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!