Everything that doesn’t fit into any other category.
A few days ago I posted my writeup on the IGDA Perth Chapter social night. The official summary is now online and it includes pictures (yay!). It’s more detailed than my writeup and (obviously) not from my subjective perspective.
In related news, I’ve been accepted onto the IGDA Perth Chapter working committee as a representative for OneTwenty. I look forward to helping out in any way that I can. Here’s a picture of us (OneTwenty) at the IGDA social night:
Thanks to Martin for the photo!
I came across Awesome Video Games a couple of weeks ago via Destructoid. It’s a sort of Bill-And-Ted or Wayne’s World style show with a couple of “dudes” doing retro reviews of NES videogames.
It’s pretty funny and I love the mindless old-school theme song (obviously all done in a robot voice with 8-bit music):
Awesome video games, beep beep bop boop ba beep, video games awesome.
There are quite a lot of videogame and retro themed shows coming out under the banner of ScrewAttack.com. I have found their offerings to be a bit of a mixed bag overall, but there are some real pearlers in there. (Some episodes of GameJew are suprisingly good!) The production values are a lot higher than standard YouTube fare and it really helps set their videos apart.
Update: Episode 2 and episode 3 of Awesome Video Games are much better than episode 1 (embedded above).
As I mentioned in my IGDA Perth Chapter social night writeup, I’m now the fortunate owner of a Welland 3.5″ MediaBank HDD Media Player.
It’s a neat piece of kit, but has a few flaws and irritations. On the software side of things, there’s nothing wrong that can’t be fixed by a firmware upgrade. However, it seems that no such upgrade exists yet! I’ve included a quick one-line conclusion below, but keep reading for many more pictures and my full review.
Conclusion: Gingerly Recommended (if you need heaps of portable storage and it doesn’t cost you much more than a standard external case).
It really feels like all things gaming are starting to take off in Perth. The second IGDA Perth Chapter social night was last night and the turnout was great! David Kazim (the organiser of the upcoming GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo) has done a great job organising and sponsoring these events.
The event was again held at the Velvet Lounge, and I was again greated by booth babes at the entrance. I’ve said before that having booth babes at these IGDA events seems fairly incongruous to me, but also that I wasn’t personally offended. I think at the first event I was expecting a “meeting” (which is fairly formal), but this event was labelled as a “social night” (which is fairly informal). I guess I feel that if someone steps up to do something, they can pretty much do it their way.
Form the time I arrived, I seemed to keep bumping into people I know or people who know me. It’s a little odd when people mention they read your blog. Not in a “man that’s creepy” sort of way, more in a “um… what do I talk about now… what don’t you know already!” manner. After allowing generous time for general mingling, Paul Turbett gave a brief welcome speech thanking the event sponsors and introducing the speakers and guests for the evening.
Nullarbor 2007
The first speaker was Martin Masek. He talked about next year’s Nullarbor Demo Competition. Important details are that it will be part of next year’s GO3 Expo and there will be a new category for 3D artwork (Yay for local content creators!). Shortly after Martin’s talk, Interzone Games announced that they would be sponsoring next year’s Nullarbor Demo Competition to the tune of $5000! If that translates into prize money, it should provide some extra incentive for programmers and artists out there.
GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo 2007
David Kazim gave a presentation on his experiences at the recent Tokyo Game Show. The overall impression I got from his slideshow and videos is that TGS is huge. The pavillion that they hold the event in is around six times the size of the Perth Convention Centre, but it’s not just the physical size of the event that makes it huge. It’s the magnitude of presentation and presence that takes it to that next level.
Another point that David made was that, unlike E3 which is a trade expo, TGS is for consumers and GO3 will be following the same model. In fact, GO3 and TGS will be partnered events! There are a lot of large fringe events such as cosplay competitions that he would also like to try to reproduce here. I’ll have to talk to my old housemate Phil, now President of Japanese Anime Fans Western Australia (JAFWA), about this.
