GCAP 2019: Full Schedule

9:00am AEDT

Opening Keynote

The opening keynote will feature:

Rae Johnson
The Hon. Martin Foley, Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Equality, and Minister for Creative Industries.
Melissa Lancuba
Ann Lemay

PR Marketing & Community

11:00am AEDT

When considering bringing on a producer or if you're in the throes of onboarding ones, what are the considerations and questions you should be asking yourself and the team to ensure they are the given the best opportunity to level up your studio?

Lead Producer from League of Geeks, Lisy Kane is going to talk through what production looks like at LoG as well as exploring what types of production roles are out there and how they can fit (or not!) for your team.

Speakers

Lisy Kane

League of Geeks

Alexander Aniel is the co-founder of Japanese music label Brave Wave Productions. Originallyfrom San Francisco, he moved to Tokyo in 2007 partly out of a passion for games and travel. AtBrave Wave, he assists artists such as Manami Matsumae and Takahiro Izutani in gettingconnected... Read More →

Manami Matsumae

Manami Matsumae was born in Kyoto, Japan. After graduating from music school, she joined Osaka-based Capcom in 1987, where she composed for various NES and arcade titles. She is most well-known for her catchy soundtrack for the original Mega Man, as well as other early Capcom hits... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 106

Audio & Music

2:00pm AEDT

Co-operative Game Development

When making games in a team, you need to decide on how to legally structure your group; how IP is held, how liability is shared, how decisions are legally made, etc. The path that most teams take at the moment is to set up a private company, but this hierarchical structure may not gel with how your team works together in the longer term.

Co-operatives are an alternative to companies, and are founded on the concepts of democracy and equality. In this talk we will discuss how their unique democratic structure affects the many facets of running a business, including ownership of shares, how profit share is handled, team member obligations and recompensation, private investment in its many forms, team decision-making, and how new members joining or current members leaving the team is handled.

At Ghost Pattern, we are converting to a co-operative, and have done a significant amount of research into both the nature of co-ops in Australia, and various games co-ops around the world. In this session we’ll share with you what we’ve learnt about the pros, cons, and gotchas of incorporating as a co-operative. Overall this should give you a solid grounding in what co-ops are, how they differ from companies, and the basis of what you need to understand and prepare in order to decide which direction to go in for your own team.

Speakers

Maize Wallin

Maize is a sound designer, audio programmer and composer. They have worked with companiesacross VR (VRTOV, Deakin Motion Lab), mobile (Draknek, Square Rose Games, Glitchnap,LoveShack) and is currently working with Ghost Pattern on Wayward Strand, and their own VR musicalinstrument... Read More →

Jason Bakker

Jason is a writer, producer and designer on Wayward Strand. He previously worked at League of Geeks, where he lead development on Armello through to release on Steam and PlayStation 4, and at Wicked Witch Software where he worked on several games, most notably as lead programmer/designer... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 103

Business & Professional Development

2:00pm AEDT

Visual Game Design: keeping teams aligned through minimal documentation

Keeping large teams aligned with the vision of a game is always challenging. Having spent many years creating design documents and battling to keep teams up to date with the latest direction of the game, I developed alternative methods that were faster to update and iterate and more effectively allowed team members to consume the information that they needed to make the best game they could.

I will talk about learnings from projects like LA Noire, the benefits of visual communication and creating environments that encourage teams to view and talk about the game they are creating, improving overall collaboration and alignment.

Speakers

Alex Carlyle

Alex Carlyle is an award-winning Designer and a 20 year veteran of the games industry.He fosters collaborative environments that challenge convention and uses open and inclusivecommunication to foster strong cross-disciplinary teams, having led teams all across the world.Alex sees... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 110

Design & Narrative

2:00pm AEDT

Wild Life: Critter Clash Paid User Acquisition Postmortem

As the competition in the mobile market increases, how do unknown or independent games grab a slice of the market? Is it possible, and how do you do it? Big players with unfathomable budgets hold their positions for years at a time, and every chart position and keyword has a price. Join Katie Stegs as she discusses how a small team with limited resources was able to put their first title in front of millions of potential players.

Lumi Interactive’s debut title, Critter Clash released in 2019 on Android and iOS. This talk will detail the platforms, partners and pitfalls of paid user acquisition for Critter Clash.

Katie will outline platform relationships, partnerships and budgets, and will do a detailed breakdown of two different UA analysis methodologies. She will share her UA set- up, pipeline and internal tools in order to highlight effective and ineffective uses of UA. This talk will be accompanied by all the real data, from the CPIs and CPAs achieved to the pre-launch and post-launch, featuring Lifetime Value (LTV) and Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) of real players.

Speakers

Katie Stegs

Katie Stegs is the Marketing Director and co-founder of Lumi Interactive. Katie has worked with some of independent developments most critically acclaimed studios including, Funomena, Stoic, Hipster Whale and many others. Katie manages User Acquisition at Lumi Interactive for their... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 111

PR Marketing & Community

2:00pm AEDT

Ensuring the Quality of your Quality Assurance: the studio guide on getting the most out of your QA team

Whether you’ve just started your own studio, about to launch your first game or you’re a big name company with multiple projects under your belt, there’s one thing that will never change: your game needs testing. Probably more than you thought you would. But who should be testing?
And when?
And how?
And why?

In this talk, we’ll be covering what are the best practices when it comes to hiring QA roles and what steps studios can take to better support their QA teams. Whether your considering contractors or employing a new member to your team, it’s best to have a firm understanding on the different QA roles and what preparation will be required when bringing them onto your project.
To light the way, we’ll dive into the day-to-day tasks, the month-to-month plans, and the year-to-year goals of QA, to ensure your studio can facilitate a high quality QA team.

