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GCAP 2021 will run online from Monday the 4th of October, to Wednesday the 6th.

The theme for Games Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) 2021 is Raising the Bar.

The Australian game development industry is poised to go beyond their established limits. United, we can raise our potential, reach for success and smash expectations both professionally and personally.

We are ready to ‘Raise the Bar’ – to grow, mature, move forward and build on our reputation as both a highly creative and skilled sector, as well as a thriving community.

Please join IGEA at GCAP 2021 as we connect and support the Australian games industry. We will share knowledge, education, and best practice, plus facilitate connection and communication as we all aim high and Raise the Bar.
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Monday, October 4
 

9:30am AEDT

Welcome & Keynote from Chandana Ekanayake
Welcome, Acknowledgement of Country, housekeeping and opening speeches, followed by the opening keynote from Chandana Ekanayake, Co-founder and Studio Director at Outerloop Games, a minority led, fully distributed indie game studio that creates accessible games with depth about underrepresented culture and themes.

Prior to starting Outerloop, Eka was an art director, game designer, and producer for over twenty years at various game studios including Uber Entertainment, Gas Powered Games, Shiny Entertainment, and Bethesda Game Studios.

Speakers
avatar for David Parkin

David Parkin

Founder, Managing Director
David is Managing Director of Luggarrah, a wholly Aboriginal owned business linking regional secondary school students from diverse backgrounds to game developers and others in the industry. A cultural consultant, gamer and supporter of games.David is one of 2020 GameIndustry.Biz... Read More →
avatar for Chandana Ekanayake

Chandana Ekanayake

Outerloop Games
Chandana Ekanayake is Co-founder and Studio Director at Outerloop Games, a minority led, fully distributed indie game studio that creates accessible games with depth about underrepresented culture and themes. Prior to starting Outerloop, Eka was an art director, game designer, and... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 9:30am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes

11:00am AEDT

The Australian games industry in 2020: survival sim, couch co-op, or battle royale?
The last 18 months have been monumental for the local games industry, and for the world in general. It's a period that deserves analysis and celebration! In this lighthearted retrospective, GamesHub's Edmond Tran and Jini Maxwell take a look at the last year in the Australian games industry: the exciting releases, the policy shifts, the challenges, the highlights, and that one time a senator honked on the senate floor.

This talk will lay bare the key points of a year that nobody could have predicted, and the way that Australian games, and the people making them, responded. Join Edmond and Jini for a thorough retrospective followed by enthusiastic speculation about the recent past and future of Australian games.

Speakers
avatar for Edmond Tran

Edmond Tran

GamesHub
Edmond Tran is the managing editor of GamesHub. He has worked in video game media for over 13 years, and was the Australian editor of GameSpot. You can follow him on Twitter: @EdmondTran
avatar for Jini Maxwell

Jini Maxwell

GamesHub
Jini Maxwell is the Content Lead for GamesHub, where they write about the people and circumstances that create videogames. They also write a monthly games criticism column for The Saturday Paper, and host ACMI's Women and Non-Binary Gamers Club.You can find them on Twitter @astro... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes

11:00am AEDT

Fortnite Cinematic Effects Breakdown and Sequencer Best Practices
Join Juan Collado and Luke Tannenbaum from the Fortnite Cinematics team as they take you behind the scenes of the Fortnite Season 6 Cinematic Trailer.

This talk covers a combination of conceptual aspects in the effects along with advanced tips for developers looking to get the most out of their renders, so all developers are welcome!
Speakers
avatar for Juan Collado

Juan Collado

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Juan Collado is a Cinematic FX Artist for Epic Games. Based in Raleigh, NC, he is a 1st generation Dominican-American with a passion for cooking, dancing, and setting things on fire in a controlled, digital environment. A 14-year veteran of the industry, he is currently a part of... Read More →
avatar for Luke Tannenbaum

Luke Tannenbaum

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Luke Tannenbaum is a Cinematics Pipeline Developer at Epic Games, where he handles the rendering pipeline for all Fortnite cinematics, develops helpful tools, and contributes as a technical artist to solve a variety of problems for the team. He currently sits as a board member for... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

11:00am AEDT

Working at Firemonkeys!
Your chance to meet the EA Firemonkeys Talent Acquisition & People Practices team and learn some tips and tricks for applying for your dream role. With special guest appearances from 2 of our tech leaders Jesse and Nigel, hear more about a day in the life of a game team engineer.
Speakers
AV
DW
JN
NK


Monday October 4, 2021 11:00am - 11:55am AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

12:00pm AEDT

Live chat (Design + Art Talk)
Join our Senior Level Designer and Lead Environment Artist as they talk about the key fundamentals of Design & Art at our Melbourne Studio.
Speakers
avatar for Heath Smith

Heath Smith

Sledgehammer Games
avatar for Stephen Honegger

Stephen Honegger

Sledgehammer Games


Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:45pm AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

12:00pm AEDT

Curiosity, Communication and Compassion; How to Become a Better Programmer.
How can you be the "Best Programmer" you can be? In fact, what even makes a "Good Programmer"? This talk will delve deep into the world of the Programmer with concrete advice on what you need to do to level up your career. As you can tell from the title, its not all about the hard skills. We’ll look at a wide range of soft skills that will help make you invaluable to your development team and actually make you feel good about yourself. With each point I will try to illustrate these skills with real life examples (and counter examples) taken from my own experiences.
Speakers
avatar for Tony Albrecht

Tony Albrecht

Riot Games
It started over 30 years ago with a C64 BASIC program which bounced a balloon around the screen and the question “How many more balloons can I animate?” That simple question has led to a lifetime of programming, specialising in squeezing as much power out of the hardware as possible.Tony... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

12:00pm AEDT

Gameloft Brisbane Culture
At Gameloft Brisbane we believe the greatest keys to success are a great studio culture and finding a balance in everything we do. Please join Sarah, Dylan and the entire Gameloft Brisbane studio as they share what it’s like to work and play at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Dylan Miklashek

Dylan Miklashek

Studio Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
Dylan has been in the video game industry for over 25 years. He has worked for EA Canada, THQ USA and Pandemic Australia. He has worked on multiple major licensed IPs including FIFA, NHL, MLB, WWE and Batman.In 2014 Dylan Joined Gameloft as Studio Manager of Gameloft Brisbane and... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Jordan

Sarah Jordan

HR Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
Sarah is an HR generalist with over 20 years of experience in a variety of industries working in areas of digital recruitment, employee engagement, employment law, training and development. Her keen interest lies in positive culture practices.  She gained a BSc in Business & a Chartered... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

12:00pm AEDT

It's The Little Things: Two Small Concepts with Big Impact
This is a two-part talk with short, sharp lessons from Leigh Harris and Ally McLean about the ways we can all improve ourselves in invisible ways across game design and production.

In part one, Leigh (Senior Game Designer, Team head, Wargaming Sydney) will explain a framework he uses to help define abstractions. It applies whether you’re a game designer, producer or developer of any kind – sitting somewhere in between a communication tool and a game design methodology.

Whether you’re creating a game system that should work nicely in a variety of circumstances, or trying to figure out what on Earth your client actually wants from your game, this method should help illustrate (by example) how you can apply it in a variety of circumstances to help improve the likelihood of reaching your goal.

In part two, Ally (Senior Producer, Mighty Kingdom) will demonstrate how to create a visualisation that can be used in any game development project to creatively problem solve and plan - a Risk Roadmap.

This will be a practical demonstration of how any senior team member can create a “risk roadmap” for a project, and use that visualisation to facilitate development decisions. Ally will build a risk roadmap in real time for a hypothetical project, and explain how team members from different disciplines can create and use this visualisation for their own purposes. This will be built without the need for any specialised production tools.
Speakers
avatar for Leigh Harris

Leigh Harris

Wargaming Sydney
Leigh is an award-winning Game Designer and Team Head at Wargaming Sydney. In previous lives, he’s been the lead designer on Objects in Space, TownCraft and Metrocide, and has taught game design, was the founding editor of MCV Pacific, did freelance games journalism for many years... Read More →
avatar for Ally McLean

Ally McLean

Production Director, League of Geeks
Ally is a games and tech producer specialising in practices that foster healthy, sustainable teams based in Sydney, Australia. Ally is the founder of The Working Lunch, a collection of initiatives to make the games industry a better place to work, and Senior Producer at Mighty Kingdom... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

12:00pm AEDT

Taking the ‘taboo’ out of leadership
Leadership, communication & workflow are key & relevant to ALL businesses, regardless of the industry or end product. And leadership is first and foremost a mindset shift required before tailoring & implementing any processes in order to solidify and enhance it within any business. A leadership mindset is about being open, curious & adaptable to new and different concepts which ultimately could transform your business, its culture, productivity & results. For the purposes of this presentation; the experiences that I can share from my exposure to so many different businesses, their approaches to leadership, their mindsets and their stumbling blocks, will be used to offer you some insights as to how you can tailor and build on leadership within your businesses and careers. I will use both actionable insights alongside examples to assist with making ‘leadership’ feel more achievable at where ever you are in your career or business journey.
Speakers
avatar for Lucy Megginson

Lucy Megginson

Mojo Talent
Lucy Megginson, the founder of Mojo Talent, as a business consultant and leadership coach, she has passion & expertise in empowering people & creating successful & thriving teams. Working with clients holistically to get the most powerful outcomes, she is a certified NLP Practitioner... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, Leadership, Career & Management

12:00pm AEDT

Now You’re Speaking My Language — Bridging The Contractor-Client Communication Gap
If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, then it's time we learnt to boogie.

Join me for a quick jig as I look at how to give and receive better direction from people who don't share your expertise.
Speakers
avatar for Zander Hulme

Zander Hulme

Director, Supertonic Pty Ltd
Zander is the director of Supertonic, an Australian game audio company attending to all aspects of music and sound in video games. Whether operating as a one-man audio department or as the director of a team, Zander has worn a great many hats over the course of his career – all... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

12:00pm AEDT

Your Indie Game Doesn't Need to be Pixel Art
Are you "bad at art"? Do you think that you are limited to pixel art because "pixel art is easier"? This talk is a deep dive into the structure of what makes art psychologically work and how that feeds into your misconceptions about pixel art.
Speakers
avatar for Atticus McNaughton

Atticus McNaughton

Subtle Boom
I'm Atticus McNaughton, and I'm a 2D artist and animator, and one of the directors of Subtle Boom. I've been kicking around Brisbane professionally for a good 8 years now, working on my craft, doing the art, just having a good time making games.

Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

12:00pm AEDT

Building the Open World of Submerged: Hidden Depths
Large open worlds by small teams require planning and good practices. Fortunately, Uppercut Games have done it twice! Find out how they approached the open world development of Submerged: Hidden Depths in Unreal Engine and what lessons they adopted with the benefit of hindsight.
Speakers
avatar for Andrew James

Andrew James

Uppercut Games
Andrew received a degree in Industrial Design from Newcastle University in 1996. He worked as an animator and later Art Lead for a number of years at Brilliant Digital Entertainment in Sydney. In 2000 he moved to Los Angeles to set up a new animation studio for BDE, focused on creating... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

12:00pm AEDT

Falafel, Hummus, and Baba Ghanoush: A Middle Eastern Perspective on Cultural Engagement Through Video Games
How do you represent cultural elements in your game from a culture that isn’t yours? Who is in the room with you when you're trying to?

Composer, performer, and radio presenter Meena Shamaly examines how video games successfully engage with other cultures, especially non-Western cultures. He responds to how Middle Eastern culture has been captured in games, and what it says about cultural consultation and representation in the medium. He draws on his cultural upbringing, his exploration of game scores, and writing music for other cultures himself (notably the First Nations Australian game score for Innchanted). Meena explores matters of authenticity, kitsch, and what could have been avoided with a consultant in the room – from misplaced accents and backwards writing to trivializing the depth of an entire civilization.

Meena also reflects on working as a cultural consultant with Christopher Tin (composer of Civilization IV’s Grammy-winning Baba Yetu),on his latest game soundtrack, Old World, which carries a strong Middle Eastern influence. He delves into a few of the questions, conversations, and cultural collaborations that happen behind the scenes, leading to true cross-cultural celebration.
Speakers
avatar for Meena Shamaly

Meena Shamaly

Composer, Meena Shamaly
Meena Shamaly is a composer, session musician, poet, and radio presenter. His work centres around creating music for stories, through the mediums of film, video games, and theatre, with special attention to true cultural engagement.Meena is the composer of Innchanted, developed in... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

1:00pm AEDT

Lunch Break
Monday October 4, 2021 1:00pm - 1:50pm AEDT
TBA

1:00pm AEDT

The importance of diversity and inclusion in videogames made at Firemonkeys Studio.
Discussion of the importance of diversity and inclusion in video games, exploring how it fosters diverse and healthy teams, as well as positive play in our communities.
Speakers
SR
DY
DH


Monday October 4, 2021 1:00pm - 2:00pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

1:30pm AEDT

Design: Live Q&A with Scott West and Rowan Ryder
Meet the Game Designers behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Scott West

Scott West

Lead Game Designer, Gameloft Brisbane
Scott has been a Designer in the video game industry for over 20 years, where he has split his time almost equally between the UK and Australia.Having worked for THQ, Halfbrick, Sega, and Rare, he has worked on multiple major IP’s including Fruit Ninja (Kinect), Sonic Dash, Crazy... Read More →
avatar for Rowan Ryder

Rowan Ryder

Senior Game Designer, Gameloft Brisbane
Senior Game Designer at Gameloft, Rowan has worked across multiple Australian studios in Victoria before joining the Gameloft team in 2019, where he worked as a designer on Ballistic Baseball for Apple Arcade.After this, he was instrumental to the design of The Oregon Trail (2021... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 1:30pm - 1:55pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

2:00pm AEDT

Concept Art: Live Q&A with Liz Ballantyne and Dustin Spence
Meet the Concept Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Liz Ballantyne

Liz Ballantyne

Art Director, Gameloft
Art Director at Gameloft Australia and Women in Games Ambassador, Liz Ballantyne is a leader driven to create work that promotes both meaningful change and positive disruption.Liz has been making games for 18 years, working with leading brands Apple, Disney, Hasbro, SEGA, Lucasfilm... Read More →
avatar for Dustin Spence

Dustin Spence

Concept Artist, Gameloft Brisbane
Dustin is professional concept artist and illustrator with over 6 years of industry experience who joined the Gameloft Brisbane team in early 2018.He has previously worked as a concept artist in film and animation on the hit animated TV series The Deep and as a character designer... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:25pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

2:00pm AEDT

Live chat (Engineering Focus Talk)
Join our Expert Core Engineer and Expert Engineer as they talk about the key fundamentals of Engineering at our Melbourne Studio.
Speakers
avatar for Rae Forbes-Richardson

Rae Forbes-Richardson

Expert Core Engineer, Sledgehammer Games
My main area in game development is low-level rendering code, general engine programming, and optimization.
avatar for Darcy Sandall

Darcy Sandall

Sledgehammer Games
avatar for Chris Fowler

Chris Fowler

Sledgehammer Games
T


Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:45pm AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

2:00pm AEDT

How nodes make everything better. Unity Bolt for coders and technical artists.
Unity recently added the Bolt node based coding tool into its library of software. I have been using Bolt for a number of years and I’m here to tell you it’s much more powerful than you think.

Are you struggling with complex inheritance for abilities that keep changing and need more features? Do you have fx artists that constantly need your help in adding simple effects to everything? Are you sick of re-compiling every time you need to adjust the timing on a complex branching coroutine? Do you need to control cutscenes, dialogue, camera movements, menus and audio and want a single system editable at runtime that will work universally and be accessible to non-coders?

Using Unity bolt you can construct a schema to run your individual methods through a universal flow system, turning your discrete events into multi-use nodes with project wide applicability. I will not only show you how this can work but real projects that use this right now and how it can save you time!
Speakers
avatar for Edward Blanch

Edward Blanch

Tech Artist, Edward Blanch
Edward Blanch is a game developer formerly from Melbourne now hiding out on a farm in Boweya. He has been working on games for nearly 10 years and the last five for Tin Man Games. During that time he has worked on Mobile, Nintendo, Playstation, PC, VR and even BlackBerry games. Starting... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

2:00pm AEDT

Pipeline Analysis and Improvement: A How To
This presentation will spend a bit of time teaching people how to create a pipeline (process mapping), then focus on process improvement techniques, including identifying opportunities around:
  • Bottlenecks & Throughput
  • Eliminating Waste (Duplication, Task Parallelization, Unnecessary Work, etc)
  • Rules of Efficiency (Who should own tasks, push and pull systems, etc)
  • Key Controls & Feedback
  • Communication and Production Cells
  • Pipeline Automation
  • Further Research Topics
Speakers
avatar for Elizabeth Blythe

Elizabeth Blythe

EA Firemonkeys
Elizabeth Blythe is the Studio Development Director at EA’s Firemonkeys studio. She joined the video game industry in 2019 as a Producer working with Summerfall Studios after a long career in FinTech as a business consultant, project manager, and business analyst. Her qualifications... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

2:00pm AEDT

What A Fruit Shop Taught Me About Being A Better Leader
My time working in tech retail taught me a lot of things - some wild, some wacky, but almost all of it gave me a huge advantage when it came to becoming a manager, leader, and colleague. Turns out, working amongst 120 other people, of a variety of backgrounds and ages, in the busiest store in the country, with daily non-stop pressure teaches you a lot about how to engage with games industry environments.

This session is part story-telling, part-lessons learned - we'll dive into time working as tech support at The Fruit Store and the stories, strategies, moments and tools that set me up to be better at feedback, managing staff, triaging emotional state, and more. We'll be looking at stories under a few umbrellas. Feedback, Leadership & Communication, where we'll dive into how to be better more transparent leaders and teammates. Practice, Process & Outcomes, to determine how we can better plan, prepare, and evaluate success. Emotional Management & Empathy, where we'll talk strategies and tools to support your team and yourself in this industry. We'll walk through how these stories and lessons apply to game development, how valuable your history in other spaces can truly be, and how to become a better leader on a daily basis.
Speakers
avatar for Meredith Hall

Meredith Hall

Independent
Meredith is a multi-award winning producer and marketer. She is the cofounder of Accessibility Unlocked, was Lead Producer on HoloVista and is a frequent public speaker and advocate. She spent three years at Film Victoria supporting the local independent games industry, was named... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, Leadership, Career & Management

2:00pm AEDT

When Game Developers Are Your Customers
Developing and selling tools for other game developers to use is a very different market than the consumer market for games. From marketing to providing support, you need a different set of skills to acquire, engage and retain customers.

Whether you're game developer looking to get into the middleware space, or an existing middleware developer, this talk will have something for you. We'll be covering how to develop and publish plugins on the Unreal Engine Marketplace, pricing your products, the impacts of running sales and a deep dive on how to ensure you provide a great support experience for your customers.
Speakers
avatar for June Rhodes

June Rhodes

Owner, Redpoint Games
June Rhodes is the owner of Redpoint Games, where she develops multiplayer and online-focused plugins for the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Redpoint Games has released multiple products on the Marketplace, the most well-known being EOS Online Subsystem: an Unreal Engine integration for... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

2:00pm AEDT

Art Direction: Defining and Communicating the Vision
This talk will explore the process and function of defining a high level visual design/art direction for any project, whether it be large scale or small.  Communicating an artistic vision that resonates with everyone in the team, will allow all work to successfully contribute and strengthen that vision.  

I will explore many methods for crafting meaningful art direction with a broad appeal that will incorporate strong visual design, narrative and thematic considerations, technical aspirations and aesthetically tying them all together.
Speakers
avatar for Dean Finnigan

Dean Finnigan

Wargaming Sydney
Art Director at Wargaming Sydney. Multi award winning animator and artist working in game development for over 25 years. Worked on pretty much every console, various handheld as well as PC platforms as well as film and game cinematics across both large and small scale teams. Arrived... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

2:00pm AEDT

Unreal Engine 5 Early Access Guided Tour
You’ve seen the video, now let’s take the tour! In this demo, Evangelist Chris Murphy will build an Unreal Engine 5 environment, using the Early Access build, to demonstrate Nanite, Lumen and more. If you’re new to Unreal we have good news! This session takes a practical how-to approach to these new features and is suitable for everyone.
Speakers
avatar for Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Chris Murphy is an Unreal Engine Evangelist for Epic Games with game development credits across PC, Vive, Oculus, PS4, iOS and Android. Chris has over 10 years of experience with Unreal Engine, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Multimedia, culminating in a broad skill... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

2:00pm AEDT

Distilling design and tutorials: increase usability, empower players
As we innovate to create new and unfamiliar games, we need to be wary of Death by Tutorial. Teaching our games is an often underestimated task, and it’s critical in the retention of players and success of our games.
This session looks into usability considerations to help us design intuitive, teachable indie games. How conventions and player expectations can inform your creative choices, help distill complexity and keep players immersed.
Speakers
avatar for Simon Boxer

Simon Boxer

Creative Director, Twice Different
Simon’s a concept artist turned indie developer, and founder of Melbourne studio Twice Different. He’s passionate about elegant design, and making complex games more accessible. His most recent release is the genre-blending roguelike card crawler, Ring of Pain. Current projects... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

2:30pm AEDT

User Interface: Live Q&A with Paul Clancy and Emmanuel Vasquez Jr
Meet the User Interface Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Paul Clancy

Paul Clancy

UI Lead, Gameloft Brisbane
In 2017 Paul moved from the UK to Australia bringing his extensive experience in interactive TV, the casual games industry and UX design to the Gameloft Brisbane Studio.Prior to working at Gameloft Brisbane, Paul setup his own independent games production studio where he collaborated... Read More →
avatar for Emmanuel Vasquez Jr

Emmanuel Vasquez Jr

Senior UI Artist, Gameloft Brisbane
Emmanuel is a visual artist and animator who has been working in the creative industry for 14 years and has done a variety of projects with most of those being in video games for companies such as Ubisoft and Gameloft.Being a person who loves to experience different cultures he has... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 2:30pm - 2:55pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

3:00pm AEDT

Remote Controls: Creating reliable shared-screen games with multiple input devices
Making a series of small shared-screen co-op games for kids to use during class feels like it should be a fun and simple client project. We were wrong. The wrinkles came when the requirements of the environment were presented to us:

- have to be controlled solely by the students devices
- have to work in controlled network environments
- couldn't install any software on the student or teachers devices
- couldn't add or require any hardware

This meant we couldn't ask for any game controllers to be used for input but we also couldn't create or use any local network or bluetooth. So we found ourselves with everything having to use the internet and we had to make it work on the myriad devices students have. Still, part of the fun of doing client work is figuring out how to meet their goals and requirements, so we got stuck into it.

To solve this problem we came up with a slightly unsual, but ultimately successful, design we called Clients and Controllers. At its simplest Controllers provide input, akin to physical gamepad controllers, Clients handle any actions the Controllers create. By ruthlessly keeping everything within our own design framework, even on the same device, we were able to meet the requirements of the client and still make some solid games. In this talk we'll be going over this design approach, its strengths and weaknesses, and how it can be applied to your own games.
Speakers
avatar for Tim Nugent

Tim Nugent

lonely.coffee
Tim Nugent pretends to be a game developer, programmer, tools builder, researcher, teacher, and tech author. When he isn’t busy avoiding being found out as a fraud, Tim spends most of his time designing and creating little apps anad games he won’t let anyone see.He also spent... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

3:00pm AEDT

Preparing your game (and schedule) for multiplatform development.
In this session, Anthony will take attendees through the complete process of scheduling, preparing for, managing, and ultimately publishing a game port. It will include tips and tricks for developers on how to best architect their project from conception, how to create and configure assets to best work across platforms, how to think about and plan for the implementation of specific systems like input and audio, as well as providing guidance to producers and leads on how to fit these things into their production schedule.

Additionally, the session will also cover what to expect from an external porting team, what that team will expect from you, and general advice for handling the certification and publishing processes for the various platforms you may wish to port to.
Speakers
avatar for Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Screwtape Studios
Anthony is an indie developer with over a decade of industry experience. In this time, he has designed and released a number of games, and is particularly proud of Damsel, an arcade platformer released across all consoles in 2018. He also spent time teaching game design and programming... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

3:00pm AEDT

“Critical Communication” - How to Roll the perfect feedback check
Let’s face it - when Karen walks in with “constructive feedback” on your latest art pass, it wasn’t quite your idea of an ideal Monday morning. But feedback doesn’t have to be as bitter as the bottom of your black coffee dregs… in fact, feedback can even feel good. Together; we’ll embark on a quest to revolt against the stereotypes of feedback. We will tear down the association with negative once-a-year performance reviews. Instead, we will rebuild a world where it is seen as a form of communication with others: every action has a response and an opportunity to add value to your team.

Our journey begins with an understanding on how to deliver effective feedback. We’ll arm ourselves with tools that can be used when things go south in communication - or, to prevent it from going south altogether.

Learn how team members adopt a ‘class’ - a workstyle which they tend towards.

We’ll explore these classes from the lens of roleplay. Don’t worry: feedback is fortunately not a foray into a dangerous fight. We’ll adventure down each path with a roleplay scenario, where you can learn about potential encounters across three example classes. We’ll teach you how to master each ability to communicate with each class. Soon, you’ll be able to identify this in your own studio equip yourself with the charisma to respond to any situation

Before you know it, you’ll have maxed communication and be creatively contributing to your team. Are you ready to roll for initiative?
Speakers
avatar for Sorcha Millican-Nagle

Sorcha Millican-Nagle

Producer, PlaySide Studios
Sorcha Millican-Nagle is a Producer at PlaySide Studios, working from Melbourne, Victoria.She has a background in Games as a Service, working as a leader for titles across console, mobile, and PC. She is passionate about supporting teams to meet their goals, fostering productivity... Read More →
avatar for Ceri Hutton

Ceri Hutton

Director of Industry Development & Programs, IGEA
Please reach out to discuss an opportunity that will benefit the Australian games industry!WHAT I DO:- Design/direct tailored programs that meet the needs of the industry(See: The SMART Program)https://igea.net/2023/05/smart-program-23/- Business Development/Sponsorships- Events (GCAP... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, Leadership, Career & Management

3:00pm AEDT

It's like Advertising, but Free: How to write press releases that get results
Press releases: they can be boring to write, but even worse, they're often boring to read. You definitely have a compelling story or game to share with the world, so do your studio, budget, and audience a favour by learning the correct way to write and deliver a release that gets results.

This session is a practical how-to on proper practise, coming from experience both inside and outside of games. You'll learn structure, delivery, how to adjust your content per audience, and how to predict when to send out information. Writing is often perceived as a soft skill that is hard to teach, but with a solid formula, tools, and plenty of examples, you'll come away from this talk knowing how to create a solid press release that Doesn't Suck.
Speakers
avatar for Calliope Ryder

Calliope Ryder

GYLD
Previously undertaking production, sound direction, and game design as the Creative Producer of Starcolt, Calliope is now the Production Lead at GYLD, helping game developers create air-tight production plans ahead of securing multi-million dollar publishing deals.Calliope is also... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

3:00pm AEDT

Pipeline Practices for the Growing Studio
Mighty Kingdom is a studio that has grown up, and as such, so has it’s asset pipeline. In this session I will share my philosophy on modular pipeline development for asset creation, how I approached that philosophy to create the asset pipeline for Ava’s Manor and other games at Mighty Kingdom, as well as how that pipeline has developed in my four years at MK. My main focus areas will be on the modular rigging and animation export pipelines; two notoriously tricky aspects of game development. As well as a history of how we raised the bar on these two main pipelines at MK, I will give you a snapshot of what they look like on our most recently released projects, and my vision for their future growth.
Speakers
avatar for Phoebe Shaw

Phoebe Shaw

Mighty Kingdom
Phoebe is the Lead Character TD at Mighty Kingdom. She began her career in VFX, working in the creature department at Rising Sun Pictures on films including Thor Ragnarok and Peter Rabbit. Since moving to MK in 2017, Phoebe has brought her knowledge of high end VFX pipeline to game... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

3:00pm AEDT

The Unreal Trail to Oregon: Reimagining The Oregon Trail for Apple Arcade
Join the Gameloft Team for a Journey on The Oregon Trail with Unreal Engine!

The Oregon Trail™ by Gameloft — Experience The Oregon Trail™ like never before. A modern twist on the trials and tribulations of the road to Oregon, this official successor to the global phenomenon will immerse players in exhilarating journeys ranging from the historically accurate to the totally extreme.

The team talks about how they used Unreal Engine to build this new shiny version of the classic, what went right and what challenges they had to solve on their nearly year-long development journey, what tools and methods they used to achieve their goals.
Speakers
GB


Monday October 4, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

3:00pm AEDT

Deserts, Desserts, and Deserted Islands - Design Deepdive into Evolving “The Sims” Mobile Title Features
Feature development is a messy process, but over time, it can start looking like a family tree. Collaboration across Sims teams within the Firemonkeys Studio has resulted in concepts evolving to address new goals that cater to dynamic live service requirements.

