Cafe Booleans: A Game Dev Podcast

Join SA video game developers John Oestmann, Susie Emery and Jackson Michael as they hang out at Cafe Booleans and chat about culturally innovative games they’ve discovered and the development stories behind them ☕🎮 -- For our final episode of the year, Alex and Kosta have sent in a heartfelt reflection on the history of Booleans, and now pass on the torch to John, Susie and Jacko. We also use t...

Cafe Booleans is back! ☕🎮 Alex Ferrabetta and John Oestmann are joined by Jacko to re-open the Cafe doors. Old friends join in spirit 👻 We discuss Sega's steps towards AI-powered User Generated Content tools, and the current state of Video-Game-to-Film Adaptations. We also had planned to play through the Slam Jam 3 entries, however due to technical issues and the realization it really isn&#...

Dive into Episode 3 of "The Business of Indie Game Development" series for a fresh take on indie gaming. 🏰 We start with an exploration of King Arthur as the ultimate fanfiction, illuminating the power of shared storytelling. 📜 A quick history lesson on copyright and intellectual property paves the way for a deep dive into the world of mods and fan games. 🌳 Did you know that many game...

Join us in this second episode of The Business of Indie Game Development series: 🎯 The importance of marketing your indie game and how it's a mindset, not just a task 📈 We discuss the marketing funnel and its importance in understanding your audience's journey 💡 Explore how to build a strong marketing mindset, and why promoting your game early is vital 👥 Learn the benefits of community...

Join us for the first episode of The Business of Indie Game Development series, where we delve into: 🎯 Navigating legal structures for indie game devs 💼 Understanding budgeting, finance, and payment structure in the gaming industry 🤝 Assembling a solid team and tip on working with contractors 🔐 Protecting your intellectual property and dealing with challenges 🎮 Sharing our and other game deve...

In this last episode for 2022 we chat with Hannah Crosby, multi-disciplinary Artist currently a Senior 3D Artist at Gameloft Brisbane, about: ❇️ How 'The Sims' kicked off Hannah's journey as a professional artist 🎬 Working in games and film for 16 years 🧊 Designing in 3D while being limited by technology of a given time 🤔 Process and working with technical artists at Gameloft 😍 Designing envir...

Join us at the cafe this week as we deep dive and chat about Incentives vs Rules in video games , more specifically: 🤔 How do incentives affect player behaviour? 💻 How technologies can shape culture and behaviour generally 🎉 Examples of games influencing player behavior and culture 💡Players discovering novel ways to play games 🌎 Games can reflect and comment on real-world incentives 🚶‍♂️Ince...

Join us at the cafe this week as we deep dive and chat about Minimal and subtractive in video games video games, more specifically: 🤔 What is minimalist design and philosophy? 👩‍🎨 Designing by subtraction ✅ 7 Minimalist Games that Every Developer Should Take Inspiration From 👹 How minimal game design can help avoid feature creep 👾 Working with the PICO-8 and TIC-80 🧩 Does simple game design...

We chat with Reuben Moorhouse, the Founder and Director of Noble Steed Games, an Australian Game Studio & Consultancy, about: 🏜️ Reubens start as a game developer and working in Silicon Valley 🤝 The key to working as a consultancy studio with a range of clients, guiding their projects 🌎 Culture and the role it plays at both Noble Steed Games, and in teams 🗓️ Running standups productively and...

We chat with Simon Scales, the Owner and Director of CDW Studios (Concept Design Workshop) school of visual effects and entertainment design about: 👶 Simon's start as an Illustrator and journey to founding CDW 🎂 CDW's 10 year anniversary 🚀 Launching two new CDW campuses in Victoria and NSW in 2023 📺 Creating original animated content and future roadmap with CDW Animation 🎨 Advice for artists...

The lights are off in the spooky Cafe this week for this Halloween special, join us as we chat about what makes a good horror game? More specifically: 🤔 What are some key elements of horror games? 🧟‍♂️ What are some of the best horror games? 🎃 Why are horror games important? 🧡 Why do people love horror games? 📗 What are some key narrative themes in successful horror games? SUPPORT ARTICLES: -...

We chat and struggle to play Phasmaphobia with Chantal Ryan, Founder of We Have Always Lived in the Forest - developers of darkwebSTREAMER about: 🎃 The origins of RPG streamer simulation game, darkwebSTREAMER 🎨 Art style and story inspirations for the upcoming occult horror 🎉 Experiences and feedback from taking darkwebSTREAMER to PAX and Gamescom 🔀 Procedurally generating unique narrative and...

Join us at the cafe this week as we deep dive and chat about Artificial Intelligence in video games, more specifically: 🤔 What is AI in gaming and how is it used? 🧑🏻‍💻 Why does AI matter in gaming? 🤖 Can an AI make video games? 🧐 What kind of bias exists in AI? What impact does this have on using it and results? 📕 Glaive - an AI tool for narrative design 🏓 A mini-brain in Petri dish learns...

