Dissecta Archives 2008
March 2008: Student Developer: Chris Pelling and Mayhem Intergalactic
Held Friday 28th March 2008 at the Australian Games Innovation Centre, AIE Melbourne. Chris Pelling of Inventive Dingo, Australia's only finalist in the 10th Annual Independent Games Festival Student Competition judged recently at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, came down from Canberra for this special Friday evening Dissecta event. Chris gave a development history of his game Mayhem Intergalactic, a demonstration, and an account of his experiences with the Independent Games Festival. Chris, a student at the Australian National University, also discussed the challenges facing student developers.
February 2008 Dev Focus: GDC '08 Debrief
Held Tuesday 26 February 2008 at the Australian Games Innovation Centre, AIE Melbourne. Tom Crago, CEO of Tantalus Interactive and President of the Game Developers' Association of Australia, Rob Murray, CEO of Firemint, and Kynan Woodman, Development Director at Firemint. All speakers were hot off the plane from the Game Developers Conference 08 and gave a rundown on the event with Tom also covering the recent DICE Summit 2008. Dissecta also gave away 3 x 'Lost t-shirt and Poster' packs thanks to Ubisoft.

January 2008 The Craft of Game Audio
Sponsored by Media Arts Lawyers
Held Tuesday 29 January 2008, The Craft of Game Audio with SEGA/Creative Assembly's Richard Vaughan, composer and sound designer. Richard, a 10 year industry veteran, discussed the joys and challenges of audio production in game development, his top tips and tricks, and good sound design and how to make it better. Richard's most recent work includes the BAFTA nominated Triple A titles 'Rome' and 'Medieval II' and the new expansion 'Kingdoms' in the award winning Total War series. Richard will also speak about the difference between designing audio for games versus film, and take audience questions. Medieval II Total War on Metacritic: rating collection website Metacritic.com provides that Medieval II Total War has an average review score of 88/100 (link) while its recent expansion game Kingdoms has an average review score of 85/100 (link).

Dissecta Archives 2007
September 2007 Anatomy of a DVD Game
Held Tuesday 25th September 2007. We took an in-depth look at creating and commercialising DVD board games. Our key speaker Tom Parkinson, Managing Director of DVD Trivia Games Pty Ltd, was joined by Lewis Strudwick, Co-founder of game developer Acheron Design.

July 2007 The Life and Times of E3
Held Tuesday 31 July 2007. Our speakers discussed the E3 Expo, how it became the biggest video game exhibition around, why it needed to change to a more initimate event, and just what went on at the event this year. With game journalist and Screenplay blogger Jason Hill and GDAA President and Tantalus Interactive CEO Tom Crago. Dissecta also showed a collection of select video clips featuring several games shown at E3 2007.

June 2007 Second Anniversary show - What a DigiBLAST! Sponsored by Tantalus Interactive. Held Tuesday 19 June 2007. To celebrate Dissecta's second anniversary we brought together both hardware and software development with a touch of business reality, in What a DigiBLAST!, the story of the Melbourne designed handheld console released in Europe in 2005. Speakers were Jefferson Harcourt, Managing Director of Grey Innovation, the makers of the DigiBLAST, and Grant Davies, head of Endgame Studios, developers of several fine action games for the console. We also gave away three massive prize packs featuring games from Vivendi, Atari, Activision, Mindscape, Red Ant Enterprises, and more. We also used the event to raise $400 for the Alfred Hospital Foundation via ticket sales and a generous gift from our sponsor, Tantalus Interactive.

May 2007 Hands On Games
Held 29th May 2007. Tony Course, CEO of eBallGames Pty Ltd and Michael Hodgson, Manager Gametraders Croydon, discussed hands on video games. Tony took the audience through the development of his company's E Ball Technology and their large scale inflatable sports simulator where participants engage in a real life sports based skill through a video based simulator. Michael discussed hands on games at the retail level, current products in the market, and customer reaction and uptake. Dissecta also took a look at Ubisoft Montreal's Ubidays 07 with a handful of Ubidays 07 video clips shown courtesy Gametrailers.com. With Q&A and after-show complimentary networking drinks.

April 2007 Event Puzzle Quest: Creating Magic with Infinite Interactive
Sponsored by the game makers themselves, Infinite Interactive
Held 24th April, Steve Fawkner and team from Melbourne developer Infinite Interactive discussed their new DS and PSP game, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, which was released in North America in March, derives from a rich development heritage involving the Warlords series on PC, and exemplifies the new era of opportunities available with today's handheld consoles. With Q&A, Puzzle Quest giveaways, and complimentary networking drinks, courtesy the game makers. Plus the $5 door charge went to the Alfred Hospital Foundation (The Alfred Foundation).