In this talk we’ll be reflecting on the feature development journey of The Sims Freeplay and The Sims Mobile and how the learnings of each game has influenced the other through features delivered in major updates, including Sim Springs, Eco Workshop and Sweet Treat Showdown. We’ll also be deep diving into what each feature did well, and not so well.
Speakers
avatar for Penelope Davison

Penelope Davison

EA Firemonkeys
Penelope Davison is a game designer at EA Firemonkeys, working on the mobile title ‘The Sims Freeplay’. She studied game design at RMIT University before interning with free-roam VR company Zero Latency, briefly working on their first PvP title ’Sol Raiders’. Penelope then... Read More →
avatar for Jack Sinclair

Jack Sinclair

EA Firemonkeys
Jack is a Game Designer at EA Firemonkeys working on various projects. Graduating from RMIT in Game Design, he worked with Playside before landing a gig at Electronic Arts. Starting out on Real Racing 3 before moving on to The Sims Mobile and beyond, Jack has designed various systems... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

3:50pm AEDT

Deserts, Desserts & Deserted Islands - Main Stage Presentation Follow Up
Following on from their main stage presentation, join Penny & Jack for a meet and greet and further discussion.
Speakers
avatar for Jack Sinclair

Jack Sinclair

EA Firemonkeys
Jack is a Game Designer at EA Firemonkeys working on various projects. Graduating from RMIT in Game Design, he worked with Playside before landing a gig at Electronic Arts. Starting out on Real Racing 3 before moving on to The Sims Mobile and beyond, Jack has designed various systems... Read More →
PD


Monday October 4, 2021 3:50pm - 4:45pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

4:00pm AEDT

Unreal Engine for Mobile Games: Live Q&A with Andriy Doroshchuk
Meet the Programming Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Andriy Doroshchuk

Andriy Doroshchuk

Technical Director, Gameloft Brisbane
Technical Director for Gameloft Brisbane, Andriy is a highly skilled developer with over 25 years of professional experience in programming and application development. He has extensive knowledge of the design and implementation of tech and tool solutions, application frameworks and... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:25pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

4:00pm AEDT

Live chat (Studio Talk)
Join our Studio General Manager and our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Manager as they talk about the Sledgehammer Games Melbourne Studio and how we are fostering a diverse and inclusive culture.
Speakers
avatar for Greg Palstra

Greg Palstra

Sledgehammer Games
AC

Alayna Cole

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Manager, Sledgehammer Games


Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:30pm AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

4:00pm AEDT

Bringing Frostbite to Live Service
The Frostbite Melbourne team focused on new platforms such as Stadia and Switch support but bringing a traditionally AAA engine that produces boxed products to platforms comes with some surprising challenges.
Speakers
avatar for Lewis Strudwick

Lewis Strudwick

EA Frostbite
A veteran of the local industry, with over 12 years of experience at EA alone, and over 15 in game development, Lewis is one of the few Directors of Architecture at Frostbite. Which means he works with the many teams around the globe on the fundamental technologies behind EA’s proprietary... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

4:00pm AEDT

Combining Jira & Confluence - How to develop project synergy between tasks and documentation.
Atlassian software is some of the most popular amongst game developers and studios. Jira as a task-management tool, and confluence as a way to create and track documentation.

As both of these tools are created by the same company, they have created and continue to develop innovative ways that they can talk to each other which speeds up development, increases efficiency, and helps communication between developers, artists, producers & QA.

In this talk I will walk through a simple production workflow and some of the unique ways you can use both tools to communicate to each other to make your life so much easier and more organized.

Areas such as linking tickets directly into confluence to see the status of the task without leaving confluence, among many more.
Speakers
avatar for Carl Leducq

Carl Leducq

RocketWerkz
Carl is a Board Member at the NZGDA and Game Developer currently working as a Production Coordinator for Rocketwerkz on PC Survival game ‘Icarus’.Over the last 6 years, he has gained experience working as a QA Tester & in Production for projects at Weta Gameshop (Augmented reality... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

4:00pm AEDT

Emotional Intelligent Leadership in a Pandemic
This talk is a case study of how Wargaming Sydney used its "people first" mantra to help survive and thrive during the pandemic. I will walk you through how we did in onboarding and initiatives for retaining staff how it was effective. In addition, this will showcase how our working environment and culture evolved during the pandemic and is our new normal.
Speakers
avatar for Aidan Millot

Aidan Millot

Wargaming Sydney
Aidan is a 15-year veteran who has experience taking titles from inception to launch on many platforms. Co-produced the Trainz franchise in Live operations' and the Launch of the new Trainz Classic version, led many products at Halfbrick from inception to launch and live ops in the... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, Leadership, Career & Management

4:00pm AEDT

How to survive the future.
The change that we all anticipated has finally arrived. The federal government has announced an imminent tax rebate, AAA international studios are re-establishing themselves, and Australian studios are being acquired left, right, and centre. Are we ready for this new future? What is an independent game developer to do?

With any change comes opportunity, but that opportunity is not always equal. There will be winners, and there will be losers. Which side of that line will we be on? How do we ensure that everyone gets the chance to compete? And when the dust from all these changes settles, what will our industry look like?

By answering these questions and more I hope to illuminate the path ahead of us, as well as challenge us all to be be active participants in crafting the industry we want, not just the one we are told to accept.
Speakers
avatar for Philip Mayes

Philip Mayes

Mighty Kingdom
Philip is the Managing Director of Mighty Kingdom, winner of the 2019 Australian Game Developer of the Year Award. With more than 15 years experience, Philip has worked on games for many large international brands, including Star Wars, LEGO, and Disney. Founded by Philip in 2010... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

4:00pm AEDT

Space Switching - A New Approach To Character Rigging
Inspired by the pioneering animation work of Richard Lico on Quill, the mousey main character of Moss VR, I worked up an approach to rigging for my own game, starring a cat named Mittens. Jokes about cats chasing mice can be added at the reader's discretion.

The core concept is 'Space Switching' : Allowing the animator to jump painlessly from posing the character up in FK to fixing contact points in IK to adding jiggle and spice in a much more flexible way as the controls can all be moved independent of each other.

In this talk, I'll run through how I approached the process to create the tools, how I use them, and how they've saved time and stress in my animation process.

If that isn't enticing enough, there'll be plenty of cute cat animations to cover the boring bits.
Speakers
avatar for Martin Binfield

Martin Binfield

Abandoned Sheep
With two decades of game development experience, Martin has worked with studios including Sony Cambridge, Jagex, Mode7 Games and Polygon Treehouse on such titles as LittleBigPlanet, Heavenly Sword, RuneScape and Roki.  Animation is his forte, but a recent interest in making his own... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

4:00pm AEDT

Accelerating Your Unreal Engine Builds With BuildGraph
If you’re an Unreal Engine developer with CI/CD setup, you’re probably using BuildCookRun to package your game for all the platforms you’re targeting. BuildCookRun is inherently slow, because it performs all of its steps sequentially on a single machine.

Learn how to drastically reduce your Unreal Engine build times by using BuildGraph instead. In this talk we’ll not only cover how to write BuildGraph scripts tailored to your project, but also how to integrate BuildGraph with your CI/CD server to distribute build steps across all of the build machines you have available.

By leveraging BuildGraph at Redpoint, we’ve been able to reduce build times from an hour down to 12 minutes.
Speakers
avatar for June Rhodes

June Rhodes

Owner, Redpoint Games
June Rhodes is the owner of Redpoint Games, where she develops multiplayer and online-focused plugins for the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Redpoint Games has released multiple products on the Marketplace, the most well-known being EOS Online Subsystem: an Unreal Engine integration for... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

4:00pm AEDT

The Player and the Pentacle: Folkloric Motifs for Narrative Design
Folklore is a genre that at its heart, is all about intimacy and immediacy. It’s not about looking outside ourselves, rather it’s about looking in. By encouraging players to take part in the ever-growing world of folklore, we can connect them to ideas that previously, they may never have considered, helping them to empathize with people and causes they’ve opposed or ignored in the past. In this talk, Narrative Designer and Transmedia storyteller Nick Jones, shares his personal narrative design model, developed through PhD research, in collaboration with other experts in the field. The Player and the Pentacle offers a new way of considering world building in your game, but more importantly, how to create a player character that your audience can, in Nick’s words: cohabitate with. This “cohabitation” leads to greater levels of player immersion and increased longevity for your creative IP or brand.
Speakers
avatar for Nick Jones

Nick Jones

Independent
Nick Jones is a Transmedia Producer, internationally recognized Narrative Designer, and an expert in the construction of interactive narratives and non-linear world building. He has collaborated on projects across the mediums of gaming, film, TV and immersive theatre. As an academic... Read More →

Monday October 4, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

4:30pm AEDT

Production: Live Q&A with David Macminn and Mara Ingham
Meet the Production Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for David Macminn

David Macminn

Game Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
David is a games industry veteran of over 20 years working in Australia and the US. Starting as an artist, he soon found his happy place in design and production. As former Design Director at THQ Australia, he worked on numerous original and licensed IPs across multiple console generations.David... Read More →
avatar for Mara Ingham

Mara Ingham

Producer, Gameloft Brisbane
Mara Ingham is a Producer at Gameloft Brisbane, currently working on the Apple Arcade exclusive "The Oregon Trail". Mara has been an enthusiastic member of the games industry for 7 years, with experience working on various projects, and supporting teams in studios world-wide. She... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 4:30pm - 4:55pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

4:50pm AEDT

Adopting Frostbite to support live service games - Main Stage Presentation Follow Up
Following on from his main stage presentation, join Lewis for a meet and greet and further discussion.
Speakers
avatar for Lewis Strudwick

Lewis Strudwick

EA Frostbite
A veteran of the local industry, with over 12 years of experience at EA alone, and over 15 in game development, Lewis is one of the few Directors of Architecture at Frostbite. Which means he works with the many teams around the globe on the fundamental technologies behind EA’s proprietary... Read More →


Monday October 4, 2021 4:50pm - 5:30pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

5:00pm AEDT

Sponsored: NFTs, Blockchain and the Metaverse: Critically Relevant for Gaming
NFT gaming and metaverse projects like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox have generated billions of dollars in sales and generated revenue for millions of players. NFT marketplaces have experienced a stunning boom in activity - OpenSea alone saw $3.4 billion (A$4.72 billion) in trade volume just during the month of August. There's a reason that this is happening and it is extremely relevant to the games industry.

Yat Siu of gaming conglomerate Animoca Brands will share why NFTs and blockchain are of crucial importance to gamers and game developers, and how this technology has the potential to completely revolutionize the future of play as we know it by giving gamers true digital property rights.

Animoca Brands, the company behind NFT projects such as The Sandbox, Phantom Galaxies, F1 Delta Time, Revv Racing, and the Olympics, is an early investor in NFT games, marketplaces, and platforms including Axie Infinity, Nine Chronicles, Polygon, OpenSea, WAX, Decentraland, Dapper Labs and many others.
Speakers
avatar for Yat Siu

Yat Siu

Animoca Brands
Yat Siu is the chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands. He launched his career in 1990 by working at Atari Germany and then focused on his own projects, becoming an accomplished serial entrepreneur, technologist, and investor in the field of digital entertainment.

Monday October 4, 2021 5:00pm - 5:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes
 
Tuesday, October 5
 

9:40am AEDT

Day 2 Welcome with Paul Fletcher.
Acknowledgement of Country, Housekeeping, a welcome from Ron Curry and Paul Fletcher.
Speakers
avatar for David Parkin

David Parkin

Founder, Managing Director
David is Managing Director of Luggarrah, a wholly Aboriginal owned business linking regional secondary school students from diverse backgrounds to game developers and others in the industry. A cultural consultant, gamer and supporter of games.David is one of 2020 GameIndustry.Biz... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 9:40am - 9:55am AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes

10:00am AEDT

Live chat (Quality Assurance Focus Talk)
Join two of our Quality Analysts as they talk about QAs function within the Melbourne Studio and the importance it plays overall to Sledgehammer Games.
Speakers
CH

Cassie Hill

Sledgehammer Games
avatar for Bernard Ockerse

Bernard Ockerse

Sledgehammer Games


Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:15am AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

10:00am AEDT

Machine Learning plus a Game Engine... endless possibilities!
Game engines are great. They let you simulate and build all sorts of things. It's a lot of fun to build games.

What's a tough part of making games? Story? Good graphics? A sense of purpose and adventure?

All these things pale in comparison to artificial Intelligence! Good AI can make or break a game (depending on the game), and humans are only getter smarter, and understanding technology more.

It's time to fight back against the pesky smart humans.

In this session, you'll learn how to apply real, proper machine learning ("ML") to your video games, using the Unity engine as an example, and the ML-industry standard Python-powered framework PyTorch to train real, actual genuine AI for use in your game worlds. It's not as scary, or difficult, as it sounds.

You don't need to be a scientist to use machine learning to make truly intelligence NPCs.

We'll start with an introduction to AI, and what it actually means, and how ML-powered AI is different from rules-based, or heuristic AI, and we'll move to building a little world in Unity, live on stage, and training some genuinely intelligent agents* to do... something within that world.

What's that something the agents will do? It could be anything! We'll decide together, working as one glorious speaker-audience gestalt entity.

By the end, you'll know how ML works, how AI works, and you'll be intrigued and frustrated with the possibilities. Expand your skills, and learn some ML. No prior maths or AI required.

AI isn't just for science, it's for games. Make your games smarter, with less coding.

*agents are what machine learning people name the 'thing' with intelligence. It's less "Hugo Weaving in The Matrix" and more "the NPC that chases you around". Actually, I guess that is Hugo Weaving in The Matrix...
Speakers
avatar for Paris Buttfield-Addison

Paris Buttfield-Addison

Secret Lab
Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison is the co-founder of independent game development studio Secret Lab. He serves as producer, and helps to maintain the popular interactive dialogue system, Yarn Spinner. Secret Lab is currently working on Night in the Woods, the BAFTA- and IGF-winning adventure... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

10:00am AEDT

Build Games Faster by Automating
Continuous delivery is a important part of software today, and every studio should be using it to get builds out faster and produce more stable games.

Today is all about that, learning how to build pipelines and what their benefits are to your game or project. We take a deep dive into the data behind what kind of time can be saved when we implement these types of processes into our projects and other tangible benefits we can also get.

There will be a small look into some of the software and services that are available for you to use when building out your pipelines and automation.

You will get to see a lot of metrics to what goes behind these processes and you will get a good understanding of how this can be applied to your own projects, especially if you are not using any automation in your build process yet.
Speakers
avatar for Keirron Stach

Keirron Stach

A Few Dragons
Keirron is a software engineer who enjoys many aspects of programming and design. Having worked at companies including Amazon, Tic:Toc:Home Loans, Mighty Kingdom he has learnt a lot about different aspect of software dev and delivering customer focused products.Currently Keirron runs... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

10:00am AEDT

You Contain Multitudes: Applying Game Design Skills Outside Traditional Games
Every game developer knows the difficulty of trying to find a job in an industry filled with so much talent. But there are many great opportunities to put that talent to use outside of traditional entertainment games. In this talk, Kirk Nicholls and Avi Moore will delve into that space beyond: into serious games. Exploring fields like education, simulations for business decision making, gamification, and applying design skills outside of games entirely.

While this talk will dig deepest into design topics, including design goals, iteration, and feedback, there will be advice and suggestions for game developers of all disciplines. Every attendee will leave the session with ideas for applying their games skills outside of entertainment games.
Speakers
avatar for Kirk Nicholls

Kirk Nicholls

CyberCX
I’m a security consultant with a focus on crisis and disaster response exercises. I develop and manage exercise programs from a perspective of serious games, using research-based practice. Through the lens of serious games and simulation and a military background I enable my clients... Read More →
avatar for Avi Moore

Avi Moore

CyberCX
I’m a tabletop game designer currently applying those skills to cyber security education as a security consultant. I’ve developed multiple tabletop RPGs, along with developing serious games as training tools.

Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, Leadership, Career & Management

10:00am AEDT

Making Games that extend Kids TV shows
Two Moos are specialists in making digital games and innovation prototypes that extend TV shows for kids into digital spaces, including Sesame Street, Hero Elementary, Dora the Explorer and more. In this talk, we’ll take you through our collaborative process with the TV partners, story world and brand considerations and importantly, UX/UI and privacy considerations for kids from preschoolers to tweens.
Speakers
avatar for Johanna Egger

Johanna Egger

MD Two Moos/DEPT (APAC), DEPT Agency
Joey Egger is Managing Director, Family & Kids at Two Moos/DEPT. She is a digital content specialist with 20 years of experience in the kids media industry. At Two Moos/DEPT, Joey and the talented team work with the world’s most respected family organisations to bring their digital... Read More →
avatar for Bertrand Thomachot

Bertrand Thomachot

Two Moos
Bertrand is leading and empowering talented engineers to strive for excellence and creating quality products. Bertrand has worked on long lasting hit franchises such as The Sims and Fruit Ninja at Electronic Arts and Halfbrick, ensuring that his team can run a marathon, despite technically... Read More →
avatar for Harry Kaloyirou

Harry Kaloyirou

Two Moos
Harry has over 10 years of experience as a digital games producer who is highly active in the Australian games community. Before joining Two Moos, Harry worked at Twiitch and Gree. At Two Moos he has produced multiple games including PBS KIDS’ Hero Elementary and the Google.org... Read More →
avatar for Brent Heslop

Brent Heslop

Two Moos
Brent loves designing and animating for kids’ digital properties across a variety of streams including as Concept Artist, 2D animator, 3D artist, and 4D jazz flautist. At Two Moos Brent has designed, illustrated and animated for multiple respected kids educational properties for... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

10:00am AEDT

Making the most of a small art team - working smarter not harder in Unreal
Learn some of the techniques used by Gameloft Brisbane to create the vast world of The Oregon Trail, with a small art team and single in-game level artist.  

This talk will cover how to maximise the output of a smaller art team by utilising modularity, smart art pipelines and taking advantage of Unreal's world building tools.
Speakers
avatar for Hannah Crosby

Hannah Crosby

Senior 3D Artist, Gameloft
Hannah is a multi-disciplinary Artist, who has worked across games and motion pictures for the past 16 years. After working with THQ and Rare on multiple console titles in digital art creation, Hannah branched out into practical prop sculpture and art finishing for film to explore... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

10:00am AEDT

Thinking in Libraries: Empowering Real Time Skills
The advent of a new technology creates a number of applications, many of which are hard to predict at the outset. This presentation will look at spectrum applications related to interactive 3D and how photogrammetry and the Unreal Engine makes new ways of thinking possible. We will talk about how these skills interact with education and job opportunities as we invent the future.
Speakers
avatar for Julie Lottering

Julie Lottering

As the Director for Unreal Engine Education, Julie and her team work to empower real time skills with world class educational experiences. Her aim is to make a permanent and positive shift in visualization across verticals, so that we can communicate and collaborate better togeth... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

10:00am AEDT

Giving Life to a Dead Language - A Unique Approach to Worldbuilding
Phantom Abyss launched in Early Access with little up-front story, but with a wealth of symbols from our fictional lost civilization carved into panels and on objects throughout the game. A community of dedicated players worked together to hunt down all the panels and bit by bit unlock the secrets of the language.

In the space of just two weeks, players generated over 10,000 messages discussing the translations on the game's ancient language discord channel, built a website to help others learn the language and pieced together the detailed backstory of our game to share with Phantom Abyss's broader audience. In doing so, they became a part of the game's story.

This talk will cover the careful design steps taken to ensure the language would be engaging and solvable, but require a considerable group effort to crack.
Speakers
avatar for Alex Butterfield

Alex Butterfield

Technical Designer, Team WIBY
Alex Butterfield is a cross-discipline 17-year industry veteran who is currently working as a Technical Designer at Team WIBY on the game Phantom Abyss.

Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

10:00am AEDT

Pipeline Analysis & Improvement - Main Stage Presentation Follow Up
Following on from her main stage presentation, join Elizabeth for a meet and greet and further discussion on project management for games.
Speakers
avatar for Elizabeth Blythe

Elizabeth Blythe

EA Firemonkeys
Elizabeth Blythe is the Studio Development Director at EA’s Firemonkeys studio. She joined the video game industry in 2019 as a Producer working with Summerfall Studios after a long career in FinTech as a business consultant, project manager, and business analyst. Her qualifications... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:00am - 10:55am AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

11:00am AEDT

3D Art: Live Q&A with Liz Ballantyne, Hannah Crosby and Nancy Paulin
Meet the 3D Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Hannah Crosby

Hannah Crosby

Senior 3D Artist, Gameloft
Hannah is a multi-disciplinary Artist, who has worked across games and motion pictures for the past 16 years. After working with THQ and Rare on multiple console titles in digital art creation, Hannah branched out into practical prop sculpture and art finishing for film to explore... Read More →
avatar for Liz Ballantyne

Liz Ballantyne

Art Director, Gameloft
Art Director at Gameloft Australia and Women in Games Ambassador, Liz Ballantyne is a leader driven to create work that promotes both meaningful change and positive disruption.Liz has been making games for 18 years, working with leading brands Apple, Disney, Hasbro, SEGA, Lucasfilm... Read More →
avatar for Nancy Paulin

Nancy Paulin

Senior 3D Artist, Gameloft Brisbane
Nancy Paulin joined the video game industry in 2006 and worked as a shader artist, level artist, character artist and lead character artist for games for AAA titles including Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, Rainbow Six.Nancy is currently a Senior 3D artist at Gameloft... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:00am - 11:25am AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

11:00am AEDT

Live chat (Engineering Focus Talk)
Join our Software Engineer, Sr Associate Gameplay Engineer and Associate Software Engineer as they talk about the key fundamentals of Engineering at our Melbourne Studio.
Speakers
avatar for Josh Caratelli

Josh Caratelli

Sledgehammer Games
avatar for Alex Griffin

Alex Griffin

Sledgehammer Games
avatar for Charlie Cassidy

Charlie Cassidy

Snr Associate Software Engineer, Sledgehammer Games


Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:00am - 11:45am AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

11:00am AEDT

Avoiding performance and design pitfalls with Unity
Unity 3d presents some systems that are great for quick prototyping, but in larger projects can become huge bottlenecks. Take a deep drive with brendan on custom game loops, rendering, animations, save/load and ways you can make unity’s multi-scene loading work for you!
Speakers
avatar for Brendan Ragan

Brendan Ragan

Lead Unity Engineer, Brendan Ragan
Brendan Ragan has been squashing bugs and raising hairs in the games industry since early 2006, starting his career with Interzone Perth. Since then he has shipped titles on a multitude of platforms - from the the early days of the iPhone 3GS through to the much lauded PS5. Brendan... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

11:00am AEDT

Release Management Metrics & Building Quality into the Dev Schedule
Long gone are the times where you can ship a game with a bug and it was in there forever. Now through the wonders of the internet we can push updates, fixes and new content to players and fix all our past mistakes. But how do you ensure that the fix you’re pushing will actually fix the issue? And even if it does, how do you know your fix won’t cause further issues, or if what you’d perceived as an issue was in fact an issue to players?

With this talk we’ll aim to define the importance of a strict release management structure. All the while ensuring there’s ownership and accountability for each release and developing with quality in mind. Further more we’ll seek to gain a greater understand of our player base, and how we can gauge what really matters to them through the use of community engagement and analytics.

Whether you’re a solo dev, small dev team or work at a large studio there’s something to be gained here regardless of whether you’ve shipped 100 games or preparing to release your very first title.
Speakers
avatar for Sam McCully

Sam McCully

Senior Producer, Samuel McCUlly
Sam has been within the Games Industry since 2016 working in various roles, primarily around QA and Production. With the help of some very talented developers he's shipped some 10+ titles on a consoles understanding the release management pipeline extensively.More recently he's moved... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

11:00am AEDT

Early Access done right: How to promote your game and keep your community engaged during your Early Access phase
There is nothing worse that an Early Access launch that has no communication plan. An EA release that’s poorly communicated can create a perception of an abandoned game, or one that’s an early cash grab and doesn’t take into account players feedback (community feedback being the very reason why EA model has started in the first place).

Creating a communication plan for your Early Access to 1.0 release is just as crucial as your production plan. By frequently communicating with your players, you will build a community of loyal fans. These loyal fans will help convince, or at least reassure, other potential buyers that your game is worthy taking the risk and dipping into. These initial players will leave positive reviews, fill up your Steam forums, and engage with you on socials. Those are the initial seeds of building a community. The more these people are happy, the more people will follow you, and so on and so on. Your first three months after EA release are crucial – you will either make the community your feature, or they’ll become the death of your game.

Creating a good Early Access communication plan is actually quiet simple. It will be based on two types of communication content: 1 – content based on in-game content (your game updates releases), 2 – content based on engaging the community and keeping it happy. Once you create your in-game content plan, you can then spruce it up with your engagement content, and create a well oiled communication machine. I will provide examples of both in-game content and community engagement content that worked for me while working on Medieval Dynasty. I will show examples of Insider videos that we've made (their formula), teaser updates on Steam, Q&A sessions, and more.

In this presentation, I will show an example of a communication strategy that I used for Medieval Dynasty. I will also provide examples of what else you can do to help spread the word about your game, such as the use of third parties (Razer, Unreal Blog, Intel), press stories, exclusive reveals, and use of influencers (special pre-release builds), and other small tips for the big 1.0 release.
Speakers
avatar for Michal Napora

Michal Napora

32-33
Michal Napora is a video games marketer and owner of video games marketing agency 32-33. He worked on games ranging from AAA's, all the way to indies. He started his gamedev career with Techland, being the Social Media/Community Manager on Dying Light. After leaving Techland, he started... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

11:00am AEDT

Cohesion is Key: Art Direction for Indies
Going from sole artist on a game to directing a small team of artists is a big step, and not one to be taken lightly. But with 35 environments and over 1000 items, Witch Beam's game Unpacking shaped up to be a bigger project than a single pixel artist could handle. How do you transition from drawing everything yourself to getting others to draw your ideas? How do you make sure every artist can match your style and create a game with a cohesive visual identity? And how do you manage literally thousands of art assets used across multiple levels? Come with Wren on a tour of the art direction processes she came up with over the course of Unpacking's development.
Speakers
avatar for Wren Brier

Wren Brier

Creative Director, Unpacking
Wren Brier is the Creative Director of indie game Unpacking. She's been working in the games industry for 9 years, starting at Halfbrick and later working as a freelance artist before joining Witch Beam Games.In addition to her game development roles, Wren has spoken on panels and... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

11:00am AEDT

From Mod to Metacritic Hit: 10 Lessons I Learned Making The Forgotten City
Join developer Nick Pearce in a post-mortem deep dive that covers transforming the first mod in history to win a national Writers' Guild award into the critically acclaimed Australian indie title The Forgotten City. Learn how a core team of three brought this ambitious game to life and learned valuable lessons along the way, including:
1. Keep your team lean
2. Use Unreal Engine
3. Manage your time well
4. Don’t engage with trolls
5. Prioritize Steam wishlists
6. Get a publisher, if you can
7. Get advice
8. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from legends
9. Add voice acting
10. Commission mock reviews
Speakers
avatar for Nick Pearce

Nick Pearce

The Forgotten City
Nick is an award-winning game writer, director, designer and producer. He's the founder of Melbourne-based indie studio Modern Storyteller, and lead developer of the critically acclaimed narrative title The Forgotten City. Prior to developing games, Nick spent 10 years as a lawyer... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

11:30am AEDT

User Interface: Live Q&A with Paul Clancy and Emmanuel Vasquez Jr
Meet the User Interface Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Paul Clancy

Paul Clancy

UI Lead, Gameloft Brisbane
In 2017 Paul moved from the UK to Australia bringing his extensive experience in interactive TV, the casual games industry and UX design to the Gameloft Brisbane Studio.Prior to working at Gameloft Brisbane, Paul setup his own independent games production studio where he collaborated... Read More →
avatar for Emmanuel Vasquez Jr

Emmanuel Vasquez Jr

Senior UI Artist, Gameloft Brisbane
Emmanuel is a visual artist and animator who has been working in the creative industry for 14 years and has done a variety of projects with most of those being in video games for companies such as Ubisoft and Gameloft.Being a person who loves to experience different cultures he has... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 11:30am - 11:55am AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

12:00pm AEDT

Panel: Is fun more important than realism?
A mixed panel of disciplines will draw on their experience and discuss the importance of realism vs fun in game development. How this relates to their daily collaboration and decision making. How it affects their process; the design, or even the tools they work with.
Speakers
avatar for Michael How

Michael How

Sledgehammer Games
avatar for Iain Heap

Iain Heap

Sledgehammer Games


Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:45pm AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

12:00pm AEDT

Empowering Your Team With Automation
Following up on the groundwork laid by Matt Ditton and Ben Britten’s GCAP 2019 talk “Always be testing: A journey through Buildbots and Testbots,” Automated Testing gurus Joe Park and Matthew Deline from Mighty Build and Test share their expertise and knowledge gained from lessons in growing a very successful in-house toolset to an established workflow that is now being used by more than 5 companies and have helped ship over 10 titles.

Learn best practices on how, when, and why to incorporate automation into your production pipeline, empower your team with the tools and knowledge to save time on tedious tasks and focus on the work that matters most to them!!
Speakers
avatar for Joe Park

Joe Park

Mighty Games Group
Joe co-founded Harmonious Games/Productions after graduating from Swinburne University with a double degree in Computer Science Games & Interactivity. Acting as Producer on Harmonious' first title "Putty Pals", which released on Steam & Switch in 2017.In 2020, Joe has moved to Mighty... Read More →
avatar for Matthew Deline

Matthew Deline

Senior Automation Engineer, Mighty Games: A Keywords Studio
Game Jam Enthusiast, Hardware Tinkerer, and World Traveler Matthew Deline has been bringing his expertise in Enterprise Technical Support, Troubleshooting, and Development to the Australian Games industry with Mighty Build and Test since 2019. Originally from California, Matthew is... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

12:00pm AEDT

Gameloft Brisbane Studio Directors: Live Q&A with Dylan Miklashek, Andriy Doroshchuk, Liz Ballantyne, David Macminn
Meet the Gameloft Brisbane Studio Directors and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Dylan Miklashek

Dylan Miklashek

Studio Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
Dylan has been in the video game industry for over 25 years. He has worked for EA Canada, THQ USA and Pandemic Australia. He has worked on multiple major licensed IPs including FIFA, NHL, MLB, WWE and Batman.In 2014 Dylan Joined Gameloft as Studio Manager of Gameloft Brisbane and... Read More →
avatar for Liz Ballantyne

Liz Ballantyne

Art Director, Gameloft
Art Director at Gameloft Australia and Women in Games Ambassador, Liz Ballantyne is a leader driven to create work that promotes both meaningful change and positive disruption.Liz has been making games for 18 years, working with leading brands Apple, Disney, Hasbro, SEGA, Lucasfilm... Read More →
avatar for Andriy Doroshchuk

Andriy Doroshchuk

Technical Director, Gameloft Brisbane
Technical Director for Gameloft Brisbane, Andriy is a highly skilled developer with over 25 years of professional experience in programming and application development. He has extensive knowledge of the design and implementation of tech and tool solutions, application frameworks and... Read More →
avatar for David Macminn

David Macminn

Game Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
David is a games industry veteran of over 20 years working in Australia and the US. Starting as an artist, he soon found his happy place in design and production. As former Design Director at THQ Australia, he worked on numerous original and licensed IPs across multiple console generations.David... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

12:00pm AEDT

Project Management Plans: What are they and do I need one?
Learn what a Project Management Plan is, how it can help you manage your projects and how to use it!
Speakers
avatar for Jessi McNally

Jessi McNally

Summerfall Studios
Jessi is a certified project manager currently working as a Producer at Summerfall Studios in Melbourne. Previous games she has worked on include; Ring of Pain (with Simon Boxer/Humble Games), Real Racing 3 and the SimsFreePlay (Firemonkeys/EA).

Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

12:00pm AEDT

Managing Underperformers - a way to succeed doing what nobody wants to do
As the leader of a Technology Organization, you want every member of it to thrive so that the entirety of it outperform and ultimately adds value to the organization. It takes an individual to perform under expectations to derail from that goal. The level of contribution of such individuals decreases and that impacts the outcomes of your organization. Furthermore, the situation will impact their peers, their contributions, their throughput and virally or as a domino effect, it will spread causing an underestimated damage.

Often, is an area of improvement for leaders, especially in Tech; to manage underperformers. From identifying the situation and the cause, to confront and take action this talk will provide you with an approach to effectively and efficiently deal with low performers so that you can minimise the negative impact and maximise the value your organization can provide to the business.
Speakers
avatar for Roberto Vieira

Roberto Vieira

Director of Engineering, Roberto Jose Vieira Sanjuan
I’m a highly technical, hands-on executive experienced in the setup and management of Application Maintenance & Operations Units as well as large Software & Solution Delivery Departments in distributed & multicultural environments.As Head of Engineering, I’m responsible for scaling... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, Leadership, Career & Management

12:00pm AEDT

Creating a humanised culture in the individualised world: Gaming company edition
Human capital is the greatest asset that a company has - especially for companies that operate in a rapidly growing industry like the gaming sector, where innovations are key to thrive and sustain.

Many studies have shown the positive contributions that a diverse workforce can offer to businesses - from accelerated innovations to higher profitability in the interconnected world.

While many of us can agree that the coming together of people with different cultural backgrounds and experiences is essential to scaling a business globally, there are many things that businesses need to take into account to get there.

They need to first and foremost, attract diverse, high-potential talents and have a positive culture in place to retain them.

In this webinar, Storms’ VP of Human Resources Pauline Puay will be sharing her insights on the common misconceptions pertaining to diversity and inclusion, what today’s talents are looking for and how gaming companies create a humanised culture that is respectful, healthy and engaged to keep their valuable talents.
Speakers
avatar for Pauline Puay

Pauline Puay

Storms
Pauline is the Vice President of Human Resources at Singapore-based gaming startup Storms, where she plays a vital role in ensuring the personal and career development of Storms’ employees.Together with her team, Pauline fosters Storms’ positive startup culture through various... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

12:00pm AEDT

Post Processing and Rendering in VR with Unity URP: A Shooty Skies Overdrive case study
This talk explores the power behind Unity’s URP framework in an in depth examination of how Mighty Games Group dialed up the graphics with custom Post Processing in VR on the Oculus Quest 2. Using Shooty Skies Overdrive as a case study, Ryan will demonstrate how to author, implement and optimize Scriptable Rendering Pipelines and Post Processing Shaders to push the visual quality of your game to the next level while maintaining performance.
Speakers
avatar for Ryan Keable

Ryan Keable

Senior User Experience Programmer, Mighty Games Group
Ryan Keable is the Technical Artist at Mighty Games Group where he has being writting shaders, render pipelines and creating VFX amongst other things for the past 6 years. An industry veteran with over a decade's worth of experience, he has worked many different roles across many... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

12:00pm AEDT

Queerbaiting: Once Bitten, Twice as Shy
Look, game devs, we need to have a talk. While the industry has taken steps in acknowledging and showcasing queer identities, we've still got issues. Past the doldrums of the year 2000, queerbaiting still seems endemic in our products. You know: that hunky space marine checking out his CO's pecs? That biker-looking guy getting flustered because another guy said he was intriguing? A Jedi who had a few trysts at night with her training partner, but passed it off as "being really good friends?" That devil-hunting babe who shot her evil father after he deadnamed her?

Sounds queer, is queer... except, they're not. Botched executions, red-herrings, "I-swear-it-was-nothing-like-that!" and backpedalling. Games can do better, and we have done better. Never fear: Samara-Jade Sendek is here and queer. Join an hour-long workshop on how to diagnose queer themes in your game and have a big pay off that will leave your most colourful fans feeling heard.
Speakers
avatar for Samara-Jade Sendek

Samara-Jade Sendek

Narrative Designer, Mercenary
An ex-MMA fighter and a small, country-town trans girl, Samara-Jade Sendek is a freelance narrative designer and QA tech. Jade had a heart attack while persuing her dreams of fighting in a cage. After discovering the power of estrogen, narrative design and pockets on dresses, she... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

12:00pm AEDT

Working at EA Frostbite!
Your chance to meet the EA Frostbite Talent Acquisition & People Practices team and learn some tips and tricks for applying for your dream role. Frostbite team members will be on hand to answer your questions on what life is like inside their team.
Speakers
AV
JR
NS
AC

Andrew Crawford

Frostbite Director, Engineering, EA Frostbite


Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 12:55pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

12:00pm AEDT

Unreal Tips & Tricks - Epic Mega-Hour
Speedrunning isn’t just for games! Watch two veteran Unreal Engine developers go through as many shortcuts, tricks and optimizations as they can in a single talk. Whether you’re new to UE or a veteran user, there’s almost certainly something to glean from this talk!
Speakers
avatar for Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Chris Murphy is an Unreal Engine Evangelist for Epic Games with game development credits across PC, Vive, Oculus, PS4, iOS and Android. Chris has over 10 years of experience with Unreal Engine, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Multimedia, culminating in a broad skill... Read More →
avatar for Alex Stevens

Alex Stevens

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Alex, a Mechatronic engineer turned game developer, is an Unreal Engine Evangelist that has been working with Unreal Engine since 2012. He has a taste for bleeding-edge tech, and as such has a soft spot for Virtual Reality and the new technical challenges it provides. Primarily working... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

1:00pm AEDT

Lunch Break
Tuesday October 5, 2021 1:00pm - 1:50pm AEDT
TBA

1:00pm AEDT

Working with realtime at Frostbite
Meet Frostbite engineers Jason & Michael to learn more about what it's like working with realtime in Frostbite.
Speakers
JB

Jason Bright

Senior Software Engineer, EA Frostbite
MY

Michael Young

Software Engineer, EA Frostbite


Tuesday October 5, 2021 1:00pm - 1:55pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

1:30pm AEDT

Design: Live Q&A with Scott West and Rowan Ryder
Meet the Game Designers behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Scott West

Scott West

Lead Game Designer, Gameloft Brisbane
Scott has been a Designer in the video game industry for over 20 years, where he has split his time almost equally between the UK and Australia.Having worked for THQ, Halfbrick, Sega, and Rare, he has worked on multiple major IP’s including Fruit Ninja (Kinect), Sonic Dash, Crazy... Read More →
avatar for Rowan Ryder

Rowan Ryder

Senior Game Designer, Gameloft Brisbane
Senior Game Designer at Gameloft, Rowan has worked across multiple Australian studios in Victoria before joining the Gameloft team in 2019, where he worked as a designer on Ballistic Baseball for Apple Arcade.After this, he was instrumental to the design of The Oregon Trail (2021... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 1:30pm - 1:55pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

2:00pm AEDT

More Players, Fewer Servers: Getting The Most Out of Your Infrastructure
Game infrastructure is not often seen by the public, but it's often something thats often critisized if you haven't got it right. APAC has a specific set of challenges that come with it and with more people discovering games daily, it's never been more important. We'll be talking about the methods you can follow to optimize your infrastructure, including looking at your player analytics to inform your server location strategy, optimizing your resources looking at clock speeds and player counts, and balancing a fleet of dedicated and virtual servers.
Speakers
avatar for Ben Cooper

Ben Cooper

OneQode
Ben Cooper has come from a wealthy background in games. Starting as a player, moving professionally through the ranks starting at Endurance LAN from 2010 to 2016, moving through professional play for CS:GO, former COO of Surge esports from 2017 to 2018 and Partnerships Manager in... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Blue Stage, Engineering

2:00pm AEDT

Raising the Bar for Narrative Game Development: A Software and Workflow Walkthrough
Narrative design is becoming a more and more popular focus in game development and among players who crave better story-focused games. But the software tools that are commonly used among narrative designers and writers are still very broad in terms of complexity and workflow optimization. From software as simple as Word or Google Docs to tools that are much more expensive and specific for games, the range is very wide and there is still no single solution that the industry has agreed on so far.
In this talk, I will go through and analyze the features, upsides and downsides of narrative design tools that can optimize the narrative design workflow and give designers and writers an easier time to concentrate on their story instead of wasting resources in copy-paste-hell. From my 7 years of industry experience working on narrative games, I will speak about software that I have used on my previous games, explain why and how we are using which kinds of tools for my studio's current game Blueberry and use these as case studies. I will also talk about my research that I have done on alternative tools, how I tested them, questioned other writers and narrative designers about them and which conclusions I have drawn based on this.
Speakers
avatar for Melanie Taylor

Melanie Taylor

Narrative Designer, Mellow Games
Mel is a narrative/game designer and director of Mellow Games, currently working on the story platformer Blueberry. Most recently, Mel worked on the narrative design and writing for survival adventure Windbound by 5Lives Studios in Brisbane. In 2014, she co-founded the German games... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, Production

2:00pm AEDT

Lessons in Leadership - Tales from the Trenches
In my 21 years in the gaming industry I've been led by horrible bosses, I've been a terrible boss myself pushing my teams on death march crunches. I've lost my temper and shouted at those I held most dear, and been belittled and bullied into breaking down.

I’ve also looked into myself and found myself wanting, so I learned and improved. I’ve inspired others to succeed when all those around us thought we would fail. Sought out and found new talents that have gone on to shape the industry. Found paths to solve problems that seemed impossible to solve.

Everyone’s leadership journey will be unique, and while mine hasn’t always been something I took pride in, I hope that in sharing some of the stories and lessons that I’ve learned along the way I can help all attendees take an additional small step on their journey to be the next generation of great leaders in gaming.
Speakers
avatar for Christopher Clay

Christopher Clay

Immutable
I started my career in Technical Art before it was defined as a role where I was on the bleeding edge of using Maya to develop assets for games. I published the first character setup tutorial for Maya on the web way back in 2000. I made the transition to Game Design while working... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, Leadership, Career & Management

2:00pm AEDT

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Blockchain
Cryptocurrency, NFTs, Blockchain, Metaverse?! Until very recently I was incredibly wary of the blockchain space. However after a few months of research, I now believe that this may be the most important technology of this decade.

Join me in discussing this emerging world, interrogating our understanding of the space, and discovering the important part that games are playing in the world of the Blockchain.
Speakers
avatar for Lo Maslen

Lo Maslen

Independent
Game Designer and Artist, previously a part of teams at Mountains, Spunge Games and the Griffith University Film School

Tuesday October 5, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Business & Marketing

2:00pm AEDT

Lighting The Oregon Trail in 4 Dimensions
Nailing the correct lighting for a project is usually as tricky as defining the whole artistic direction itself. Bad lighting can ruin even the best pieces of arts. From a technical standpoint, choosing how to expose the lighting tools parameters can either empower artists to do great work or discourage them.
In this talk, we will get an overview of how The Oregon Trail team brought to life a vast number of vivid animated skies without getting lost in configurations jargon. Discover for yourself how a complex time of day system can expose a lot of parameters while remaining intuitive and easy to use.
We will also briefly talk about the accompanying weather effects and how ‘keeping it simple’ leads to the immersive results you encounter on The Oregon Trail today!
Speakers
avatar for Bruno Gohier

Bruno Gohier

Senior Technical Artist, Gameloft Australia
Bruno is a software engineer specialized in rendering and procedural imaging who has worked for the gaming industry for the past 16 years.Bruno started his career at Ubisoft Montreal in Canada by contributing to great titles within the Splinter Cell and Shaun White Snowboarding series... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Art

2:00pm AEDT

Polish in Prototyping
Prototyping is an experimental process that creates a tangible experience to test a concept. In game development, prototypes can take a whole range of forms, from rough physical approximations to high fidelity render experiences. When building a gameplay prototype, developers need to work fast and focus on what is important for the experiment. As adding polish is time consuming, it is often the first sacrifice made while prototyping.

However, a lack of the right polish can be detrimental to achieving the goal of the prototype. This session will talk about the importance of polish when prototyping and how to leverage it to get better results from your experiments.

The focus will be on in-engine prototyping to experiment with gameplay designs and technical features. Together we’ll dive into techniques for determining what is important to the experiment, cost-effective ways to add polish to a prototype and concrete examples of success and failure when polishing features. The examples come from a wide range of gameplay and technical prototypes created in AAA environments down to independent game jams.
Speakers
avatar for Luke Ledwich

Luke Ledwich

Wargaming Sydney
Luke is an expert engineer with a passion for networked gameplay and a background in robotics and computer vision. With almost 20 years of engineering experience across several disciplines, Luke’s game dev journey started over a decade ago by getting a foot in the door at Bungie... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, Design & Narrative

2:00pm AEDT

Frostbite Australia Leadership Q&A
Meet some of Frostbite Australia's senior team; Jonathan, Michael and Emily. Find out how Australia is contributing to EA's game engine that powers games like FIFA, Madden, Battlefield, Dead Space & Dragon Age.
Speakers
avatar for Lewis Strudwick

Lewis Strudwick

EA Frostbite
A veteran of the local industry, with over 12 years of experience at EA alone, and over 15 in game development, Lewis is one of the few Directors of Architecture at Frostbite. Which means he works with the many teams around the globe on the fundamental technologies behind EA’s proprietary... Read More →
JR

Jonathan Runting

Sr Manager Engineering, EA Frostbite
MD

Michael de Graaf

Senior Program Manager, EA Frostbite
EC

Emily Campbell

Technical Director, EA Frostbite


Tuesday October 5, 2021 2:00pm - 2:55pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

3:00pm AEDT

Tech Art: Live Q&A with Andriy Doroshchuk and Bruno Gohier
Meet the Programming Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Bruno Gohier

Bruno Gohier

Senior Technical Artist, Gameloft Australia
Bruno is a software engineer specialized in rendering and procedural imaging who has worked for the gaming industry for the past 16 years.Bruno started his career at Ubisoft Montreal in Canada by contributing to great titles within the Splinter Cell and Shaun White Snowboarding series... Read More →
avatar for Andriy Doroshchuk

Andriy Doroshchuk

Technical Director, Gameloft Brisbane
Technical Director for Gameloft Brisbane, Andriy is a highly skilled developer with over 25 years of professional experience in programming and application development. He has extensive knowledge of the design and implementation of tech and tool solutions, application frameworks and... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 3:00pm - 3:30pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

3:00pm AEDT

Indigitek: Indigenous representation in Tech and Gaming + Yarn with 4Phase Games
Join Celeste Carnegie and Ben Armstrong from Indigitek for a yarn to find out more about what they are doing to create pathways and opportunities for Indigenous people in technology careers. They will also be having a fireside chat with Morgana Watson from 4Phase Games about the importance of Indigenous representation in the gaming sector.
Speakers
avatar for Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong

Indigitek
Ben is a Wiradjuri man who has worked in the technology sector for over 20 years.  Having worked in a variety of roles over his career, Ben has experienced and seen the lack of meaningful impact surrounding Indigenous representation in Tech which drives his passion to change that... Read More →
avatar for Celeste Carnegie

Celeste Carnegie

Indigitek
Celeste Carnegie is a Birrigubba Juru and South Sea Islander Woman from Far North Queensland who has been at the forefront of STEM education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth.She is passionate about digital inclusion and empowering First Nations people everywhere to... Read More →
avatar for Morgana Watson

Morgana Watson

4Phase Games
Morgana Watson – Creative DirectorTe Kāhui Mounga, Taranaki Tūturu, Te Atihau-nui-a-Papaarangi, Ngā Puhi, Te AtiawaMorgana is a Māori cultural consultant, gamer and animé fan and is the Creative Director for 4Phase Games. With 20+ years experience in creative and performing... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes

3:00pm AEDT

Build Tools Without Code: Editor Utilities in Unreal Engine
It’s not often that developers are in need of a missing tool within Unreal Engine, but when it happens, what are your options? What if you don’t know C++? With the power of Unreal Engine’s Editor Utility Blueprints, you can create your own tools without writing a single line of code.