Speakers

Callum Harrington

Callum is a full-time Quality Assurance Analyst at KIXEYE, as part of their Melbourne office. After pursuing the performing arts for many years, he changed gears to join the games industry, doing contract work for a number of different indies (Harmonious Productions, Ultimerse and... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 105

Production & Culture

2:00pm AEDT

Machine Learning for Boardgame AI in Race for the Galaxy

Race for the Galaxy uses a temporal difference neural network to power its AI. This knowledge-free system does not require human input to generate training data, which makes it extremely efficient for a small team with limited resources. Even though our AI has trained on just over 30,000 games, because of this reinforcement learning model which uses predictive data to hone itself at the turn level, it has effectively benefited from over a million turn events. The neural network we use actually has twelve bifurcations, each to support a specialized configuration of players, expansion content, and game preferences. For each of these twelve, we support two flavors of neural network function, one to predict an opponent’s next move, and one to evaluate the board state, which is used when the AI simulates forward to choose its next move. This talk will speak to how the Race for the Galaxy neural networks are architected, and how and when developers should use similar models.

Speakers

Theresa Duringer

Theresa Duringer is a co-founder and developer at Temples Gates Games, a San Francisco based studio creating award-winning boardgames for Android and iOS. Her team is known for digitizing Ascension, Race for the Galaxy, and Roll for the Galaxy and integrating machine learning AI to... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Plenary

Tech

3:00pm AEDT

Designing from the Heart: Putting yourselves in your games.

Working in the games industry can be hard enough as is. Add to that our daily life struggles and it can sometimes feel like an impossible feat. So how can we use game development as a way to explore our identities and struggles? And how can we turn these struggles into a strength?

This presentation will draw from the experiences of the speaker as a Muslim and a person of color working in the games industry for over a decade. The speaker will explain how his personal life journey has inspired his creative works and he will share the stories and experiences of other notable video game professionals who have done the same.

Speakers

Osama Dorias

Osama Dorias is a Senior Game Designer at Warner Brothers Montreal. In the past, he has worked as a Game designer at Gameloft, GEE Media, Ubisoft, and Minority Media. Osama loves to empower people in expressing themselves through game making. He especially loves to give a voice to... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Plenary

Accessibility & Representation

3:00pm AEDT

Being a multi-disciplinary artist: games, film and beyond

The presentation will cover insights gained through the presenter’s experiences working within multiple creative industries as an artist. Specifically, looking at the fundamental principles that underlie the creation of good art, regardless of medium, and which skills allowed the presenter to move between the video games and feature film industries by applying concepts relevant to both. Creating believable art is strengthened through understanding real fabrication methods which will allow the artist to elevate their art with a real understanding of how physical objects are built and weathered. The talk will explore the importance of traditional art training for games artists, not just the study of specific digital software or games-specific art ideas, and why this creates better artists who are more resilient and creative.

Speakers

Hannah Crosby

Hannah is an accomplished 3d artist, who has worked in the games industry for over 10 years, and more recently moved into film to create practical props on feature films like Thor: Ragnarok and Aquaman. Hannah started her career in games with an academic scholarship for the QANTM... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 103

Art & Animation

3:00pm AEDT

[NOT RUNNING] Defining The Audio Direction For Dead Static Drive.

[NOT RUNNING]

Defining The Audio Direction For Dead Static Drive takes an in depth look into the steps taken in creating the audio identity for Dead Static Drive. In a session using in-project examples from Unreal Engine and FMOD, the conceptualisation, prototyping and design of Dead Static Drive's audio assets and audio systems will be presented in an open and honest format.

Speakers

Trevor Dikes

Trevor is a game audio designer based in Melbourne, Australia. With over seven years experience he has designed and implemented game audio and designed audio systems for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC and mobile platforms. Having worked on worked on games such as The... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 109

Audio & Music

3:00pm AEDT

Storm Boy: The Game Game Director Postmortem

From the first meeting with IP Holders to the multi-platform simultaneous release, “Storm Boy: The Game” had a nine-month full development cycle. To hit this goal, the team had to control scope, iterate, and make decisions fast. In this talk, Game Director Ellen Jurik will cover her approach to defining a game’s vision and how this vision is carried across to all aspects of the game. She will also discuss the process of adapting an existing IP of another media to a game, and the production and design challenges for releasing a game across eight platforms in a limited timeframe.

Speakers

Ellen Jurik

Ellen Jurik is a professional Game Director, Designer, Writer, and Producer with ten years of experience spread across those disciplines. She currently fills all of those roles on different projects at Blowfish Studios in Sydney, before which, she was Producer for Ice Age Adventures... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 104

Design & Narrative

3:00pm AEDT

Making Games More Interactive on Twitch

Streaming has become a big part of how people engage with games from tuning in to watch their favourite streamers, to cooperatively playing a game through text chat via Twitch Plays. With Extensions, Twitch has made it even easier for developers to add viewer interactivity to streams with games like Borderlands 3 now offering in-game loot for viewers that participate in live-streaming events.

Speakers

Richard Deveraux

Richard has worked as a professional web developer for over 7 years while building tools and resources in his spare time for games like a Destiny, Borderlands and Battleborn. He is an advocate for seeing more games with public APIs and was recently contracted by Gearbox Software to... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 105

PR Marketing & Community

3:00pm AEDT

Production Process, Publishing & Platforms: A Simultaneous Release Crash Course

Shipping games is hard, it gets harder when managing a simultaneous release across multiple different platforms. So what happens when you discover a week before launch that you're missing localisation on two platforms? Or you've announced your release date with one platform having still not passed certification?

This talk is designed to offer some best practices on how to manage different platform releases and mitigate some of the risks involved, using personal experience as to where things have been less than ideal before launch of past projects.

Speakers

Samuel McCully

Sam is a Producer at Blowfish Studios, based out of Sydney he's been working in the Australianindustry for the past 3 years. Starting at Blowfish as part of the QA team, he currently works onBlowfish's range of publishing titles, liaising with other developers and ensuring a successful... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 106

Production & Culture

3:00pm AEDT

Prototype Speedrun - Building a UE4 Prototype in Under an Hour

"Yeah, Unreal is just difficult for knocking something together”. Or is it? Chris and Alex knock out a prototype live in one hour with narration explaining the systems and concepts that drive development in Unreal Engine. It’s a lot easier than you may have heard. Audience participation encouraged!

