Sometime two years ago, I stumbled on a nugget of information which I thought was just awesome. Tucked in a feature on Australia's most iconic game studio, Beam Software, was an explanation of where the name Beam originated from. Who knew that it had nothing to do with radiating light or something obvious like that but was a name made up from the initials of Beam founders, Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen? It made me wonder how many people that worked there perhaps never knew that!
So what were…
Sometime two years ago, I stumbled on a nugget of information which I thought was just awesome. Tucked in a feature on Australia's most iconic game studio, Beam Software, was an explanation of where the name Beam originated from. Who knew that it had nothing to do with radiating light or something obvious like that but was a name made up from the initials of Beam founders, Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen? It made me wonder how many people that worked there perhaps never knew that!
So what were…
CEO of the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, Ron Curry, has written an opinion piece for ABCNews online on the rapidly maturing video games sector and how it's been bogged down by an insufficient classification system. He provides some impressive game sale results of 2008 and outlines some interesting research results conducted by Bond University to show how widespread games entertainment is today. It would seem that games entertainment has become a far reaching and culturally…
Move over Qantm and QUT, it looks like the University of the Sunshine Coast is making headway on getting their students into game development jobs too. It also helps that nearby the campus is the new Queensland studio of Big Ant Studios.
The Courier Mail reports that the new studio is currently running with 30 staff and hopes to expand to 84 in the next four years, with a good number of students from the USC Innovation Centre expected to be recruited on a part time basis.
From the Courier Mail…
Firemint have just release a new casual game for the iPhone and the iPod touch called Flight Control. The game involves you guiding different types of airplanes to their landing spots by drawing out a path for them using your finger. There's some strategy involved of course, and I'm sure it gets a lot more hectic as it throws more planes the further your progress. Check out the youtube footage below of Flight Control in action - I really dig the 50's era artstyle, and the music captures that…
Video Notes:
My musings and thoughts on the PC port of the game , Puzzle Quest Galactrix.
The video sources, excluding the 3 second work in progress animation near the start of the video are all based off assorted promotional videos floating around the net that show Galatrix gameplay. These vids can be found at places like Gametrailers. I just simply chopped and jumbled them up.
These are just personal observations about the game. I hope you all enjoy the musings. :)
Cheers!
DesignerWatts
In an interview which has caused more headlines than Creative Assembly Australia could possibly care for, it seems the imminent release of Stormrise has been marred just slightly by the news that the PC version of the RTS game developed by the Brisbane studio will only run on DirectX 10 and Vista.
PCgameshardware.com has an interview with Stormrise Lead Designer, Artem Kulakov, on the technical aspects of the game, with the revelation that Stormrise will not fall back on anything older than…
