Posts Tagged 2009
Experimedia Audio
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on December 21st, 2009
Thanks to Level 3, we have audio from some of our Experimedia sessions available as .mp3
Sessions available on YouTube
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on November 3rd, 2009
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.
One week on…
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on August 21st, 2009
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.
For those who couldn’t make it…
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on August 17th, 2009
Day Two…
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on August 16th, 2009
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.
Day One…
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on August 14th, 2009
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.
Screenplay interview
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on August 13th, 2009
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.
Not long to go now…
Posted by Paul in Uncategorized on August 13th, 2009
In under 22 hours, Freeplay will be happening. We’re in the home stretch now, and behind the scenes we’re rushing around making last minute preparations.
Big news is that Petri Purho, our international speaker is in the country. We picked him up early this morning and whisked him off to a hotel to recover.
And for those who missed Byte Into It on RRR last night, the podcast is up here. I talk about Freeplay, video games, twitter, and sandwiches.
iDef
One of the supporters of this year’s Freeplay, especially in regards to sourcing equipment for our public expo area, has been iDef, and they’re returning later this year.
The International Digital Entertainment Festival (iDEF) is heading back to Melbourne, Australia in 2009 playing host to a series of events and activities supporting and promoting the exciting and innovative digital world. The festival will include the eGames Expo, Digital Lifestyle Show and Develop ICT Skills and Careers Expo. Featuring leading game publishers and the opportunity to engage with industry representatives iDEF is a great opportunity to gain a greater insight into the world of games and interactive entertainment. For more info check out www.idef.com.au
Keynote and After Party
Posted by Paul in Announcements on August 11th, 2009
Well, here we are, the week of the 2009 Freeplay. We’re incredibly excited as we put the finishing touches on things, and think it’ll be a really interesting event. We’ve pulled together a strong, broad range of speakers, and put them in what should be some really thought-provoking sessions.
One of our highlights, and something we’re really pleased about, is having Petri Purho as our international keynote.
Petri Purho is currently a student at Helsink Polytechnic, studying computer science. Game development has always been a part of his life, including pen
& paper roleplaying games, strategy games, board games, card games, and experimental video games.
He runs the website www.kloonigames.com documenting his approach to game creation – a new game every month, created in a maximum of 7-days, incorporating some experimental gameplay mechanic.
His first commercial game, Crayon Physics Deluxe, won the Grand Prize at the 2008 Independent Games Festival and is currently available for PC and iPhone.
We’re also happy to let you guys in on our after party, happening at Fad Gallery in Chinatown straight after our closing session on Saturday the 15th.
Fad Gallery
14 Corrs Lane
Melbourne
VIC 3000
We’ll see you there to celebrate Freeplay 2009!