Speakers

Alex Stevens

Epic Games / Unreal Engine

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 leading edge tech, and as such has a soft spot for Virtual Reality and the new technical challenges it provides. Primarily working... Read More →

Chris Murphy

Epic Games / Unreal Engine

Business Development Manager, Yodo1

Originally from Barcelona, Marina is the Business Development Team Manager for Yodo1, a leading expert in game monetization and an industry renowned company whose strong and steadfast partnership portfolio is steadily soaring past 300 developers world-wide. Marina’s fluency in... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 4:30pm - 5:20pm AEDT
Room 105

Business & Professional Development

4:30pm AEDT

Unpacking Game Design: Creating a game without fail states or scores

A zen game about taking items out of boxes after a move might sound extremely niche. But Unpacking by Brisbane studio Witch Beam has garnered international attention from players to industry folk alike. It’s been invited to showcases, nominated for awards and even gone viral, all in its first year of development.

The game lacks many conventional game design components: there are no scores, no time limits, no fail states, no consequences to choices, no dialogue. What’s left when all of that is taken away? How do you tell a story through such strict limitations? And why design a game like this?

This talk will cover extracting gameplay from unexpected places, finding a balance between puzzle and player expression, and how to stuff 69 household items into an isometric kitchen.

Speakers

Wren Brier

Art Director, Witch Beam

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 →

Monday October 7, 2019 4:30pm - 5:20pm AEDT
Room 110

Design & Narrative

4:30pm AEDT

Player Hygiene: How to Mitigate Abuse and Cultivate Communities

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single studio in possession of a good game, must be in want of online harassment.”
Salty Austen

As our industry grows, and the way people behave in online spaces evolves, so must the management of our players. This talk will first look into some of the reasons we have seen shifts in player behaviour towards developers and video games, before exploring ways both in and out of game to foster positive and supportive communities.

It is important to consider the safety of a game’s developers, players and community managers. By implementing community driven game features and creating a framework within which to build strong and conscious communities, developers can decrease the amount of abuse they receive, as well as that of their staff, and other players.

Speakers

Gabriella Lowgren

Gabriella Lowgren is a Communications Manager working in game development (Infinity + 2) by day and an indie game developer by night. When not cultivating healthy communities or communicating with coworkers, publishers, players and the media, she can be found creating games that explore... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 4:30pm - 5:20pm AEDT
Room 112

PR Marketing & Community

4:30pm AEDT

More Cards Against People Mismanagement

With the right tools, leaders help a team navigate the tumultuous waters of game development and
stick together until they reach their destination. You can be that guiding light!

In last year’s talk, I condensed some of my favourite people management tools into cards that help
empower team members, bond with them and troubleshoot tensions. This year, I want to further
build your deck with techniques focused on communication, motivation and coaching, so you’re
better equipped to lead the way for your team.

Whether you’re currently in a leadership position, aspiring to be or needing tools to better your
relationship with your manager, this talk will give you practical tips to improve your team
interactions as soon as you’re back in the office.

Speakers

Emilie Poissenot

League of Geeks

Emilie is the Lead Game Designer at League of Geeks, supporting Armello’s ongoing success andworking on the studio’s new project. Her career spans 12 years, 3 continents, a few shades of blueand a wide variety of games, more recently leading the design team on The Sims FreePlay... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 4:30pm - 5:20pm AEDT
Room 109

Production & Culture

4:30pm AEDT

Studio at Large is a small group of people with big design ideas. The studio is founded on the belief that good design starts wit a willingness to listen and to form strong, collaborative relationships. Studio at Large specialise in design and strategy for people, places and spaces.

Speakers

Studio at Large

Tuesday October 8, 2019 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
Room 112

Games Adjacent

10:00am AEDT

Zen and the Art of Team Maintenance: A Producers Guide to Getting Sh!t Done

As Producers, our jobs often revolve around expectations, whether it's setting them, managing them, or meeting them. That all sounds straightforward, until you start to factor in how the individual members of your team may respond to those expectations. Some people are going to be great at meeting deadlines on their own, while others may require more hand-holding and accountability. Some will have no problem setting effective boundaries, while others might take on too much and burn out. Some are going to be happy carry out an assignment as requested, while others may need to understand the reasoning behind the request before they can truly engage. And, of course, some need to do things their way, or not at all.

In other words, there is no ""one-size-fits-all"" solution to ensure that the people on your team are meeting deadlines, doing great work and achieving project goals as well as their own. Which means, sometimes, we as Producers have to get a little creative, when it comes to getting sh!t done.

In this session, Amy will talk about how to apply Gretchen Rubin’s “Four Tendencies” framework to working with teams. Through it, you’ll better understand how your individual team members could respond to internal and external expectations, as well as some strategies to improve their efficiency and overall happiness, while reducing stress and burnout.

Speakers

Amy Dallas

Amy Dallas is the one of the four founding partners of ClutchPlay Games, a small but scrappy game studio in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 2012, the ClutchPlay team has worked on several indie and work-for-hire titles for larger companies such as ILMxLAB, Endless Entertainment, KIXEYE... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
Plenary

Production & Culture

11:00am AEDT

Workplace ready: Making your workplace transgender friendly

Sav will be taking audiences through a comprehensive insider look on what will make your games studio more transgender friendly.

From the more legal issues: Codes of conduct, name policies, bathroom issues, etc.

To the more personable: Language and terminology, respectful questions, issues and problems that might appear.

Aimed to be for all audience levels, Sav is happy to accept and answer to the best of his abilities, any and all questions you might have but be too worried to ask.

