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

Hey everyone,

Have you got a game Idea you want to turn into reality?

Have you just released/about to release a game and want to show it off?

Looking for new team members?

Are you a freelance and want to advertise your services, or spread the word about your company?

Come along to our Open Mic Night in July for your chance to tell us all about it!

Time and places will be limited on the night, so you’ll have to register using the form below. Make sure you include a valid email address so we can contact you.

We’ll contact speakers before the night, and publish a running sheet for the evening closer to the date.

When: Tuesday 12 July 6.30pm, mic switches on at 7.30pm

Where: 1000 £ Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne

5-10 minute timeslots – and a friendly, interested, supportive audience, so don’t be shy!

UPDATE: registrants have now closed. We’ll be in touch with speakers soon to confirm spots shortly.

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.

Hey everyone,

here’s a list of all the games that were created as part of IGDA Melbourne’s first Global Game Jam event. We had a fantastic turnout of 72 developers, teaming up to make 18 complete and playable games. That fact alone is remarkable, that all games were planned and scoped properly to be completed within just 48 hours, and all the participants should be proud of that fact. On top of that, over a single weekend, all participants added a game to their portfolio, and learned valuable skills in creativity and developing under a tight schedule.

The games made at IGDA Melbourne Global Game Jam 2011 are (in alphabetical order):

• Magic Spatula – Ant Antagoniser – Save the Elan Frog:
  • Andrew Lamb, Caswal Parker, Jayelinda Suridge.
• Team Sideways – Breeder:
  • Dan Clayton, Christopher Errey, Matthew Manuel, Sam Wong.
• Yunikun – Diversity:
  • Tadgh Dinnage.
• Team Dead As – Dodo Demise:
  • Aaron Cox, Jake Henderson, Benn Lockyer, Alex Newsome.
• Burnt Out – Eternal Flame:
  • Anthony Cassidy, Peter Lawson, Matt Spriggens.
• Touch My Pixel – Floodlight:
  • Tony Polinelli, Tarwin Stroh-Spijer.
  • Winner: Best Gameplay.
• Team André – Game Over:
  • André Spierings.
• Team Anything – Got Wood?:
  • Daniel Bugeja, Stephen Gigante, Nina Nikolic, Guy Noble, James Siddel.
  • Winner: Most Daring.
• The B-Team – The Last Flight of the Bumblebee:
  • Ivan Dixon, Conor O’Kane.
  • Winner: Best Graphics, Tied for Participant’s Choice Award.
• Free Hugs – Plagued:
  • Dave Allan, Alex Boylan, Jason Hall, Mitchell Johnson, Brad Moore.
• Team Disorganised – Planet Panic!:
  • Chris Antonello, James Filippone, Stuart Murray.
  • Winner: Most Innovative.
• Team Pants – Rising:
  • Mike Blackney, Finn Morgan.
• In Five Seconds – Saldo:
  • Trevor Dikes, Harry Lee, Jarrod Lowery, John Sietsma.
  • Winner: Best Sound.
• Crunch Time – Slingshot!:
  • Mothana Dabash, Michael Gillies, Peter Jamieson, Kai Lynk.
• Team Space Defender – Space Defenders:
  • Ian Gielen, Aaron Styles, Luci Temple.
  • Winner: Most Fun.
• Team Broficiency – Ultra Happy Death Virus HD:
  • Patrick Clearwater, Matthew Elvey Price, Sandra Gibson, Luke Hus.
  • Winner: Winner: Best Game, Tied for Participant’s Choice Award.
• Æther – Vivimus:
  • Edward Whitehead.
• Team Anura – Whip Frog:
  • Campbell Barton, Alex Fraser, Daniela Hammer, Luca Pavone, David Thompson.
  • Winner: Organiser’s Favourite, Honourable Mention (Teamwork).

Once again, congratulations to all the teams involved. If you want to play these games, you can use the links above to download them from the GGJ site. You can also come meet us all at Cho Gao next Tuesday, and meet the teams themselves!

IGDA Melbourne was asked to chat with the team on “Byte Into It” on 3RRR FM last night, about the Global Game Jam that was run last weekend (Once again I’d like to give gushing thanks to our awesome sponsors for the event, Firemint and La Trobe University).

It was lots of fun chatting about what the Global Game Jam is, the games that were made, and the energy of the weekend. You can download a podcast of the episode here (Feb 2) – I’m on from about 17:00.

Again, if you want to actually see the games that were made, and play them yourself, come and meet us at Cho Gao (Melbourne Central) next Tuesday Feb 8th. The presentation will start at 7:30, but come before then to say hi and have a few drinks

And the 2011 Global Game Jam has been completed. This was the biggest ever Global Game Jam, with a record 6500 participants globally, taking part in 170 sites in 44 countries, making a total of almost 1500 games (All of which can be downloaded from the GGJ website to play.