March 2007 Event Dev Focus: GDC07
Sponsored by IR Gurus * Free event held 27th March
An in-depth look at the leading annual game development industry event, the Game Developers' Conference, held only last week in San Francisco. Ben Hutchison, Lead Developer at Playscape Games, highlighted trends and insights from the Conference such as user generated content, non-conflict orientated play, and casual gaming amongst other things while Amelia King, Manager (Digital Media Fund) of Film Victoria discussed how the Conference assists in informing program and policy discussions. With select high resolution video clips courtesy Gametrailers.com, Q&A, and complimentary networking drinks and snacks.

PLAYSTATION®3
Sponsored by Sony Computer Entertainment, held 27th February and booked out.
Adrian Christie, SCE's Public Relations Manager, came down from Sydney to provide a guided tour of the PLAYSTATION®3 and several highly anticipated titles including Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm. With half of the show, and the networking drinks, dedicated to hands on time for the audience.

Dissecta Archives 2006
November 2006 Event: Beyond Games: SL, Tringo, and Other Stories
Sponsored by VastPark, DVDfeed, and White SW Computer Law
Dissecta presented Nathan Keir (aka Kermitt Quirk), described by Good Weekend 14 Oct 06 as one of Second Life's "most successful entrepreneurs". Nathan spoke about the virtual world that is Second Life, his avatar Kermitt Quirk, and Tringo. Tringo, inspired by Tetris and bingo, is a game developed by Nathan in Second Life which has since moved to the real world, having been released on the Nintendo GBA overseas by Crave Entertainment. With door prize giveaways, Dissecta showbags, complimentary after show drinks and games: we went hands on with Guitar Hero 2, and had a look at the world of VastPark on the Dissecta PC.

October 2006 Event: Tokyo is Game! Sponsored by Torus Games
Game guru and journalist Jason Hill of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald (screenplay) provided an insightful overview of this year's Tokyo Game Show, held late September including his own pics of the event. Dissecta presented a swag of Japanese flavoured video clips in a little festival of high-rez game media that shows Tokyo is Game! Then Bill McIntosh, MD of Torus Games, spoke on the challenges of original intellectual property. Giveaways on the night included five Yakuza packs consisting of the very engrossing and stylish game Yakuza, and a special Yakuza bottle opener, courtesy Sega and THQ, and several cool Dark Messiah t-shirts courtesy Ubisoft. Networking drinks and games followed the formal presentations with developers from Torus Games on hand to show off and discuss their latest title on the PS2, and the demo version of Ubisoft's Dark Messiah of Might and Magic on the Dissecta PC.

Oct 2006 - Jason Hill taking questions on his experience at the Tokyo Game Show.

Oct - Networking drinks and games, PS2 in foreground, Dissecta PC in background.

September 2006 Event: Old World New Games - including Australian launch party for War World, Sponsored by distributor Stomp Entertainment
A great night: Tom Crago, CEO of Tantalus Interactive, gave a report on the Leipzig Games Convention, Morten Brodersen, CEO of Third Wave Games and Martin Wilkes, Games Manager at Stomp, discussed Europe and video games, and provided a snapshot of the travels of PC game War World to a European publisher and local distribution. After the presentations Dissecta had its first video game launch party, to celebrate local distribution of the retail version of War World, over some complimentary drinks.

Sept 2006 - Morten Brodersen and Martin Wilkes speak about War World.

Sept - Networking drinks and launch of War World to retail.

August 2006 Event: Game Game Audio - Access All Areas
Mick Gordon of Lava Injection Studios in Brisbane provided a lengthy insight into core aspects of game audio from getting the soundtrack right for your game, to the merits of outsourcing versus keeping audio in-house. Our topic for the night was introduced by Christopher Coe, game designer and independent recording artist (under the name Digital Primate). Included an exclusive pre-recorded interview with accomplished US based composer/sound designer Tim Larkin.

July 2006 Event: Game Development Funding and Finance Issues
Sponsored by Media Arts Lawyers
Our speakers Tom Parkinson, Chair of the new Electronic Games Investment Fund and proprietor of Avoca Media Holdings, and Melanie Wheeler, who was an investment banker for five years in London and specialised in mergers and acquisitions in the video games industry, provided an insightful discussion to the large audience about the issues involved in financing of game projects and principles underlying a game company's value.

