Develop:North 2024: Leadership Team of Wushu Studios to Keynote in Liverpool

Thursday 3^rd October, 2024: Tandem Events, organisers of Develop:Brighton and The Develop:Star Awards, have announced indie developer Wushu Studios as the keynote speakers for Develop:North, taking place on Thursday 14 November at The Spine in Liverpool.

Hosted by Wushu’s key leadership team, Alan McDermott, Jo Daly, and Nigel Kershaw, the keynote will explore how the studio strives to shape the future of development through a people-first approach, and a positive company culture. The founders will also discuss how leadership is being reimagined in the studio, the value and challenges of collaboration post-COVID, and the benefits and pitfalls of co-development.

Alan McDermott has been in games for over 20 years, overseeing audio direction on games like MotorStorm and Driveclub before moving to Game Direction in one of PlayStation’s prototype divisions. Jo Daly started her career as a Texture Artist in the mid 90s, spanning a career across both Game Development and Academia across the North-West of England. Nigel Kershaw began his career in game design in the late 80s, working with numerous Northern studios on games like Broken Sword – and MotorStorm!

"To be delivering the keynote session at a Develop conference is an honour, but to be doing so in Wushu’s home city is incredibly exciting," said Wushu Studios' Jo Daly. "After a busy year, we can’t wait to share our insights and see all the friendly faces - familiar and new - that make up the UK's bustling northern game dev communities.

Wushu Studios are a Liverpool-based developer who have supported various titles externally with new features as well as developing entire games. They’ve worked with some of the most critically acclaimed IPs and studios in the industry including Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3, Sumo Digital, Mediatonic, and Playground Games.

"We’re delighted to be able to bring a company that works out of Liverpool as our keynote speakers for the first Develop North” said Tandem Events Managing Director Andy Lane. “They’ll share the breadth of their knowledge on fostering a forward-thinking dev studio and the importance of a positive, people-focused work environment”

Tandem have today shared the timetable for the conference programme, with more sessions to be announced soon. The timetable currently includes representatives from Epic Games, mayamada, Lucid Games, Remedy Entertainment, Guillotine, and Spilt Milk Studios. Not yet announced are sessions for the Indie track, which specifically addresses issues faced by smaller devs, and will be revealed soon.

The Develop:North 2024 sessions so far are:

Audio

• Alan Wake 2: Audio Systems in a Game of Two Halves
  • Joshua Bell, Remedy Entertainment
  • Gulli Gunnarsson, Remedy Entertainment

• Tips and Tricks from a Music Supervisor to Navigate Music Licensing in Games
  • Irma de Wind, Independent Music Supervisor

Art

• The Relationship Between Environment Art and Concept Art in a Game Production
  • Alex Beddows, That’s No Moon

• Staying Current as an Artist: Nanite and Lumen in Unreal Engine
  • Filipe Strazzeri, d3t

• It’s Not How It looks, It’s How It feels
  • Murray Somerwolff, Patattie Games

Business

• EULA and Moolah: Unreal Royalties Explained
  • Ben Board, Epic Games

• Running a Studio in Turbulent Times
  • Host: Dr Jackie Mulligan, Game Republic
  • Nina Roussakoff, Lovewish
  • Andrew Crawshaw, Thunkd
  • Stuart Dinsey, Curve
  • Des Gayle, Altered Gene

• When and How Best to Lean into External Partners
  • Claire Bromley, Criterion Studios

• Build Better Games, Faster, Cheaper and Easier with Scrum
  • Daniel Susser, Embodied Agility

Coding

• Building Efficient Custom Tools in Unity to Improve Team Collaboration
  • Amy Elliott, Sumo Digital

• Godot: A Professional Perspective
  • Claire Blackshaw, Flammable Penguins Games

• Tech Learnings from Five Years of Apex Legends
  • Fred Gill, Antidote Gamers

Design

• Don’t Forget the Story: The Power of Video Game Narratives
  • Nigel Twumasi, mayamada

• Let’s Make More Punk Games!
  • Robin Perera, Indie Developer

• Viewfinding: From Mechanic to Game
  • Matt Stark, Sad Owl Studios

Discoverability

• Trash Goblin - Turning Someone Else’s Trash into Treasure with Kickstarter
  • Andrew Smith, Spilt Milk Studios

• DIY: Building the Best Influencer Relations Campaign for Any Game, Yourself
  • Jake Kulkowski, Guillotine

Conference passes are available for purchase and you can secure your place at the Early Bird rate of £250 + VAT until Thursday 10 October. Micro Indies and Student Early Bird rates are also available for £120 + VAT.

For more details on passes, visit the Develop website:

https://www.developconference.com/north/event-info/passes-prices/

Develop:North will run over one day and will include a keynote and 28 sessions across seven tracks: Art, Audio, Business, Coding, Design, Discoverability, and Indie. The conference will have a networking event kicking off from 6pm. Delegates will also get free access to the sessions online following the event.

For the latest on speaker announcements, the Develop:Star Awards, and everything Develop:North visit: https://www.developconference.com/north/ and follow @DevelopConf on X/Twitter.