The cat is officially out of the bag on FilmVic’s exciting new announcement that Brad Giblin alluded to at last week’s meeting, and it’s lookin’ gooood!

The nuts and bolts of it are the Minister for Innovation (now that’s a cool title) has announced funding for Games Investment which will enable games developers to create a full game on any platform, or a prototype to assist securing further funding, with up to $100k available for each project.

Check out the details in the pdf’s below

Film Victoria media release Games Investment announcement Oct 2010

Digital_Media_-_Games_Investment_Guidelines

or head to the horse’s mouth on the FilmVic website

Thanks to everyone who turned up to the night and especially those who spoke, you made it another great event! Here are the speakers and how to contact them:

Paul Callaghan
The co-director of Freeplay. Tonight he shared with us a quick review of some of the speakers that are going to be at GCAP this year, giving us a glimpse of the great line up in this year’s very themed event.

David Thompson – Tiberian Sun Rising
Having spoken to at the last IGDA open mic night he got up both to give an update on where the project was at but also to ask for anyone who was interested in joining the team to work on sound, and was also looking for a talented particle expert. So get in contact through the website if your interested in joining them on making what is looking to be an amazing Total Conversion.

Chris Watts – Play Bit Entertainment
Another regular contributor to these nights, Chris Watts is looking for a programmer to join a small team from Play Bit (in collaboration with the Red Tribe creative spaces) to create an iOS game. They’d love someone with Unity experience, but at the very least need to be great with either C# or Javascript (probably more Java as Unity is a little different on it’s JS). Also, don’t forget to check out their recently released Facebook game MineQuest – originally conceived as an iOS game it’s interesting to see what can be done with a good idea to extend it into different arenas.

Giselle Rosman – La Trobe University
g.rosman@latrobe.edu.au
I know she didn’t actually “speak”, here’s what she would have said. She’s looking for iOS App developers (or cross platform mobile devs if you’re up for it) to possibly create an App for La Trobe University open days in the coming years.

Rob Caporretto (site)
Having worked on this space-action-shooter-with-a-twist for over a year now he’s looking for people with iOS devices who’d be happy to test it for him and give him some feedback on the game which is currently in Alpha stages.

Ben Britten
http://benbritten.com/
At Freeplay Ben presented a talk as an introduction to using Unity. The feedback was so great that he’s decided (along with Rob Caporretto and others) to start a Melbourne Unity User Group. Currently the best place to go to get involved is the Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/unity3dmelbourne. All are welcome, from pros to students, artista and programmers. A wonderfully pithy talk at exactly 38 seconds.

Finn Morgan – Colourbind
Also shown at Freeplay, Finn showed us his game Colourbind, an amazing action physics puzzler based around changing gravities which affect different coloured objects. He told us about his ideas about current Meta review scores (from sites such as Metacritic) which just give average scores to game, and would rather see these shown as standard deviations, as to get a better idea what games are “average” and which are just “controversial”. This sprang from the fact that the he got from Freeplay from people who hated it was “it’s frustrating”, which turns out to be the same as from the people who loved it, “I love it because it’s frustrating”.

Brad Giblin – Film Victoria
Sadly  Brad’s talk was cut short but the fact that the minister has not quite signed off on “the big news”. Suffice to say there IS big news from Film Victoria coming in the next few days / weeks. So stay tuned to their announcements – and get ready to talk to Brad – this should be very interesting and hopefully a boon to the local industry!

Trent Kusters – Torus Games
Taking a step back from his usual role as IGDA MC for the night, Trent had the happy news that Torus is again hiring (after some setbacks earlier in the year) and is looking for new talent! The sad news is that they keep getting underdone, underworked resumes and non-existant portfolios from designers. So remember, polish, spell check and generally make sure your work is relavent to the job! And if you’ve submitted a CV to Torus earlier in the year, please re-work it, re-polish it, and re-submit it with an explanation of what why!

Ivan and Greg – Rubber House Studio
Two experienced animators who have recently gone it alone and started a new studio. Greg’s background includes experience as a 2D and 3D animator at Weta, and Ivan in both animation and the creation of pixel art adventure games. They presented their showreel to the audience to give us a taste of what they do now.

Craig Peebles – Moving Target Games
Another update as to where this teams is at since the last Open Mic night. They’re looking for more people to work with so go check out their site and send them an email!

Caz Parker and Andrew Lamb – Automation Game
A late entry, Caz and Andrew told us about their up and coming, not quite yet Alpha, game called Automation. It’s looking quite amazing so far and they’re touting it as a Street Rod meets Transport Tycoon. The idea is that you get to take control of creating and running an automotive business, from building the engines to selling and marketing your cars; the whole industry! It’s aimed at real car nuts, but will be easy enough to learn (and to teach) if you’re just a beginner in the car world. Look forward to this one!

Stephan Shutze - http://www.stephanschutze.com
Another surprise entry, Stephan back up what what Trent had to say about portfolios and resumes. Make sure they’re 120% awesome before showing potential employees! He also wanted to remind everyone of why they make games – it’s from the heart – you do it because you love games and not because you think it’s going to be an easy get rich quick scheme (using MineCraft as an example).

Film Victoria’s Digital Media Prototyping and Downloadable Games Initiative funding rounds close Tuesday 27 April 2010. This funding offers Victorian producers, publishers and developers financial assistance in the development of locally owned intellectual property.

Film Victoria’s new Downloadable Games Initiative seeks to empower local producers looking to target digital distribution projects toward Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, Nintendo Wiiware, iTunes, Steam and other relevant digital distribution networks. Funding is limited and investment of up to $75,000 is available. Producers should contact Film Victoria prior to submitting.

Film Victorias longstanding Digital Media Prototyping funds enable local producers to create product prototypes with up to $500,000 Sony PlayStation® 3 / Microsoft Xbox® 360 / Nintendo Wii® game projects; $150,000 for online, handheld and PC projects and $50,000 for mobile phone projects. Funding is limited and producers should contact Film Victoria prior to submitting.

And what better a place to do it than over a cold one at The Embassy tomorrow night???

The audio from the Open Mic Night that was held on Tuesday the 3rd of March 2010 is now available. Just listen below. Have comments on how audio should be available in the future? Please just leave a comment below.

Thanks to Jamie Galea from Level 3 games podcast for the recording.