Lightmap - Conversations with video game creators

KARDBOARD KINGS is a store management game about a collectible card game, where you do everything but actually play the card game, managing a small town store inspired by working in retail. Oscar Brittain ( DESERT CHILD , WORLD'S FASTEST PIZZA ) and Rob Gross are Henry's House, they share the challenges of writing believable characters, why speeding up the game made it so much better and h...

How bad for the environment is game development?  Terry Burdak from Paper House and Ben Abraham a researcher on the Environmental impact of video games join us to talk about their project to find out. They'll be tracking the exact energy usage while developing their next game WOOD & WEATHER and aim to make the process easy for other studios to do the same. SIFTER is produced by Nicholas Ke...

It's that time of the year, where we sit down and consider all the amazing games we've played in 2021. This is part two of two episodes featuring the SIFTER team. Gianni Di Giovanni has been loving the historical touches and puzzle solving narrative of THE FORGOTTEN CITY by Modern Storyteller Adam Christou has become lost in the beautiful desert world of science fiction adventure SABLE by...

‍Nick Lowe, Lead Developer at Hungry Sky , first had the idea for NEKOGRAMS a cute sokoban style puzzle game where you move cats onto pillows until they are comfy in the late 2000s, but it took many projects and years until it was ready for players to enjoy. Lauren Fletcher lead artist on the game didn't know she'd be making games when she first started illustrating, and has contributed th...

It's that time of the year, where we sit down and consider all the amazing games we've played in 2021. This is part one of two episodes featuring the SIFTER team. Nicholas Kennedy shares the genre-subverting MUNDAUN by Hidden Fields, a horror game that brought a lot of joy Fiona Bartholomaeus teams up with a rag tag crew in Marvel's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY by Eidos-Montreal Mitchel Loh...

UNPACKING is a pixel art puzzle game tasks you with simply sorting items from boxes into rooms all the while telling a story of a woman's life. ‍ Wren Brier & Tim Dawson from Witch Beam join us to share about how they have injected emotion and spirit into their little organisational puzzle game which is entirely environmental storytelling. Lightmap is produced by Nicholas Kennedy , Viv Thu...

BOOK OF TRAVELS is a different type of MMO experience focusing more on the story and playing the game at your own pace. Dennis Gustafsson from Might and Delight joins us to talk about the philosophy of BOOK OF TRAVELS and the world they are building. SIFTER is produced by Nicholas Kennedy , Viv Thum , Fiona Bartholomaeus , Daniel Ang & Adam Christou . Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di...

Daniel Visser started learning to make games like a lot of people who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, by tinkering away on their computer when they ran out of things to play. That fascination and support from family lead to further studies and making games with studios like Torus Games and Melbourne House. Over twelve weeks Daniel rebuilt ALIENS: THANATOS ENCOUNTER for Gameboy Color from scratch c...

Queensland based studio Prideful Sloth returns to the podcast with their brand new low pressure town building adventure game GROW: SONG OF THE EVERTREE, which doesn't have the time pressures of other games in the genre. Developers Cheryl Vance and Adam Markham share their design philosophy for the game which was influenced not only by games like ANIMAL CROSSING and STORY OF SEASONS but also PE...

In most zombie survival games, you eventually reach a point where you become so powerful there is nothing in the apocalypse that can stop you, but in THE LAST STAND: AFTERMATH an isometric rogue-lite, you start the game infected with limited time left to make a difference. The fifth game in THE LAST STAND series which originally started out as a Flash game developer Chris Condon of Con Artist Game...

BROKEN ROADS is a classic isometric roleplaying game by Victorian based studio Drop Bear Bytes that's set in and around the Western Australian wheatbelt community of Brookton after a cataclysmic event . Game Director Craig Ritchie and Art Director Kerst Evans join Lightmap to share the world of BROKEN ROADS, how narrative and player choice will determine the narrative path, and how documentary...

South Australia's Mighty Kingdom (CONAN CHOP CHOP, AVA'S MANOR, PETER RABBIT RUN!) is rapidly expanding and according to COO Tony Lawrence they want to be Australia's answer to an EA sized studio. Tony has worked previously as General Manager of 2K Australia (BIOSHOCK series, THE BUREAU: XCOM DECLASSIFIED, BORDERLANDS: THE PRE-SEQUEL!) and with industry representative groups GDAA and I...

