Plan for David "RM" Michael

International Indie :)

Last weekend I attended Free Play in Melbourne, Australia. This is a brief write-up of some of what I saw and did there. A more complete write-up will be posted on GDNet in the next few days.

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to speak at the inaugural Free Play conference, along with two others from the United States, Harvey Smith (formerly of Ion Storm) and Brody Condon (of "Velvet Strike").

First, A Word About Melbourne

Melbourne is amazing. Really amazing.

The cultural diversity, the sheer volume of art galleries, the bustling life of the city throughout the day and into the evening, the hospitality of the people I met: it all just blew me away. The few days I spent there allowed me to barely scratch the surface of this complex, deep city, and I look forward to going back to explore Melbourne in all its richness.

My thanks again to Next Wave and Free Play--and Fiona Maxwell and Katharine Neal, specifically--for the opportunity to share in this conference.

Melbourne in the Autumn




More Than Coding and Coders

Many game developer gatherings, even the annual Game Developers Conference, seem to have a definite programmer bias. Though artists are represented, of course, the programmers often outnumber them by a significant margin. At Free Play, though, the ratio was at least 50-50, and possibly tipped in favor of the artists.

This high ratio of artists, has had a discernible impact on the Australian indie scene. The social consciousness displayed by such games as "Escape from Woomera" (www.escapefromwoomera.org/) and "Street Survivor" (a game "based on the lives of young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness") provide lessons in how to take games into larger arenas, beyond being just entertainment.

3 Days, 3 Nights, or Where Did the Time Go?

The sessions offered by Free Play included many you might see at GDC, like "Women in Game Development" and "Trade Secrets of Character Animation". There were also some topics covered that the GDC hasn't discovered yet, like "A Game Developers Place in Society and Culture" and "Open Source and Free Art Tools". Finally, there were some very Australia-specific sessions, like "Financing Avenues and Government Support for Game Development" and "Independent Developers and Public Funding".

I attended the panel discussions about "Creative Game Interfaces", "Women in Game Development", and "Politics of Games, Political Games and Political Art Mods". I attended the keynotes of Harvey Smith and Brody Condon. I had my own keynote presentation on Saturday, and I participated in panel discussions about "The International Indie Game Developer's Scene", "Perspectives on Indie Game Distribution", and "Building the Independent Game Development Community".

My Keynote Address Saturday Night

(Picture taken by Skye Gellmann)

International Indie

I have always had a sense of the international potential of indie games, and have had more than one team member across national borders. Free Play, as what is quite possibly the first such conference outside the USA, underscores that potential in a big way.

Hello, World. The independent game developers are here--and we're everywhere.

-David
Samu Games
The Indie Game Development Survival Guide