It’s taken us a while to really properly process this year’s Freeplay…

First off, it’s worth bearing in mind that while Freeplay started in 2004, this is just our second festival as directors – and everything about 2010 was bigger than last year.  We had more projects showcased in Experimedia, we had more workshops and panels, we had more speakers and more internationals, we had more work in terms of pulling together the awards, and we had probably double the number of people through the whole event as last year.  Across the board, it was a huge increase, and one that makes us wonder how we can top it next year

But let’s take a step back first…

After 2009 we thought long and hard about what would be best for 2010.  We looked at an industry caught in a work-for-hire mentality and at the creative energy coming out of Freeplay that seemed slightly unsure of it’s direction.  It took us a little while to get there, but eventually we decided to build a festival that looked not at the established industry or at the old question of games as art or at education or getting a job, but that looked at what lies at the heart of why we do this – the drive to make things, the drive to create.

Which, in the aftermath of 2010 sounds really simple, but in early 2009 when we made the decision, there were no sessions, no speakers, no workshops, and no panels.  There was nothing – except an idea.

So we started to dig around what that meant and to create what Freeplay 2010 eventually became, and in doing so, in designing something that reflected on the creative process while being built out of that same process, new ideas came to us, new people were suggested as speakers, and new and interesting topics came out of the woodwork from both the games space and from fields like animation and product design and storytelling.  We were overwhelmed as we found ourself with this incredibly generous array of speakers who wanted to get together and share their thoughts with the community – in many cases a community that they were only peripherally (if at all) connected to.  All up, 65 people spoke at Freeplay across 29 sessions to what looks like over 1000 people, and we’re incredibly thankful to them for giving up their time and experience.

But it’s only afterwards, in the wake, that we’re really able to appreciate the scale of those numbers.

Running a festival, you’re never really sure how people are going to react to it, you’re never really sure if anyone is going to turn up.  Sure you sell tickets, but what if they decide it’s too hard to come in through the rain? You’re also never sure how people will respond to the creative decisions you’ve made about how to organize sessions and speaker.  What if, you think, nobody likes it?  What if all the work, all the effort, all the energy you’ve spent fails to connect with anyone?  What if, you’ve wasted their time and their money?

Fears, I’m sure, every creative person can easily understand.

And compounded with that is the fact that you don’t get a do-over.  The festival happens just once.  Sessions run just once.  You have one chance to get it right. And if you don’t, then what happens?

And not everything can go right. Not everything was perfect.  There are things we learned from 2009 that we did our best to deal with, and just as many things we learned from 2010 – ways to improve the festival, to streamline it, to make things easier for us and our audience.  We’re sure there will be as many in 2011 for 2012 and in 2012 for 2013, and on into the future of us running Freeplay.

But back to 2010…

It seems like there was something there in that weekend.  Something that went beyond our program or our speakers or us as directors.  Something that needed to be said or expressed through action or that was waiting to find a voice.  Coming out of Freeplay 2010, we felt a change in the energy of how people thought about things, in their desire to just make things, and their awareness of the broader creative community.  At the after parties it seemed to be almost palpable as people talked not about the industry or eduction or how to get a job, but about their ideas and their projects and how they could get them out of their head and into the hands of an audience.

It was something we hadn’t expected.  We’d hoped that Freeplay would connect with people, hoped it would inspire, but I don’t think either of us really thought what that might look like.

We know now.  And it looks pretty amazing.

We really hope that the energy and ideas and creativity that spun around those 2 days continues and we see the most amazing, brilliant, experimental, and inspiring successes and failures come out of it.

I guess, in short, we really hope that people keep making stuff.

See you at Freeplay 2011

Thanks to Level 3, we have audio from some of our Experimedia sessions available as .mp3

• Ask A Game Developer
• Game Design Challenge
• Games Criticism and The Danger of The Fanboy (or girl)
• Playing In Somebody Else’s Sandpit
• From Start To Finish

Thanks to Chris Watts and Souri from tsumea, the following sessions are available on the tsumea YouTube channel:

Opening & Welcome

The New iKid on the Block

Kynan Woodman – Development Director at Firemint
Neil Rennison – co-founder of Tin Man Games
Paul Motion – Senior Producer with IronMonkey Studios

Launched in 2007, Apple’s iPhone has, in its brief lifetime, created a new market for independent developers looking to create highly-innovative, smaller-scale projects. This panel explores the issues, challenges, and successes that the iPhone brings to traditional developers.

