Story Mode Unlocked: How Video Games can level up your TV & Animation IP

TIME & LOCATION

Wednesday 12 November, 12:30 pm

End Time: 1:30 pm

The Factory

About

From the big screen to the game screen, beloved stories are finding new life and new revenue in the world of interactive entertainment. This panel explores how studios, developers, and IP holders are adapting film, TV, and animation properties into video games that expand audiences, deepen engagement, and unlock fresh opportunities.

Featuring representatives from two London-based production houses currently working with NI game studios:

– Harvey Hayman from Hat Trick Productions

– Karen Troop from Passion Pictures

…and two Irish development houses creating video game adaptations from globally recognised entertainment properties:

– Vicky Potts from Whitepot Studios

– Paul Froggatt from Outlier Games

Hear from experts from both sides of the process on the creative, technical, and commercial challenges of adapting well-known TV and animation IP into new, playable experiences, and discover what it takes to make these cross-media partnerships a success.

Chair

Stephen McCormack

SPONSOR

Panel

Harvey Hayman

Games Lead, Hat Trick Lab

Harvey works as the Games Lead and is responsible for the video game projects which Hat Trick is working on – it’s a bit of development, game design and producing mixed together. He used to be a tax consultant, then threw it all in to study Video Game Design and Development MA at the National Film and Television School. Talk to Harvey about his favourite games: Portal 2, Balatro, Thank Goodness You’re Here, What Remains of Edith Finch and Disco Elysium.

Vicky Potts

Co-Founder, Production & Dev, Whitepot Studios.

Vicky Potts is a co-founder of Whitepot Studios, a Belfast-based kickass games development studio. From making websites at the age of 11, it felt pretty inevitable she would end up in tech. She went on to graduate from Queen's University Belfast in 2015 straight into her first business, a bluetooth beacon solution for museums and other venues, taking part in Invest NI’s Propel Programme and winning the Ireland Funds Business Plan Competition. Now, at 27, she is onto her second business with Whitepot Studios - which won NI Game Of The Year for their title Tubocity. Adept with C# and Unity, she is utilising her tech background to transition to a business and production role, and been named MCV Women In Games Rising Star Of the Year.

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Karen Troop

Production Director & EP, PASSION Animation

Karen has 15+ year’s experience as a BAFTA award-winning producer in the games and entertainment industry, driving digital creative and innovation across some of the most globally recognised entertainment titles. She has produced experiences across a breadth of formats including game development, CG/animation, real-time and TV. As Production Director & EP Games, Karen is responsible for overseeing production of all animation projects at PASSION including in-game cinematics and transmedia productions. She also heads up game development from PASSION's own original IP. This includes two projects with Northern Ireland-based game studios – Italic Pig and Crybaby – with the help of Northern Ireland Screen funding.

Paul Froggatt

Technical Director, Outlier

Paul is Outlier's Technical Director. Prior to Outlier, he had a 10 year career at Google and also created, ran, and sold a multi award-winning restaurant business. Since moving in to game development he released mobile puzzler 'Zombles' on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and was lead programmer on This Means Warp which released on PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch.