Next Wave's Free Play, the hugely popular national conference for game artists, is happening one month from today, on the 18th of August at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Federation Square, Melbourne.
Next Wave is thrilled to announce that our Keynote speaker is Jonathan Blow from the USA, an industry legend, programmer and award-winning designer of Braid. Jonathan works primarily on advanced and experimental video games. Braid won the "Game Design" award at the Independent Games Festival in 2006.
Johnathan will be speaking about what it means to be an independent game artist. He will also discuss the practicalities of shaping an idea into a prototype, using examples from Braid.
Free Play will also feature Robert J Spencer, Chief Operating Officer of Interzone Entertainment, a game publisher headquartered in Chicago with their main development studios in Perth. Interzone is a Publisher of "massively multiplayer online games" (MMOs), and the company plays a pioneering role in supporting independent games development through their Nullarbor Demo Party and Game Development Competition.
Robert is a game industry veteran with a wide range of strategic, sales and business development experience. Before co-founding Interzone he was Strategic Business Manager of BigWorld, where he worked with numerous developers on a range of MMOs, continuing his long association with online game development that started with a groundbreaking prototype in 1994. Robert has also launched and published three high quality computer games magazines; Australian PC Gamer, G+ and PC Games Plus, which was simultaneously published in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada.
Free Play is an independent game developer's conference which caters for independent and DIY game developers, creatively frustrated professionals, game development students, digital and new media artists, and academics. The event will feature a day-long program of keynote lectures and panel discussions, along with workshops, demonstrations and networking opportunities.
Free Play is supported by ACMI, Film Victoria, Arts Victoria and Crumpler.
Free Play 2007: Next Wave's Independent Game Developers Conference
DATE: Saturday 18th August 2007
TIME: 9:30am to 8:30pm
PLACE: Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Federation Square, Melbourne, Cinema 1 & Function Space
ENTRY: Tickets available now from the ACMI Box Office on 03 8663 2583: $20 Full & $15 Concession and Student
CONTACT: Next Wave on 03 9329 9422 for all other enquiries, or email gamers@nextwave.org.au
WEB: nextwavefreeplay.blogspot.com