NSNorth 2016 Conference Highlights

Journey to the East – Rob Segal

Rob Segal of Get Set Games, makers of the Mega Jump series of games, was the first game developer to speak at any NSNorth conference.

Get Set is a small company, initially just 2 designers and 2 developers. Mega Jump benefited from early App Store success, often featured by Apple and in the early days was able to sell characters by In App Purchases. They also had come success working with Pixar and Disney with re-skinned versions of their games.

With the assistance of the Canadian Trade Commission, they were able to find more success selling their apps in Asian markets. They were introduced to companies that would take their code and adapt their apps to burgeoning markets, such as India, who are the latest target having just jumped into smart phones.

Working with social networks; Linc, Kakao, WeChat and others also provided larger audiences. In China, working with Tenyu, Yoda1 and Takweb Games they were quite successful. Notably one of their games managed to get 100 million downloads in one day.

The takeaway here is to reach out to other development companies – they can hep you access markets you might not be able to otherwise.

Keynote Karaoke

One of the most entertaining talks took place during Keynote Karaoke. Organizer Phillipe Casgrain wrote an algorithm that would play 5 slides in random order. Participants were invited onto the stage and given 3 minutes to present their talk on the fly.

Many of the conference speakers took part and some attendees volunteered to be in the spotlight. Once on stage they realized that they had got more than they bargained for!

Notable Karaoke talks were given by Janie Clayton, Paddy O’Brian, Jonathan Rhyne and one of the most entertaining was by Joe Cieplinski of the Release Notes podcast.

Hockey Hall of Fame

Ray Wenderlich team members Janie Clayon, René Cacheaux and Tim Mitra.

Ray Wenderlich team members Janie Clayon, René Cacheaux and Tim Mitra.

Aside from poutine and beaver tails, what would make a Canadian conference more complete that a winter related activity!

In 2015, we were able to experience Curling at rink at the Chateaux Montebello, where the conference was hosted. This year, we had a private night at the Hockey Hall of Fame, just around the corner from St. James Cathedral.

We were able to see exhibits of all the stars of the game, from around the world. We even tried our hand at the interactive exhibits; shoot out and goaltending. Of course we all got to hang out with the Stanley Cup, awarded to the top team in the National Hockey League.

Children’s Coding Workshops

NSNorth has offered companion tickets for designers and developers who wanted to bring their families to attend the events.

This year they took it up a notch and had two tech workshops for kids on Saturday. Toronto’s Ladies Learning Code presented a gaming workshop, and Daniel Steinberg ran an afternoon workshop on for kids on making iOS games with Swift.

Where To Go From Here?

NSNorth is great conference and one of my favorites. I would definitely suggest that you try to attend it in the spring of 2017, where hopefully it will be held in Toronto again.

There are some other great iOS conferences you should consider too:

• Like to learn via hands-on tutorials?: You should consider RWDevCon 2017 in the DC area early next year. If you’re curious how it went last year, check out our recent post-mortem.
• Like the idea of NSNorth but in the US?: You should consider 360 iDev – it’s very much like NSNorth but bigger: it has three tracks you can choose from.
• Want something more business focused, or from an indie perspective?: You should consider the Release Notes conference in Indianapolis or IndieDevStock in Nashville Tennessee.

As a proud Canadian on the raywenderlich.com Team, I hope to see you next year at NSNorth and keep your stick on the ice!