More than 25 local game developers were at the launch of Northwest Vision's Get In The Game project, held at the Liverpool innovation Park on Thursday the 26th of November. Gatherings of developers are rare in the region, which meant people were pleased to see each other.

Presentations by Enda Carey from Northwest Vision, Toby Barnes from Pixel-Lab, Phil Gaskill from SCEE and Mark Tock from the Liverpool Innovation Park highlighted that there is support in the region for game developers, and even the big players are more approachable then they may seem.

Phil also showed a selection of games currently in development for PSN, demonstrating that mass market games no longer have to to have the expansiveness of what has for a long time been considered an AAA boxed title, but instead can be small, simple, and polished. Some of the games he showed can be seen here:

http://www.slideshare.net/pixellab/get-into-the-game-public-presentation

A concepts and pitching workshop with limited places will run as part of Get In The Game on the 16th and 17th of December, culminating in 5 participating companies or colloborations pitching to Sony and Northwest Vision for £10000 of prototyping money.

This money will need to be spent before March 2009 when companies will be invited to pitch to senior SONY commissioners.  Each company will also receive executive production feedback from Toby Barnes, Pixel-Lab, and other experienced executive producers from SONY.  The workshop will be open to any companies based in the Northwest of England and interested in developing PSN games or software.

There are only 20 places available at the workshop.

3 places maximum per company.

Closing dates for registration is Wednesday 10th December.