I talked to David after his presentation to tell him how happy I was that he had managed to get two of my suggested speakers (and favourite game developers) to come to Perth: Goichi Suda (Killer 7, Heroes) from Grasshopper and Matsaya Matsuura (Parappa the Rapper, Vib-ribbon) from NanoOn-sha. I was the guy at the front yelling out “yeah!” and “whoooooo!” when he showed a picture of Goichi Suda and asked “does anyone know who this guy is?” (Read more about my warm fuzzies regarding the speaker lineup in this article I wrote for Aeropause).
He mentioned that they are just the tip of the iceberg and that he’s heading back to Japan to finalise talks for a number of other speakers. I won’t name anyone until he chooses to make an official announcement, but the names he mentioned were very high-profile indeed.
Interzone Games
Robert Spencer and Mike Turner from Interzone Games spoke briefly about their desire to setup a studio in Australia to develop a AAA Massively Multiplayer (MMP) game that they have secured funding for. I mentioned Interzone Games in my previous post. They didn’t really reveal much more information when speaking to the crowd, but seemed to be working the room and getting a good feel for what talent is available in Perth.
An obvious concern with Perth is the lack of seasoned developers with a number of shipped titles under their belts. I think we have a lot of smart people, but they would really need to find the right mix of old and new blood. Here’s hoping they do find that in Perth, because it would be great for the local industry.
Prizes and Swag!
There were a lot more sponsors and a lot more swag this time. Game Traders brought along a couple of Xbox 360 consoles and large LCD screens. They seemed to see pretty good use throughout the evening. Door prizes were provided by Anyware and consisted of USB massagers and Snoopy (soft-toy) webcams. Raffle prizes were provided by Dark Zone and Game Traders. (Please let me know of any sponsors I forgot to mention, I think they deserve recognition).
I’m not sure why, but it always seems that people generally win either no prizes or a multiplicity of prizes. One of the students from the ECU game development course won $225 worth of gift coupons (a $75 coupon and a $150 coupon)! Anyhow, my mate Tone won a $150 coupon (for a Wii pre-order deposit no doubt) and I actually won something too! I’m now proud owner of a USB massager and a Welland 3.5″ MediaBank HDD Media Player USB2.0 Interface (that’s exactly what it says on the box). I’ll post more about it after I get a chance to try it out.
Note: There seemed to be a number of “official photographers”, so I didn’t take out my camera. I’ll post links to the photos when they appear on the IGDA Perth Chapter website.
Update: The official summary (with photos) is now online.
Interzone Games are a new games company looking to setup in either Perth or Melbourne. I had an opportunity to talk with Robert Spencer (COO) and Mike Turner (Producer) as an ex-60Hz member of OneTwenty.
They both come off as very genuine and driven people, and they have considerable experience developing AAA game titles. The Perth game development scene is mostly comprised of indie developers working within very limited budgets. A large game studio could really invigorate the local community and I hope that Interzone decide to base their high-profile game development projects in Perth.
They will be speaking at the IGDA Perth Chapter social event tomorrow night. This is all the more reason for anyone in Perth interested in game development to come along to the IGDA event. I’ll post a writeup of the event soon after it happens.
I’ve added Mancini’s Woodfired Pizzas to my Places To Eat guide (and also updated a few of the other entries). I suppose you’d call it a gourmet pizza place because they don’t make the standard Domino’s style pizza. It’s not a fancy restaurant though. It’s just a nice casual place to eat (like Interfoods in Fremantle used to be).
The menu consists of Antipasti (including Prosciutto and Rockmelon), Pizzas (including Calzones), a few other mains (pasta and chicken), salads, and desserts (more pizzas!). The variety of pizza is good and ranges from Salmon (with rocket and served with sour cream) to Calzone Oriental (with shitaki mushrooms and chilli). You’d usually expect to pay quite a bit for these gourmet pizzas, but the prices are very reasonable.