Speakers

Sav Emmett Wolfe

Sav Emmett Wolfe is a triple award winning games writer and producer. His standout game, That Boy is A Monstr has tugged on the heart strings internationally for his honest and open portrayal of the fears and misconceptions of dating while transgender. His work focuses on two key... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
Room 104

Accessibility & Representation

11:00am AEDT

Tovertafel - Games for Health

Tovertafel is a game system for elderly people with severe dementia. The games are designed in such a way that they can activate those parts of the brains, which are not damaged by Alzheimer. In his talk, Sjoerd will explain how his company makes games, why The Netherlands is one of the front runners in serious and applied games, and he will share my entrepreneurial experiences in the games industry.

Speakers

Sjoerd Wennekes

After his graduation at Art School in 2008, Sjoerd started, together with four co-founders, the award-winning game development company Monobanda. Monobanda was specialised in projects thatcombine virtual and tangible elements. Sjoerd was the CEO of the company and responsible foracquiring... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
Plenary

Applied Games

11:00am AEDT

Forecasting success: How to be a financially sustainable studio

In this session we will walk through practical steps in building a cashflow forecast that will assist studios in understanding cost drivers to a development cycle, funding requirements and understanding revenue objectives with a view to building a financially sustainable studio. Luke & Amy will work through a live example to demonstrate how it can be prepared quickly and accurately, drawing on audience participation.

Speakers

Luke Henry

Luke is a partner at LDB Accountants and Advisors, who have a long association with the Game Development scene. Over twenty years ago LDB started working with a small group of university students when they founded Blue Tongue Entertainment. Now LDB represents over forty studios across... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
Room 110

Business & Professional Development

11:00am AEDT

The Architecture of Designing story-focussed Games - Lighting the Way through the Narrative

It is widely believed that games should first and foremost be driven by their mechanics and only after this (if at all) focus on narrative design.
This talk offers a different approach and is about designing a solid and engaging story first and then designing the mechanics around it.
Designing the narrative of a game is a bit like planning a prank: You are not going to know how your “victim” will react, but you should plan for the most likely outcomes. Lighting the way through the story and guiding the player is essential for them to get the most coherent and engaging experience out of it.
This talk will give attendees tools for this design approach as well as an understanding of how to “grow” mechanics from theme, how to pace your level design to fit storytelling and using symbolism in mechanics and environmental design in order to support the game’s themes.

Speakers

Melanie Taylor

Narrative Designer, Mellow Games

Specialist Lead, Deloitte Digital

Steve began his career in games programming 19 years ago on Playstation 2, Xbox and GameCube. He went on to lead development teams building games for consoles, PCs and phones before diversifying into other fields. At Deloitte Digital he uses game development technologies to help create... Read More →

Leigh Mannes

Senior Specialist Lead, Deloitte Digital

Ben Britten is a co-founder and Mighty’s Technical Director. Ben has a double degree in computingand engineering and has worked in the entertainment industry for over 25 years in areas including: livetheatre, theme park design and visual effects. Ben holds an Academy Award for Science... Read More →

Matt Ditton

In the nearly two decades Matt Ditton has worked in the games industry he’s followed an eclectic career path. Moving from artist to programmer to producer to educator to finally starting The Mighty Games group with Ben Britten in 2013.A classically trained photographer, Matt's made... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 104

Tech

12:00pm AEDT

Technical Direction for One

Regardless of whether you’re the sole developer on an indie game, leading a small group of
programmers, or the technical director overseeing multiple engineering departments, you will face the
same problems and decision points in the choice and use of technology on your projects.

By the time your game has shipped, you will have made hundreds of decisions around coding
standards and best practices, use of testing and automation, continuous integration and deployment,
release processes, client and server technology, and middleware selections. As the technical expert
on the project you will likely have also had to make decisions around IT issues such as version control,
backups, hardware and software purchases, and security.

Besides developing a game, you will find yourself building bespoke tools for engineers, designers,
artists, producers, QA and customer support, and processes to go along with them.
If you’re a solo developer or head of a small team, ideally your decisions are setting up your studio for
growth and sustainability; whereas if you’re already leading a large team you are already well aware of
the difficulty in maintaining high productivity with so many hands on deck.

Drawing on his experience leading both large and small teams, Alex will explore these issues and
provide guiding principles for technical directors at all levels of experience, with a particular focus on
risk assessment and mitigation, and setting up processes and practices up-front that can scale as a
team grows.

Speakers

Alex Holkner

Alex worked at EA Firemonkeys as the technical director of a number of mobile titles, and eventually asthe studio technical director overseeing the engineering discipline of multiple games. He was asignificant contributor to some highly successful releases including The Sims FreePlay... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 112

Tech

2:00pm AEDT

I can't get no (client) satisfaction

Whether you are AAA doing co-dev, a mid sized studio doing work for hire or an indie working with a publisher or investor, wouldn't it be nice to know exactly where you stand with your client and what you could do to maximise the chance for future work?

It can be hard when these people are busy and difficult to reach so we've developed a minimally intrusive way to measure their current perception and highlight what already going well and areas to improve upon. We will take you through our journey, looking at the research, current best practices, and lessons learned in implementing these findings in Wargaming Sydney.

Covering challenges, like cultural/personal differences, limited availability of clients and also effectively measuring trust, loyalty and advocacy to develop meaningful metrics for client satisfaction.

Speakers

Jo Ann Tan

Jo Ann Tan has spent over ten years supporting developers in Visual Effects for films and television before making the switch over to games as a Senior Project Manager at Wargaming Sydney. She brings insights from working with industry leaders in the UK, Canada and Australia. She... Read More →

Jerry van Koppen

Jerry van Koppen is an accomplished games producer and project manager, with industry experience in indie and AAA environments across the world and a master's degree in Strategic Management. Starting in the UK as a Producer with Donkey Crew that made 'Of Kings and Men' and the soon... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 110

2:00pm AEDT

Realtalk; Politics, games, and the inescapable maw of responsibility.

