Yesterday evening, Sean Parker and Simon Wilson transformed the Leeds Adelphi into the ultimate gaming speakeasy, Get Into Gaming. A chance to banter with fellow gaming nuts over a beer or two, try your hand at crazy tough game challenges and enjoy some great presentations!
The theme of the evening was “nearly games” – those that were either cancelled mid development or never lived up to the incredible hype piled onto them. First up Dean Vipond took us through his memories of the Gamecube, the little console that didn’t quite make it and the much anticipated Capcom 5 set of exclusives it was supposed to receive. Next up, Simon Barratt shared with us quite literally his nearly game, Bloody Waters: Terror from the Deep. Giving you control of a great white shark and tasking you with trashing an island chain, it looked like a lot of fun but sadly never made it to release. Rounding off the presentations with plenty of laughs was Adam Hepton, speaking about his Commodore 64 experiences – namely horrendous ports which eventually sent him over to the world of Amiga
As well as presentations, Armalyte(set to start on level 8 with a mere 2 lives!) and Space Harrier(arcade version) were available to play, with prizes going to the highest scorers! (needless to say, I won nothing :)) And the evening ended with a quick quiz in which my team scored an epic 7 out of 30.
On top of all that, a podcast was being recorded on the spot, which I’m looking forward to getting hold of (will post a link here when it’s available).
So yeah! a great night which proved there’s an audience for this kind of event, there’s another planned for November during Leeds Digital Festival but I’m sure I’m not the only one hoping they make it a semi regular feature on the Leeds digital scene.