Ladbury PR

Alex Fleetwood and Robert Briscoe at ExPlay 2012

The organisers of this year’s ExPlay Festival announced the two keynote speakers for the 1 – 2 November: Hide&Seek’s founding director Alex Fleetwood and artist Robert Briscoe.

Fleetwood’s and his studio are passionate advocate’s of public play, integrating games with performance art in public spaces. His talk ‘As Fun To Watch As It Is To Play: How Games With Audiences Are Taking Over The World’ will explore the growing engagement with public play, following the success of Come Out And Play, Game City and Hide&Seek’s own games Weekender.

Briscoe is best known for his role in developing Dear Esther. Originally a mod for Valve’s game Half Life 2, it reversed many of the traditions and expectations of the First Person Shooter genre; Briscoe reworked all the artwork of the mod for its new incarnation as a full game. Briscoe’s talk, entitled, ‘Dear Esther – A Journey from Experimental Mod to Award Winning Indie Game,” will take the audience through the journey of how Dear Esther was conceived, developed and redesigned.

Other confirmed speakers for ExPlay festival include The Guardian’s Keith Stuart, TIGA CEO Richard Wilson, Preloaded’s founder Phil Stuart, and, at the VIP event, UKIE CEO Jo Twist. Festival audiences will also be able to listen to panels on games and science, accessible design, start up ideas and marketing and PR in the games industry.

For more information on the ExPlay Festival, visit www.explay.co.uk.