Join Epic Games for an introduction to building your own editor tools with the in-editor tools like Blueprints and Editor Utility Widgets. This talk is suitable for all experience levels.
Speakers
avatar for Alex Stevens

Alex Stevens

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Alex, a Mechatronic engineer turned game developer, is an Unreal Engine Evangelist that has been working with Unreal Engine since 2012. He has a taste for bleeding-edge tech, and as such has a soft spot for Virtual Reality and the new technical challenges it provides. Primarily working... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

3:30pm AEDT

Production: Live Q&A with David Macminn and Mara Ingham
Meet the Production Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for David Macminn

David Macminn

Game Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
David is a games industry veteran of over 20 years working in Australia and the US. Starting as an artist, he soon found his happy place in design and production. As former Design Director at THQ Australia, he worked on numerous original and licensed IPs across multiple console generations.David... Read More →
avatar for Mara Ingham

Mara Ingham

Producer, Gameloft Brisbane
Mara Ingham is a Producer at Gameloft Brisbane, currently working on the Apple Arcade exclusive "The Oregon Trail". Mara has been an enthusiastic member of the games industry for 7 years, with experience working on various projects, and supporting teams in studios world-wide. She... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 3:30pm - 4:00pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

4:00pm AEDT

A Fireside chat with Lyndsay Pearson & Lisy Kane
A fireside chat between Lyndsay Pearson of EA and Lisy Kane of League of Geeks talking all things Sims, career and more.
Speakers
avatar for Lisy Kane

Lisy Kane

Lead Producer, League Of Geeks
Lisy Kane is the Production Director and Melbourne indie studio, League of Geeks and has seen through the development of the internationally successful games-as-a-service title Armello. From here, she has grown a production department to support exciting new projects by a talented... Read More →
avatar for Lyndsay Pearson

Lyndsay Pearson

EA
Lyndsay Pearson is the Vice President of Franchise Creative for The Sims at Electronic Arts. She leads and inspires teams working on a variety of projects across the franchise to deliver powerful creativity and self-expression to players worldwide. Since joining EA in 2003, Lyndsay... Read More →

Tuesday October 5, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes

4:00pm AEDT

Pre-Flight Check: Preparing for Unreal Engine 5 Migration
Change is a mix of excitement and uncertainty. Unreal Engine 5 has a lot of cool stuff but… what should I know before migrating? What’s in there that we haven’t heard much about? Join Epic Games as we cover what’s new and how to best prepare your projects for the upcoming release of Unreal Engine 5.0.
Speakers
avatar for Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Chris Murphy is an Unreal Engine Evangelist for Epic Games with game development credits across PC, Vive, Oculus, PS4, iOS and Android. Chris has over 10 years of experience with Unreal Engine, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Multimedia, culminating in a broad skill... Read More →
avatar for Alex Stevens

Alex Stevens

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Alex, a Mechatronic engineer turned game developer, is an Unreal Engine Evangelist that has been working with Unreal Engine since 2012. He has a taste for bleeding-edge tech, and as such has a soft spot for Virtual Reality and the new technical challenges it provides. Primarily working... Read More →


Tuesday October 5, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth
 
Wednesday, October 6
 

9:30am AEDT

Welcome Day 3 with Trent Kusters
Speakers
avatar for Trent Kusters

Trent Kusters

Co-founder & Director, League of Geeks
Trent Kusters is co-founder and director of Melbourne-based game developers League of Geeks, responsible for seminal digital board game, Armello. He is the former chair of Freeplay - Australia's largest and longest running independent games festival, former lecturer at the Victorian... Read More →
avatar for David Parkin

David Parkin

Founder, Managing Director
David is Managing Director of Luggarrah, a wholly Aboriginal owned business linking regional secondary school students from diverse backgrounds to game developers and others in the industry. A cultural consultant, gamer and supporter of games.David is one of 2020 GameIndustry.Biz... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 9:30am - 9:50am AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes

10:00am AEDT

Character Art: Live Q&A with Liz Ballantyne, Ruan Van Der Westhuizen and John Aitchison
Meet the Character Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Liz Ballantyne

Liz Ballantyne

Art Director, Gameloft
Art Director at Gameloft Australia and Women in Games Ambassador, Liz Ballantyne is a leader driven to create work that promotes both meaningful change and positive disruption.Liz has been making games for 18 years, working with leading brands Apple, Disney, Hasbro, SEGA, Lucasfilm... Read More →
avatar for Ruan Van Der Westhuizen

Ruan Van Der Westhuizen

Senior Character Artist, Gameloft Brisbane
Ruan graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communication where he majored in 3D and Game development.  He has a passion for character art and has been working as a character artist in various forms for the last 13 years.He has worked on characters ranging from remote-controlled... Read More →
avatar for John Aitchison

John Aitchison

Senior Animator, Gameloft Brisbane
John is a passionate and experienced animator who has been bringing characters to life in gameplay and cinematics since 2005. With a long career as a digital artist, John has been involved in the games industry for over 20 years, with experience working on various large-scale projects... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:00am - 10:25am AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

10:00am AEDT

GCAP Invest Keynote: A Fireside Chat with Tom Davies and Ben Lee: Equity Investment and Acquisitions
A Fireside Chat with Tom Davies and Ben Lee talking through equity investment and acquisitions.
Speakers
avatar for Tom Davies

Tom Davies

Keywords Studios Australia
Tom Davies has over 20 years experience working with technology companies and start-ups. As a VC, investor and commercial advisor he has supported companies on fund raising, growth strategies and exits. He has over a decade of experience with games studios and most recently advised... Read More →
avatar for Benjamin Lee

Benjamin Lee

Blowfish Studios
Benjamin Lee has over 20 years experience in the computer software and 3D graphics industry and has extensive knowledge of all aspects of software development. He has grown Blowfish Studios over 10 years into a globally competitive video game developer and publisher. Ben most recently... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, GCAP Invest Track 1

10:00am AEDT

GCAP Loading Keynote: A Fireside Chat with Guy Blomberg and Nika Nour
A Fireside Chat with Guy Blomberg and Nika Nour to open GCAP Loading on day 3, discussing virtual networking and how to succeed in the current landscape.
Speakers
avatar for Guy Blomberg

Guy Blomberg

Program Director, Xsolla Diamond Club
Guy 'Yug' Blomberg, Founder of Games Industry GatheringGuy has been working in games for over 20 years, overseeing global teams and building million-dollar commercial strategies. Previously the Global Gaming Content Director for Reedpop where he implemented strategy and content for... Read More →
avatar for Nika Nour

Nika Nour

Executive Director, IGDA Foundation
Nika Nour, Executive Director IGDA FoundationNika spent more than a decade building coalitions and programs for leading internet and video game companies. As the Executive Director for the International Game Developers Association Foundation, her efforts developed diversity, equity... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, GCAP Loading Track 1

10:00am AEDT

Making the Zone: Online Events and the Experience of Being Somewhere
2020 was a challenging year for Games conferences and festivals. As event organisers turned to video calls and livestreams to translate in person events into online events people quickly began to suffer zoom fatigue. Around the world event organisers and developers began to explore novel ways to bring people together in new ways during a turbulent and difficult year. A major way this was done was to build virtual spaces for events. These spaces helped to bring back some of the sense of place of attending an event and the possibility of serendipity of running into an old friend during a break between talks and workshops. This talk will provide an overview of online spaces created for online events during 2020 and 2021 and discuss our experiences building and running online spaces for Freeplay Independent Games Festival and the Researching Gamemaking Workshop and learnings from each of these online spaces.

Jae Stuart and Cecile Richard have created four online spaces for online events. Two Freeplay Zones for both Freeplay 2020 and Freeplay 2021, Parallels Zone for Freeplay's Parallels Showcase for Melbourne International Games Week 2020 and the Researching Gamemaking Workshop Zone for Australian Games academic Brendan Keogh's Researching Gamemaking Workshop.
Speakers
avatar for Jae Stuart

Jae Stuart

Programmer, Independent
Jae Stuart is a designer and programmer drawn to narrative games. Projects they’ve worked on have been shown at Amaze, GDC and SXSW, and nominated for awards at Freeplay and Play By Play. In 2020 they collaborated with Cecile Richard on the online social spaces the Freeplay ZONE... Read More →
avatar for Cecile Richard

Cecile Richard

Editor, Fine Feathered Fiends
Cecile Richard is a graphic designer, zine maker and game designer living in Melbourne whose artistic work often revolves around the themes of memory, connection and belonging. Cecile’s most well-known works include award-winning short Bitsy games novena, ENDLESS SCROLL, and UNDER... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Post-Mortems

10:00am AEDT

Up-skilling Voice Actors for Australian Video Games
The push for representation has extended to all corners of media, from film to games. This means we need to have a thriving community of experienced voice actors who understand video games; from quoting for them, to the equipment you'll need, from the path to improving that portfolio, to finding yourself a consult community. Alternatively, should you be a game developer looking to do-it-yourself or a casting director interested in finding more Australian voice talent, this is the talk for you!
Speakers
avatar for Aimee Smith

Aimee Smith

Aimee Smith - Voice Actress
Aimee Smith is a full-time Australian voice talent based in Sydney. She's voiced for over 100 released video games in her career, some of which include SMITE, Mobile Legends, Battlerite, Freedom Planet and the Warhammer 40k title: Adeptus Titanicus Dominus. Aimee has also voiced for... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Audio

10:00am AEDT

Extended Tools Development in Unreal Engine
Did you get a taste of tools development in the editor utilities talk? Curious about amalgamating the power of C++ with Editor Utilities and various other built-in engine features without blowing budgets?

Join Epic Games for a deeper dive into tools development within Unreal Engine. This talk covers an equal amount of C++ and Editor Utilities, and is suitable for folks with some programming experience.
Speakers
avatar for Alex Stevens

Alex Stevens

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Alex, a Mechatronic engineer turned game developer, is an Unreal Engine Evangelist that has been working with Unreal Engine since 2012. He has a taste for bleeding-edge tech, and as such has a soft spot for Virtual Reality and the new technical challenges it provides. Primarily working... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

10:00am AEDT

Game Design: Live Chat
Join Firemonkeys Game Designers in this casual conversation around the joys and challenges of making games.
Speakers
avatar for Jack Sinclair

Jack Sinclair

EA Firemonkeys
Jack is a Game Designer at EA Firemonkeys working on various projects. Graduating from RMIT in Game Design, he worked with Playside before landing a gig at Electronic Arts. Starting out on Real Racing 3 before moving on to The Sims Mobile and beyond, Jack has designed various systems... Read More →
avatar for Penelope Davison

Penelope Davison

EA Firemonkeys
Penelope Davison is a game designer at EA Firemonkeys, working on the mobile title ‘The Sims Freeplay’. She studied game design at RMIT University before interning with free-roam VR company Zero Latency, briefly working on their first PvP title ’Sol Raiders’. Penelope then... Read More →
AD
TC
MF
MJ


Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:00am - 10:55am AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

10:30am AEDT

User Interface: Live Q&A with Paul Clancy and Emmanuel Vasquez Jr
Meet the User Interface Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Paul Clancy

Paul Clancy

UI Lead, Gameloft Brisbane
In 2017 Paul moved from the UK to Australia bringing his extensive experience in interactive TV, the casual games industry and UX design to the Gameloft Brisbane Studio.Prior to working at Gameloft Brisbane, Paul setup his own independent games production studio where he collaborated... Read More →
avatar for Emmanuel Vasquez Jr

Emmanuel Vasquez Jr

Senior UI Artist, Gameloft Brisbane
Emmanuel is a visual artist and animator who has been working in the creative industry for 14 years and has done a variety of projects with most of those being in video games for companies such as Ubisoft and Gameloft.Being a person who loves to experience different cultures he has... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 10:30am - 10:55am AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

11:00am AEDT

Design: Live Q&A with Scott West and Rowan Ryder
Meet the Game Designers behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Scott West

Scott West

Lead Game Designer, Gameloft Brisbane
Scott has been a Designer in the video game industry for over 20 years, where he has split his time almost equally between the UK and Australia.Having worked for THQ, Halfbrick, Sega, and Rare, he has worked on multiple major IP’s including Fruit Ninja (Kinect), Sonic Dash, Crazy... Read More →
avatar for Rowan Ryder

Rowan Ryder

Senior Game Designer, Gameloft Brisbane
Senior Game Designer at Gameloft, Rowan has worked across multiple Australian studios in Victoria before joining the Gameloft team in 2019, where he worked as a designer on Ballistic Baseball for Apple Arcade.After this, he was instrumental to the design of The Oregon Trail (2021... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:25am AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

11:00am AEDT

Australian Funding Success Stories
Listen to a panel of Australian games veterans who have successfully funded their companies and studios over the past few years. What went right, what went wrong, and how did they go about it?
Speakers
avatar for Cheryl Vance

Cheryl Vance

Prideful Sloth
Co-Founder & Director @ Prideful SlothKeeper of the heart, Mother of Sloths, Tim Tams Slammer, Has caught 'em all, Grass Fox Fanatic
avatar for Scott Reismanis

Scott Reismanis

CEO, mod.io
Scott Reismanis is the founder of mod.io and ModDB.com, and has spent two decades pioneering the adoption of mods and UGC in-games. mod.io provides UGC as a service to studios and publishers, allowing them to launch their own cross-platform creator communities and is backed by VC... Read More →
avatar for Tony Lawrence

Tony Lawrence

COO, Mighty Kingdom
With more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in creative industries, Tony is the Chief Operating Officer of Mighty Kingdom, Australia’s largest independent game developer. Tony was previously the General Manager of 2K Australia and worked with his team on Borderlands... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, GCAP Invest Track 1

