Unlike the photo of him above, Ricky is razor sharp. Co-founderof Honeyslug and co-organiser of both London Indies and The Wild Rumpus, he’s an indie kingpin. Also, a lovely man.

At Bit of Alright, on the 3rd of February, he’ll be running a session where game designers are asked questions about their games. The thing is, they won’t be allowed to know in advance what questions he’s going to ask about their work.

(Edit: I hit post a bit early on this one. Ricky wasn’t even announced!)

Cliff will be doing a talk called “How to actually get out of bed and finish a complex indie game”. His games include Democracy 2, Gratuitous Space Battles, and the upcoming Gratuitous Tank Battles.

There are few people better to talk to about finishing games. After working for some major studios, he became a self-publishing indie in 2006, and handles everything from art and programming to tech support. You can read a little of why Cliff chose to go indie here. From every day business decisions like pricing to controversial issues like piracy, his opinions often differ to common consensuses, but are sensibly thought through.

Adrian is managing director of SixtoStart, and with his colleagues Matt and Alex, will be talking about Zombies, Run!, a narrative game that uses GPS, real maps, and takes place while you run at any speed. I think that’s an interesting design challenge: How do you cater to players of varying fitness, and how does the game adapt to multiple or random routes? I never pick a set route when I go running and take whatever turns I fancy, could it adapt to that? Would it try send me over a broken bridge?

Unless you have the spirit of a flaneur, running can get boring if the endorphins aren’t flowing, and this is designed to make it more fun. As well as that, this session will cover fundraising using Kickstarter, which may seem like the latest holy moneyprinter, but it’s easy to get wrong if you take incorrect ideas to it.

This is the first of our daily blog posts about speakers. More on Monday!