Wow! What a blast. I found Game Jam Sydney 2010 to be a real success… congrats must go out to Dan Graf (IGDA), Malcolm Ryan (UNSW), the Powerhouse Museum, and all those behind the scenes who contributed. And of course… to all the game developers who took part. Unfortunately, family life got in the road for me and I was unable to spare a full 48 hours the weekend before school started for my son to get my hands dirty. Nonetheless, I did drag the family down to the Powerhouse Museum on Sunday to listen to the panel, and watch about 40 developers emerge from the bowels of the Powerhouse Museum, into the bright lights of the stage, and allow us to bear witness to their mind’s creations. And while I was there I managed to fire off a few shots with my stills camera. So I thought that I’d share a few images of the event.

First off, I have to say that I was impressed with the diversity of games designed over such a short time frame. The standouts for me were Gnilley (yelling spelt backwards). While the gameplay was interesting, it was the interface design which was to control a character by using the speech volume which was a real blast. It was a single player game, but I wondered what it would be like to have it as an interface for a MMORPG… knowing that thousands of people around the world are keeping their neighbours up from screaming at a TV screen. Also, this was created by a design team of one… which was an awesome effort and deserving of taking out the Most Original Gameplay Award.

The other game that caught my eye was Tentacle, which really took the 80’s theme to heart (the Powerhouse Museum which hosted the event is currently holding an 1980s exhibition). This was just straight out fun… use your character (with its tentacle) to splatter ‘enemies’. It was a simple idea, executed very well. So well in fact that it was awarded Best Overall Game.

I wish I could spend more time to go through each of the other games to do them justice. All I can say is go check them out at the Global Game Jam website, download them and have a play. In the meantime, here are some other photos I took at the event.

Paul Callaghan (Freeplay) MC’s the event

The Games Panel (L-R): Nick Montfort, John Passfield and Jarrad ‘Farbs’ Woods

Dan Graf (IGDA) introduces the design teams.

(L-R) ‘Farbs’ and Malcolm Ryan (UNSW) discuss Farbs’ game Breakup

Links
Global Game Jam Games: http://www.globalgamejam.org/games

Sydney Game Jam this year will run from 6pm Friday 29 - 6pm Sunday 31 January at the Powerhouse museum. The event is part of the Global Game Jam which sees people from 100 cities from across the globe conceive, design, and prototype new and innovative game concepts over a 48 hour period.

This year the event sees veteran developers John Passfield and Steve Wang sharing their thoughts as well as indie developer Jarrad “Farbs” Woods and MIT Professor Nick Montfort (author of ‘Racing the Beam’). I hope to see you there .

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Links
Sydney Game Jam 2010: http://www.gamejamsydney.com/
Powerhouse Museum: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/
Global Game Jam: http://www.globalgamejam.org

With January 26 fast approaching, Australia Day celebrations are ready to swing into action. Beach, BBQs, board shorts, and beers are mainstays of almost every Australia Day celebration. But for the second year now, Australia Day also surrounds the arrival another celebratory “B” word… boardgames! Originally in Albury up until 2008, the Australian Games Expo has found a new home in Canberra, and has gone from strength to strength in its new city and timeslot. The event now coincides with the Canberra Games Society’s CanCon, the Canberra-based game convention, and provides plenty for aspiring game designers, educators, boardgame fanatics, and families.

There’s plenty of things to see including game tournaments for Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne, plus the inaugural Australian Alhambra Championships. There’s also a Rubik’s 3×3 Cube Australian Games Expo Championship. Plus there’s an open gaming area where you get to play games to find out what you like.

The Australian Games Expo runs from Saturday January 23rd to Monday January 25th, at Exhibition Park in Canberra and entry is FREE. You can find more at the Australian Games Expo website; http://www.austgamesexpo.com/.

Links
Australian Games Expo: http://www.austgamesexpo.com/
CanCon 2010: http://www.cgs.asn.au/cancon2010.htm
Canberra Games Society: http://www.cgs.asn.au/
Exhibition Park Canberra: http://www.epic.act.gov.au

Last weekend in Sydney, X|Media|Lab hosted a Serious Games conference and workshop. The event was attended by international speakers including Noah Falstein and Ian Bogost. Due to other commitments, I was in Melbourne and unable to attend. However, journalist Jason Hill covered the event in his ScreenPlay Blog (which even includes an interview with yours truly).

As an aside, while in Melbourne, I did manage to catch the Dali Exhibition, entitled Liquid Desire, at the National Gallery of Victoria. The volume of work exhibited was astonishing, and included paintings, sculptures, animation, sketches, film, jewelery and holograms. What struck me the most was the vivid, luminescent properties of his paintings. It was as if the painting themselves were a light source; it was absolutely amazing. The other thing that struck me was the intense detail of this work which was immensely intricate. A definite must see.

Links
Serious Games article@ Screenplay:
http://blogs.theage.com.au/digital-life/screenplay/2009/06/15/seriousgames.html
X|Media|Lab: http://www.xmedialab.com
Dali: Liquid Desire: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/dali/