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| Adventure gaming paradise right up these stairs! |
I won't lie to you. What I was looking forward to most, attending AdventureX in London for the very first time, was finally meeting all those people I've been writing about and sometimes even directly talking to online for the past two and a half years. When I got back home, I had a hard time explaining to my family and friends why it was such an amazing experience to me, and putting into words what exactly makes it so special. The only way I knew how to do that, was to compare it to a more wider form of popular media where people are revered for their creative output. And the best I could come up with, is this: “It’s the equivalent of going to the Cannes Film Festival, with the big stars accepting you in their midst so you can hang out with them, and they show you sneak previews of their next movies.”
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| Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games! |
It already started the evening of our arrival in London. At a local bar where we knew a bunch of adventure game community people had gathered, we tried to work up the nerve to go talk to Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games, when the man himself actually walked up to us instead, apparently knowing fully well who I was! (Which might have something to do with the fact that I was one of the testers of his most recent game Old Skies...)
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| Adam Riches of Robust Games! |
Later that night, a smaller group went to a karaoke room and we joined
as well, invited by
Laura Cress. Suddenly I found myself sitting next to Adam Riches of Robust
Games, whose
Loco Motive won the 2024 AGOTY Award, as well as Dave and Treasa McCabe of Spooky Doorway (attending AdventureX to promote their new game
The Séance of Blake Manor), among many others (I think there were indeed more people present than were actually allowed in that room...)
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| David and Sophie Younger of Inklingwood Studios! |
So yes, the first day of AdventureX I wasn't able to play any of the
demos because I kept meeting people I wanted to talk to and get a selfie
with. Pure fanboy style, and I won't apologize for that! Almost immediately I ran into David and Sophie
Younger of Inklingwood Studios (as well as
Adventure Game Geek!), who had kindly brought me the big box
of their game
Foolish Mortals which I had ordered from their website (having it delivered to Belgium from the UK would easily cost me the prize of another box at Customs... Thanks a lot, Brexit!)
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| Jake Prytherch of Beyond Booleans! |
I bumped into Jake Prytherch of Beyond Booleans, who makes Lovecraftian horror games like
Abscission and
Carnival,
an upcoming developer who not only still has lots of other stories to
tell, but is also a great and very down to earth guy, a real pleasure to
hang out with and lots of fun, especially when he's telling the story of how he once met David Hasselhoff! (He's got an amazingly cool picture with him!)
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| Francisco González of Grundislav Games! |
It
was great to meet a mix of game developers who only recently started, like Jake, and established names like Francisco González. I remember how nervous I
was playing
Rosewater this year, hoping to finish it and write
the review in time for its release, thinking I wouldn't make the deadline
and worried that my words would never do the game justice. But he was
very happy with what I'd written! Phew!
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| Helen Greetham of The Wonder Room! |
It took me until the second day before I found
the nerve to introduce myself to Helen Greetham of The Wonder Room
(previously known as Afoot Games) who made the Sherlockian adventure
The Beekeeper's Picnic which I reviewed both for the
Adventure Game Hotspot and the
Adventure Games Podcast. Such a lovely young lady!
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| Charles Cecil of Revolution Software! |
Revolution Software was at AdventureX as well, to show off
Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror Reforged, but Charles Cecil was also giving a presentation. While I was making my rounds of the venue, I suddenly spotted him coming in from the street so I lurked a bit so I could introduce myself as well, namedropping my fellow Adventure Games Podcaster Laura Cress, who I knew had spoken to and interviewed him several times already, to break the ice. I'll never forgive myself that I had to get rid of the boxes of both
Lure Of The Temptress and
Beneath A Steel Sky when moving house several times... But how could I know back then what a treasure these boxes would turn out to become?
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| Julia Minamata! |
As the weekend drew to a close, at the end of the Sunday evening afterparty, when I thought there would be no new encounters, who suddenly walks past other than Julia Minamata, whose
Crimson Diamond was a revelation last year, a return to the text parser in a game inspired by
The Colonel's Bequest. I had spotted her around AdventureX before, but always seemingly in a hurry and I didn't dare bother her. But it was great to talk to her and discover she started work on a new game! (I hope that wasn't a secret...)
Look out for two more blog posts (hopefully) soon, one of course about
the demos shown at AdventureX, and one about
the famous voice actors I met!
