https://www.melbournemegagames.com/

What’s a megagame?
Megagames are large, immersive social games. Somewhere between a LARP and a really big boardgame, megagames have elements of negotiation, politics, strategy, and role-playing.

What’s The Ark?
Earth is no longer a liveable planet. In our hour of greatest need, a vessel of unknown origin came to our aid, broadcasting in all languages. Humanity’s best and brightest have set off into the vastness of space on a journey to an unknown destination – hopefully, a new home – aboard the Ark. That was five years ago. The Ark is our home and our responsibility, even if we barely know how it works. If we break it, we die. If it doesn’t produce enough food to feed the people on it, we starve. If we go offship and the Ark leaves, we’re stranded.

The Ark is a game of resource management, intrigue, mystery, factional politics, changing loyalties, and constant crises. Plans are important, but remember, we’re all at the whim of interstellar space. Good luck! https://www.melbournemegagames.com/the-ark

Serenade is a DIY collective that puts on popup showcases sharing art games, experimental games and digital literature with the world. Serenade is Cuauh Moreno, Duncan Corrigan, George Mak, Jae Stuart, and Kaveh Tabar.

Previously Sydney has been mostly known for commercial game development. DIY collective Serenade was formed to create spaces for other kinds of games. What happened when we brought art games and experimental games to a city with a limited and fragmentary history of alternative game culture?

We’ll cover our journey from our inspirations around Australia and worldwide to hosting our first event and the road there including false starts, developing and refining our identity as a group, curating game line-ups, making an event happen, and the simultaneous conveniences and profound limitations of operating as a DIY collective.

From there we’ll discuss how Serenade evolved over subsequent events and collaborations. We curated several games spaces to accompany film festivals, helped host a launch party for Queer game developers Fuzzy Ghost, curated a showcase for SXSW Sydney and even ventured into interstate events.

We’ll talk about how building relationships with other artistic collectives has led to fruitful collaborations across mediums including film and poetry and how we’ve found engaging with and reaching out to communities outside of game development. Bridging the insular world of game development and other artistic practices can be challenging, but magic can be found where they meet.

https://serenade.games/
@serenadegames
https://www.instagram.com/serenadegames/

The mainstream video game marketplace perpetuates an ideological concept of play that is necessarily commodified, precipitating the popular idea that the practice of play is constituted by our engagement with external artefacts. That is to say, we are led to believe there is no play without a game. In this spirit, we may over-attribute the necessary conditions for play to formal structures such as video games; and tie our rituals of play to capital-driven agendas.
However, video games aren’t playful, people are. This talk argues the importance of this acknowledgement in reframing the role of games and by extension our design of them. Rather than striving to further consolidate on the fidelity of games, we should perhaps instead focus on our players and how our games might serve as inspiration to spark their playful ambitions. Additionally, this talk explores how our games may aid players in interrogating their ideological concepts of play and recognise their capacity to create meaningful experiences more often and in more places. Ultimately, leading to a culture that feels less trapped in existing structures, and one that has the autonomy and compassion to reshape the world and our lives for the better.

@DuncanCorrigan

What kind of games don’t we talk about as “designed”. What experiences are made by people to be played, but aren’t part of our general lexicon? A tour through design outside of board, roleplaying, and video games – from the design of a good hike, an accessible hike, route setting in a climbing gym, slalom kayaking courses, playground and folk games – even the games that seem embedded in our culture are designed, so let’s see what we can learn from them.

mjm.itch.io
@apparentraisin

For the last 18 months, Terry pitched the game Wood & Weather to as many different publishers and funding bodies that would listen. He was rejected by all of them.
In the talk, Terry will present all of Paper House’s pitching material that was created over the year in a desperate attempt to chase the dream.

@tezamondo
www.paperhousegames.com

The world has been going through turbulent times in the last eight months. From the climate crisis to increasing racism and violence, institutional censorship to witnessing a genocide unfold before our eyes, everyday can be a rollercoaster of emotions. As artists and gamemakers, how do we deal with such intense emotions within our bodies? What can we do if the organisations that fund us are complicit and compromised? How do we keep making meaningful things when the world is falling apart? This talk is more about raising questions and provocations rather than providing answers. As the speaker herself explores these challenges, she invites the audience to do the same.

helenkwok.net

Nowadays, the border between architecture and interactive media such as video games has been blurred and there are bridges which connects between these two practices.

