A selection of newly conserved games from the Melbourne Global Game Jam will be available for your sampling pleasure at the next IGDAM meet up.  Please note the unusual date (didn’t want to cramp Valentine’s plans) and venue (the bend was already booked).

When: Tuesday 21 February from 6pm

Where: The Order of Melbourne (think Freeplay afterparty venue and you’re set)

Some of the games for your tasting pleasure include:

Omelette Boris, Purgatory, Circle of Snake, Faia, Harmonize, Hairy Cat Holocaust (please play on mute), Deep and many, many more….

If you could let us know if you’re coming via the facebook event it’d be much appreciated.

Jammers, please register your game for display so we can save you a space and have someone set up by 6pm at The Order.

The jam was a massive success with over 100 jammers creating 28 games in just 48 hours. We couldn’t have achieved this without the generous support of our sponsors….We owe enormous thanks in particular to our Platinum Sponsor La Trobe Universityfor allowing us to use their campus grounds to host all of the jammers. They were generous in providing us with five computer labs and a workstation for every jammer, as well as internet access and use of their amenities. The Game Jam would not have been possible without this venue.All of the jammers were delighted to hear from Myles who explained Gold Sponsor Microsoft’s Imagine Cup, which is certainly of interest to all of these jammers. The generous financial support given by Microsoft also provided a solid meal and snacks that fueled the creative minds.We also owe significant thanks to our other Gold Sponsors the Academy of Interactive Entertainment and Immersive Technologiesfor their generous financial assistance. Their support allowed us to provide meals and some fun distractions to relieve the jammers from 48 hours of relentless development. The game jam would not have been possible without their early support.

All the jammers also owe many thanks to our Prize Sponsors EA Aus

tralia,Stephan Shutze’s Sound Librarian, Surprise Attack amd StormFX for their generous donation of prizes including a copy of the Stephan’s sound library, valued at $2000 for the best game audio, a half day branding and marketing workshop for the most surprising game, as well as JB giftcards and a terrific selection of EA games and merchandise.

Finally, cheers to our  Indie Sponsors Tin Man Games, The League of Geeks, and The Voxel Agents who provided some financial support and who were also incredibly generous with their time in helping organise, run, and judge the jam. Particular thanks are also due to Ben Britten-Smith of Tin Man Games who provided valuable mentorship to the jammers.

Hope to see you at The Order

When: Tuesday 13 September. 6.30pm – 10.30pm

Where: 1000 Pound Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne (but round the back in the laneway, it is Melbourne after all)

Please respond on the facebook event if you’re at all that way inclined, you may get in on the secret early that way!

This will be a great chance to catch up again after the creative inspiration that was #freeplay11, and find out what’s afoot with IGDA Melbourne in the coming months.

There’s murmurings of fun afoot, but never fear, you only have to get involved as far as you are comfortable.

If you’re interested in helping out a bit with future events, particularly with Christmas and Global Game Jams ahead, drop us a line at committee@igdamelbourne.org.

Cheers,

@jazzrozz

IGDA Melbourne Podcast Tuesday 12 July 2011

Not only have Joel and the fabulous team at Mnemonic Audio made IGDAM audible for the live audience, we now also have snippets for those who missed it.

Check em out out the twitterz too

Hey devs

Come along next week and hear about some exciting new game projects and initiatives at our Open Mic Night!

When: From 6.00pm, mic’s turn on at 7.00* (give or take, but earlier than usual to fit it all in!)

Where: 1000 Pound Bend, Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

We’ve received a huge response to our call-out, so much that we unfortunately can’t fit everyone into the one night. Don’t worry though, you can expect more Open-Mic events to come. In particular, we’re looking at hosting a presentation evening later this year specific to student groups, to give them a chance to publicly show off their hard work for the year.

but without further ado, the running sheet for next week is as follows:

• QBOY – Student Project (Student Presentation)
• Swing Interactive – Student Project (Student Presentation)
• Harry Lee – Current and future projects and Harry’s Jam (Student Presentation)
• Wicked Awesome Pty Ltd – “The Adventures of James Chimp”
• Anomolous Interactive – “Homemade Shooter” to “Slingshot Justice”
• Chris Mackenzie – AdHatchers Advertising Agency
• Trent Kusters – Introduction to  “League of Geeks”
• David Thompson -  GameLoft Auckland update
• Casper Pieters – 3 Part TV Series with a related Gaming Platform (He wants to pick your brains!)
• Raptus Games – Starting a new Indie Studio, preview of first release ‘Draw’
• Walk Through The Clock – First year as an Indie startup
• PlayBit Entertainment – “Puzzle Treasure”……phew!

It’s ok, we’ll go all old fashioned and have an intermission on this one, and it’s micro-talks or midnight.  If there’s a particular project or topic you’d like to discuss futher just catch up with the presenter later in the night.

