People usually go to Brighton for fish and chips, kiss-me-quick hats and staying in posh hotels. However, this is the one time of the year that you don’t have to be a bronzed beauty or a member of the Conservative Party to feel at home. The Develop Conference plays host to speakers from all over the games industry, including our own Executive Producer of Technology & Communications Nick Burton. It’s a forum for everything from voice-acting to content pipelines to motion control, and maybe a little ice cream…

Nick’s Diary: It’s rehearsal time – on the train. My fellow passengers must think I’ve got some kind of mental health issue as I sit there mumbling to myself about Sports, Kinect and 25 years of being at Rare.

So I head over to the Hilton Metropole to see Susan and Andy (the conference organisers) as I want to check out the lecture rooms and pick up my speaker’s pass. The keynote is taking place in this gigantic ballroom, which sounds scary, but it’s OK as I spoke here a few years back about the making of Jetpac Refuelled. The other guys from Rare are still lost on the motorway somewhere.

Ben’s Note: We were supposed to be joining Nick much earlier in the day, but our epic search for a motorway service station with a Burger King was proving fruitless. The closest one had recently burned down and been replaced with a pie-selling gazebo.

Nick’s Diary: Then it’s off to the Pub DuVin for the conference opening drinks where I run into my old boss and good friend Kieran and some other friends from Develop and Sony – I crash dinner with them but I don’t think they mind. The others finally arrive about 11:30pm and head straight for the bar. I join them for a quick drink (Sav has somehow conjured up a foot-long from Subway) and then we all turn in – it’s a big day tomorrow…

Crikey it’s windy, overcast and, oh, raining a bit, so no filming in the sun like Ben wanted to. We end up filming around the hotel and generally getting in people’s way, including Culture Minister Ed Vaizey. I think he thought Ben was press and wanted to film him. Erm, no, sorry Ed, and you wouldn’t let us anyway.

Ben’s Note: The camera equipment was heavy, but to make matters worse it also came in a bright blue rucksack. My friends from the press kept asking if I keep a breegull in there. I suspect they may have been mocking me.

Nick’s Diary: That’s it, I’m on stage and going for it full tilt, well as full tilt as I can. Have some fun getting people from the audience to run about on stage and everyone generally seems to be enjoying the lecture so I finish happy.

Ben’s Note: Nick talked about how Rare has a long history of experimenting with motion control, from the little-known Super Glove Ball for Mattel’s Power Glove controller, to a scrapped prototype game called Soulcatcher (with a comically shaped wand.) He also covered the challenges of recognising the way each person moves slightly differently in a motion-controlled game.

Nick’s Diary: Time is getting on now and Andrew Oliver (Chief Technical Officer at Blitz Games) and I head off to the business centre to go through our next lecture. We’re both really happy with the content and manage to go and find an empty conference room for a full-on dry run. Andrew has his stuff nailed now and I’m pretty happy with my sections too. We get into the conference room and find the stage is tiny – really, really tiny – good job we are old friends then!

We are both in the zone and the lecture is over in a flash. It’s the last session of the day and I keep mentioning we are keeping people from the bar, but no-one actually seems to mind (or they are being polite). We take a few questions, wrap up and are done. Deep breath – and – relax…

Ben’s Note: On the way home, my chips blew away in the wind. Sob.