VideoBrains June: Jake's Birthday Edition

VideoBrains is a host of cool talks, and once a year we celebrate our founder's birthday with a FULL DAY of #content. Join us to celebrate at Loading Bar in Dalston, for an extra large helping of speakers and a regular sized serving of cake!

Tickets on the door will be a massive £25 if available, so buy your tickets in advance!

The best way to support us is to buy a ticket and come along. If you want to help out even more, please donate to our Patreon.

SPEAKERS


Cassandra Khaw What Video Games Could Learn From The Speculative Fiction Community
"A rising tide lifts all boats." There's no question that the speculative fiction community is as broken as any other, but it does hold several lessons for the video games industry: fandom isn't bad, your neighbourhood blog's as valid as of the big names, and there's no reason for genre discrimination, damn it.

Alice Bell Dark Souls is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
On the troubling link between difficulty and quality, easy modes, and also Dark Souls is a bad game.

Matthew Tropiano Twenty Years a Doom Modder - How Making Stuff for Doom Taught Me More about Creating Things than about Map Design
A veteran of Doom modding and mapping, Matt Tropiano (Coffee Break Episode 1, The Adventures of Square) shares his 1995-onward retrospective on his life as a mapper and modder for one of the greatest games ever made. Although it taught him the basics of map and game design, it also taught him about seeking validation, the difference between confidence and pride, and the importance of taking risks and leaving your comfort zone.

Natalie Clayton Things I learned growing up trans in games.
Being queer in gaming communities is often seen as a bit of a struggle, as general culture surrounding videogames can come across as toxic. However, I've found games and game communities to have been an essential part of finding my identity as a transgender woman. From completely failing to deal with people as a teen; to being really blunt and open about myself today, actively fighting the idea of "keeping that stuff to yourself". This talk is more to sort of explain the weird process of gaming helping me grow up queer.

Tom Hatfield How I learned to stop worrying and love grimdark space barbies
Like many British teenagers, Tom was drawn into the dank temple that is Games Workshop, and spent far too much of his childhood painting tiny plastic he-men. Why did so many of us do it? Why do this little figures have such an enduring appeal? And isn't it just an aggressively masculine version of playing with dolls? (yes, but that's okay).

Mary Hamilton How To Program Human AI

Thomas McMullan Games as documentary
Can gaming document real world events without being insensitive?

Hana Lee How we become our characters
It's always hard to figure out who or what you are when you're confused about yourself, whether it's coming from mental illness or questioning your gender/sexuality, or any other factor that leaves you thinking 'what the hell am I?' Making a character resembling you in character customisable games can be a method to cope, but examining yourself through the items you pick up in rouge-like games, for example, is another method that seems to be overlooked.

Meg Jayanth Lessons learned from a lifetime of being bad at videogames
Winning isn't everything. Let's all admit that being bad at games is okay, and a lot more common than we pretend.


Jack Attridge True Or False
Guess true or false on statements about the development of our game, with this presentation drinking game revealing some of the crazy fascinating lessons we’ve learned.

Olivia Wood Show People Things Before They Are Ready
Is your project ready to show people? Yes? Well then, you should have shown it to them ages ago. Olivia will speak on how vital it is to show others your work in progress, how terrifying it can be, and will encourage you to do it regardless.

Rob Morgan Narrative Utility Belt ep.5The fifth installment of Rob's residency talk on the language of games narrative. Topic TBA. Ooh, mysterious.

Boring stuff:

We can't refund your ticket if you don't attend on the night. But if we have to cancel the event for some reason, we will refund you.

Please be here for the first talk at 1pm - This is so important I could say it twice.
Please be here for the first talk at 1pm - I said it twice. There's always a full programme and we can’t start if no-one is there. We hate having to cut talks short.

The VideoBrains talks are recorded and published on our website, social media channels and in other publications and promotional materials. By purchasing a ticket for this event, you consent to being filmed and/or photographed and for VideoBrains to publish any associated media. If you’d like to attend but don’t want to be recorded, please email jake@videobrains.co.uk.

VideoBrains is partnered with Five out of Ten and Nine Worlds VG. If you have any questions, can’t afford a ticket but would still like to come, or would like to pitch a 15-minute talk for a future event, please email jake@videobrains.co.uk.