The Seattle indie game developer scene is strong, especially on Friday, May 20, and Saturday, May 21, at the Power of Play convention.

Power of Play is an intimate game industry convention, boasting tons of industry professionals and the room to meet and learn from them all.

It’s a small convention, but according to their website, this year they’ll have over 500 industry pros, more than 20 panels and 40 plus speakers at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.

On Friday, day one, the attendees are limited to those in the industry- up and coming indie developers, game veterans, informative sessions and an industry after-party at the end of the day.

The general public can attend on Saturday to experience Power of Play’s own indie game expo, find out the results of the Seattle Indie Game Competition, try retro games in the free play room and even participate in one of three Esport competitions.

As I experienced last year, volunteering on Saturday, the convention has a laidback atmosphere that was relaxing, and completely different than most of the larger conventions you’ll attend elsewhere.

The small ratio of attendees versus industry professionals meant there was always someone in the industry available to speak with, whether about the game they’re currently developing, their creative process or just to get to know them.

The indie expo was especially revealing. While PAX may have more games to test out, you’ll never have the same amount of time to analyze and test out indie titles at a larger convention than you’ll have at Power of Play.

It really gives fans, and those interested in joining the industry themselves, a quiet place to have real conversations and connections with the industry.

While most students will likely not be attending the industry only day on Friday, I can’t really say they’re missing out, because Saturday has some really great and informative sessions and panels, including ones on streaming technology, audio in indie games, narrative storytelling, how to capitalize on Esports and even postmortems on successful games such as Ark: Survival Evolved and Alphabear.

It’s immensely fun to cruise through the aisles in the indie expo and speak with creators. During my volunteer breaks, I would go to any table that caught my eye and could easily either try the game they were showing or start up a conversation- or both!

Power of Play gives something of a behind the scenes view of the games we nerds love (or have yet to fall in love with- so many new indie games!). This view is fairly rare to see, especially without having special access or just extremely good luck at a larger convention.

I highly recommend attending if you’re interested in joining the industry in any capacity, or even if you’re just a big fan that enjoys learning about the creation of games.

The Esports tournaments will be for Halo 5, Rocket League and Tumblestone. Joining the tournaments requires registration beforehand on the Power of Play website.

For more on the events, a schedule and roster of who’s who at the indie expo, go to Power of Play’s website at http://powerofplay.us/

For something sooner and closer to home, Brian Schmidt, the founder of GameSoundCon, a convention dedicated to game audio, will be speaking at Central on May 18. Schmidt will speak with a focus on music in the video game industry in the Music Building at 5 p.m.