The UK's newest games conference and festival, Interactive Futures, is delighted to announce that members of the key design team behind Forza Horizon 4 are the latest additions the event's speaker programme. The event, based in Leamington Spa, will take place from Thursday 31 January - Saturday 2 February with a focus on games development, technical insights, video games culture and career opportunities.
Hot on the heels of the global release of Forza Horizon 4, Playground Games will be presenting two in-depth sessions at Interactive Futures on Friday 1 February. The Forza Horizon series is one of Leamington Spa's best known exports, and the latest edition was released this week on Tuesday 2 October 2018.
Playground Games' Senior Technical Artist, Yibo Liu, will present a session titled, Dream Machines: Making the Most Desirable Cars for Forza Horizon 4. With over 450 licensed cars featuring in the game it takes a lot of enthusiasm and effort to ensure the quality of the meticulously crafted dream-machines. Yibo has worked on the Forza Horizon series since Forza Horizon 2 and during the session Yibo will uncover the many facets of what it was like to make the high-quality vehicles for a AAA racing game.
Joining Yibo on the speaker programme is Jake Woodruff, an Environment Artist for Playground Games, who has also worked on the hit game series since Forza Horizon 2. This session of Foliage Breakdown on Forza Horizon 4 will see Jake providing an extensive look at the creation of foliage in Forza Horizon 4. With his experience of working as part of the art team at one of the UK's most pre-eminent AAA developers, Jake will also be offering practical portfolio advice on how to present your work at its best.
Suzee Laxton, Strategic Economic Development Officer at Warwick District Council and a Project Lead at Interactive Futures, commented, "Playground Games are one of the UK's leading AAA studios and are a proud part of our games community here in Silicon Spa. Their design team work on huge global releases and the Forza Horizon series has proven itself to be one of Leamington Spa's most successful releases. These sessions will enable attendees at the event to get a unique in-depth view into the technical aspects of the game's design."
Gavin Raeburn, Studio Director at Playground Games, added, "Following the successful launch of Forza Horizon 4, we're pleased that Yibo and Jake from the Horizon team will be sharing their experiences and expertise at Interactive Futures."
"Leamington Spa is Playground Games' home and we're proud that it's regarded as one of the largest and most successful games clusters in the UK. It's therefore fantastic to see the incredible talent we have in the area celebrated at Interactive Futures."
Leamington Spa (known as Silicon Spa) is one of the UK's largest games clusters outside of London, with a wealth of both AAA studios and indie developers at the heart of its success. The cluster employs over 2500 highly skilled individuals and equates to over 10% of the total UK games development workforce.
As well as the conference programme visitors to Interactive Futures can immerse themselves in the Games Expo, featuring a range of companies showcasing new releases and opportunities throughout the event, as well as a range of soon to be announced Fringe events around the town.
Interactive Futures will take place at the Royal Spa Centre on Friday 1 and Saturday 2 February and will be preceded by an academic conference for colleges and universities on Thursday 31st January. For more information please visit www.interactive-futures.com.
Last updated: Apr 7, 2020 at 12:11 pm CDT