Jamie Sefton reports on the latest events from Game Republic supporting game developers in the region…
Well, that was fun! It was #GameDevDay in Leeds on Wednesday 10th May with both Game Republic and GaMaYo events, featuring industry talks, 250+ developers attending, networking and brand-new games on-show from Yorkshire and Northern developers, sponsored by SIGN.
First up Game Republic focused on GDC 2023 announcements, featuring presentations from Ben Board from Epic Games on the new Unreal Engine 5 features and the launch of Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and another Ben (Robinson) from ID@Xbox with the latest Game Pass update and the news of the launch of the fantastic Developer Acceleration Programme which supports and funds underrepresented developers and game themes, with more than 100 games released already.
However the real (and literal) star of the show was the actual Shaun the Sheep, and his “handler” from Aardman, Robert Goodchild, who talked about the award-winning animation studio from Bristol and their work in TV, film and now games, including an upcoming Wallace & Gromit VR title. Finally, we heard from Chris Taylor at Eaton Smith with some (free!) advice on getting your company investor-ready and protecting your IP.
Afterwards was GaMaYo which is the biggest and friendliest developer-only meet-up in Yorkshire and the North – and the Belgrave Music Hall was buzzing with a full turnout and just really great to return to pre-pandemic numbers. Super to see so many new faces and new games to play as 
well, including GunSuit Guardians by Matt Glanville, Witchmarsh from Inglenook Games, Glasshouse from Flat28, Soul Dealer from Francesca Foffano, a new mad pool title from Laser Dog and Shuttle Revolution by Head Empty Studios. We were also raising more money for the games charity SpecialEffect with both online and in-person collections.
A big shout out to Emma Cowling for all her hard work in running GaMaYo and making everyone feel so welcome and continuing on our journey to make our events the most diverse and friendly in the games industry with help from SIGN – as well as Game Republic’s Jackie Mulligan for her incredible insights and hard work preparing for GameDevDay. Thanks again to our amazing 20th birthday Official Partners – Barclays, Escape Technology and Red Kite Games – and to our guest speakers and to our brilliant games community for attending and supporting GameDevDay.
Can’t wait for the next one in November – if you would like to join Game Republic and get access to all our games events and business development help, get in touch.