What an exceedingly exciting Develop we had this year! With 24 sponsored/official iGGi PG Researchers and Staff, and a fair few Alumni/soon-to-be Alumni, iGGi's presence confidently reached the count of 30. Here are some of iGGi's highlights:

The iGGi Stand on the Develop Expo Floor

With above-average footfall compared to previous times, the iGGi stand proved to be busy and popular this year. Visitors to the stand included familiar, friendly faces (big thanks to all of those "Friends of iGGi" who managed to drop by!), games industry folks who were new to the idea of iGGi and interested to hear about potential collaboration with iGGi, and then there were also those who thought about pursuing games further on an academic pathway.

In summary, many vivid conversations were had, and regardless of whether they were future-opportunity-focused or more just-in-the-moment, we enjoyed them all!

Displays at the stand were:

• "Exploring Human Behaviour in Social Virtual Reality" by Karl Clarke

• "Interactive Tool to Explore Different Playstyles in MicroRTS" by Ruizhe "Jay" Yu Xia

• "Detachment Undone" by Luiza Gossian

• "Future Factory - a Card Game" by Prasad Sandbhor

• An invitation for Indie Devs of Narrative Games to participate in a focus-study by Alex Flint

• Our this year's showcase video and "iGGi @ Develop" lookup

  
  

Some of the iGGi Researchers and Staff (and Tommy Thompson!) in front of the iGGi Stand

iGGi PG Researchers and Staff at the iGGi Stand's opening shift

iGGi Speaker at Develop

This year, we were thrilled to hear Francesca Foffano's presentation on Player Emotional Design where she talked about

• how we experience emotions

• best design practices emotional design

• design solutions for Emotional Accessibility

If you missed the talk or you would like to recap, Francesca shared the slides and you can find them under this link.

Francesca Foffano presenting on Player Emotional Design to the Develop audience

Francesca Foffano talking at Develop about Player Emotional Design

Francesca Foffano's presentation on Player Emotional Design

iGGi Speaker at the Game A11y Gathering

The Game A11y Gathering was a satellite event to Develop and organisers included iGGi Alum Jozef Kulik, last year's iGGi Con Keynote Cari Watterton, and Mollie Evans (Nothing Without Us).

The second iteration of this game-accessibility-focused micro conference was sponsored by Sony Interactive Entertainment PlayStation Studios, Games User Research, PlaytestCloud, Scopely, and hosted at Unity Technologies. Like last year, it brought together developers and advocates from across the industry to discuss accessibility in games.

Notably, iGGi PG Researcher Steph Carter was a speaker at the event. Steph's presentation was titled "Why Words Matter: Accessible Language in Games" and discussed how the words we use - whether in menus, dialogue, or instructions - shape how players understand and interact with game worlds. Steph shared why language is a crucial part of games accessibility, drawing on their experience as a neurodivergent player, an accessibility consultant and linguistics specialist.

Quite a few of the other iGGi PGRs also attended the event and found it very instructive in its practical focus. Big thank you to organisers, sponsors and hosts, for putting on this fabulous event!

>>> PICTURES TO FOLLOW

Develop Impressions

In comparison to last year's slightly subdued vibes and despite the fact that we've still not seen the end of incoming waves of layoffs (e.g., Microsoft), this year's atmosphere felt relaxed and cautiously optimistic. The sunny weather certainly helped!

Two of the iGGis in particular struck lucky during the Develop Expo and won things at other stands. Namely a PS5 (in the raffle from GamesAid) and a Packman Machine (in a contest at Big Games Machine)

After three days of full-on networking, it was finally time for a bit of chillin by the beach.

The week left us looking forward to next year already! See you again in 2026, Brighton!

Toby Best winning a Packman Machine at the Big Games Machine stand

Sahar's conference pass

Jay and Océane at Brighton beach, taking a break from networking