Welcome to GameCity, Europe’s biggest and best-loved videogame culture festival!
Based in Nottingham’s Old Market Square, GameCity takes over the city centre between October 26th-29th 2011.
The festival is mostly free to attend and there are loads of events suitable for all ages. It’s overflowing with fun, playful, interesting things to do during the October half term. Some events such as film screenings and late night events will require a small cost for admission.
GameCity is a lot more than playing videogames. Although we do like doing a lot of that. It’s a unique exploration of what videogames really mean to the people who play them and the people who make them too.
For us, it means creativity and innovation. It’s talking and sharing. It’s having fun and finding new ways to play. It’s dressing up as Pac-Man and running around town being chased by ghosts. It’s 3000 zombies dancing to Thriller in the Old Market Square. It’s definitely about cake. It’s mostly fun but sometimes serious. But that’s okay, because games can be about serious things too.
It’s an adventure. For everyone to join.
We’ve got a ton of stuff like:
Zelda is coming to GameCity. Not just for one event or even two, but for a whole day of Zelda based stuff! That’s right we’re helping to celebrate Zelda’s 25th birthday with a range of exciting activities. We’re doing stuff like a Zelda Canon World Record Attempt in which a group of brave, or perhaps foolish, volunteers will play every Zelda game back to back. The Market Square will be filled with Zelda based activities as we recreate a Hyrulean Market Village, guests will be tasked with collecting pieces of the tri-force, travelling the lands in the search for Wisdom, Power and Courage. They’ll have to create their own sword and shield, learn to play the Ocarina and everything else the aspiring hero needs to complete his quest. That’s not all, we’re also going to be creating a Zelda Zine, collecting drawings, stories and poems created by our guests AND we’re going to be collecting thoughts, feelings and memories about Zelda for the National Videogame Archive.
They’re the studio behind the amazing action-adventure series Uncharted. You can find out all about treasure-hunter Nathan Drake’s latest adventures. Richard Lemarchand Naughty Dog’s top dog will be in Nottingham for and entire week, taking people through the making of Uncharted 3 and showing off some exclusive new content.
They made Flower. Flower is the most moving game we’ve ever played. A few years back we did a large scale projection of it in the exchange arcade. People cried. This year they’re back with Journey, it’s a game about robed figures and deserts. Also there’s a mountain, you’re meant to travel towards it or something. Anyway we’re doing another large scale projection. Fingers crossed it’s half as good as Flower. Robin Hunicke, the producer behind this sure to be fantastic game will also be coming over. She’ll be giving people an insight into its creation.
He made Another World, he made Heart of Darkness and he just recently made From Dust, a god game were you manipulate the elements in order to help your tribe survive and even prosper. We’re going to be handing Eric the metaphorical keys to the festival at our launch event so that he can take over GameCity for the entirety of Wednesday. You can expect volcanography, eating, sense, participation, animation, music and lots more.
Amanita Design make some absolutely gorgeous stuff. Their past games including Samarost and Machinarium are absolutely stunning, whats more they’re fun to play. Creator Jakub Dvorský will be coming over to Nottingham in order to show off their latest game, Botanicula, a game about saving a treehouse from invading parasites. What’s more we’ll be showing Jakub’s collaborative project with two-time Academy Award Winner Jan Svěrák. It’s a film, it’s called Kooky and it features some lovely puppets fighting their way through an enchanted forest.
Friday will be terrifying. We’ve got people like Charlie Higson with his latest zombie novel The Fear, James Moran, who’s written episodes of Doctor Who, Torchwood as well as Severance and his new film Cockneys vs. Zombies, and Team Sangre who’re behind one of the most SCARY games ever made, Papa Sangre. They’ll be doing a whole host of stuff like writing competitions and chats about how to scare people. Brian Provinciano, the man behind Retro City Rampage will also be coming over and is asking the people of Nottingham to help design a terrifying new version of Nottingham level for a game. And lets not forget Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School who’ll be hosting some zombielicious dead drawing sessions.
GameCity 6 news
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