A recap of Develop:Brighton 2026 with Safe In Our World

The Safe In Our World team returns from another busy Develop conference in sunny Brighton. Here’s what happened, and what’s to come!

We went to Develop:Brighton as a team of four, and returned with five. Before we crack on with our recap, we’d like to first introduce you to Eben Cunningham – Safe In Our World’s new Business Development and Fundraising Manager.

Eben dived into the deep end with his new role at Safe In Our World, spending his first week getting to know the team, the trustees, patrons, and charity friends at one of the industry’s busiest events. If you attended Develop:Brighton, Eben probably cornered you for a conversation already – but you’re welcome to drop him an email to discuss potential partnerships and sponsorship opportunities.

It was thrilling to jump into my new role at Safe In Our World, with access to one of the most important networking events in our industry. Thanks to everyone who came to say hello, to wish me well in my new position, and to offer support to our charity – I cannot wait to work with you in the future and make the games industry a safer, healthier place for everyone to enjoy. – Eben

Day 1: Unity Dev Day Raffle

We’re always honoured to be invited back to the annual Unity Brighton Developer Day to kickstart our week with a raffle – and this time we broke a record, raising a whopping £1070 in just one afternoon!

Event-goers were spoiled for choice thanks to the prizes donated to us by mental health advocates and allies across the games industry. Get in touch if you’d like to donate prizes or game keys to support mental health.

Day 2: Safe Break Mixer

We were raring to go on Tuesday morning, with the promise of gentle networking, great food, and familiar faces from across the games industry arriving at our annual Safe Break mixer. We were also pleased to see new faces in attendance, as our mixer grows year on year.

We spent the morning filling in compliment banks, discussing strategies for anxiety, and sharing our self-guided mindfulness toolkits. We spent the afternoon soaking in vitamin D on the sunny rooftop terrace of Sea Lanes in Brighton, connecting with industry friends and discussing our Level Up programme.

Instead of wellbeing becoming an afterthought at the end of a long, intense day of networking, our mixer incorporates self-care. We made time for drawing, colouring, sharing stories, and sitting listening to lo-fi tunes from our favourite video games.

Day 3: Breaking Down Barriers to Mental Health

With the expo in full swing, it was time to team up with Safe In Our World Ambassadors who helped us run our booth this year. You may have met Jamie, Nate, Jessie, Alex, Mivi, Jack and JJ – some of our fantastic ambassadors helping to bring mental health to the forefront of the conversation in games.

We were able to show off our newly printed publicly available Impact Report, detailing some of the wonderful mental health initiatives and collaborations we’ve been able to explore over the last year.

Our Programmes Coordinator, Izzie, also hosted a roundtable discussing barriers to implementing mental health support. There were some incredibly thoughtful contributions from attendees, acknowledging the barriers they faced but also coming up with ‘easy win’ solutions to breaking down these barriers – here are some of our favourite crowd contributions.

• Making time for non-work chat (especially when remote working!)
• Scheduling emails and/or not expecting a response outside of working hours
• Advocating for taking breaks / leaving loudly

It was great to see how many people were keen to contribute to a conversation around better mental health support, and it’s clear that despite the barriers individuals and companies face, there really is a desire to do better. I hope we can continue to support folks across the industry by removing as many barriers as possible. – Izzie

To learn more about how to implement better mental health support, consider joining our FREE Level Up programme, which provides you with all the tools to get started or improve existing practices. Or, get in touch to discuss becoming a Mental Health Star with our flexible, scalable accreditation.