Politics in and around games has always been a contentious and much-debated subject. Whilst this
talk may not settle this discussion in its entirety, it is vitally important that designers and consumers of
games are aware of what it means to consider ‘politics’ in the context of game design. Specifically, this
talk will attempt to unpack the idea of whether or not it is possible to create an ‘apolitical’ game. It will
explore the concept at numerous levels, both in terms of what politics are – and how they are
understood by the consumer audience – and how they are represented by games. It borrows heavily
from film and literature, which has laid strong foundations in the bedrock of 'politics'.

Speakers

Zhia Zariko

My name is Zhia, an Australian-born games and research enthusiast. I love post-production analysis ofgames, both to marvel in the wonder that is deliberate and critical design, as well as to help makebigger and better games in the future. I have a Masters Degree in Design where I... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 103

Applied Games

2:00pm AEDT

Unreal Tips and Tricks - Epic Mega-hour

Speedrunning isn’t just for games: Chris and Alex go through every optimization and development trick conceivable in a one hour period. Game show style.

Speakers

Alex Stevens

Victoria Tran

Tuesday October 8, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Plenary

Games Adjacent

2:00pm AEDT

What Unionism Adds To Your Workplace

Game Workers Unite presents a look at how collective bargaining builds a better workplace for everyone. Learn about the role of unions across history, how working together creates trust, improves standards, and builds a safe place for vulnerable people. Representatives from GWU Australia and from Australia’s trade union movement will answer questions on pay standards, worker co-operative ownership, and workplace health and safety issues.

Speakers

David Haidon

Morgan Little

Tuesday October 8, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 112

Production & Culture

2:00pm AEDT

So you want to make a multiplayer game?

Multiplayer games are huge and have great potential for long term retention of players, and that leads to ongoing revenue for a studio, but to achieve this, you need to make sure your multiplayer experience is excellent. You won’t get that just throwing whatever library you can find on the asset store and hoping for the best. This talk will teach you how to implement multiplayer from the ground up, allowing you to make sure your online player experience is the best it can be

Speakers

June Rhodes

June Rhodes is a software engineer working at Network Next in Santa Monica, California, where she’s helping make the Internet better for games. Network Next offers a Real-Time CDN to game developers that reduces latency and packet loss for online multiplayer games. Previously she... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 104

Tech

2:00pm AEDT

A New Way To Narrative Design

As storytellers in games it is no longer enough to rely on traditional Western conventions. In this workshop you'll learn a new way of looking at drama theory and writing tools, and apply them to your own fictional new game.

You'll discover ways of creating drama without conflict and take into account other factors for ethical narrative design. By doing this you'll also understand how your personal lived experience can better inform your writing; creating deeper and stronger narratives built on the design pillars of your games.

Speakers

Alexander Swords

Tuesday October 8, 2019 2:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 111

Design & Narrative, Workshop

3:00pm AEDT

Music Therapy in Virtual Reality

People with quadriplegia are disproportionately rurally and regionally located, at high risk for social isolation, and face numerous barriers to accessing music therapy. Previous research has demonstrated that face-to-face group singing therapy improves breathing, voice, mood, and social connectedness for people with quadriplegia. However, latency issues make online live group singing impossible via current videoconferencing options.

This session will provide an overview of how our team addressed accessibility factors when designing a VR application to help deliver online group singing sessions for people with limited mobility.

Speakers

Ben Loveridge

Ben is the co-ordinator of immersive media (AR/VR) at the University of Melbourne and works across all areas of video, audio and spatial media production. He co-ordinates activities in the Learning Environments virtual reality lab, assisting staff with the integration of virtual reality... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 110

Applied Games

3:00pm AEDT

Why did medieval knights fight giant snails? And what does this have to do with games?

"...vehicles for delight, disgust, and befuddlement..."

"...delightfully detailed (and occasionally rather gruesome)..."

"...silly, dramatic, and puzzling..."

Are these quotes from game reviews, or are they comments made by people looking at late-medieval marginalia? We'll find out together!

Was there a giant snail problem in the late Middle Ages? Illuminated manuscripts from the late medieval period are full of beautiful, dramatic, hilarious imagery of knights fighting giant snails (and many other seriously weird stuff™).

Scholarship on the medieval era is full of such intriguingly titled works as “The Snail in Gothic Warfare”, “What’s so funny about knights and snails?", “Snails: the central problem of high middle ages warfare”, and “Snails—rethinking our ancient foe”.

What’s going on? Was there a species of giant snail, long since extinct? Or some kind of collective hallucination?

What’s the deal? Let’s find out together. Answering this, and other bizarre questions from history, Paris explores why all game developers should learn history, and shows how medieval marginalia (the drawings in the sides of medieval manuscripts) are really just ye olde promotional art, a medieval image-based social network, if you will.

Join a game developer with a PhD in Computer Science and a degree in Medieval History and find out why everyone should learn a little history (and I’ll explain the snail thing, too.) We will look at the world of medieval art, and together we'll find out how and why today's game makers can light the way forward for a better treatment of art and artists by borrowing from the approach of medieval scribes and designers.

Speakers

Paris Buttfield-Addison

Paris Buttfield-Addison is a co-founder of Secret Lab, Tasmania's longest running game development studio. Secret Lab builds games and game development tools, and is best known for the BAFTA- and IGF-winning Night in the Woods, the multi-award-winning ABC Play School iPad games, the... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 105

Art & Animation

3:00pm AEDT

Technical Breakdown of scenes in John Wick 3

Speakers

Glenn Melenhorst

With over 30 years of experience and a background in design and traditional 2D animation, Glenn has been a key VFX Supervisor overseeing many high-profile projects, most recently,Christopher Robin, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Men In Black International... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Plenary

Games Adjacent

3:00pm AEDT

Evolving Together

Collaboration is the heart of our industry and as such is worth a lot of effort. Nowadays there are a number of well proven frameworks which should help us find the way; however, in the gaming industry we often struggle to find the balance between producing the next big hit and equipping ourselves for a sustainable production. In this talk I will give a number of examples of good and bad implementations of Scrum, its evolution and Lean Kanban. I will analyse how best practices were applied, or not, and I will show the consequences of our choices.

