As a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Council has transformed PlayUK festival of innovation and interaction between art and technology. In the coming months, by providing free access to an exciting mix of online content, PlayUK has moved from physical to online continuing focus on UK game industry.
PlayUK 2020 is series of live digital events and everyone is invited to learn about the UK scene and connect with professionals from the games industry. Over the course of the next five months, we will be producing weekly video content, as well as monthly live sessions, and anyone with an interest in the games industry and creative economy can tune in.
Our next live session is titled An introduction to BItsy- a small tool for creating video games. In this session Claire Morwood will be looking at the free web-based tool Bitsy, learning how to create small, simple games within it. Bitsy is great for making small narrative adventures with a tile-based pixel-art aesthetic, and no knowledge of coding required. It's designed to be accessible for any skill level within game development, including absolute beginners, and for making a short game within a few hours. Claire will introduce the tool, give a run-through of the features and how to make a small game, and then showcase some examples of games made in Bitsy over the years which have made great use of its features and limitations.
MEET OUR PLAYUK SPEAKER, CLAIRE MORWOOD
Claire is a self-taught programmer, artist and game designer. She is the co-founder of the game development studio 3-Fold Games, who are shortly releasing their first game 'Before I Forget'. In her personal work, she is an advocate of 'small tools' for game development, and has been using Bitsy since 2017. After taking part in 2 of the early Bitsy Game Jams, she wrote a new game called 'Tutorial' and a blog-post to go with it which has now become one of the most widely used Bitsy tutorials. She has since run several workshops on Bitsy and is passionate about its potential for experimentation and accessibility to new game creators.
The UK has an internationally renowned scene of groundbreaking games and entrepreneurial developers – from coders to designers and producers to developers, and an everlasting curiosity for connections to the international scene. With this in mind, British Council decided to transform Play UK 2020 from face-to-face events into digital ones. Festival sessions will be led by leading UK videogames artists and creators for everyone interested in game industry, sharing knowledge and expertise in various elements of game development, from writing, to art, audio, and many others.