Join us at the cafe this week as we deep dive and chat about open-source , more specifically: 🖥️ Open-sourced programs used to create video games 🎮 The moral argument of including and remixing copyrighted content in games ⚖️ The moral and legal dilemma of of modding in games. SUPPORT ARTICLES: - RiP: A Remix Manifesto Adelaide Game Developer Discord: https://bit.ly/AGDdiscord LIVE BOOLEANS LINKS...

Live from Melbourne... it's GCAP Recap. In this limited series we Recap our day by day at GCAP. In our third GCAP Recap for 2022 we're talking about: Talks ⚙️ Game Production for Indie Teams (Reuben Moorhouse) 🧐 Understanding your players better through user research (even on an indie budget) (Dr Megan Pusey) 🎨 A newcomers guide to adding interactivity for Artists and Designers (Chris Murphy) 👫...

Live from Melbourne... it's GCAP Recap II. In this limited series we Recap our day by day at GCAP. In our second GCAP Recap for 2022 we're talking about our takeaways from: Talks 🤖 Keynote: Voltrons Will Save Us--Flexible Collaboration Structures in the Information Age 🤘PROG ROCK ODYSSEY: Designing the Artful Escape (Johnny Galvatron) 🗣 A series of quiet conversations (Alexander Swords) 📚 Data-...

Live from Melbourne... it's GCAP Recap. In this limited series we Recap our day by day at GCAP.  In our first GCAP Recap for 2022 we're talking about: Talks 🎨 Show Don't Tell - The intricacies of metaphors in visual media 💰 Max Art - Winning $250k in 30 days a prototype retrospective 🧑🏻‍💻 BeginPlay: The Dos, Don’ts and Key Concepts in Switching to Unreal Engine Booths 🌐 AWS for Games 🎮...

We chat with Ben Marsh, the Managing Director of local Adelaide game studio and leaders in mud & dirt racing video games, Odd Games, about: 👶 How Odd Games began, and Ben's introduction into the games industry 🐣 The game development industry in Adelaide in 2011 🚙 Odd Game's super popular Monster Truck Destruction and Trucks Off Road on mobile 🛞 Slicing and dicing the racing genre market on...

Join us at the diner this week as we deep dive and chat about Serious Games , more specifically: 🤔 What are serious games? ⚙️ Where are serious games used? ✅ What are the advantages of serious games and why are they important? 🌊 Examples of Serious Games including Sea Hero Quest - a game that collects data for dementia 🔮 Where will Serious Games go in the future? Kosta Canatselis - @kostacana...

Join us at the diner this week as we chat about: 🎟 SAFC sponsored GCAP all-access tickets – apply now! 😍 Whats your most memorable and favourite storytelling in games? 🧐 What are the different 'types' of storytelling in games? 🤔 Is there a 'best way' of storytelling? 🎮 Some games to check out with amazing storytelling 🎬 How is storytelling in games different to movies and TV shows? 💪 What ar...

We chat with local indie game developer, Joakim "Chef" Lundström, of Partum Artifex and previously horror hit 'Stairs', about: 🧟 Partum Artifex, a puzzle horror game that features creative and challenging puzzles while telling a gruesome story about a failed artist 🚀 Taking Partum Artifex from a game jam entry, to a full-fledged video game release 🎃 How to terrify people with storytelling in th...

Join us at the diner this week as we chat about: ⚔️ Xbox and Sony battle it out in court over Activision Blizzard acquisition, PS4 sold twice as much as Xbox One 😰 Netflix Games not doing very well..... why isn't anyone trying it out? 👹 New Dungeons and Dragons coming in 2024, including an official virtual tabletop made in Unreal 5 💛 Pokemon Company International Pledges $25 million to philanth...

We chat with Founder of Health VR company Add Life Technologies and UX/UI, Game Design Lecturer at SAE Australia, Daish Malani about: 👨‍🏫 Experience and journey teaching pre-school in Japan to working in VR ✏️ Teaching game design and UX/UI design at SAE 🧠 Designing cognitive, fine motor skill, and relaxation exercises for rehabilitation in the form of VR Games 🕶 Developing for The Oculus Quest...

Join us at the diner this week as we chat about: 😍 Tantalus Media is opening and hiring developers in Adelaide, South Australia 🤖 Technical artist using AI image generation tool, DALL E 2 as part of their workflow for texturing models 🎨 Exploring an AI image generation tool that creates images from textual descriptions similar to DALL E 2, called Mid Journey, to generate inspiration 🪧 Uncoveri...

We chat with author and experienced games user researcher Steve Bromley, previously at Playstation, about: 🥼 What is Games User Research and what does it look like in real-life? 📚 Why Steve authored his books 'How to Be A Games User Researcher' and 'Building User Research Teams' and how they're useful 🎮 Steve's experience working as a researcher at Sony Playstation on a variety of games includi...