Speakers

Stefano Martincigh

Stefano is an energetic Development Manager / Agile coach, experienced in leading cross-functionalteams and guiding organizations through the challenges of Agile continuous transformation.

Tuesday October 8, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 103

Production & Culture

3:00pm AEDT

Ship it: An incomplete server-side checklist

A pragmatic guide to shipping an online multiplayer game without lighting the server room on fire.

Join me as I walk you through my incomplete list of tasks and things to be considered when architecting your server environment, or at the very least before you push that big red button.

This talk will cover
- Continuous integration and deployment
- Load testing and automated tests
- Monitoring, alerts and Incident response plans
- Disaster recovery, and user data
- Updates, maintenance and security

Speakers

Luis van Slageren

Connected Play

Luis Van Slageren has been working on game back-ends for more than 3 years with a background in traditional IT web services dating back to 2012 and has been volunteering at GCAP since 2014.Luis developed the back-end systems for Spies & Soldiers, Rogue Singularity, Disney Crossy Road... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 109

Tech

4:20pm AEDT

Closing Keynote

The closing keynote will feature:

Terry Burdak
Rae Johnston
William Pugh

Tuesday October 8, 2019 4:20pm - 5:30pm AEDT

9:30am AEDT

Opening Keynote: Industry Day

The Industry Day opening Keynote will feature:

Rae Johnston
Caroline Pitcher
Ricky Haggett

Molly Carroll

Valve

Wednesday October 9, 2019 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
Room 103

11:00am AEDT

VMDO Presents: Games + Music; Your Perfect Soundtrack

Yasmin Naghavi ( Media Arts Lawyers), Sebastian Wolff (Materia Collective), Mason Lieberman (Tencent), CHIPZEL, Fabian Malabello (The Otherworld Agency, Boss Battle Records).

Music’s importance to video games is indelible: enhancing an immersive experience, connecting to characters, driving play on and so much more. How do you find the right piece music or the right artists to create, perform and record it and then how do you navigate the complexities of licensing, publishing and masters? This panel of international experts will demystify the global video game music industry and discuss their own experiences to help ensure you’re armed with the tools to find the perfect soundtrack.

Presented by the Victorian Music Development Office VMDO). The VMDO is focused on supporting the Victorian contemporary music industry now and into the future. An initiative of the Victorian Government, the VMDO is delivered by Music Victoria. www.vmdo.com.au

Speakers

Yasmin Naghavi

Sebastian Wolff

Sebastian Wolff is the CEO and founder of Materia Collective, a leading game music publisher and rights administrator. He specializes in game music rights management, modern practices of rights management and royalty collection, and assessment of music publishing opportunities for... Read More →

Mason Lieberman

Mason Lieberman is a senior game audio coordinator for Tencent, the largest video game company in the world. He has the honor of working with many of the best audio professionals in the industry on a daily basis in this position. Having come up in the industry as a full-time freelancer... Read More →

Niamh Houston

Niamh Houston, also known by her stage name Chipzel, is a BAFTA nominated and award winning independent composer and performer from Northern Ireland. A lover of machines, Chipzel is renown for her unlikely choice of instrument: a Nintendo Gameboy. Chipzel has toured all over the world... Read More →

Fabian Malabello

Fabian Malabello is an agent, a BAFTA-winning music supervisor, and the director of two companies in the video game industry: The Otherworld Agency, and Boss Battle Records.Fabian, via The Otherworld Agency (founded in 2015), represents over 40 composers and sound designers across... Read More →

Valve

Alden has been a designer at Valve for over 13 years, working on Steam as well as on games such as Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. Alden currently works as a designer on the Steam store, the Steamworks publishing tools, and various community features such as Steam Works... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 103

12:00pm AEDT

Disability & Game Development

Disabled and neurodiverse game developers face a number of difficulties working in the games industry. In this panel, a group of disabled games developers from different disciplines will discuss their experiences and issues surrounding the creation of games while disabled. Topics include how being disabled influences their work, challenges that they have encountered due to their disabilities, ways game development could be made more accessible to disabled game developers, and why they all enjoy making and playing games.

Moderators

Calliope Ryder

Speakers

Zala Habib

Zala is a Game Designer at the newly founded Studio Mayday. She has worked on many solo and team projects and showcased her games around the country at conventions, conferences and exhibitions. Receiving the IGDA Velocity Scholarship in 2019, she is also a strong advocate for diversity... Read More →

Cameron Hopkinson

Cameron Hopkinson is a composer and programmer based in Wellington. They are an honours graduate in composition from the New Zealand School of Music and are in their last year of an honours degree in software engineering at Victoria University of Wellington. Cameron is one of the... Read More →

Meredith Hall

Meredith is a producer, marketer and business developer, aiming to help create positive change against challenges faced by ANZ indie developers. She is co-founder of Accessibility Unlocked, and focuses on diversity and understanding as pillars of support structures and production... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 109

Accessibility & Representation

12:00pm AEDT

Making Great Money to Make Great Games

The Aussie game dev community is bursting with talent and skill, and the passion of our industry leaders for helping each other has given birth to many wonderful projects; some of which have become global hits. The teams that have achieved commercial success did not do so by accident, but through a combination of knack, drive, and a critical focus on commercialisation. "Making money with your game" has been a subject that often feels like the proverbial elephant in the room in the Aussie game dev community. We all need to this to keep making great games and thrive, but no one wants to talk about it.

Join Henry Fong, CEO of Yodo1, Matt Hall, co-creator of the hit game Crossy Road and Dylan Bevis, co-founder of Featherweight Games as they share the stories of Indie teams that "made it big" and the process they went through to overcome the challenges of making money that empowers them to keep making great games.