20 June 2006 Film Victoria and Dissecta present: E3 Debrief
Sponsored by Lava Injection
This event was fantastic and booked out two weeks in advance. Grant Davies, CEO of Endgame Studios, and Steve Fawkner, CEO of Infinite Interactive, discussed the recent E3 Expo held in Los Angeles providing their inside view of trends, issues, games and hardware. A high definition video clip of the E3 Demo video for Dark Messiah (Ubisoft), which has the Dark Messiah developers discussing their approach to expanding the fantasy first person action game, was shown together with the E3 trailers for Lost Planet (Capcom/THQ), and Gothic 3 (Stomp Entertainment). Followed by complimentary networking drinks in the very nice Australian Games Innovation Centre Showcase Lounge. We gave away 50 Dissecta show bags containing game demos and CDs, and also gave away four great prize packs to celebrate our first anniversary. The GRAND PRIZE included one of the first Pyramat Rocker Chairs, generously provided by distributor Stomp Entertainment, and a THQ Lifestyle Pack featuring The Outfit (X360), a limited The Outfit X360 faceplate, a Golden Axe T-shirt, a Stubbs the Zombie T-shirt, a Juiced lanyard and Psychonauts (PC), generously provided by THQ. Both Stomp and THQ have been great supporters of Dissecta since we started in June last year. We also had three RUNNER UP PRIZES each featuring Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PC) kindly provided by UbiSoft, Heroes of Might & Magic V (PC) kindly provided by UbiSoft, Psychonauts (PC) kindly provided by THQ, World of Warcraft (PC) kindly provided by Vivendi Games, a PS2 game kindly provided by Red Ant Enterprises (the PS2 games were one of State of Emergency 2, Jacked, or Ford Street Racing), and a World of Warcraft poster kindly provided by Vivendi Games. And we gave away a consolation prize of a Red Ant PS2 game (Mortal Kombat: Deception) and the SWAT 4 expansion for PC.

20 June 2006 - Grant Davies, standing, speaking about E3.

20 June - Steve Fawkner going through his top E3 moments.

1 June 2006 Special Event: The IBM/Sony/Toshiba Cell Broadband Engine Processor (PS3) American Joey Sevin, Partner Development Director of Nasdaq listed Mercury Computer Systems, provided an overview of the IBM / Sony / Toshiba Cell Broadband Engine processor as seen in the Sony PS3, and potential applications including Mercury's work to leverage the new game industry derived technology and some potential serious games applications. Many thanks to SouthTech Systems for providing the opportunity to hear from Joey.

May 2006 Event: FUNdamentals of Cyber Sports Held 16 May, this event was a very enjoyable evening as our speakers reviewed the current state of competitive video gaming from an industry and player perspective, and also delved into the relationship of competitive gaming and sport. Our first speakers, Chris and Allan from 3xtreme Lan, discussed the technical and logistical aspects on their large community Lan events and player involvement, while our final speaker, Dr Brett Hutchins, lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, looked at competitive gaming in depth and challenged the audience to think about how the concept of competitive game playing should really be developed.

April 2006 Event: GDC 2006 - Dev Focus: Latest from the USA Ben Hutchison, Lead Developer at mobile developer Playscape Games, Brett Paterson, CEO and Lead Programmer at Firelight Technologies (FMOD), and Greg Hill, CEO of Soundwave Concepts and maker of super fine in-game effects specialising in motor vehicles (Juiced, Flatout and Flatout2) spoke about the GDC 06 held last month in San Jose, and Brett and Greg also showed off the FMOD audio engine from Firelight Technologies, a great practical show with lots of audience interaction... Thanks to Vivendi Universal Games for the giveaway, 5 big double-sided World of Warcraft posters.

Mar 2006 Event: Classification: Is the Time for Talk Over? Chris Hanlon, CEO of the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, Tom Crago, Vice President of the Game Developers' Association of Australia and also CEO of Tantalus Interactive, and Drew Taylor, Editor of JumpButton magazine provided a rivetting overview of video game classification in Australia at the Australian Games Innovation Centre (Academy of Interactive Entertainment Presentation Room), Melbourne, 28 March.

Mar 2006 - Chris Hanlon of the IEAA provides a detailed overview of video game classification.

Mar 2006 - Drew Taylor discussing video game ratings in his role as editor of JumpButton Magazine.

Feb 2006 Event: The Year of Next Gen - Chris Mosely, CEO of studio RedTribe and Martin Wilkes, Game Manager at distirbutor Stomp Entertainment, shared their views on how next generation affects their respective businesses and what they are doing about it. Held at the Australian Games Innovation Centre (Academy of Interactive Entertainment Presentation Room), Melbourne, 21 February.

Dissecta Archives 2005 (the last three events; note 3 earlier events were held June to August)

Nov 2005 Event: Heroes of the Pacific - Producers Ben Palmer and Justin Halliday gave a ripping account of the development of Heroes of the Pacific, out now on Xbox, PS2, and PC. Held 22 November 2005. Read Heroes of the Pacific: Dissecta Report, our summary of the event, with photos...

Oct 2005 Event: Sound and Music in Games - David Vodicka and Steven Fawkner held an informative discussion on use of music and sound effects in games, supported by a prerecorded interview with Sergio Pimental of Sony UK. Held Tue 25 October 2005.

October 2005: Sound and Music in Games

Sept 2005: Explore F4