Melbourne iFEST 2011
Time |
Main Presentation |
Workshop |
| 9:30 AM | iFEST doors open | |
| 10:00 AM | The Pixelated Cocktails to Success Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg, ManaBar |
|
| 11:00 AM | Stop Production and Start Prototyping Luke Muscat, Half Brick Studios |
Starting an Indie Company Ryan Tait & Ryan Keable |
| 12:00 PM | Indie to Prindie Simon Joslin, The Voxel Agents |
Using BigWorld Technology for Indie Game Development Paul Hampson, Micro Forté |
| 1:00 PM | Recess | Funding Your Indie Game Project Epona Schweer, AIE |
| 2:00 PM | Age of Zombies: An AppStore Post-mortem Michael Dobele, Halfbrick Studios |
Introduction to Free Flash Development Aaron Styles, Freelance Game Developer |
| 3:00 PM | Re-building Australia’s Game Development Industry John De Margheriti, BigWorld |
5 Things I Did Before I Started My Game Studio Michael Woods, Media Saints |
| 4:00 PM | A Conversation with Ed McMillen | |
| 5:00 PM | Announcement of Indie Game Comp winners | |
Session Information
The Pixelated Cocktails to Success
Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg, Director / Marketing / Events, ManaBar
Taking a brief look at the year that is 2011 and why it’s shaping up to be one of the best for the local Australian game development industry, and giving some hope and inspiration to anyone stubborn enough to pursue their dreams and passions by weaving the story of the trials and tribulations of creating and promoting the world’s first videogame cocktail bar. Expect insights into best social media practices, how to market a product from scratch, and more needless self-promotion then you can shake a stick at.
Stop Production and Start Prototyping
Luke Muscat, Lead Designer, Halfbrick Studios
Drawing on personal and professional experience, Luke will talk through the process of prototyping game designs. With numerous real world examples, students will be given practical tips to improve their own processes in the early stages of game development, and how to make the most out of early prototyping.
Starting an Indie Company
Ryan Tait & Ryan Keable, Directors, Anomalous Interactive
The two Ryans will be speaking about how they founded and run Anomalous Interactive, an local indie games studio.
Indie to Prindie
Simon Joslin, The Voxel Agents
Simon Joslin, Creative Director of the successful indie studio, The Voxel Agents is talking about the transition from indie start-up to being a professional game developer. Simon will also cover strategies for success / avoiding pitfalls for new indies, marketing and promotion and emerging opportunities for indie developers.
Using BigWorld Technology for Indie Game Development
Paul Hampson, Senior Programmer, Micro Forté
Learn how BigWorld indie can bring your game to life quickly and can scale as your user base grows. Paul will give an overview of the BigWorld server technology, world building tools and art pipline for bringing your models to life in the game. Also covered will be how to use python scripts to quickly get your game code up and running.
Funding Your Indie Game Project: From Start to Finish
Epona Schweer, 3D Animation & Game Art Teacher, AIE
So you want to be a full-time dashing indie adventurer with a big floppy hat and still be able to pay the bills? Epona will talk about the variety of avenues you can investigate to fund your game including government incentives, private investors and crowd funding.
Age of Zombies: An AppStore Post-mortem
Michael Dobele, Executive Producer, Halfbrick Studios
Age of Zombies launched onto the iOS marketplace in October 2010. After being featured by Apple as their Game of the Week in both US and AUS it quickly climbed the charts and even managed to break the top 20 in numerous countries. This unique postmortem concentrates on our experiences post launch and covers the rights and wrongs we made that affected our peaks and troughs in that all important AppStore rankings chart.
Introduction to Free Flash Development
Aaron Styles, Freelance Game Developer
This presentation and live demonstration will show you how to make Flash games, that not only play in a browser, but on some of the most popular mobile platforms. In the hour Aaron will (attempt) to make a game, with audience suggestions.
5 Things I Did Before I Started My Game Studio
Michael Woods, Principal, Media Saints
In this presentation Michael will talk about 5 things he did prior to starting his studio that were fundamental to entering the game development industry which paved the way for the success of the studio today.
Re-building Australia’s Game Development Industry
John De Margheriti, CEO, BigWorld, Micro Forté & AIE
Is there an entrepreneur lurking inside of you and bursting at the seams to get out? If you have aspirations to start your own company, then this could be the launching pad you need to get ahead of the game! John De Margheriti will be discussing some industry support mechanisms for independent developers that the Academy of Interactive Entertainment will be launching to help kick start the next generation of start-up businesses in Australia.
A Conversation with Edmund McMillen
Edmund McMillen, TeamMeat
Edmund McMillen will be joining us via Skype, to discuss the origins, challenges and lessons learned through the development of one of the most successful indie games of 2010, Super Meat Boy. We invite you to join in the conversation by asking Ed your questions!