11:00am AEDT

Cultivating conditions for serendipity: What Google calendar and 100 interviews with game developers taught me about about curating my time.
Part fairy tale, part project management; an autobiographical story of how Javiera Cordero got her first job in the game industry, told with actionable techniques around time budgeting, relationship building and inverting power dynamics to empower yourself with the language and strategy to do the same.  
Speakers
avatar for Javiera Cordero

Javiera Cordero

Beamable
Javiera Cordero ((she/her) is a queer trans Puerto Rican lesbian woman from Brooklyn, NYC whose calling is in Production, Business Development and Community Building in the video game industry. Currently she works at Beamable in Customer Success and as an Associate Producer at Threshold... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, GCAP Loading Track 1

11:00am AEDT

Mental Jam: Video Game Co-creation for Young People with Lived Experiences of Depression and Anxiety
Mental Jam is a research project that explores how methods of video game co-creation can facilitate the participation of individuals with lived experiences of depression and anxiety as a means to build empathy and mental health awareness among young people. Prior research has shown different artistic mediums can be used to portray stories as a form of self-expression and to raise community awareness. Video games offer interactive and immersive experiences that can inspire players to gain knowledge of the lived perspectives of others. Through a participatory action research methodology, we developed a game jam workshop designed to facilitate the co-creation of video games with participants using diverse video game design approaches, such as narrative-driven game design.
Speakers
avatar for Michelle Chen

Michelle Chen

I am a game developer with more than 10 years experience in programming, design and production. I am a GameIndustry.biz 100 Future Talent and Xbox Women in Gaming Game Changer. I am currently pursuing a PhD in Design, developing video games about mental health at RMIT in Australi... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Post-Mortems

11:00am AEDT

A Fireside Chat: Meena Shamaly and Narayana Johnson
A fireside chat with Meena Shamaly and Narayana Johnson (River Boy) talking through Narayana's career, through to entry into the games industry, and collaborating across the industry.
Speakers
avatar for Meena Shamaly

Meena Shamaly

Composer, Meena Shamaly
Meena Shamaly is a composer, session musician, poet, and radio presenter. His work centres around creating music for stories, through the mediums of film, video games, and theatre, with special attention to true cultural engagement.Meena is the composer of Innchanted, developed in... Read More →
avatar for Narayana Johnson

Narayana Johnson

Audio Director, Massive Monster
Audio Director at Massive Monster. Scored and produced the award winning music for Cult Of the Lamb along with recording voice overs, atmospheres and many of the SFX. Background in pop as one half of Willow Beats. Toured Australia multiple times and played festivals such as Splendour... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Audio

11:00am AEDT

An Artist’s Guide to Blueprint in Unreal Engine
You often don’t need a programmer to add interactivity to your project! Revolution! Join Evangelist Chris Murphy as he covers some of the easy wins for artists looking to get into adding interactivity and procedural elements to their projects. Suitable for newcomers to Unreal Engine.
Speakers
avatar for Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Chris Murphy is an Unreal Engine Evangelist for Epic Games with game development credits across PC, Vive, Oculus, PS4, iOS and Android. Chris has over 10 years of experience with Unreal Engine, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Multimedia, culminating in a broad skill... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

11:00am AEDT

Revolutionising game design docs! Communicate your vision and level design in SpaceDraft.
SpaceDraft enables game designers to communicate their ideas more effectively. It is a new cloud-based web application that helps to generate a quick and easy-to-understand overview of what your game is all about. It is open, collaborative and most importantly visual. This talk is an introduction to the creative elements of SpaceDraft and will explore how the tool can be used to empower the pre-production process and create dynamic and engaging game design docs.
Speakers
avatar for Lucy Cooke

Lucy Cooke

SpaceDraft
Lucy Cooke is the Founder and CEO of SpaceDraft. Lucy worked in Hollywood film production and visual effects for a decade and her credits include Game of Thrones, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Hacksaw Ridge and Pirates of the Caribbean to name a few. SpaceDraft is a pre-production... Read More →
avatar for Ben Cossy

Ben Cossy

SpaceDraft
Ben Cossy is a graphic designer and LEGO builder extraordinaire. Ben works with SpaceDraft where he helps to design and plan the future of game design. From building custom assets, videos, and everything in between, Ben is a wizard and there is nothing he can’t do.

Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, GCAP Loading Track 2

11:00am AEDT

Meet Frostbite’s User Experience Team
Meet the team that are tackling the complexities of user experience design across the myriad of tools that powers EA's engine.
Speakers
CR

Catherine Rendell

UX Designer, EA Frostbite
DB

David Biggs

Technical Artist, EA Frostbite
AA

Alex Andreadis

Senior Technical Artist, EA Frostbite


Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 11:55am AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

11:00am AEDT

Recruitment Q&A
Join our Lead Melbourne Studio Recruiter for a Q&A session about anything broadly related to recruitment and our hiring process.
Speakers
JB

Jefferson Blinco

Sledgehammer Games


Wednesday October 6, 2021 11:00am - 12:00pm AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

12:00pm AEDT

The Digital Games Tax Offset - 2022 and beyond
The Digital Games Tax Offset - 2022 and beyond in discussion with Jo Sharp, Tim Phillips, with an intro from Paul Fletcher.

Ben Au of IGEA as moderator.
Speakers
avatar for Jo Sharp

Jo Sharp

Director Screen Industry, Office for the Arts
Jo Sharp is the Director in the Screen Industry section in the Office for the Arts in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. The Screen Industry section manages the administration of the Post, Digital and Visual Effects Offset and the... Read More →
avatar for Tim Phillips

Tim Phillips

Office for the Arts
Tim is an experienced entertainment lawyer and executive and was previously the Head of Business Affairs at Federal Government agency Screen Australia, leading its legal team.He is one of Australia’s experts on tax offsets for the screen sector being Head of Offset at Screen Australia... Read More →
avatar for Ben Au

Ben Au

Director of Policy and Government Affairs, IGEA
Ben brings to IGEA a wealth of government expertise, particularly at the intersection of video games, digital technology, policy and regulation. Ben is responsible for monitoring, identifying and advising members on current and emerging policy and regulatory issues that may affect... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, GCAP Invest Track 1

12:00pm AEDT

How Not To Tank Your Career In 280 Characters Or Less
One would hope in a medium of communication that we don't have to answer the question as to why we should care about clarity and intent. However, communication is messy at the best of times but at the worst of times it can be relationship-ending. Be that relationship with a significant other, your industry, or your place of work. Misinterpretation of an otherwise thoughtless comment in the rapid space of the internet can lead to far-reaching disaster. On top of that, how are you meant to ensure you are correctly interpreted? What do you do when you make a mistake?

When your online communication is your personal brand, it is important to consider how you cultivate that presence. This talk covers the quick and dirty breakdown of communication 101, how to avoid mistakes before they happen, and how to prepare to stick by your word.
Speakers
avatar for Zhia Zariko

Zhia Zariko

Studio Lead, Were You Followed
Following her undergraduate degree in written communication, Zhia pursued her dreams akin to the questing methodology of Bethesda's Oblivion and wandered off into the unknown. Emerging with a Master's Degree and a career in teaching game design and media studies, she still dubiously... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, GCAP Loading Track 1

12:00pm AEDT

Lessons Learned while Building The Friendly Dialogue System
We’ve been building Yarn Spinner, the open source dialogue tool used in BAFTA and IGF winning games, for over half of our studio’s existence. In fact, it’s turned into the main thing that our studio does, which is a little surprising, considering we give the whole thing away for free.

In this talk, we’ll share the lessons we’ve learned about building high-quality tools, operating an open-source project, and supporting a huge number of game development teams. We’ll look at hard-earned info that’s relevant to tools developers at studios at every scale, as well as more specialised takeaways, and while our main example is a dialogue tool, just about everything we’re talking about applies to every field of game development.

We’ll look at the problem of building great tools from a variety of perspectives: from the technical side, from the community management side, and from the business side. Finally, we’ll talk about how to apply all of this to the kinds of challenges you’re facing on your project and in your studio.
Speakers
avatar for Jon Manning

Jon Manning

Secret Lab
Jon Manning is the cofounder of independent game development studio Secret Lab. He's working on the critically acclaimed award-winning adventure game Night in the Woods, which includes his interactive dialogue system Yarn Spinner. He's written a whole bunch of books for O'Reilly about... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Pink Stage, Post-Mortems

12:00pm AEDT

Fireside Chat: Austin Wintory and Kevin Penkin
A fireside chat with  Austin Wintory and Kevin Penkin, talking composing, career goals and all things games music!
Speakers
avatar for Austin Wintory

Austin Wintory

Composer, Wintory Global Engineering
Grammy-nominated and 2-time BAFTA winning composer Austin Wintory has worked on a wide variety of titles spanning games, film, TV and the concert hall. Most known for his work on the PS3 game Journey, his other games include The Banner Saga trilogy, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, ABZU... Read More →
avatar for Kevin Penkin

Kevin Penkin

Kevin Penkin, based in Melbourne, is a BAFTA-nominated composer for Japanese Anime and Games. He is best known for composing the score to the anime Made in Abyss and indie games Florence and Necrobarista. Recent and upcoming works include Star Wars Visions : The Village Bride, the... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Audio

12:00pm AEDT

Leveling Up: Simple C++ For Blueprinters
 Feeling like you’ve mastered Blueprints and need to take thenext step? Looking to get that extra bit of power? Well, good news! Harnessing the power of C++ in Unreal Engine is easier than you think!Join Epic Games’ Alex Stevens in a soft introduction to C++ in Unreal Engine.

He will show you that not only is C++in Unreal easy to approach, but it will also expand many possibilities for your development. We’ll dive into exposing C++ functionality to Blueprints along with best practices when integrating C++ into your project. This talk is suitable for anyone with Blueprint experience looking to take the next step.
Speakers
avatar for Alex Stevens

Alex Stevens

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Alex, a Mechatronic engineer turned game developer, is an Unreal Engine Evangelist that has been working with Unreal Engine since 2012. He has a taste for bleeding-edge tech, and as such has a soft spot for Virtual Reality and the new technical challenges it provides. Primarily working... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

12:00pm AEDT

Shipping Your First Game
The idea of shipping your first videogame is an exciting one, but the lived reality can often be a wildly different experience! Listen to this panel of game developers who have shipped their first project over the last year and hear their stories. What was it like? What did they expect it would be like, and what was it REALLY like?
Speakers
avatar for Kathy Smart

Kathy Smart

Joy Everafter Stories
Kathy is a producer at Joy Everafter Stories. The studio spent three years making a children’s storybook with contractors, employees and other businesses, going from a sole trader to a proprietary limited company in the process, and successfully making an R&D claim.Kathy has a background... Read More →
avatar for Jacob Leaney

Jacob Leaney

Monster Mansion
Jacob Leaney (He/Him) - @monstrmansionJacob is an indie game dev and synth-pop artist/songwriter under the moniker Monster Mansion. He develops games based on the music he writes/releases, most recently the halloween themed rhythm game Video World which received 'The Guest Plate... Read More →
avatar for Alisha Stone

Alisha Stone

Creative Director, Myriad Games Studio
Hi, I’m Alisha—a maker of digital things and someone who enjoys playing games to relax and escape. I’m the Creative Director at Myriad Games Studio, and I’m also a Business Analyst at RACV for my day job.My role at Myriad Games Studio is constantly varied—I find myself working... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, GCAP Loading Track 2

12:00pm AEDT

Tips for Starting in the Games Industry: Live Q&A with Sarah Jordan, Miles Hatcliff, Amaya Kabel and Christian Milicevic
Meet the Gameloft Brisbane team and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Sarah Jordan

Sarah Jordan

HR Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
Sarah is an HR generalist with over 20 years of experience in a variety of industries working in areas of digital recruitment, employee engagement, employment law, training and development. Her keen interest lies in positive culture practices.  She gained a BSc in Business & a Chartered... Read More →
avatar for Miles Hatcliff

Miles Hatcliff

Quality Assurance Tester, Gameloft Brisbane
Miles is a QUT Bachelor of Games Graduate majoring in design but with a passion for environment art. He began his professional career in Games as a QA Tester at Gameloft Brisbane, where he has been working for the past year on their Apple Arcade exclusive The Oregon Trail.While still... Read More →
avatar for Amaya Kabel

Amaya Kabel

Designer, Gameloft Brisbane
Amaya has recently entered the video game industry after graduating in 2019 from QUT with a Bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments, majoring in Game Design. Like many, she started her career as a Quality Assurance Tester - first at Spunge Games, before moving to Gameloft this... Read More →
avatar for Christian Milicevic

Christian Milicevic

QA Engineer, Gameloft Brisbane
Christian graduated from QUT in 2020 with a Software Tech major and recently joined Gameloft in the QA team in 2021.He has prior experience as a junior software developer and in I.T hardware. He is a keen, learning fanatic, especially in software and games who loves to learn from... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 12:55pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

12:00pm AEDT

Fostering our Global Communities across Mobile & Triple A Games
Meet the Marketing & Community teams from Firemonkeys and EA Sydney and ask questions about how we create engaging marketing campaigns to engage our community of players!
Speakers
MW
SR
AC
LM


Wednesday October 6, 2021 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

1:00pm AEDT

Lunch Break
Wednesday October 6, 2021 1:00pm - 1:50pm AEDT
TBA

2:00pm AEDT

Production: Live Q&A with David Macminn and Mara Ingham
Meet the Production Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for David Macminn

David Macminn

Game Manager, Gameloft Brisbane
David is a games industry veteran of over 20 years working in Australia and the US. Starting as an artist, he soon found his happy place in design and production. As former Design Director at THQ Australia, he worked on numerous original and licensed IPs across multiple console generations.David... Read More →
avatar for Mara Ingham

Mara Ingham

Producer, Gameloft Brisbane
Mara Ingham is a Producer at Gameloft Brisbane, currently working on the Apple Arcade exclusive "The Oregon Trail". Mara has been an enthusiastic member of the games industry for 7 years, with experience working on various projects, and supporting teams in studios world-wide. She... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 2:25pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

2:00pm AEDT

Live chat (Engineering Focus Talk)
Join our Software Engineer and Sr Associate Gameplay Engineer as they talk about the key fundamentals of Engineering at our Melbourne Studio.
Speakers
avatar for Darcy Sandall

Darcy Sandall

Sledgehammer Games
avatar for Alex Griffin

Alex Griffin

Sledgehammer Games


Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 2:45pm AEDT
TBA
  Sledgehammer Games, Sledgehammer Games

2:00pm AEDT

Get to know your Screen Agency: Presented by Film Victoria
Join Leena van Deventer as she chats with Film Victoria’s Paul Callaghan and Joe Brinkmann to find out more about how you can get the most out of your relationship with Victoria’s expert screen agency.
 
Having invested in digital games for over 25 years, Film Victoria provides support to local games projects, businesses and people – cementing Victoria’s position as a global hub for games. In this session you’ll learn more about what funding is available, how best to approach your application and tips and tricks that might just help get your application over the line. 
 