We’ll also hear  from Paul Callaghan about  Freeplay, which is just around the corner, and Tony Reed from the GDAA will explain who can take advantage of the new R&D Tax Credits and how.

Finally, although not chronologically, there will be a sneak preview for an exciting event that IGDA is helping to bring to Melbourne next year…any guesses?

Come along to hear all about it all!

The Freeplay Independent Games Festival today announced that the Freeplay Awards are open for submissions for the 2011 awards to once again celebrate the best in Australian independent, artistic, and creative development.

Categories for the 2011 Awards include:

• Best Game
• Best International Game
• Best Design in a Game
• Best On-Paper Design
• Best Art in a Game
• Best Concept Art
• Best Technical Innovation
• Best Game Writing
• Best Audio

The 2010 awards drew more than 50 entrants from across Australia and the world – requiring the creation of a ‘Best International Game’ category. Winners include Brawsome’s Jolly Rover for Best Game; The Voxel Agent’s Train Conductor for Best Audio; PVI Collective’s Transumer for Best Game Writing; and Colorbind by Finn Morgan for Best Technical Innovation.

The 2011 finalists will be chosen by a soon to be announced expert panel of developers, educators, artists, and critics.

Dates for the 2011 awards are:

• 27^th June, 2011 – Awards submissions open
• 25^th July, 2011 – Submission deadline
• 8^th August, 2011 – Announcement of shortlisted projects
• August 20^th & 21^st, 2011– Freeplay Independent Games Festival
• August 21^st, 2011 – Freeplay Awards Ceremony

“We’re excited about the return of the Freeplay Awards in 2011,” said Freeplay co-director Paul Callaghan. “The response in 2010 was greater than we’d anticipated in our first year and we’re hoping to see even more creative and unique projects in 2011.”

He continued, “game development is undergoing significant changes and we’re starting to see existing developers step into the independent arena at the same time as a new generation of artists and creators emerges, creating an inspiring culture of ideas and projects that we want to celebrate and showcase.”

For full rules and submission guidelines, see the Freeplay website – www.freeplay.net.au/awards

The Freeplay Independent Games Festival takes place at the State Library of Victoria on August 20^th and 21^st 2011.

For more information, contact Freeplay:

Web: www.freeplay.net.au

email: info@freeplay.net.au

Hey all,

Had another great night at last week’s IGDA Melbourne meeting, they just keep getting bigger and better! We had 180 last month, and it looked like it was over 200 for this month! We’ll have to work hard to keep up the momentum at this rate…

The topic for the May meeting was ‘Money, Marketing and You’. The focus was on the financial realities of running an independent game development business, and personal marketing for independents and students.

To start things off, we had a quick update from Paul Callaghan on the preparations for this year’s Freeplay festival. The theme for Freeplay 2011 is ‘Handmade’, with a focus on the specific craft aspects of game development, as well as the individual’s place in the creative process and how games manifest as player constructed experiences. If you want to be part of Freeplay 2011, as a presenter, volunteer, expo presenter, or even assist in running the event as an Associate Producer or Board Member, check out the details at the website and get in touch with Paul to register your interest.

We kicked off the main event, and had the wonderful Neil Rennison from Tin Man Games there, to talk about the actual financials of his business, and the reality of running an indie dev business. This was incredibly valuable information, with him quoting his actual business financials, and describing how he runs his business, and what he learned while developing each of their titles. Huge thanks to Neil for being so open and honest with all of this information. Neil then broke the sad news that he will soon be leaving our sunny colonial shores to return to the motherland (UK). It’s a sad decision, but Tin Man Games will still operate as a Victorian business, Ben Britten will still be here and there are plenty of plans already in the works for future Gamebook Adventures titles. We wish Neil and his family all the best for the move and all look forward seeing him at GCAP. Neil’s been a prominent and valued member of the IGDA Melbourne community and our loss is England’s gain. With luck we’ll tempt him back in a few years.

After that, we had Trent Kusters and Stephan Schutze talking about personal marketing, branding, and job-seeking. At this point, the evening was already getting rather late, but Trent and Stephan managed to amazingly fit a huge amount of information into the time they had (and you could easily run a day-long session on this topic). There were guidelines and examples of how to write an effective CV and cover letter and how to build a personal brand, an online folio presence, and the Do’s and Don’ts of job applications and interviews.

Stephan put together a collection of information for people to access, and you can find it on his website.

It was an amazing night, with lots of valuable information for students, independents, and just about anyone really. We were also at a new venue, 1000£ Bend. They had a great open area in the gallery out the back where everyone had plenty of room for mingling and networking, and an upstairs presentation area with seating (not enough for everyone unfortunately, we were rather surprised by how many people came along), and while the rain drowned out the speakers a bit at times, it’s looking like a great venue for future events as well. If you have any comments on the venue or the evening, please let us know at info@igdamelbourne.org.

