Parallels: The Freeplay 2020 Showcase
Parallels highlights some of the most unique, experimental, and personal independent games made in Australia and beyond.
For over 16 years, Freeplay has been exploring these vital margins of games culture, uncovering emerging and exceptional makers, from bedroom coders, to artists pushing at the boundaries of the artform. Join us as our speakers demonstrate and play their creations live on stage, and share their origin stories, creative inspirations and intimate journeys.
Parallels 2020 will be streamed live via YouTube and free to attend. 2020 Visual Identity by Mohamed Chamas.
Trailer
Lineup
We have 9 fantastic games to share with you this year. Our full lineup to be revealed soon!
Dap
Paul Anstey & Iris Anstey (Melting Parrot)
A top-down action-adventure/horror game about collecting and interacting with cute little critters called Daps. Set in a lush forest world beset by an alien infection, battle strange monstrosities and scavenge for resources while using your Daps to help you along the way.
Umurangi Generation
Tali Faulkner (ORIGAME DIGITAL)
Umurangi Generation is a first person photography game set in Tauranga Aotearoa during a crisis event. Throughout the game you will unlock a variety of lenses and equipment.
Street Tape Games
Helen Kwok
Street Tape Games is a large-scale installation that uses social-distancing tapes to create playful markings, boundaries and patterns on the ground. These markings form a playspace, which the public can use to play a series of street games that have been redesigned with social distancing in mind.
Spiritwell
David Chen
An adventure RPG about a lost child who falls down a well into a world of spirits and must find their way home. It is said that the game features at least one frog.
Completely Stretchy and Uncomfortably Sticky
Daniel Ferguson
Using your new found floppiness, explore The Grombi Isles, uncovering it’s secrets and chatting to it’s eccentric populace!
Webbed
Riley Neville
In Webbed you play as a happy little spider whose boyfriend has been kidnapped by a big dumb bowerbird. Swing through the bush, build sticky webs, and make friends with bugs to take on the feathered menace and rescue your love.
variations on the word ghost
Shastra Deo
Engaging with absence, loss, and the inherent precarity of digital communications, “variations on the word ghost” is a web-based chatbot embodying the restless spirit of a distant friend. This piece was first published by Liminal, as part of their Glitch series.
The Stranger Next Door
Fae Daunt
The Stranger Next Door is a five day story-driven real-time horror ARG set on a fake social media.
Short Creepy Tales: 7PM
Cellar Vault Games
A short creepy stylized narrative game with visual novel and adventure elements. The story and horror elements are based on Malaysian superstitions.
The Freeplay Z•O•N•E — The Capitol
Experience Parallels 2020 in the Freeplay Z•O•N•E, a social space by Jae Stuart & Cecile Richard.
Latest News
Meet 2018’s Programme Committee
We have some sweet news to share with you really soon, but before we do we wanted to introduce you to our fantastic 2018 Programme Committee. Built up of creatives from intersecting disciplines, these lovely folks will help shape the series of talks and panels that will take place at Freeplay this year, ensuring the discussions and conversations are relevant to contemporary games culture discourse.
Announcing 2018 Freeplay Awards & Festival Dates
A huge hello and welcome to 2018 from the Freeplay family! We have lots of exciting things to share with you this year. First on our list is the 2018 festival dates. We’re happy to announce that we have a six-day festival planned for this year, from May 22nd to May 27th. We’re also happy to announce that submissions for the 2018 Freeplay Awards are now open!
Announcing the Freeplay 2018 Festival Team
Hello! We wanted to give you a quick update before ending 2017. After a completely sold out Parallels 2017 showcase during Melbourne International Games Week in October, Freeplay is now gearing up towards its 2018 festival, and we can’t wait to share all the exciting things we have planned!
Freeplay acknowledges the Woi Wurrung & Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the Lands upon which our festival takes place.
We pay respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the wider community and beyond.
Sovereignty was never ceded, and this always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.