Today was the first day of the Ottawa International Game Conference (OIGC), which is the Canadian equivalent of the GDC or SXSW Gaming Expo, and lasts for three days in the Canadian capital. The fifth annual OIGC is a showcase of independent developers, panel discussions, and speakers specializing on topics from technical aspects of game design to marketing and talent seeking. It's a really well put together event showcasing a ton of great minds and impressive talent, and this was my third year attending the event in different capacities. 

Today was the Game & Art Expo, which I had the pleasure of spending my afternoon exploring. The focus of today was for game developers and artists to come out and showcase their talent for the public to enjoy. Today's expo was open to the general public free of charge, which is a first not only for the OIGC, but for many similar conferences, and a fantastic way for developers to promote their projects to more people. 

Perhaps even more impressive was the fact that this event was also free for developers. People typically need to pay to operate a booth at these events, but its a facet that hinders many independent developers from participating in these conferences. The potential thousands of dollars that people may have to pay to be able to showcase their game at a conference is often money that would be better spent invested into the game itself. 

There were almost 3000 people through the Game &Art Expo today, which is an impressive number considering it was the first time that the conference held an event like this. I'll be discussing the games I got to play in more detail in the coming week, but it was great to experience so much independent talent in one place. An exciting GPS location-based RPG, an immersive narrative driven game where debating is as integral as fighting to your success, and a fantasy turn-based tactics game that came second place in the Microsoft Codename GOA developer competition. 

Stay tuned in the following days for my upcoming coverage of the independent developers from the Ottawa International Game Conference 2016.