There were about 22 exhibitors and the unsigned games section for indie and professional. My two favourite unsigned games won, Frost from the AIE and Ash from White Noise Games.

I spent most of my time in the general design and bus.dev sessions. Highlights of the event for me were:

- Phil Harrison, Exec VP of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe outlining their R&D for the 3D web and the upcoming release of the PSP - their mobile device which should be launched mid next year.

- Ian Fischer, Lead Game Designer for Ensemble Studios outlining their iterative processes to games dev.

- Kevin Burfitt, Atari Melbourne House and their work with their "monkeys" or automated tools that they use in their dev process. Especially liked HamletMonkey, an app that tests the game by mashing keys at (almost) random. Very funny to watch the footage.

- Paul Steed, Microsoft Xbox and his "Building a Digital Goddess" in 3D Studio Max - man, there’s a man obsessed with his model!

- The nerf gun fight at the gala dinner.

Lowlights:

- Watching England win the World Cup

- Sleeping in a dodgy cheap hotel

- Having to come home and work for a living.

I’ll post up some (very bad) disposable camera pics from the conference at http://www.gridwerx.com.au in the next day or so if you want to have a squiz.

Feel free to shoot me any questions around the conference - I’ll see if I can answer them.