Lightmap - Conversations with video game creators

Nico King is the Creative Director at Chaos Theory Games in Sydney and one of the creators behind Rainbow Reef . The game combines Nico's passion for coral reefs and aquarium building by putting players in charge of a small section of reef and cultivating the coral to attract and foster different sea creatures. We learn all about why Chaos Theory Games does what it does and what it's tryin...

Matt Clark is the Technical Director at The Voxel Agents and  he joined us this week to speak about their upcoming game The Gardens Between. This stylish and calm puzzle game drops two friends into surreal nostalgic worlds where players do not control their movements but the direction of time itself. The Gardens Between were selected for the PAX Australia Indie Showcase in 2017 , and we learn how...

Roman Maksymyschyn joins us to talk about Bit Dragon's latest project Hyper Jam , an arena brawler that has players fight with colourful attacks in neon soaked maps. Roman spoke to us about moving from 2D to 3D style gameplay and the impact of grants like the Unreal Dev Grants will have on the development of his game. With big personalities Robert Kraft (owner of the New England Patriots) will...

Morgan Jaffit is Creative Director and co-founder of Brisbane's Defiant Development and our guest on our first episode for 2018. Morgan joined us to talk all about the making of hybrid action, tabletop style RPG Hand of Fate 2 . With development of the first Hand of Fate title completed Morgan and the team turned their attention to perfecting the game design, and building on what they had lear...

We're back for another live episode at Perth Games Festival and this year we're speaking with some early career developers from our home state of Western Australia. In a freewheeling discussion we talk with Jak and Matt from Artisans Games , who previously joined us on episode 78 & Josh and Gus of Simple Productions who've taken their uni project to the public for the very first ti...

Travers Dunkinson one of the minds behind Heist , a game where you play as a cat burglar stealing your way through a noir style city with only non-lethal gadgets to defend yourself joined us for our final live episode for 2017.  The trailer for Detroit Become Human has sent shock waves through mainstream media. Many news outlets quick to cast judgment on the subject of the gameplay footage. But co...

Dylan J. Walker, Creative Director and developer from  ONERAT GAMES joins us this week . We’ve spoken to Dylan in the past at PAXAUS  2017  and  2016  but now we have him on the show with us to go into more detail about his latest project  Elden , Path of the Forgotten a medieval RPG featuring a diverse collection of locations and creepy Lovecraftian enemies. We took a number when it all began and...

Ed Orman from Uppercut Games joined us to discuss his latest game, City of Brass , a Rogue-lite FPS that pays tribute to the Arabian Knights tale of the same name. Armed with a scimitar and “the most versatile whip ever created” you slash and crack your way through a procedurally generated world filled with traps, treasure and ghoulish foes. We spoke to him about the inspiration behind the game as...

We teamed up with fellow Western Australian podcasters Party Loaded to bring you a collaborative episode recorded live on the PAX Australia convention floor featuring some of our favourite picks and games from the show. Party Loaded is a weekly 60 – 90 minute show presented by Luke, Imogen, Jam & Olly, serving up fun in the form of news, reviews and interviews from the wider video gaming indus...

Simon Boxer of Twice Different joins us this week to talk about making his brand new mobile game, , a colourful endless runner style side scroller. As you propel yourself along this bouncy world, you won’t let those pesky children have all the fun, all while avoiding the obstacles and staying in the bounce. We spoke to Simon about making his game with a team that is spread between Melbourne, Perth...

We sit down with Peter Curry, a Programmer & Designer from Dinosaur Polo Club, developers of Mini Metro . Mini Metro is a subway planning puzzle game, that puts the fun in fundamental transport logistics, with a great procedurally generated soundtrack and a fantastic minimalist design. Peter joined us from Wellington, New Zealand and we learned what it's like to develop a game about subway...

Diving into a world of shadow play and adventure, Projection is game in which you control light to enable new platforms of discover , exploration and puzzle solving all whilst experiencing and controlling historically rooted shadow puppetry. Michael Chu of Sydney’s Shadowplay Studios joined us to discuss his upcoming game, being selected for the PAX Australia Indie Showcase , and rebuilding from s...

