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Cherchez La Femme

Paul — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:44:09 +0000

Coming out of Freeplay were really concrete and tangible themes of inclusion, accessibility, gender, and recognition, which we hadn’t really given space within the festival itself to properly explore. We didn’t want to wait a whole year before doing that though so we decided to put our feelers out and see if any other groups would be interested in exploring those topics in relation to gaming.

The first of those is with Cherchez La Femme taking a look at Feminism and Gaming. We’re really excited about it and hope that this will be the first of a series of events and partnerships like this between now and Freeplay 2012.

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME: FEMINISM AND GAMING

Tuesday, October 4 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm

The Fox Hotel - 351 Wellington St, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia

Freeplay and the Emerging Writers’ Festival

Paul — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:41 +0000

Freeplay isn’t the only festival in Melbourne. It’s a festival city and throughout the year there’s everything from food to dance, from writing to film, from comedy to design, and from theatre to games. This obviously means that there’s always something to do if you want to head out into the world, but it also means there’s a big gap between events if you’re waiting for a specific one – like we know you all are for Freeplay.

To rectify this, at least partially, we’ve been talking to other events in Melbourne about ways that we can work together and we’re very happy to announce the first of those partnerships is with the Emerging Writers’ Festival taking place from 26 May to 5 June 2011.

We’ve long been a fan of the EWF and its incredibly hands on approach to writers and writing, and we’re very excited about the playful storytelling work we’ll be doing together. We’re keeping it a surprise for now, but keep an eye on their website for the program – or follow them on twitter and Facebook.

This is the first of a bunch of partnerships and events we’re doing to tide you over until Freeplay. More on those very, very soon as well as our call out for speakers, volunteers, expo projects – and something completely new for 2011. Stay tuned…

Sessions available on YouTube

Paul — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:03:28 +0000

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.

Experimental Gameplay Project

Paul — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:23:48 +0000

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.