By implementing architectural principle, design language, tangibility, scale and circulation, we can use those ideas to collectively design game levels in both 2D and 3D spaces. With an implementation of various techniques such as photogrammetry, texture mapping and 3D modeling in Blender we can create an immersive environment which requires low computation for level design.

naddyaesthetic.myportfolio.com/copy-of-work

A talk describing my experiences with making a whole bunch of small and not necessarily complete games, and releasing them online (and in a few showcases). As well as going through a rough timeline of some of my own projects, I would discuss what I’ve personally learned from doing things in this manner, and how that could be applied to other game development/developers.

@succulantics
stormcatgames.com

My talk is about methods for embracing errors and unexpected behaviour of digital objects that are commonly encountered in a pipeline process. I propose an approach that turns the bugs into features to create a digital reality in collaboration with the systems I interact with. My practice is primarily focused on animation for games. I have developed an approach to animation that values the unique and specific behaviour of digital objects above notions like believability and realism. In this talk, I will draw on ideas from object oriented ontology and theories of play, to propose turning the grind of a digital creative pipeline into play, and using digital tools more like toys than a means to an end. I will present these ideas by showing examples from a game I am currently developing, called “Dance Dance Deception”, which has been my research-in-practice for investigating these ideas.

Queer and trans experiences are traditionally underrepresented in media, and games are no exception. We know games are powerful storytelling vehicles that carry characters and narratives through interactive and social play. This talk will explore a fuzzy side of games: anthropomorphic, human-like animal characters who caught the attention of a worldwide community known as the furry fandom. Why do some games prominently feature animal characters, and what physical, social, and cultural qualities do they bring to games? How can we build on animal characteristics that enhance fictional storytelling that feels rather real? What senses are expanded through furry that could tail toward a broad and diverse audience? The content of the talk is drawn from research interviews of my nascent book project on queer game design I started this year, and is guided by my own personal experiences of being a part of the fandom of over 15 years. I will share a preliminary finding and insights to explore the furry side of queer and trans game studies.

jtg.design
@Xavier_Ho

Often, people will expect game creatives to have completed formal training that led them to a career in games. For many people, if not most people – the path into games is a windy one. As a writer, a (relatively recent) migrant, a non-native English speaker, and a queer person, my journey into games didn’t follow a straightforward trajectory. I never felt like a “true” game developer. If there was ever a term that I felt did capture my creative journey, it was mostly just me being a weird lil’ guy, which is great, but maybe not great to put on a CV.

However, over the course of my career I’ve found myself doing different types of games work – writing, localization, PR, and marketing – and currently I’m working as an arts manager in games. Throughout this journey, I’ve come to appreciate the weird lil guy energy this trajectory has offered me, and I’ve also found ways to channel these different perspectives into useful lenses for my writing and design processes. In this talk, I’m keen to share some of these lenses that I’ve used in my work in case other folks might find them valuable too.

@lisekarel

1 hr.
Leena Van Deventer, Meredith Hall, Darcy Smith, Pritika Sachdev, Vidya Rajan

We talk a lot about industry change and transition, and far less about personal change and personal identity within that space. This panel will explore the seismic shifts in understanding of self as we move through different roles and perspectives in our careers. We’ve built (some) good systems for connection and belonging around personal identity, but our broader structures often default to like ‘they are X FROM place’.

When you move on from a role that has become entwined with your identity, that can be jarring to personal identity, cause shifts in how people treat you, and can challenge our other systems around connection and belonging.

Transitioning in or out of these visible roles, or the inherent desire in our industry to be in one can be deeply challenging to ones sense of self, and this panel will explore those transitions, as well as coping mechanisms and strategies for building better senses of self separate to our work identities.

1hr.
Ruby Quail, Vidya Rajan, Mel Huang, Monica Lim

A discussion among interactive artists, designers, technologists, and community organizers who create works similar to, but not classified as, video games. This panel aims to explore the commonalities and differences between video game development and other new media and art practices. We will delve into the future trajectories of these areas, discussing potential developments and trends. These artists will share their insights and predictions on the direction of interactive art and how interactive art communities and video game development communities can work together.

Cecile Richard

Something has happened in Melbourne. A mysterious Incident, with intriguing details and qualities the likes of which irresistibly compel you to make a game about it. To find out more about this Incident, come along to this esoteric game jam hosted by game maker and writer Cecile Richard. Note that while the theme may seem like it lends itself more to narrative games, you really can make whatever type of game you want, as long as it’s about… the Incident. Coding experience useful but not obligatory for participation. Bring your own laptops.

haraiva.itch.io

Travis Jordan

travisjordan.work