Collateral Damage is a multiplayer area brawler featuring a cast of unique characters and diverse fighting styles and Perth’s very own Matthew Sears and Jak Gem from Artisans Games joined us this week. The game is currently in beta, and they spoke about taking the game to shows, and learning from how players play their game. We also spoke about the economics of games pricing and what it means to g...

Christy Dena is a writer, designer and director at Universe Creation 101 . She joined us to talk about “ Crafting Intangibles ”, a free online interactive writing event which you can watch online now. Featuring talks from Narrative Designers and games writers from all over the world, Crafting Intangibles brings them together to share knowledge about how to write better for games and interactive ex...

Ian Gregory, Creative Director, of Singaporean based Witching Hour Studios the studio behind their latest project Masquarada: Songs and Shadows joins us on the show this week. Ian shared this thoughts on the struggles of developing a game in a country that is just getting its head around the idea of games being a positive influence and proving to the world Singapore’s creative strength. Ian also j...

Paul Turbett and Anthony Sweet from Black Lab Games who are based right here in Perth talk to us about their latest project Battlestar Galactica Deadlock and we asked what it is like to be responsible for the new game adaptation of one of the most beloved science fiction series ever and how to write a game in an established universe With subscription services like Netflix making it much easier to...

Cheryl Vance and Joel Styles are developers of the soon so be released Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles .  Yonder is a gentle and friendly open world game releasing on Steam and Playstation 4 on Tuesday 18 of July! While we had them they shared what it is like to develop a game with a unique soft style and an adventure experience with no combat involved, while drawing on the open world games y...

Adric Polkinghorne from Jammed Up Studios joins us to talk about Think of the Children , a game that teaches us the struggle of keeping children alive. It's a chaotic child micromanagement game, built out of the adrenaline and excitement of a game jam, which in now being translated into a commercial release. Spurred on by a very vocal Twitch chat, Adric shared his thoughts on walking the thin...

Julian Wilton from Sydney and Jay Armstrong from the UK are from Massive Monster,  creators of The Adventure Pals . We spoke about working together despite the distance between them and merging two iconic gaming genres into one. For years Steam Greenlight has been the number one way that indie developers could get their ideas out there, generate interest and build an audience. But after 5 years of...

David Clark one of the creators of Ori and the Blind Forest , joined us this week. Did you know that Ori was programmed right here in Western Australia? David filled us in on what it was like developing a game with a team he first met when showing off the game at E3. David's friend and former housemate Simon Holland joined us as well to share some stories of living with him as he made Ori. Thi...

Dr Jennifer Hazel is one of the co-founders and Director of Checkpoint an organisation that aims to get the conversation going around mental health and gaming. Checkpoint have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund a video series which looks at the way mental health is portrayed in games, and to promote healthy practices for those who play games and work in games. We talk about healthy...

Travis Avery and Sean Gabriel from THE FOREGONE SYNDICATE spoke to us about their latest game DESYNC. A set in digital world laced with neon and classic 80s style geometry DESYNC forces players to think on their feet be quick on the trigger and more importantly, improvise. We’re also tackling the “ Frustum Culling ” conundrum. Last week when Kotaku gave their readers a peek under the hood of PS4 f...

Nick Smith is the lead art director at EarthWork Games and he joined us to talk Forts . Forts is a 2D base fortification & assault game, finely crafted by an experienced team. Nick took questions from us and the viewers on Twitch. With the much anticipated Persona 5 finally on on the shelves many fans were raring to dive into the JRPG . But the western release came with a warning from publishe...

Andrew Freeth joined us live from South Australia to give us the details on his new game Brief Battles . Brief Battles is studio Juicy Cupcake' s first shot at a commercial release, featuring a cast of quirky characters with even quirkier power doing battle over a number of interactive 2D battle ground. We look into gaming history, specifically how StarCraft has gripped its dedicated community...

We're back at Oz Comic Con again this year and we've brought along some of our pals.  This year we were joined by Sof Mather , Hien Pham and Oscar Brittain . We asked them "Why do you create?" which is basically the these statement of Pixel Sift, but why not be explicit for once? Join us for this extended live episode and learn a little bit about what makes these game developers, a...