Agile Development

James Hudson – Nocturnal Entertainment

Agile development is an attempt to allow development to be more reactive to change, to increase iteration speed, and to increase communication between members. This workshop looks at the pros and cons of using agile in a real world game project.

Playing in Someone Else’s Sandpit

Cameron Lee – Development Director at Electronic Arts
Blake Mizzi – Lead Designer at Torus Games
Tarwin Stroh-Spijer – Director at Touch My Pixel
Craig Duturbure – Freelance Games Designer

Australia has a reputation for delivering licensed titles – including Spongebob Squarepants, Transformers, The Fast and the Furious, and others. This panel looks at the challenges involved in working within the constraints of somebody else’s idea – and how you maintain your own creative voice while doing so.

The Art of Getting Things Done

Rory Hart – Head of Development on the virtual worlds project ExitReality

The collaborative nature of games development is one of it’s most rewarding facets, and also one of the most difficult to get right – from estimating tasks, to scheduling milestones, to handling communication, many starting developers struggle with this shift away from their core discipline.

This workshop looks at the fundamentals of managing projects and teams.

Petri Purho – Keynote

Petri Purho, creator of Crayon Physics Deluxe, makes a game every month within a strict 7-day time limit. Freeplay asks him the how and the why of it all.

Little bit late, but this month I thought we’d use the theme from the actual experimental gameplay project.  This month, it’s Art Game.  Details here.

Inspired by Petri and the Experimental Gameplay Project, we’re taking a leaf out of their book and trying to get the local community involved in rapidly prototyping and iterating over any and all wacky gameplay experiments rattling around their head.  It’s all very informal at the moment, so we don’t have many rules, and it’s pretty much: take a theme, make a game, don’t spend more than 7 days on it, and try to do something experimental with the mechanics.  You can use whatever tech you want, you can build as big a team as you want, you can outsource all of your art, just don’t take any longer than the 7 days!

When we’re close to the end of the month, we’ll sort out some sort of exhibition / party / get-together to show off everyone’s projects, and we’ll also look at hosting them on the freeplay web-site.  Oh, and because it’s our first month we’re going to leave the theme open, but if you need some structure, use the one from the official Experimental Gameplay Project site.

We’ve set up a discussion space on our forums, but if you’re interested in being more public, feel free to comment below.

We’re now a week out from Freeplay and some of the dust is starting to settle.  Thanks to everyone who came along and made it a huge success.

Over 200 people came along to our panel, lecture, and workshop programme taking place in the Village Roadshow Theatrette and Seminar rooms, hearing from over 50 speakers including developers, educators, students, programmers, artists, film-makers, and cross-media practitioners.

For the first time, we held a public expo program that took place in the Experimedia room at the State Library.  Over 300 people had the chance to play locally produced independent and professional games, take part in discussions about games and the broader gaming culture, and workshop their own ideas in a game design challenge run by Infinite Interactive.

Our international speaker, Petri Purho, drew large crowds to talk about not only his process for creating games, but also the role of creativity in creation and play, and his return in our Freeplay Greatest Hits Panel saw him create rag-doll peggle in under 5 minutes.

In the wake of Freeplay, we’re hoping to continue to build the creative community, supporting independent developers through discussion spaces and events, and putting together our plans for 2010 – stay tuned for details.

Thanks again.

I’m sure this won’t be the first write-ups of the event that we see

Jason Hill reports on Petri Purho’s Keynote at Freeplay – link

A blog entry from hackpacker – here

A little late, but last night was a whirlwind of hand-shaking, drinking, dumplings, and finally making it home to bed, exhausted but happy.

We’ll write more about the experience from this side of things, but day two of Freeplay was just as exciting as day one.  Running from space to space, seeing the workshops constantly full of people, hearing the discussions and debate bouncing back and forth in the theatrette, watching people playing games and taking part in design challenges and panels in Experimedia, was simply amazing.

Thank you to everyone who came along – whether you bought tickets day one or simply stumbled into Experimedia.  I hope you got something out of it.

Wow.

Day one of Freeplay is over.

And wow. just wow.

A long, exhausting, brilliant, surprising, invigorating, challenging day.

We’re home prepping for tomorrow, and we’ll write more later, but I just want to say thanks to everyone who came along. I hope you all got as much out of it as I did. Even though I was running around making sure things happened, I saw enough of the panels, and read enough feedback, and spoke to enough people, to know that Freeplay worked in its new venue and under its new directors.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll see you there.

Up this morning, there’s an interview with me on Jason Hill’s Screenplay blog about Freeplay and independent games in general.  You can find it here.