Congratulations to everyone that joined in the fun! This was IGDA Melbourne’s first time running a GGJ event, and we had 72 eager developers locked up in cramped (and seriously air-conditioned) conditions over an entire weekend, making video games based on the theme ‘Extinction’. We had 18 teams formed, all creating and completing a playable game. This by itself is a fantastic achievement, and something all the jammers should be proud of. Some of the teams have already continued working on their games after the jam.

We’d like to once again thank our sponsors for the event, Firemint, La Trobe University and Stephan Schutze. Without their support before and during the event we simply would not have been able to pull this off, so huge props to all of them! Huge thanks to Giselle and also all the other IGDA committee members and helpers we had over the weekend.

The excitement through the entire weekend was constantly high, with people meeting new friends to form teams, and teams mingling and sharing ideas and improvements throughout. Photos and videos will be posted shortly on this site, and a bunch of photos are already on the facebook page.

We had a constant stream of visitors and media throughout the event, including representatives from Firemint, Torus Games and Tin Man Games, Hosts and crew from Level 3 and other local media. We also had a prestigious panel of judges to decide which of the games were most supremely awesome. A number of awards were given, with certificates and prizes. Full details on these, and links to all the games to come soon.

Thanks to all who helped make this event so memorable, in particular the jammers themselves. Your enthsiasm throughout the entire weekend, particularly in the wee small hours of the morning, even when seriously sleep deprived, was truly inspiring, and it’s fantastic to see just how many quality games were made in a single weekend.

We’ll be reminiscing on all the events of the weekend, and re-capping all the games made during the weekend, at our next meet at Cho Gao, February 8th. Looking forward to seeing you all there

Hey all,

GAME JAM IS ALMOST HERE! We’re all very excited to be bringing this to you, and it’s looking to be EPIC. It’s not too late to be a part of the fun, but places are extremely limited so get in asap.

Use the form below to register all your details if you want to take part in the Jam , which is being held on January 28th to 30th at La Trobe University, Bundoora (and come on, who doesn’t want to be part of it?)

Make sure you come along to this Tuesday’s meeting (11/1/11, 7:30pm to 10pm, at 3 Degrees bar (an over-18′s venue) in QV, Melbourne CBD). We will be giving out all the goss on what will be happening over the weekend, who might be popping in to observe (special guests aplenty), and who the judging panel will be as well. It’s also a great chance to meet other people who will be at the Jam, and see who you may end up working with.

Even if you’re not going to be jamming, come along for a chat with your fellow devs, and see what everyone’s been up to over the summer break.

Any questions, email us on info@igdamelbourne.org and we’ll get right back to you.

UPDATE: Registrations have closed, as of Tuesday 18/1/11 at 5pm. No further applications will be accepted after that time. We’ve had a huge show of interest in the event, and it’s looking to be great! We’ll be in touch with registered jammers directly via email.

If you registered (correctly) for the IGDAM Christmas party on Big Ant’s roof top thanks to Autodesk and FMOD you should have received your invitation via email.

It looks like there’ll be people from a pretty even spread of indies, prindies, wage devs, students and educators from, well, Big Ant,  Autodesk and FMOD of course along with

• AIE
• Blue Tongue
• Brawsome
• CATC
• Deakin
• Demruth (jetlag permitting)
• Drop Spider
• EA
• Ex-Krome
• Ex-Transmission
• Firelight Technologies
• Firemint
• Infinite Interactive
• Iron Monkey
• Katanco
• La Trobe University
• Level 3
• Mishme
• Mnemonic Audio (who have offered to kick in $100 for the bar tab, so yay! More of that!)
• Pilkington Street Studio
• Play-Bit Entertainment
• Qantm
• RMIT
• Ryan Bros & Assoc
• The Voxel Agents
• Tin Man Games
• Universe Creation 101
• Visceral
• Wicked Witch Software
• Zoomorphix Systems

So yeah, should be a top day!  It’s strictly invitation, over 18 and entry via gold coin donation – so if you’re registered, your  name’s on the door!

If you can provide a sound system and tunes please get in touch via giselle@igdamelbourne.org

PS – I need a break before tagging, this post, but I’ll get there!

See ya on the rooftop!

Details for the gamery goodness are in an earlier post, but just so ya know

The slab of beer raffle has been confirmed, and the specials at 3 Degrees this month are:

$5:

• Canadian club and mixer
• Sapporo stubbies
• Crown lager stubbies
• Bowmans Crossing Sem Sauv
• Bowmans Crossing Shiraz Cab

We hope to see you there from 7ish, with the juicy bits starting around 8pm

Due to the horsies doing that thing they do on the first Tuesday of November, we’ll be having our next meet up:

Tuesday 9 November

3 Degrees, QV Building

7.30pm – 11pm

More info available soon (we’ll let you know!) but the following speakers will be supplying a triple treat for our November meetup:

Symphonic Pixels: Courtney (Hae Won) Kim - http://symphonicpixels.com/

Cokoon: Yi Yi Wang - http://cokoon.com.au/

Rhys Sullivan

In addition there’s sure to be many a lively discussion over the good’s (GCAP) and the bad’s (Krome) of late.

We hope you can make it, if you ever want to get more actively involved just let us know, the more the merrier!