As announced on the night, our June event will be a developers ‘Post-Mortem’ of “AFL Live”, which was developed in Melbourne by Big Ant Studios (X360 and PS3) and Wicked Witch Software (Wii). We’ll have speakers from both companies there to spill the beans on what happened during the games development, and field questions from the audience. Further details about this soon…

Cheers all,
Craig.

Wow!  There were 180 along last month, and this month’s looking to be a corker too, so we’ve relocated to 1000 £ Bend at 361 Little Lon in the CBD – thanks a bunch to them for hosting us, and to the State Library folks and Social Media Melbourne for the leads on handy locations.

Please let your IGDA mates know about the venue change and we look forward to seeing you at:

1000£ Bend

on

Tuesday 10 May – 6.30pm – 11pm

Talks start at 7.40 pm – There’s  about the talks here and please reply to the facebook event if you’re that way inclined (helps for planning)

It’s free entry and the kitchen’s open for service until around nine, the bar til a wee bit later than that, so all well mannered games devs and community are welcome along

Along with the amazing money-can’t-buy glimpse into the nuts and bolts of #indiedevlife from Neil of Tin Man Games. Paul Callaghan will also be onhand to discuss Freeplay and how you can get involved , and Trent Kusters and Stefan Schutze will talk about self-promotion techniques

We’ll we look forward to announcing next month’s plans, and probably so much more …

Speaking of which, If you have any announcements you’d like made on the night, please email giselle at igdamelbourne dot org the details and we’ll do our best to accommodate all requests, time permitting.

And thanks to @elroyonline, @craigpeebles, @voiceover_au @parabol83 for the £’s, none of which were harmed inthe creation of this blog

After a brief catch up with a very busy Tin Man, aka Neil Rennison, creator of the Gamebook Adventures and local indie top bloke, we can give you a little more detail on what’s sure to be another great night with the IGDA Melbourne crew.

Keep an eye out for any venue changes due to the number of people planning to rock up, and if you can reply to the facebook event that also helps with planning….

….anyway, back to the fun stuff

Neil sounds like he’s planning an unmissable talk for anyone thinking indie and wondering what it really looks like when you’re there. Using the Gamebook Adventure series details, we’ll hear about how they were funded, what business model was used and how Tin Man Games intends to increase revenue over the next two years.  We’ll get to see sales figures on all 5 currently released Gamebook Adventures.  This will be fascinating stuff and massive thanks to Neil for being so frank and honest with his bolts and all expose on the Gamebook Adventures experiences.

All this AND some insight into how to develop your own company, game or (dare I say it?) brand in the games marketplace, be it for your first job, contract or business proposal with Stephan Schutze and Trent Kusters.

AND AND …. Paul Callaghan will be there for a quick chat about how Freeplay’s coming together and how you can get involved

AND AND AND all the usual catching up on how projects like WinnitronAU, Automation and all other projects hatching around our mighty fine town.

When: Tuesday 10 May 6.30 – talks start at 7.30

Where: Cho Gao (at this stage – keep online for updates, please RSVP)

Hi all

Wow! More than 180 games devs and transmedia enthusiastics came along to last night’s gathering we like to call Tim

What a fabulous night – we’d love to get your feedback in comments to this post, and a big welcome and thanks for coming along to all the new igdammers.

HUGE props to Jarrad and Karl for giving up their time and sharing their expertise  and insights into creative processes. Also thanks to the lovely Christy Dena for giving us the opportunity to mash it up and  the State Library of Victoria for allowing us to have the biggest and most AV fault free event ever!

I mentioned a few things, and forgot to mention a few others in all the excitement:

What I remembered:

• Firemint are still on the hunt for talent – particularly, and right now, QA Testers
• Big Ant Studios are advertising for a gameplay programmer
• Library Hack is going on – could win 6 grand and have fun with datasets!
• FimVic has some sweet plans for encouraging creative independent processes, and getting the chance to travel to London as part of the idea sharing – (more on this soon)
• WinnitronAU is ocming along – you should put your game on it!

What I forgot to mention:

• Next month’s plans…for the full details you’ll just have to wait a bit – it’s teaser time:

There’s this amazing bunch of blokes called fondly known as Tin Man Games, they make these sensational GameBook Adventures and somewhat of a doyenne of indies locally.

Well… they’re going to lift the tin lid on their financials – so if you want to know a bit more on the business side of what some call indie, some call prindie then this will also be a don’t miss event….and that’s not all (but it’s already a long teaser so I’ll save the rest for later)

Facebook event coming soon – please do reply there if you can as it really assists working out how many are coming along and who will fit!

Again, feel free to offer feedback on and igdam events, either comment here or email giselle@igdamelbourne.org

Thanks for coming