GCAP 2019

Cheryl Vance, Co-Founder of Prideful Sloth, walks through the not-so-subtle art of pitching to publishers. This talk is aimed at answering the question: what exactly does it take to get publishers to (happily) part with their cash?


This session will help guide developers through the less trodden path of publisher funded development, giving an understanding of the steps, resources, and general preparation required in pitching to publishers.


This includes putting together pitch decks, budgets, and schedules; answering what it means to enter into a partner-relationship; navigating the ancillary resources you may need; and hopefully busting a few myths along the way!

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.

[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.

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.

Some paths are found. Some paths are forged. Some travellers want to be led. Others just want to
explore. The Forest Paths Method is about recognising how concepts of drama can be applied as a
theoretical framework, and then wielded as a method to develop narrative design at any part of the
design process, on any scale.

This session will be an overview of the method, cover its strengths and weaknesses and then help writers and narrative designers at all levels understand how it may help them. We’ll also cover how this method can be used to recognise narrative design patterns common across genres and game types, and how this might provide a shorthand for development in the future.

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.

Objects in Space released in March this year, three and a half years after its initial expected release date of late 2015. The game was the largest project Flat Earth Games had ever undertaken, and while the concept was likely going to blow out right from the beginning based on the concept alone, there were several key points throughout development where the team made decisions which would compound the workload and cause chaos and distress throughout development.

In this talk, Lead Designer Leigh Harris will be showing the process of scope creep through an ever-expanding flow chart.

The chart will begin with the game's core pillars, and slide by slide new elements will be added showing the decisions which were made, dependencies which were created and HUGE interconnected nature of every feature to reveal a gigantic maze of every feature needed to get this mammoth game over the line.

The end result will be a massive infographic of decisions made during development which led to a team needing to refinance four and a half times to get our dream game made.

Rapid Prototyping is a great tool to help your team think through and solve problems. Solutions come to you through sketching, feedback and multiple design iterations. By training ourselves to think fast, seek validation for our decisions through testing, and refining our UX Design processes, we can create better and more meaningful gaming experiences for our players.

By learning the process of Rapid Prototyping, you create something functional that you can test with users, and that you can then iterate on more accurately. It is a crucial part not only of the early stages of game development, but also for developing and integrating new features into existing games. It is therefore an important skill for all kinds of teams to master, not just those in pre-production, but also those working on games in live service.

Come learn how to break down effective UX Design processes into 3 stages: Prototyping, Reviewing and Refining. Find out how Rapid Prototyping helps you solve big, complex problems, quickly test the utility of your design, and thus make relevant modifications.

This talk will teach you tangible skills for how to draw useful Sketches, how to translate them into Wireframes and Clickable Prototypes - and why these are all uniquely important steps. This will be a practical demonstration of how to work in Adobe XD, and develop functional prototypes for any device (mobile, console, web, etc).

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

Film Victoria, Screenwest, Screen Tasmania, and Screen Queensland staff sit down for an unprecedented discussion of state agency games project funding, dispelling common myths, and demystifying the process. Join panel host Jason Imms for this exclusive behind-closed-doors opportunity to learn from the experts themselves about how you can secure essential funding to get your games into the hands of your audience. This panel will not be recorded, so this is a one-time deal!

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.

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.

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.