A Small Rezzed Recap

Last weekend, I attended Eurogamer's Rezzed in Tobacco Dock in London, and it was one of the most inspirational conventions I've ever attended. I'm not a game developer myself, of course, I went there entirely to play games and have fun. Armed with a 'weekend' wrist band, I had no idea what to really expect from Eurogamer's smaller convention. I spend pretty much all my free time playing video games, but few of the big boys were on display, there was no eSports section, and I hadn't even heard of half the games I'd be seeing in action over the next couple of days.

Instead, Rezzed is aimed entirely at independent developers and smaller companies, and that's precisely why it was so inspiring. I came out of the event buzzing each evening. Each day was packed with games I'd never played before and talking to the creatives behind them. Nobody I met was there because it was 'their job' to be there. The passion everybody had for their products was contagious. For example, Moose sat down to play 'Flame Over', a fun little fire-fighting Roguelike, and as he struggled with one aspect (using a different sort of extinguisher to put out electrical fires), we overheard the developers behind us discussing how to make it more obvious, or whether the electrical fire element should even be in the first level of the game. They were there to generate interest in their game, and we, the gamers, were there to help. Rezzed was a gaming con for people who genuinely care about games, where you really felt that your input was valued, however small.

I didn't get to play as many games as I'd have liked (I think I'd have needed a full week to do that) but there were a few we managed to get a go on. In the next few days I'll discuss them all properly, because they cover every genre from twin-stick shooter to dungeon crawler, platform game to simulation, and they really are worth talking about.