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
The second ever Global Game Jam is on this weekend and everyone here at Let’s Make Games would like to wish all participants the very best of luck.
For those of you who don’t know about the phenomenon that is Global Game Jam, here’s a quick summary: 48 hours of unadulterated creative energy poured into collective game development at breakneck speeds by teams all over the world!
Here in Perth, the local site is being hosted at the Joondalup Business Centre. Setup begins at 5pm tonight and submissions must be in by 3pm on Sunday (the event officially ends at 6pm on Sunday – leaving some time to actually play the games!).
Thanks to the efforts of Simon Wittber (aka. Different Methods), Perth is very well represented as a regional centre for game jamming. Perth was the only Australian location for the first Global Game Jam (at which point Simon had already organised two previous local game jams). This year, the Perth site is also being supported by local game developers Rockethands and Subversive Games.
Special thanks also to all companies that contributed to the showreel (apologies to Binary Space for not getting their “Class 3 Outbreak” teaser in) and to Game Pride for bringing along some laptops to demonstrate their latest game “Boo!”. Thanks also to Ben, who took most of the photos.
Here are some photos from the night in chronological order:
Anthony (Let’s Make Games Treasurer) returns from his wedding just in time to sort out receipts and payments. What a champion!
Saxon, Steve, and Nigel went on quite a journey in order to bring everyone else food. For that (and everything else) we salute you! :D
I asked Paul and Alex to look glamorous while presenting the prizes. Alex looks suitably Wheel-of-Fortune while Paul looks disinterested (his tactic is obviously “hard to get”).
Jim and I were happy to see so many other mo-bros at iParty 2.0.
It’s crowded in this direction…
It’s crowded in this direction too…
Jean-Marie (Subversive Games), Christel-Lee, and Simon (Different Methods, Subversive Games) kindly pose for a photo from the paparazzi!
Tim intimidated Simon with his superior hair. Simon succumbs to a natural reaction.
Not content with their already tall statures, Simon, Shanon, and Greg reach for the sky.
Tony (from Subversive Games) presents Richard with a massive box (containing Altech Lansing speakers)
Simon (from Rockethands) presents Graham with a copy of Shadowrun
Paul carefully draws a raffle winner from the Golden Bag of Tickets
The crowd during the raffle draw (image also features Simon’s hair).
Greg looks happy with his Krumpler laptop bag, and Paul (Black Lab Games) somehow managed to time the prize presentation to coincide with his game (Star Hammer) being on display behind him!
Phillip warmly thanks Avril (from Reveries: Virtual World) for his slick black keyboard and mouse.
Stewart was the first volunteer to arrive and made a huge difference on the night! Here he is coming up to draw a raffle prize.
The game in Jetha’s hand somewhat contradicts the game (logo) on his shirt.
How is that title even related to this image of Saxon drawing a raffle prize winner!?
Saxon (from Binary Space) awards Jeremy his Krumpler mini-case. Jeremy totally loves it.
A huge thanks to the Game Pride team for demonstrating their latest game “Boo!” Impressive. :D
Simon and Alex looking cute. Go team!
Peter’s heading back to the UK. Sad face. :(
It’s life imitating art (previously Simon was content to just photoshop himself into all group photos).
Now *that* is what I call eyebrow furling!
At this point I realised that Simon was in every single photo taken after I handed the camera to Benny Goodtimes.
Russia, France, an the USA all come together in Perth! :D
Liza gets in between Jeremy and Simon.
Three games companies in the foreground (and one in the background).
What’s going on here? Who’s just out of frame? At least there’s no incriminating evidence…
It’s difficult to appreciate how tall Shannon and Simon are in this picture. Paul isn’t a short man!
I gather that eCentral TAFE is totally rockin’. :D
Nice.
Is apparantly more accessible than Jeremy’s. He looks like he knows it too.
It looks like Jeremy is chuffed with a joke he told… but actual responses are fairly mixed.
Greg has posing for photos down. Simon hasn’t quite got the staying still bit down yet. :P
It’s a camera!
Happy organisers are a good sign of a fun event. :D
Literal caption: Rowan is looking at Rj’s hair.
There are always a few rowdy types that ruin the end of the night for everyone.
Guess which person is nick-named “Dodgy” ;)
Chris (PIGMI overlord) is back from the UK!
A low-angle shot that’s still above board.
This upcoming “Summer” exhibition looks interesting. Everyone should go.
iParty’s over… but Kitchen Party is just beginning!
We’re such big fans of our iParty 2.0 sponsors that we sleep with the following image under our collective pillow:
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 globalGame 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!).
Reminder: Can’t get enough of local scene events? IGDA Perth are running a Design Theme Night! It starts at 7pm tonight (Tuesday 11 August) at the usual venue (The Velvet Lounge).
The theme for the evening was “portable gaming” and the main focus was on a number of locally developed iPhone games. The night started off slowly as we worked through some technical problems (audio) and hardware setup (laptop and projector).
Here’s picture of us setting up:
Unfortunately, I was too busy to take more photos when the night got going! As always there were a few early arrivals and we ended up with 40 something people after the official start time.
Dharmesh from GameTraders (Carillon City and Carousel) brought a couple of PSPs so that people could get hands-on with Dissidia: Final Fantasy months before it is due to be released. He brought along a few prizes and ran a low-key impromptu tournament. Final Fantasy fans rejoiced!
A number of local game developers brought their iPhones and iPod Touches in order to causally show off their games. After an hour or so, we switched the projector over from the Dissidia tournament to promotional videos from local developers.
DrewFX showed off their recently released surfing game, Surf Prodigy, and spoke a little about technical and legal issues in bringing it to market.
RocketHands teased their upcoming (first) iPhone game, RocketFuse. They also committed to an easy-to-remember release date of 09/09/09!
Surf Prodigy and Pools of Blood are available now on the iPhone Apps store, so support our local developers and check them out!
Thanks to GameTraders, all the local developers who brought along videos, and everyone for coming along and supporting these local scene events. Our next event will be on Tuesday 25 August… and it will be music-themed.
For handy reference, here are the videos shown at the event:
Let’s Make Games events are fun social get-togethers for local game developers and gamers. It’s great to catch up with the local scene and see what people they have been working on, and there’s always a friendly atmosphere for curious newcomers.
GameTraders (Carillon City and Carousel) will be bringing along two PSPs for a pre-release demonstration of Dissidia: Final Fantasy. One PSP will be connected to a projector for general viewing. Dissidia: Final Fantasy is scheduled for local release in September.
Crewjo are looking for local mobile game developers and may make a brief announcement. Finally, GO3 will be announcing a special opportunity for local developers to showcase their work and to network with other companies at the upcoming GO3 Electronic & Entertainment Expo in October.
We hope to see you there!
We apologise if we missed mentioning any developers who plan to demonstrate and have RSVP’d. Feel free to bring along short promo videos (on a USB stick) for our video loop.
Update: Anthony will be bringing Bomberman for multi-player wireless DS gaming tonight!
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