Following the hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, London based Sci-fi convention Nine Worlds Geekfest, has steadily been adding a roster of amazing guests and speakers to its inaugural lineup. It scored a coup getting Chris Barrie, star of Red Dwarf (and reoccurring character in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider films) and Game of Thrones sword instructor Syrio Forel (played by actor Miltos Yerolemou) who teaches Arya to fight in King's Landing is attending, bolstering the event's TV and film credentials. It is now about to do the same for it's video game offerings by announcing three new strands on Cyberpunk, Plagues and Crowdfunding.
These new strands, in addition to the existing sessions, means it now has an impressive array of gaming related events which will have many a gamer switching off their console to join in the action. Going Cyberpunk will be Jan Wagner of Shadowrun Online developers Cliffhanger Productions, who will be joining a panel of acclaimed novelists including Boing Boing writer Cory Doctorow, the gaming-thriller author of Halting State Charles Stross and Uncanny X-Men comic writer Kieron Gillen. The assembled team will then be talking about the augmented and transhuman future that faces us, in fiction and reality.
In 'The Infected', people can hear James Vaughan, creator of the mega-hit mobile title Plague Inc being joined by Will Porter from indie hit PC game Project Zomboid amongst other guests to talk about how we see our own viral-laden doom reflected in gaming fiction. Science stand-up star Helen Keen will be hosting both the cyberpunks and infected panels to keep them switched on and alive.
Jan Wagner will also be joining current indie surreal stealth game, Tangier's Alex Harvey, to talk about how best to lever the crowdfunding and Kickstarter audience to help make your indie gaming dream a reality. Jan Wagner was part of the Shadowrun Online Kickstarter team that successfully raised over $500,000 to fund the game. Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land and Chainsaw Warrior developer, Auroch Digital's Tomas Rawlings will be chairing to keep the crowd-sourced questions flowing.
These new panels are being supported by The Wellcome Trust, helping to bring a new shot of science inspired action into the games strand. They join an existing impressive video games roster including Rhianna Pratchett (Tomb Raider writer), James Swallow (Deus Ex:Human Revolution) and Cara Ellison (writer for Rock Paper Shotgun).
Tickets are now available from nineworlds.co.uk