There are game developers in Perth? Really?
That game was developed here?

As a community, it can be pretty disheartening to feel so invisible. Shipping a game is a huge achievement that should be recognised, and our local game developers should be celebrated like the stars they are!

That why Let’s Make Games maintains an directory of local game developers and keeps a record of locally developed games. If you haven’t yet seen our Games and Developers pages, check them out (and send us a profile if something is missing!).

We’ve just added the following developers:

• Super Furious Software
• Silver Lightning Software
• Big Bucket Software

And the following game:

• The Incident

Thanks to the developers for sending through profiles and bringing their game releases to our attention. As we’re purely volunteer-run, it sometimes takes a while before profiles appear online, so please be patient if you send one through (it will appear on the site eventually!)

This bring our total listings to 27 games and 17 developers. Not too shabby for an apparently small industry!

Perth iPhone developers Sandbox Software have just released their first iPhone game: Adrenaline Snowboarding!

Here’s a gameplay video showing off some hot 3D graphics:

Here’s the pitch from the developers’ Touch Arcade forum thread:

Sandbox Software is pleased to announce Adrenaline Snowboarding, our first title for iPhone!

Get it from the App Store now: Adrenaline Snowboarding

Take on the role of an extreme snowboarder and shred down the slopes, grind rails and bust out huge aerial tricks. Score big to compete against your friends, or others from around the world.

Features:

* Multiple courses
* Variety of characters including a gnarly looking robot!
* Massive jumps
* Rail grinds
* Mid air grabs and tricks
* Intuitive tilt and touch screen controls
* Online high scores with custom leaderboards
* Adrenaline pumping soundtrack
* Listen to your iTunes music while you play
* Much more coming really soon!

And here are some screenshots:

I guess the only thing left to say is: Congratulations Sandbox Software on the release of your first iPhone game!

iParty 2.0 wouldn’t be possible without the kind support of our sponsors. When we put the call out a few weeks ago, we didn’t know what sort of response to expect. We’re incredibly appreciative and humbled by the level of sponsorship offered by the following local organisations, companies, and individuals:

• Different Methods: Apparently Simon is not content with just organising local and global Game Jams, hosting and maintaining Planet PIGMI, and undertaking some of the most amazing games-related work in Perth. He’s also come on as our biggest sponsor, making us feel all warm and fuzzy with his support.
• Innovation Centre: Always keen to lend a hand to local industry groups (such as ours!) the Innovation Centre kindly offered the use of their fantastic professional events venue. Our drinks will be kept cool in their fridges and our work will be displayed on their projector and plasma screen. It’s great!
• Subversive Games: Subversive creates training games and advergames for the rapidly expanding serious games market. One of a handful of larger professional games companies with a studio in Perth, Subversive Games continues to show it’s strong support for the local scene.
• Rockethands: If the group shot on their website is anything to go by, Rockethands are the coolest game developers in Perth… ever. You can tell that they keep it real, and evidently put their money where their mouths are. We know that money can be hard to come by for indie developers and it means a lot to us that you guys have sent some our way!
• Black Lab Games: The latest game development initiative by one of Perth’s veteran game developers (Paul started his first games company back in 1992!) Paul has an infectious passion for games and independent development, which he shares with others as a founding committee member of IGDA Perth Chapter.
• Reveries Virtual World: Avril is obviously a real trend-setter, jumping right in as our first financial sponsor. Reveries has all of us at Let’s Make Games very excited with anticipation. Thanks for being so forthcoming in supporting our community events Avril!

With all this support iParty 2.0 is shaping up to be the best night of the year for local game developers. If you haven’t yet RSVP’d, please do so using the contact page or by registering for the event on Facebook. It’s a free event with food and drinks provided (thanks to our awesome sponsors!).

See you all in just over 2 weeks!

Aside from new visuals, we’ve been working to improve site content. We’ve created an Events page, updated content on the About page, and added a whole bunch of links (which should appear on the right-most column).

Please take a few minutes to check out the links section and let us know if there are any other sites that should be included. Chiefly, we want to ensure that our list of local game developers is as comprehensive as possible!

If you are a local developer, please contact us so that we can include a brief (company, group, or individual) bio in our upcoming report.

The report contains a summary of results from the recent industry survey (conducted in early March 2009), and details a number of practical directives that we will be pursuing to help ensure sustainability and growth of the local games industry.

We hope that you find the report interesting, that it provides some insight into the current state of the Perth games industry, and that it highlights some issues that must be addressed if we are to capitalise on local talent.

Please feel free to leave comments here, and to send detailed feedback via the contact form. We would especially like to hear from you if you are in the Perth games industry, but did not participate in the survey. We will be announcing a mixer event within the next few days and encourage everyone to attend!

Finally, we’d like to express our deep appreciation to Jack Casey for the feature image on the front cover and to Paul Turbett from Black Lab Games for the foreword.

Update: Fixed a few links in the report. Thanks to Josh Stewart for reporting these errors.
Update: Corrected graph and grammar in Current Involvement section. Thanks to Simon Boxer for reporting these errors.

The Perth game development scene has come a long way in the last few years. Here are a just few highlights:

1. Interzone Entertainment setup a local development studio with over 40 employees
2. The Perth Independent Game Makers’ Initiative (PIGMI) was created and provides a popular mailing list for local game developers
3. A local chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) was setup and has run a number of events
4. Local Game Jams started and have been seen high participation and resulted in some excellent games
5. Perth was the only Australian city to participate in the first ever Global Game Jam
6. Locally developed iPhone title Spinfast Cricket became the #1 iPhone game in Australia.
7. The first Perth-developed MMO (Interzone Futebol) is entering Australian Closed Beta (hosted from Perth)

At Let’s Make Games, we want to do whatever we can to ensure that the local industry continues to grow and innovate. These are exciting and fun times!

Let’s Make Games is a OneTwenty initiative. Please let us know what you would like to see happen here in Perth!

Update: I forgot to thank Simon for the awesome Let’s Make Games logo. Good stuff!

Update: Removed reference to Floor, since it looks like they are no longer operating in Perth (thanks for the heads-up Jason). Anyone have news on this?

Update: Added reference to Spinfast Cricket. No more updates to this post though, look out for the upcoming Industry Profile.