Learn more about Film Victoria here.
Speakers
avatar for Joe Brinkmann

Joe Brinkmann

Production Attraction and Support Manager, Film Victoria
Joe has been working in screen since 2005. Beginning in London with Miramax Films, then moving to Elixir Films in LA where he produced adventure series Long Way Down and pilgrimage feature The Way. Prior to moving to Australia in 2015, Joe worked at Showtime where he was involved... Read More →
avatar for Paul Callaghan

Paul Callaghan

Games and Digital Content Manager, Film Victoria
Paul has been in and around games since 1998 writing code, designing narratives, producing events, and developing cultural infrastructure. He has worked with a range government and cultural organisations including ACMI, State Library Victoria, BAFTA, the BFI, British Council, City... Read More →
avatar for Leena van Deventer

Leena van Deventer

Moderator, Reuben Games
Leena van Deventer is an award-winning developer based in Melbourne, Australia. She’s the Creative Producer & Writer at Reuben Games working on survival horror indie game Dead Static Drive. In 2016 she co-authored “Game Changers: From Minecraft to Misogyny, the fight for the future... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, GCAP Invest Track 1

2:00pm AEDT

Exploring Possibilities: Building Your Real-Time Career
Think of any creative industry, and odds are they have adopted real-time technology. From games to film, simulation to live events, real-time engine tech skills are in higher demand than ever - especially in Unreal Engine. This panel explores both the wide world of game development as well as the rapidly evolving industries you may not have considered that are looking to leverage your talent. As we move towards the metaverse, the demand for content is incredible. There are plenty of jobs on offer - what are you waiting for?
Speakers
avatar for Dean Finnigan

Dean Finnigan

Wargaming Sydney
Art Director at Wargaming Sydney. Multi award winning animator and artist working in game development for over 25 years. Worked on pretty much every console, various handheld as well as PC platforms as well as film and game cinematics across both large and small scale teams. Arrived... Read More →
avatar for Natalie Robinson

Natalie Robinson

S1T2
Natalie is a producer passionate about using art and technology to tell stories. She has worked across a wide range of creative mediums, with experience in real-time, CG animation, and illustration to create interactive and immersive experiences.Natalie works to foster environments... Read More →
avatar for Markus Graf

Markus Graf

Dreamscreen Australia
Hailing from a small German town, Markus has worked his way through cities like Singapore and Shanghai for the likes of Pixomondo and LucasFilm, before landing here in Melbourne at Method Studios. He has 12 years of experience working as a VFX artist and lead across films like Ready... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, GCAP Loading Track 1

2:00pm AEDT

HIGH SCORE REPLAY: Equipping Audio for Survival in Age of Darkness: Final Stand
Procedurally generated RTS Age of Darkness: Final Stand throws up to 70,000 terrifying units on screen at one time. From gruesome combat audio to dynamic music and more, Audio Lead Chris O’Neill and Audio Designer Zachary Zuluaga from PlaySide Studios will demonstrate UE4 audio pipelines, creative strategies in designing (and keeping) the balance, as well as methods for providing players with important gameplay feedback amidst the chaos...all while sonically bringing a forsaken world to life.
Speakers
avatar for Chris O’Neill

Chris O’Neill

PlaySide Studios
Lead music maker, explosion engineer and creature creator at PlaySide Studios. Chris has worked with clients such as Google, Square Enix, Warner Bros and IBM, but personal highlights include remixing ‘Snake Eater’ for Metal Gear Solid V, designing audio for the BBC’s first ever... Read More →
avatar for Zachary Zuluaga

Zachary Zuluaga

PlaySide Studios
Sound sculptor, mix magician and hardware fiend at PlaySide Studios. Zach has progressed from wrangling bands in studio and live sound engineering settings, to wrangling thousands of VO assets for DC’s latest Batman AR release, to wrangling a mix of tens of thousands of screeching... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

2:00pm AEDT

Indie Finances – invoices, ABNs, GST, costs – how do we do this stuff?
Watch a Pixel-people interview (with audience participation!) about how to be a game developer in Australia.

Not all game developers are in business and that’s fine. What should your invoices look like? When do you need to get an ABN? When should you register for GST? When should you form a company? And how much money do you need? Fear not, Kathy, Kosta and Alex have you covered in this overview of indie finances.

This is not formal legal advice but it’s a practical guide for being a programmer, artist or game producer in Australia. We investigate the business situations of a sole trader, two partners, and a company director and ask them how much everything actually costs, finding out about their different ABN and GST and insurance obligations along the way. We ask a bit about funding then we see the different ways to invoice jobs and pay GST if necessary. Finally there is a summary of paperwork requirements.

Stop worrying about finances and get on with raising the bar even higher for Australian games!
Speakers
avatar for Kathy Smart

Kathy Smart

Joy Everafter Stories
Kathy is a producer at Joy Everafter Stories. The studio spent three years making a children’s storybook with contractors, employees and other businesses, going from a sole trader to a proprietary limited company in the process, and successfully making an R&D claim.Kathy has a background... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, GCAP Loading Track 2

2:00pm AEDT

If you can see it, you can be it!
Join a panel of EA’s women to hear more about their career journey in the game development industry.
Speakers
CR

Catherine Rendell

UX Designer, EA Frostbite
AF
EJ
LP


Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 2:55pm AEDT
TBA
  EA Firemonkeys, EA Firemonkeys

2:00pm AEDT

99 Problems, so Leading Ain’t 1
Leadership roles in the games industry exist in a liminal space between technical knowledge, people management, personal creativity and encouraging the creativity of others. The key to this balancing act? Creating the right problems.
In this workshop, I dive into how defining creative problem spaces with the team empowers them throughout the development cycle. I share tips and tools to set solid foundations, gradually refine the creative vision and spark creative collaboration between all disciplines.
This creative leadership framework will help you keep your team engaged, make the most of everyone’s skills and raise the bar of what you can accomplish together.
Speakers
avatar for Emilie Poissenot

Emilie Poissenot

Creative Director, Mighty Kingdom
Emilie is a Senior Product Manager at Mighty Kingdom, recently joining the team to contribute to all their amazing projects. Her career spans 13 years, 3 continents, a few shades of blue and a wide variety of games, more recently leading the design team at League of Geeks and on The... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 2:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Purple Stage, Workshops

3:00pm AEDT

Audience Is Everything: Finding and Securing Project Investment
How do you get someone to go all in on your dream?

Almost every developer in the world has had to, at some point, find investment for their game. It is an intimidating process in an unfamiliar world, and no one can give you the playbook because what you’re selling has never been sold before. In this panel we’ll look at the honest experiences of three indie developers. Join us to learn how they caught the eye of their investors and pieced together various forms of funding to bring their dreams to life.

Speakers
avatar for Nick Pearce

Nick Pearce

The Forgotten City
Nick is an award-winning game writer, director, designer and producer. He's the founder of Melbourne-based indie studio Modern Storyteller, and lead developer of the critically acclaimed narrative title The Forgotten City. Prior to developing games, Nick spent 10 years as a lawyer... Read More →
avatar for Sam Ramlu

Sam Ramlu

Method, M Theory
Sam is a proven thought leader, storyteller and creative technology innovator. She has spent over 20 years finding awe-inspiring ways to bring stories and experiences to life, starting with digital and extending into exhibitions, and augmented and virtual reality. Passionate about... Read More →
avatar for Andrew James

Andrew James

Uppercut Games
Andrew received a degree in Industrial Design from Newcastle University in 1996. He worked as an animator and later Art Lead for a number of years at Brilliant Digital Entertainment in Sydney. In 2000 he moved to Los Angeles to set up a new animation studio for BDE, focused on creating... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, GCAP Invest Track 1

3:00pm AEDT

The Animation Skill Tree
The "Animation Skill Tree". This talk introduces a novel way of looking at how something like animation is learned, and also how it can be applied to all sorts of different disciplines. As an animator, I'll be approaching this from both a generalist/hobbyist, as well as professional level, then comparing the two. I'll be going into detail about using this "Skill Tree" framework as a way to better understand what's required to be able to do certain tasks, as well as using it to foster more productive and useful discussion.
Speakers
avatar for Joe Toole

Joe Toole

Infinity Plus Two
Hello! My name is Joe Toole, I'm an animator from Melbourne Australia, I've been making animation for games, movies, apps and TV for the last 6 years. I've had the pleasure of working on all kinds of productions, from indie titles like Paperbark and Necrobarista, to movies like Terminator... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, GCAP Loading Track 1

3:00pm AEDT

Unreal Engine for Absolute Beginners: What You Need to Know and How to Get Started
Feeling like it's time to get Unreal? The demand for devs with UE experience has never been higher! Join Evangelist Chris Murphy as he develops a simple prototype, makes it pretty and explores the resources and best places to get started with Unreal Engine.
Speakers
avatar for Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Chris Murphy is an Unreal Engine Evangelist for Epic Games with game development credits across PC, Vive, Oculus, PS4, iOS and Android. Chris has over 10 years of experience with Unreal Engine, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Multimedia, culminating in a broad skill... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

3:00pm AEDT

From Zero to Studio - lessons from creating DragonBear Studios
"DragonBear Studios was started by two people with no experience in the games industry, no previous games to use as a resume, and only the founders' financials as backing - but they've now been around for 4 years, grown significantly, signed a publisher deal, and are gearing up to release Innchanted on all platforms. How did this happen?

In this talk, Ben will share all the behind the scenes work that went into it from day one until now. Their lessons learned, mis-steps along the way for you to learn from, and what resources they used that you might not have thought of.

Thinking about creating your own studio from scratch? You'll learn a lot."
Speakers
avatar for Ben Boyd

Ben Boyd

Technical Director, DragonBear Studios
Ben spent years in software engineering before making a career jump by co-founding DragonBear Studios. Starting out as the only programmer on the project that would eventually become Innchanted while growing the business, Ben is now the Game Director for the project and manages the... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, GCAP Loading Track 2

3:00pm AEDT

The Unreal Trail to Oregon: Reimagining The Oregon Trail for Apple Arcade
Join the Gameloft Team for a Journey on The Oregon Trail with Unreal Engine!

The Oregon Trail™ by Gameloft — Experience The Oregon Trail™ like never before. A modern twist on the trials and tribulations of the road to Oregon, this official successor to the global phenomenon will immerse players in exhilarating journeys ranging from the historically accurate to the totally extreme.

The team talks about how they used Unreal Engine to build this new shiny version of the classic, what went right and what challenges they had to solve on their nearly year-long development journey, what tools and methods they used to achieve their goals.

Wednesday October 6, 2021 3:00pm - 4:00pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

4:00pm AEDT

Programming: Live Q&A with Andriy Doroshchuk and William Docherty
Meet the Programming Team behind The Oregon Trail on Apple Arcade and hear about upcoming opportunities and available roles at Gameloft Brisbane.
Speakers
avatar for Andriy Doroshchuk

Andriy Doroshchuk

Technical Director, Gameloft Brisbane
Technical Director for Gameloft Brisbane, Andriy is a highly skilled developer with over 25 years of professional experience in programming and application development. He has extensive knowledge of the design and implementation of tech and tool solutions, application frameworks and... Read More →
avatar for William Docherty

William Docherty

Lead Programmer, Gameloft Brisbane
William is currently Lead Programmer at Gameloft Brisbane. He is a quality and profitability focused project management professional with 27 years of experience in the games industry, including 18 years in combined senior technical and management positions.He has a successful history... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 4:00pm - 4:25pm AEDT
TBA
  Gameloft Brisbane Virtual Booth, Gameloft Brisbane

4:00pm AEDT

How to Fund Your Studio in 2021 And Stay Sane
Funding your game idea is hard. The unknown is scary and the process will tax you and your relationships. Being mentally prepared will help you, your team, and your loved ones. In this talk, Alta co-founder Tima details different strategies on how to cope with the fundraising process, what to expect, and discusses tips and best practices on communicating with investors, publishers, platform holders, and team members. Tima will explain the mental challenges of asking people for money, what are the consequences of constant rejection, and how to build a robust mental model to maximise chances of success. Tima co-founded Alta, an independent VR studio, in 2016. The company just shipped their first title A Township Tale on the Oculus Quest platform.
Speakers
avatar for Tima Anoshechkin

Tima Anoshechkin

Altar VR
After working at companies such as Rockstar Games, WB Games, Activision Blizzard; Tima decided to found his own studio and started Alta. Tima has a passion for innovative products and is excited about leading Alta into the future of interactive entertainment and virtual reality.

Wednesday October 6, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Green Stage, GCAP Invest Track 1

4:00pm AEDT

Rise From Your Grave - Another Shot at Games
Getting work in the games industry can be like shooting fish in a barrel, especially if you wish to enter it later on in your career. As someone who had been trying to do just that for a decade, Mitch will share some advice and observations regarding making the switch to working in games down under.
Speakers
avatar for Mitch McCausland

Mitch McCausland

Blowfish Studios
Mitch McCausland (he/him) is a Sydney-based games producer, currently working at Blowfish Studios as an Assistant Publishing Producer. Outside of work he volunteers his time with the Sydney chapter of IGDA as well as serving as an organiser for Game Workers Unite Australia. Prior... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Orange Stage, GCAP Loading Track 1

4:00pm AEDT

Technical Art Fundamentals in Unreal Engine
Some VFX tricks seem like magic right up until the Material or Shader is opened up to reveal a few simple tricks. Join Chris Murphy as he covers some of his most commonly reused Technical Art tricks. Whether you're looking to get into Technical Art or bolster your current knowledge this session is for you! Come check out the power that comes with 15 years of Material Graph improvements in Unreal Engine.
Speakers
avatar for Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy

Unreal Engine | Epic Games
Chris Murphy is an Unreal Engine Evangelist for Epic Games with game development credits across PC, Vive, Oculus, PS4, iOS and Android. Chris has over 10 years of experience with Unreal Engine, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Multimedia, culminating in a broad skill... Read More →


Wednesday October 6, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Unreal Engine Virtual Booth, Unreal Virtual Booth

4:00pm AEDT

How to break into game composing
This talk is for anyone interested in working as a professional game composer, but who doesn't know how to go about it. I'll be talking about how I went from a musician with no experience of the game industry, and who had barely written any music, to someone actually getting paid to write game music.
Speakers
avatar for Russell Hodges

Russell Hodges

Russell Hodges Music
I'm a game composer who - this time last year - knew absolutely nothing about the game industry! I was working as a pianist on board a cruise ship when the pandemic hit, and I had to return to Australia. From there I decided to pursue writing game music, something I've been thinking... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 4:00pm - 4:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Yellow Stage, GCAP Loading Track 2

5:00pm AEDT

Closing Keynote with Wan Hazmer and Trent Kusters
Closing Keynote with Wan Hazmer and Trent Kusters, with a short speech from Raelene Knowles.
Speakers
avatar for Trent Kusters

Trent Kusters

Co-founder & Director, League of Geeks
Trent Kusters is co-founder and director of Melbourne-based game developers League of Geeks, responsible for seminal digital board game, Armello. He is the former chair of Freeplay - Australia's largest and longest running independent games festival, former lecturer at the Victorian... Read More →
avatar for Wan Hazmer

Wan Hazmer

CEO and Co-Founder, Metronomik
Wan Hazmer is the co-founder and CEO of Metronomik, a Malaysian video game company that creates original IPs with seamless music and game design integration. He's the game director of Metronomik's debut game No Straight Roads, available for PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Before... Read More →

Wednesday October 6, 2021 5:00pm - 5:50pm AEDT
TBA
  Red Stage, Keynotes
 
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