had been kicking around for a while. The first thing we brought was the Suitcase Arcade – a four player arcade box built into a vintage suitcase. Of course we loaded Gentlemen! on there and set it up in the Open Arcade. It was really brilliant to watch people of all ages coming and playing together. (picture callously stolen from Laura, see the rest of her great shots from the festival here) The other thing we managed to put together for Game City was Roflpillar. This is a new project for us, and one we hope to develop further in the near future…Roflpillar is a two-player game where each player controls a caterpillar who is trying to eat apples. The game is controlled by lying on the floor and putting your head into a covered structure which hides a screen. A sensor is attached to you with a belt, and you have to move your hips to move your caterpillar. You basically end up rolling and wiggling about, twisting and contorting your body to control a caterpillar while everyone outside giggles. It’s amazingly fun, and we are super proud of it. People really liked this one. Keith Stuart at the Guardian called it “hilarious” in his roundup of the festival and IndieHaven picked it as one of the “Things to Watch Our For” (along with Gentlemen!). Here’s a video of it in action:
We’re planning on doing more with both of these projects, so keep an eye out. Many many thanks to the Game City team for having us along, especially Iain, David, and Chloe, and to all of the amazing volunteers who helped us out (Charlotte, you’re a legend). Good work team!