It is well-known amongst both developers and players that Australia has one of the most onerous and hardline classification systems in the world. From AAA titles including FALLOUT 3 to indies including DISCO ELYSIUM and most recently SLUDGE LIFE and LAKE , there are a significant number of titles that run into release problems under our current classification guidelines. In this PAX Australia 2021...

Mel Taylor from Brisbane's Mellow Games was inspired by her own life to make BLUEBERRY a story focused platform game with light puzzle elements that follows a character's life from beginning to end. This semi-autobiographical game explores how our perspective shifts throughout our lives, climbing a tower filled with memories that you can replay as you get older and understand new points of...

‍Iris and Paul Anstey of Melbourne's Melting Parrot are first time game developers, but their teamwork on DAP  a spooky adventure game with a charcoal drawing aesthetic is a combination of this couple's interests. Recently awarded the top prize at Japan's Bitsummit, The Vermillion Gate Award , and the prize for best sound this Pikmin like twin stick shooter hides complexity within it&#...

Johnny Galvatron of Melbourne's Beethoven & Dinosaur   almost became a 3D animator, but musical success with his band the Galvatrons saw him head down another path. A love of games and storytelling never left him and once the touring was over his next project began with the musical adventure THE ARTFUL ESCAPE. This narrative sci-fi adventure game combines Hollywood talent like Lena Headey,...

Webbed is an cute pixel art platformer from Queensland based Sbug Games and features an adorable spider using her web-spinning skills and LASER EYES to save her boyfriend! Originally designed as a Just Cause 2 demake, the web like linking grappling hooks inspired this much anticipated game featuring stacks of Australian animals. ‍ Riley Neville (Programming, Art, Sound and Game Design) and Noah Se...

Dr Michael Kasumovic is an evolutionary biologist at UNSW and founder of science education organisation Arludo who this week is taking to Twitch as part of National Science Week to teach kids through video games. Quokkapocalypse is a free game developed as part of the Sydney Science Trail that shows the impacts of predators and prey in an environment as you balance the populations. Quokkapocalypse...

Gregory Louden (Returnal, Quantum Break, STONE) and Convict Games are back with BURN a brand new interactive narrative game with a branching story following pop start Nina Burn through the different phases of her life. Building on the experiences of making STONE , the hip-hop stoner noir game, and as Narrative Director on Housemarque's Returnal Louden shares how the story weaves music and star...

Developer Paul Schnepf , one third of Grizzly Games who made Islanders and Superflight, was inspired by Tony Hawk Pro Skater to take up skateboarding when he was a kid, but nothing ever really captured the actual feel of skating. That's why he made THE RAMP , a isometric minimalist skating game with no points that looks amazing and tries to capture that state of flow. Music in this episode fro...

Alisha Stone is the Creative Director of Tasmania's Myriad Game Studios , a small team that have just released the narrative story game Where The Snow Settles. Where the Snow Settles draws inspiration from filmic genres telling the story of Aurelia as she travels through a world facing ecological collapse. Learn how the team juggled other work and balancing their expectations to deliver a game...

Paul Turbett and Anthony Sweet of Perth's Black Lab Games are no strangers to big franchises, they made the critically and fan acclaimed strategy game Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock , but when the opportunity came to work on one of the biggest science fiction universes Warhammer 40,000 they leapt at the challenge. Warhammer 40,000 Battlesector is that game, which has been released this week to...

Put your urban planning hat back on for Mini Motorways a minimalist puzzle game where you build roads in an ever expanding levels and makes its Steam debut this week. Casey Lucas-Quaid is Community Manager at New Zealand based Dinosaur Polo Club and share the fun feedback given by players, how to set up a good community ground rules and how this game evolved from Mini Metro which we featured on Ep...

Build your own cross-planet delivery vehicles and trek across the great red marble in Mars First Logistics , the newly announced game from multi-award winning game designer Ian MacLarty . We spoke to Ian about the ideas behind the game, designing the perfect mars rover and more. Pixel Sift is produced by  Viv Thum ,  Fiona Bartholomaeus ,  Daniel Ang  &  Adam Christou .  Mitch Loh  is Senior P...

Jump behind the wheel of an amazing transforming spy-machine in Agent Intercept by New Zealand's PikPok which has just made it's Steam debut after arriving on Apple Arcade last year. Rick Stemm, Design Manager & Robin Wilson-Davey, Production Artist shared their design inspirations and what it took to bring this mobile game to your PC. Pixel Sift is produced by  Viv Thum ,  Fiona Barth...