Yorkshire’s biggest gaming festival returns this autumn with a chance to play to some of the hottest new games.

The 2017 Yorkshire Games Festival, at the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, on November 8 to 12, also features seminars from some of the world’s leading games creators.

The event kicks off on November 8 with a schools day when pupils can watch specially created talks and take part in workshops and activities covering all the elements that make a great game.

Yorkshire Games Festival 2017: Elite Destiny

On the following two days they will be seminars from:

- Arthur Parsons, Head of Design at TT Games.

He will discuss his lead role on various titles within the LEGO videogame franchise, including the LEGO Marvel series, LEGO Batman series, LEGO Harry Potter series and many other familiar titles.

Arthur will also delve into the making of his current game, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2, which is out in February.

- Tracy Spaight of Wargaming.net.

The Director of Special Projects at Wargaming.net, the developers and publishers of the World of Tanks online game, will be talking about bringing history alive through gaming, AR and VR and the World of Tanks phenomenon.

- Frontier Developments’ Louise McLennan and Sebastian Hickey.

Louise and Sebastian will be revealing all about the development of BAFTA nominated Elite Dangerous – the latest version of the legendary space combat and trading game from UK games luminary David Braben.

Yorkshire Games Festival 2017: Arthur Parsons

- Iki Ikram

The award-winning VFX Artist, who started his career more than 25 years ago while studying Graphic Design at Bradford College, will be giving the festival’s keynote presentation on his work as an FX Artist at Naughty Dog and how visual effects were used to build a narrative in games such as Uncharted 3, Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us, as well as other work on titles such as the PlayStation’s EyeToy, Singstar, The Getaway, and the Killzone series.

- David Wise

Legendary composer and musician David has been producing game soundtracks since 1987, including many of UK developer Rare’s classics such as Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country and Diddy Kong Racing. More recently, Wise has composed music for Sheffield developer Sumo Digital’s Snake Pass and for Playtonic Games’ smash hit platformer Yooka-Laylee.

- Kieran Crimmins and James Svensson from Criterion Games

They will host a session on their work as Art Director and Producer respectively for Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Battlefront VR Mission. They’ll be discussing how they recreated the Star Wars universe in virtual reality.

- Other guests include Phil Duncan and Oli De-Vine, aka indie development team Ghost Town Games, whose debut game Overcooked was made from their lounge and recently took home the BAFTA for Best Family Game and Best British Game.

Yorkshire Games Festival 2017: Lego Marvel Super Heroes

And on November 11 and 12 there will be a chance to play hot, upcoming titles.

As part of the showcase, Creative England’s GamesLab Leeds programme will be offering advice and demonstrating some of the projects they have funded across the Leeds City Region.

Elsewhere Videogames, But… shows the diversity of the medium with small, experimental and unusual, yet beautifully formed games.

The museum also welcomes back the Impact Gamers LiVE! show to the museum’s Pictureville Cinema (Saturday only – tickets £2/£3), which inspires children to get involved in games and coding.

The Impact Gamers team will also be bringing their homemade arcade games – all created by young people from Bradford (free to play).

For more information and tickets visit: www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/yorkshiregamesfestival .