What are you doing this Saturday (15 January 2011)? If you answered “Attending the Genghiscon indie video games panel… obviously!” then you already have a fantastic weekend in store for you. Otherwise, keep reading and update you plans!

What is Genghiscon? Here’s a description from their website:

GenghisCon is a student-priced convention, filled with games, activities, panels, discussions, and workshops covering science fiction, fantasy, roleplaying, board games, and more.

Given the high degree of overlap between indie video game developers and other types of geeks (I refer you to the Venn Diagram of Geekdoms), there will be a lot for game developers to love at Genghiscon. Plus, it’s only $25 for a weekend of education, fun, debate, and solidarity!

Onto the indie video games panel in particular…

Here are the details:

• Time/Date: 16:00 – 17:00, Saturday 15 January
• Location: Junior Common Room, St. George’s College, Mounts Bay Road, Crawley

And the list of panellists:

• Avril Cox (Reveri.es Virtual World)
• Nick Lowe (Let’s Make Games)
  
• Chris McCormick (PodSix Games)
• Brad Power (Rockethands)
• Scott Reismanis (ModDB, IndieDB, Desura)

Look at that line-up! There’s sure to be some thoughtful conversation, and you could be a part of it.

Ask Avril about developing a community-driven web-based role-playing game. Ask Chris about how to be hardcore indie. Ask Brad about his fish-smelling game. Ask Scott about running the world’s largest website dedicated to independent game development!

Thanks to Genghiscon for inviting us to help with the indie games panel.

Thankfully our resident videographers, Richard and Ben, have put together a fantastic short that captures the good times that were had. Enjoy the contagious enthusiasm of the Perth game development community!

Still craving more nostalgia? Check-out photos from the event, and the playlist of locally developed content that was screened on the night.

Music:

So we were ecstatic when, within a few hours of announcing Let’s Make Party, we had four local game developers contact us to lend their financial support! We made this flyer to celebrate (click image for large version):

Introducing this year’s sponsors thus far:

• Different Methods is once again our major sponsor for the second year running. A quiet achiever but clearly Perth’s premier commercial game developer. Unassuming and unpretentious, their website simply states: “We make games”. And that’s exactly what they do – with a positive and inspiring just-get-on-with-it attitude.
• Rockethands is also sponsoring us for the second year running. Regular game-jammers and event attendees, the Rockethands team have: a whole bunch of collective commercial experience; produced numerous indie games; released two iPhone games and one iPad game; and even produced a popular music video under their own label (Rocketband)!
• DrewFX joins us this year as our most eager sponsor (they contacted us within minutes of the event announcement, keen to get funds to us ASAP!). They are probably most well-known for their iPhone game Surf Prodigy or via their presence in the Torque community.
• Binary Space supported last year’s end-of-year party as volunteers, and this year they have come on board as sponsors. They are probably the only local game developer whose work has been featured on the National Geographic website (seriously, check out the link).

To our sponsors: We salute you! Thank you for your support!

It’s still over three weeks until the party, so there is plenty of time for new sponsors to sign-up, and we are still looking for volunteers to help on the day. Please contact us if you would like more information on sponsorship or volunteering.

Update: Handwritten Games has also signed on a sponsor!

We’ve just added three more games to our games directory:

• Surf Prodigy by DrewFX
• Cellblock Squadrons by Super Furious Software
• Space Crash by RocketHands

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.

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!

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.

For more information, see: the Global Gam Jam website; the list of participants for the Perth site; the local event schedule; and the official website for the Perth site.

Thanks to everyone who attended (you make organising these events worthwhile), our volunteers (Stewart, Brett, Alex, Saxon, Steve, Nigel, John, Sam, Simon, Anthony), and our sponsors (Different Methods, the Innovation Centre, Subversive Games, Rockethands, Black Lab Games, and Reveries Virtual World):

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:

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!

Our July social event, What’s That in Your Pocket!?!, was a great night for local gamers and developers.

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!
• Staring Man announced that the latest update to their iPhone game, Pools of Blood, features music from local band Karnivool.

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.

The original event announcement has all key information, but here are a few new highlights…

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.

A number of local games companies will be demonstrating their latest iPhone games. This includes Surf Prodigy by DrewFX and RocketFuse by RocketHands. Also attending (and possibly demonstrating) will be game developers from Istpika, Spinfast, Staring Man, Subversive Games, Black Lab Games, Interzone Entertainment, Sandbox Software, and Kruger Heavy Industries.

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!