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The next Perth GameJam is just under two weeks away. That means we’re just two weeks and a few days away from playing some sweet, sweet GameJam games!
It also means that you need to sign-up soon in order to secure your place!
For more information visit the GameJam homepage.
We recently received this message from Spinfast General Manager, Robert Spencer:
Our latest release is Spinfast Snowboard, featuring ESPN X-Games announcer Sal Masekela and available now for iPhone & iPad. There is more information and screenshots on the Website if you would like to read more about what we’re doing and please visit iTunes if you would like to download it right away.
Spinfast Snowboard is the third iPhone (and now iPad) sports title from this local developer (following Spinfast Cricket and Spinfast Baseball), and we’re expecting to see more from them in future.
Congratulations Spinfast! 
We’ve just added three more games to our games directory:
Thanks to the game developers for submitting profiles… although we’re still after profiles from more developers! (And for more than a few games!)
As a reminder, you can submit developer and game profiles by completing the corresponding surveys that have been running since April.
Thanks to everyone who submitted profiles for games developed in Perth. They’re now up and listed on our brand-spanking new Games page!
Everything has kinda just been dropped in there at the moment and everything has to be manually updated (although we do have some offline scripts to generate pages based on the survey results).
We considered putting in a database or wiki initially, but a database backend would require more setup and testing, and a wiki can easily turn into a inconsistent mess if it doesn’t have a critical mass of contributors!
We’ll work on improving both the game and developer directories as they grow.
Let us know if you find any errors or mistakes! Thanks!
We now have a Developers section that includes a page for each profile submitted in response to our latest developer survey.
As you can see from the image above, we have 14 developer profiles and we want more! Clearly, we would like to heard from all 20 developers listed in our links, but we also hope to collect profiles on local game developers that are no longer active.
The surveys are still running, so please submit a profile if you are/were part of a team that has yet to do so!
We understand that filling out a profile can feel a bit onerous, so we’ve tried to make it as easy and as fast as possible. If you need even more encouragement, we refer you to Steve Balmer:
Next up: We’ll be creating a Games section based on survey responses (and updating developer pages to include links to their games).
After the positive response we received for our Releasing a Game page, we decided to add an Art Assets for Game Developers page to our Resources section.
Here is our (completely subjective) top 5 list of free online resources:
Honourable mentions:
We hope that you find the full list on our NEW Art Assets for Game Developers page handy! Be sure to bookmark it and post some comments.
Rockethands (local game developers and serial gamejam participants) has announced that Halogen for Apple iPad is now available on the iTunes App Store.
Here’s a description from the product page:
Halogen is a fun, fast paced action game which pits you and your pucks against hordes of enemies in a battle to clear a drifting space dreadnought of crazed droids. Deflect your pucks and smash the droids where it hurts! Mow down the enemy onslaught en masse to rack up insane scores! Activate the coloured reactors on each level and liberate enough Halogen elements to shut down each section of the ship, until all that remains is a final inexorable confrontation! In SPAAACE!
Their first endorsement is effusively positive:
First class time killer, you really knocked it out of the park. Easily one of the best games I own. You must be very proud of your game…would you mind terribly making all games from now on? – Cranberry Juice
Congratulations Brad and Rockethands!
Every now and then an extended discussion on the PIGMI mailing list ends up producing a lot of useful information.
Sometimes someone notes something along the lines of:
I guess a more comprehensive list of sites and people to contact would be a good resource for all of us – maybe Let’s Make Games are interested in hosting something like that?
Or maybe even:
A central list could be useful…or we could just share lists around?
Since we have an easy-to-update website, we figured that we might as well use it. So we’ve added a Resources page (check it out!). It’s pretty bare at the moment, but it does contain a page with tips on publicising your new game release.
We’re relying on all of you to add comments and send us useful information! 
Any tips, comments, or suggestions?
Local game developer Black Lab Games (run by industry veteran and local hero Paul Turbett) recently (just yesterday) released Star Hammer Tactics onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
Here’s a blurb from the press release:
Star Hammer Tactics is an easy-to-learn game of tactical battles. Deploy your forces, engage your enemy and outwit them to achieve victory by blasting them to pieces! Along with the single-player campaign, Star Hammer Tactics features a choice of skirmish modes – single player against a devious AI, or the local multi-player mode in which gamers will compete for glory and bragging rights!
It’s fantastic to see a locally developed game readily available for download on a major console. Although, it’s a shame that it’s not readily available in Australia as Xbox LIVE Indie Games is yet to launch here!
Congratulations Paul!
Note: How does a local developer go about making games for the Xbox360? Why can’t we buy Xbox LIVE Indie Games here? Answers to all these questions and more when Paul Turbett talks about his experiences at our next Let’s Make Games technical session in August (or September).
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