Large pizzas are between $11.00 and $16.00, and small pizzas are $6.50 to $9.00. Like most pizza places, they have a special consisting of a large pizza, garlic bread, and 1.25 litre soft drink (for $17.95). With a salad, I’ve found this to be enough for two people. However, they also have a combo that adds a garlic bread and can of soft drink to any small pizza. This is more than enough for an individual and means that you can get a great meal for under $10.00.
The pizzas are billed as “light healthy tasty” and from my experience that holds true. The chef used to work at NYC Pizza in the QV1 building, and people may be familiar with their “non greasy” pizzas. Mancini’s pizzas are similarly non-greasy (like most woodfired pizzas I guess).
Conclusion: Highly Recommended.
Keep reading for the (sappy) story about how I found out about Mancini’s.
A friend of mine is branching out to teach his own salsa lessons (he’s previously been working as a teacher for someone else). I know that he’s going to do well because he’s so into it and very talented.
The fact that he’s a salsa instructor gives hope to every geek who has ever dreamed of becoming a well-rounded person. Years ago, he found the magic of dance through Dance Dance Revolution which he played religiously until be completely dominated it. Then he needed more! He started going to dance classes and watching Flashdance over and over again (okay, I made up the bit about Flashdance).
He puts everything he has into whatever he is focussing on at the time and what he’s been focussing on for the last 5 years is salsa dancing. He was asked to teach at the place he was going to for lessons at after only a year (that’s some sort of dance prodigy right there!) and last year he was the 2005 WA State Professional Salsa Champion.
When I saw the above graphics (from his website) it was a little too celebrial for me. I thought “sugar and spice is all things nice?… wait that’s not right…” Then I looked up “Azuquita” on Google Translate and it all made sense. “Azuquita” is the Spanish word for “sugar”. From there, even my fairly rudimentary maths skills were able to determine that “Azuquita Salsa” equals some sort of explosive dancing experience! I’m sure it is. Good Luck Hean-son!
Note: For details (times, dates, costs) on enrolling in Hean-son’s salsa classes see his classes webpage. He also has pages on special events and social nights. The opening night is in two weeks (Saturday 4 November) so for those beginners interested, it would be a good time to start.
Links to videos after the jump.
For at least 2 hours around midnight last night, this was what you would have seen if trying to visit any ABC website :
Why? From the Good Game forums:
LOL! It’s a while between episodes and I guess Pure Pwnage fans are really hanging out for anything with the Pure Pwnage guys in it!
Update: In case anyone hadn’t heard, Jeremy from Pure Pwnage was interviewed on Good Game last night and there is a web-exclusive extended interview (with Kyle’s voice in it).
Some of you may have noticed the new “Affiliates” link at the top of the page. I figured that I have a number of places that I usually recommend (genuinely) so I may as well sign up to their affiliate programs in case anyone actually buys stuff from them after reading about them on my site.
I don’t want advertising all over this blog, so I decided to isolate all the links on one page (that people can easily ignore). Any money I make from these affiliate programs will be fed back into this site, OneTwenty, and various other non-profit projects I’m working on. That’s not selling out… right?
A while ago, Danno told me about CafePress. It’s a site that lets you design prints for basic clothing and novelty items which they sell for you (giving you a cut of the profit). He used them to make some t-shirts featuring the lovable slimes from his slime volleyball games. I thought about making some designs, but never really got around to it because I never thought of anything suitably lame or cool enough to put on merchandise.
Then it struck me. When cycling around the river I sometimes come across pedestrians who walk side-by-side on the dual-use (walking and cycling) path. That irritates me a little, but they usually get out of the way when you ding your bell or yell out “bike!”. However, sometimes they just stay there and completely ignore you. It’s a dual-use, two-way path! At least move to one side so that cyclists can overtake you!
I wanted some way to vent my anger without having to resort to flipping the bird. So I came up with the above t-shirt design and created a store called Angry Cyclist on CafePress. Let’s hope these babies sell like hotcakes. Even if I only sell one or two, I’d be happy just thinking about the looks on some stubborn pedestrians’ faces as someone rides past wearing one of these!