GCAP 2019: Full Schedule

11:00am AEDT

Championing Others Starts With Championing Yourself — Creating a Mentally Healthy Work Environment

When we’re given the task of managing others, often our own wellbeing falls by the wayside. Suddenly we’re in charge of humans, and that can be really daunting! So how can we make sure that we’re creating the absolute best workspace for everyone including ourselves? Pritika has been the community manager at CheckPoint for over 2 years now, and in that time has gone from managing an online community, to a team of passionate volunteers and now her coworkers. She’s the first to admit that she’s made some bad decisions regarding her own self care and implores you not to make the same mistakes. This talk will explore the benefits of self care, and how looking after yourself can help you light the way for others.

Speakers

Pritika Sachdev

Pritika is a community manager who has a passion for all forms of narrative. She loves storytelling andbelieves that extends to how developers engage with their players. Pritika has worked in all sorts of areas of games, from 3D artist to producer, and is currently the community manager... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
Room 106

Accessibility & Representation

12:00pm AEDT

Indigenous Culture in Video Games

The sensitive presentation of culture in video games is a relatively new concept to the medium. It has continually been able to reach wider audiences over the years. With this ability to create and share stories and experiences, we can make a seriously positive impact.

In this talk, Phoebe will speak to her experiences working with the Indigenous community in videogames and the processes that were taken to involve them in the production of Chaos Tavern by DragonBear Studios. Following, she will express her opinion on the importance of including Indigenous culture into videogames; Highlighting how it can preserve one of the oldest living cultures on the planet and aid in closing the gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people.

Speakers

Phoebe Watson

I am a proud Indigenous Woman from the Yarrer Gunditj clan of the Maar Nation. I am currently completing my second year my Bachelor of Design (Games) at RMIT. Whilst studying I also work as a cultural mentor to young Indigenous kids, teaching them language, dance, songs, and providing... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 106

Accessibility & Representation

2:00pm AEDT

The Life Of a Japanese Composer, with Manami Matsumae (ft Alex Aniel as translator)

Manami Matsumae, the legendary Japanese composer best known for her work on Mega Man (1987), Mega Man 10 (2010), and Mighty No 9 (2016), will be visiting Australia for the first time to attend MIGW 2019. In this talk we’ll learn about how the Japanese video game landscape has changed from the 1980s to now, and what the life of a Japanese video game composer entails in 2019. This session will feature an extended Q&A component, so bring your best questions, your best spirits, and get ready to chat with one of the industry’s most iconic composers.

Speakers

Alexander Aniel

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

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

4:30pm AEDT

Shining a Light on Graphics Performance

A big bumper session that will be looking at 3D graphics performance.

This will be a crash course that i valuable for all skill levels with information for coders and artists. We will be going through best practices, common mistakes, and some of the persistent myths.

This talk will go through the rendering pipeline and explain each step and how your workflows and assets are interacting with your hardware. With experience on console, mobile and PC this talk will talk about why these systems are different and for more experience developers how these problems were faced using real word project examples and solutions.

The projects will primarily be from Unity but the principles apply to almost all modern 3D rendering.

Speakers

Edward Blanch

Edward Blanch has been a member of the Melbourne games community for a number of years workingon a variety of titles on Mobile, PC and Console. With a background in Architecture he brings a blend ofart, shader knowledge and code to help bring fantasy environments to life.Known for... Read More →

Monday October 7, 2019 4:30pm - 5:20pm AEDT
Room 106

Art & Animation

10:00am AEDT

Accessibility as a primary design consideration: the early journey of Blind Sparrow Interactive

By now, most of us know the importance of accessibility and its numerous benefits. But what does it really mean to the development of your game when you decide to factor in accessibility as a primary design consideration? (Especially if you’ve never done so before, or, more frighteningly, you’re new to game development.) This is exactly the situation that faced Blind Sparrow Interactive, a small indie development studio that was founded on principles of accessibility and inclusion. Through numerous practical examples, the studio will open the doors on it’s journey and the development of its current project, offering suggestions on how you can start to think about - and apply - accessibility features right from your game’s initial design stages.

Speakers

Drew Taylor

The founder of Melbourne-based accessible game development studio, Blind Sparrow Interactive, Drew Taylor believes in a world where “everyone can play”. With a professional career that spans writing, PR, marketing, consultancy and game development, Drew has worked for companies... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 10:00am - 10:50am AEDT
Room 106

Accessibility & Representation

11:00am AEDT

Thank U, Next: Embracing Change in Stormy Weather

If there's one thing that's certain in the games industry, it's that everything changes. Companies rise and fall, new technologies and business models emerge, and "the way things are done" is in a constant state of flux. What was true when many of entered the industry or started degrees is no more. This dynamic environment isn't settling any time soon, so how do we learn to embrace the chaos? In a year of particularly turbulent change in the ANZ games industry, this talk will present advice, strategies, stories and questions from people in our community impacted by change, and those making the change, to how we make games. This talk will dig into our community definitions of game development success, and reflect on what remains meaningful in an ever-changing environment. Also, there will be Ariana Grande.

Speakers

Ally McLean

Ally is a writer, producer and advocate based in Sydney, Australia. Currently, Ally is the CEO of the Working Lunch Collective, a social enterprise that runs a mentorship program for women and non binary people in games, and a Product Manager at Wargaming Sydney.Ally was the Gamerunner... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 11:00am - 11:50am AEDT
Room 106

Production & Culture

12:00pm AEDT

Games as a Therapeutic Tool

People have been playing games as a hobby for a long time but they can also be used to help with mental, physical and emotional therapy. Fast moving games are great for ignoring pain, calming games are great for helping with anxiety and games with big repeated motions are good for exercising damaged muscles or just getting the blood flowing.

Hospitals around the world are just starting to think of games as a tool in their practice and are always looking for fun games that also happen to be useful in their therapeutic goals. There are components they look for in games depending on the therapeutic goal, and many games fit these niches without even meaning to.

Speakers

Erick Blandin

Erick joined Child’s Play in 2014 after working for UW Medicine for 10 years as an IT Analyst. Thisbackground gives him a good insight into the challenges hospitals have in adopting new technologies.Has attended over 30 PAXen as a fan, then Enforcer, staff, and now as Exhibitor... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 12:00pm - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 106

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

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

Chris Murphy is a Tech Artist and Evangelist for Epic Games with game development credits across PC, Vive, Oculus, PS4, iOS and Android. Chris has over 15 years of experience with Unreal Engine, a Bachelor of Computer Science and a Bachelor of Multimedia, culminating in a broad skillset... Read More →

Tuesday October 8, 2019 2:00pm - 2:50pm AEDT
Room 106

Art & Animation

11:00am AEDT

Unreal Heavy Hitters - Shave Years off of Development

Epic Games Makes Games! Those games feed our development tools. Join Epic Games for a deep dive into the tools and systems already made (and road tested!) that can help your next project focus on what you want to make, rather than what you need to make to support it.

Speakers

Alex Stevens

Epic Games / Unreal Engine

Wednesday October 9, 2019 11:00am - 12:50pm AEDT
Room 106

2:00pm AEDT

Advanced Technical Art in Unreal Engine

It’s a bird, it’s a plane... Chris, stop playing with that vertex shader. The live session focuses on the ins and outs of technical art in Unreal Engine and how to build high end gameplay effects with minimal effort.

Speakers

Chris Murphy

Epic Games / Unreal Engine

Wednesday October 9, 2019 2:00pm - 3:50pm AEDT
Room 106