Lastly, this session will also provide a forum for discussion on the latest and emerging developments in game monetisation, ranging from Apple Arcade to Artificial Intelligence.

Speakers

Henry Fong

CEO, Yodo1

Henry is Co-founder and CEO of monetization experts Yodo1, a leading company in the industry focused on helping Indie game developers promote and monetize their games world wide. With seven-plus years of experience, they’ve formed unshakable partnerships and friendships, and amassed... Read More →

Matt Hall

Dylan Bevis

Wednesday October 9, 2019 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 110

Business & Professional Development

12:00pm AEDT

Network Development

This workshop provides an introduction to online multiplayer and other network features on Nintendo Switch. Learn how to apply on our web tools and what is possible on the platform.

Covering network services provided by Nintendo, how to realize your own custom solutions, Nintendo Switch Online integration and relevant Guideline information.

Speakers

Ulysse Richert-Botté

Developer Relations Manager & Senior Software Engineer, Nintendo of Europe

Wednesday October 9, 2019 12:00pm - 1:30pm AEDT
Room 112

12:30pm AEDT

Emotional Architecture - Understanding Audio (and Ourselves)

Embracing his somewhat pretentious business card tag-line, Andrew aims to demonstrate what he means by Emotional Architecture when it comes to game audio. By casting an analytical eye over the peaks and troughs of emotional states over time, he will be discussing ways to get the most out of one’s game soundtrack and keep focus on the perennial question for all creators: “What do we want our audience to feel?”

With part post-production breakdown of the indie comedy-physics title Speaking Simulator, & part group therapy, Andrew will illuminate many facets of game soundtrack development and encourage developers to behave a little bit less like robots and more like actual humans.

#AdaptiveAudio #FMOD #BeatTherapy #SpeakingSim #VoiceActing #Stories #NarrativeSupport #RetroAudio #AxesToGrind #SelfHelp #DontBeYou #CreativeInvestment #StopNeglectingYourSoundtrack #MusicNotMuzak #SubscribeToMyYoutubeChannel

Speakers

Andrew Curnock

Described by his childhood piano teacher as “the worst student” she'd ever had, Andrew has forged acareer making music and sound for a diverse range of media platforms. Having written music for film,television, and even making cheesy mobile phone ringtones, his first game soundtrack... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 12:30pm - 1:00pm AEDT
Room 105

Audio & Music

1:50pm AEDT

Cartoon Network: Live Pitching Session

A live pitching session of different pitches from Cartoon Network representatives.

Wednesday October 9, 2019 1:50pm - 4:00pm AEDT
Room 103

2:00pm AEDT

Lessons from Free to Play For Now and the Future

Free To Play models have become the dominant force behind the most successful developers of the mobile games industry, but it is not without its challenges. From saturated markets to huge competitors with deep pockets, Australian and New Zealand mobile developers have had to constantly develop strategies to contend with the rapidly changing mobile free to play landscape.

Featuring industry expertise from Hipster Whale, Not Doppler, Mighty Kingdom, Runaway and Panda Arcade, this panel sets out to understand how the most successful and diverse Free to Play companies in Australia and New Zealand go about ensuring the long term success of their studios.

Speakers

Ella Macintyre

Ella has many years experience in the entertainment industry, having trained in Film and Television, then later making the move to Games. At Mighty Kingdom she began her career as a Marketing Assistant, then later became a Product Manager and lead development and strategy of Mighty... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 109

Business & Professional Development

2:00pm AEDT

Programming: The First Few Years

Getting a job as a programmer in the games industry for the first time can be overwhelming, especially if you haven’t worked on a larger team before. This talk focuses on how to adjust and make the most of your early days in the industry; things to focus on, how to continue to grow, and why writing code is just a small part of working as a games programmer.

Speakers

Liam de Valmency

Liam has been working in the games industry for five years as a programmer at Media Molecule, helpingto bring to life their next project, Dreams -- a game creation engine and sharing platform for the PS4. Inhis spare time, Liam also regularly organises and participates in game ja... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 105

GCAP Loading

2:00pm AEDT

Building Community Panel

This panel session gathers some of the community leaders from Australia and New Zealand to discuss what works, what doesn't and what's changed along the way in terms of community building in the local game development sector.

It will address questions such as how do we create spaces and opportunities for games practitioners? What have we done right and wrong and how can we support each other in developing our development community.

Speakers

Lisy Kane

League of Geeks

Cass Gray

Cass Gray is the Chairperson of the New Zealand Game Developers Association and the Assistant Event Manager in Weta Workshop’s game studio. Prior to moving into events she was Assistant Producer on Weta Workshop’s debut title ‘Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders’, released in 2018.Cass... Read More →

Jon Hayward

Jon Hayward-Crichton is a producer who has a varied history. Starting with co-founding the now largest (running) lanning group in Australia, he’s been a IGDA scholar, helped build a fan convention over ten years and completed Founders Institute. More closely related to games... Read More →

Giselle Rosman

A longstanding community leader in Australia, Giselle runs the Melbourne chapter of the International Game Developers’ Association (IGDA), has been Executive Producer of Global Game Jam (GGJ) has run the Melbourne jam site since 2011. Giselle's work in the community was recognised... Read More →

Chad Toprak

Chad Toprak is an experimental game designer and independent curator. He is a first generation Turkish-Australian Muslim immigrant, and currently serves as director of Freeplay, Australia's longest-running and largest independent games festival. He is also ½ of Melbourne's Hovergarden... Read More →

Benjamin Ee

Ben is a Concept Artist/Illustrator/Art Director/Art Goblin with over 5 years experience in the Gamesindustry, working for Appster, Wymac, and Unity. Ben is well-known for his stunning illustrative style and vibrant, powerful colour choices, as well as occasionally getting down on... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 2:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 107

Art & Animation, Workshop

3:00pm AEDT

Games for Government Panel

This panel is comprised of key people within Government who are developing and utilising Games based technologies in a government setting. This panel provides an opportunity for the audience to better understand the in's and out of working with a government body, and the similarities and differences this work entails compared to normal contract work. The audience will gain a better understanding of what the government is looking for in terms of tech, and the emerging fields they are developing content for such as 360 Video, VR and AR.

The panelists will give some examples of work they have completed for government, and some of the challenges and successes they have had in creating and delivering their products.

Speakers

Adrian Webb

G’day, I’m the Manager of Virtual Worlds at the Australian Defence Simulation and Training Centre (ADSTC). My role is looking at how Defence can better utilise technologies and capabilities from all walks of life to create a more engaged and prepared future workforce. It can be... Read More →

Timothy Bermanseder

Originally a game developer with Cardboard Keep until 2019. Timothy has transitioned his career into the Public sector now working with the Department of Defence’s Learning Branch to build eLearning and training solutions. Having released titles ranging from PC to Nintendo Switch... Read More →

Jake Spencer Goodsir

Jake is a system designer for the Technology Innovation Centre, a small team within the Department of Human Services that trials how innovative new platforms and techniques can be used to improve government services. For the past year they have been trialling Virtual Reality as a... Read More →

Stuart Anderson

A software engineer, Stuart has for the past 7 years worked with Data61’s Immersive Environments Lab. Purpose built for applied research into the convergence of our digital and physical worlds, the IE Lab employs research capability in computer graphics, computer vision and human-computer... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 110

Business & Professional Development

3:00pm AEDT

Launching Your Game in China? Here is What We've Learnt!

China has over taken the US as world’s largest games market – with an expected 728 million gamers by 2023.
But what can you expect when launching your game in China? Hear from 3 Australian studios on their experiences launching in China.

This talk will cover topics such as: how to launch in China; partnering with a Chinese publisher – why and how; game approvals and China Joy.
This panel is for anyone with an interest in China and want to know how to approach launching into the Chinese market.

The panel is moderated by Austrade, Australia’s Trade and Investment agency, and will have Hipster Whale, Savysoda and Affable Games provide their experiences on how to approach China, with both mobile and pc developer perspectives represented.

Speakers

Jessica Paulin

Jess is Product and Marketing Manager at Hipster Whale. She started her career in 2008 in Germany within the browser game Free-To-Play industry before joining the Australian mobile game industry in 2012.Hipster Whale's flagship title, Crossy Road, has been downloaded more than 200... Read More →

Xin Zhao

Xin is the founder and director of SavySoda. Founded in 2008, SavySoda is Australia's first studio focusing exclusively on smartphone apps and games. Today, SavySoda has over 100 million downloads and focuses on Strategy Games and Productivity Apps.

Jordan Comino

Jordan is a co-founder and Director at Affable Games. Affable is releasing its second comedy game, Speaking Simulator, onto PC early next year in hopes that they will help train AI to take over the world peacefully.

Jazna Rossi

Jazz is the Project Manager for Toast VR, an indie VR game studio based in Brisbane. Their VR title, Richie’s Plank Experience, takes the user 80 stories above the ground where they are challenged to walk the plank. Combined with Toast VR’s world-first technology to clone a real... Read More →

Prathay Chandrakumar

Wednesday October 9, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 109

Business & Professional Development, Panel

3:00pm AEDT

Being A Game Design Tradie

The study of "Game Theory" has developed massively as the industry has grown giving a huge well of knowledge to draw from as they slave away at trying to create the next breakout hit.

Over the years making games I've developed a unique approach to distilling ideas, mechanics and environments into gameplay that has more in common with artisan tradespeople such as carpenters and metal fabricators than it does with the more academic approach usually associated with game theory. This talk will explore these concepts.

Speakers

Nic Wechter

Hi my name is Nic Wechter, I've been a game/level designer since 2002. I got my start at Krome Studios in Brisbane and went on to work at both Sony (Guerrilla Games) and Microsoft (The Coalition) 1st party studios. In 2017 I started my own one person studio and become teacher of game... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 3:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 105

Design & Narrative

3:00pm AEDT

Network Development

Speakers

Ulysse Richert-Botté

Developer Relations Manager & Senior Software Engineer, Nintendo of Europe

Wednesday October 9, 2019 3:00pm - 5:00pm AEDT
Room 112

3:50pm AEDT

Closing Keynote: Industry Day

The Industry Day Closing Keynote will feature:

The GCAP Team
Brendan Keogh
Rae Johnston

Wednesday October 9, 2019 3:50pm - 5:00pm AEDT

4:00pm AEDT

What Australian gamemakers told me about making games in Australia

Since the beginning of 2018, Brendan Keogh has been funded by the Australian Research Council to
investigate the state of game development in Australia. So far Keogh has conducted 150 interviews
with gamemakers in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Tasmania; he also conducted a
nationwide survey that attracted another 280 responses. Across these interviews, Keogh identified a
wide range of identities, challenges, and ambitions driving Australian gamemakers. Some of these
were specific to different local contexts; others were felt similarly across the nation.

In this session, Keogh will report back to the community some of the preliminary findings of this
ongoing research through directly drawing from quotations and statistics from this ongoing research.
The goal of this is to help individuals in the audience to better understand their own local and national
context as game developers, ensuring that collective challenges they face are not felt as solely
individual failings. Further, by presenting this national and local snapshot of the experiences of
Australian gamemakers, it is hoped this talk’s information will help local gamemaking communities
consider collective responses and strategies to the near-ubiquitous feelings of precarity and instability
observed in this study.

Speakers

Brendan Keogh

Dr Brendan Keogh is an Australian Research Council Fellow in the Digital Media Research Centre,QUT, where he researches videogame development skill transferability across informal, formal, andembedded sectors. He previous taught game design at SAE Brisbane.He is the author The Unity... Read More →

Wednesday October 9, 2019 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEDT
Plenary