Pixel Sift

Tom Cox, co-founder and lead programmer of Canberra’s Whalehammer Games joins us to talk about his new game Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire. Tom shared his thoughts on the challenges of making games, designing a game for a genre that he grew up with, and designing a science fiction/medieval game world, As gamers we are no strangers to the feeling of powering on our machines only to find that the network is offline, but sometimes this is because of a deliberate assault on the servers of those games. Back in 2014 a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack took out the Playstation Network and Xbox Live right in the middle of the holidays.. For the longest time it seemed like the perpetrators of these attacks were untouchable, using the anonymity of the internet to fade into obscurity after the deed has been done. But now the law has caught up to small collection of disruptors. It wouldn’t be an episode of Pixel Sift without touching on the topic of eSports. Notable sporting figures such as Magic Johnson S

It’s the big five zero this week for Pixel Sift, that right episode 50 is here! For this milestone we brought the show to Perth Games Festival 2016 for a live panel! First off we talked gaming with friends, how most interactive experiences can be enriched by playing with a close companion. We also welcomed back a couple of old favourites onto the show. Liam Hunt from ByteSprite Games, Mark Mennell from Gnomic Studios and Anthony Sweet from Black Lab Games all joined us to talk about their experiences releasing their games to the world. The trials they faced, what surprised them and how not to make mess of the whole process. This is an insight into the publishing world you don’t want to miss. Finally we tackled a couple of questions you submitted over the past couple of weeks in a fun little question and answer session. There were quite a few to choose from and we didn’t quite get through them all but we sure had a good time shedding some light on the queries you threw at us. Thank you to everyone that made it

The limit to what developers can add onto their games after launch is being pushed further and further with each title release. Now many games are entering the market for free and charging players for pieces of the game. The purchases players make can start to quickly add up often totalling more than the cost of a full retail game. Buying so many small in game items can get out of control for some gamers. For our first topic this week we take a look at the free to play model and the potential minefield micro transactions. This week we have Michael Di Piazzi from +7 Software live in the studio with us. He’s here to talk about his new game Final Days. Developed right here in Perth by Michael himself Final Days is a top down zombie survival shooter. Michael shared the process of constructing the multiplayer shooter and the value of a strong player base. Final Days will be released on the Steam Greenlight program on the 3rd of October 2016 you can find out more about Final Days at http://plus7software.com/ where

Mainstream media is jumping onto the topic of video games more often these days but there is one aspect they keep failing to touch on, the power of the central Asian markets and development communities. Countries like China and South Korea are turning out quality titles that we just don’t ever see here in the west. With more and more great games coming from our friends in Asia there is a lot of talent and big money being thrown around, we cast an inquisitive eye up there this week to see what’s going on. Another week, another DMCA take down. Yet again Nintendo has taken another fan project off the net with its zero tolerance attitude towards any use of their intellectual property. No Mario Sky is the latest high profile casualty. We were lucky to talk to Sam Izzo the developer behind No Mario Sky and video game and entertainment lawyer Cam Rogers. The legal and creative minefield around the fan project is a difficult one to navigate, and Cam and Sam shared their stories. You can download DMCA's Sky, the r

Sometimes video games fail to hold their audience, and for multiplayer games a dwindling player base can push more players away to greener pastures. With news this week that Battleborn, launched at a similar time to Blizzard’s Overwatch, had dropped to just 2000 active players (ed. incorrectly stated as 500 players in the episode), and the call for a change in direction has already started. Is it just as simple as flicking the “free to play” switch? We also have a chat to Caroline Thant from Kodots Games. Caroline is the lead art director on their latest project Wanda. Wanda approaches the usually bleak and conflict filled post-apocalyptic genre from a perspective of love friendship and inner peace. Caroline was happy to tell us how her international team created their game. Escapism is an idea that all gamers are familiar with but sometimes games make reality the game. Many games such as GTA and the Sims try very hard to emulate things that occur in the real world, but they aren’t the most accurate simulatio

It’s well known that the average age of gamers is rising every year (or sometimes going backwards). With audience tastes changing, does this have an impact on the way games are made? With more adults joining in on the realm of gaming and more gamers growing up and entering full time work there isn’t always time to sink into an MMO character or schedule a six-man raid. While hardcore players may cry foul at the way game play is being designed, do their views represent everyone, or are they in the minority? For older gamers, a big part of the gaming experience can be revisiting the games you played as a kid. Jessie Yeoh is the owner of Perth’s own video game console museum The Nostalgia Box, and she shared her experiences collecting consoles, and doing the research needed to amass a collection big enough to open a museum. Early access delivery has become one of the most popular tools for indie developers to release their game while bringing in some funds to keep the project going. Gamers benefit as well by gett

If you've fought it out against your friends over games like Street Fighter II or Tekken you'll know the feeling of lighting fast reflexes, or in my case randomly mashing buttons. Some of the world's best fighting game players descended on Sydney to take part in the OzHadou Nationals 14, an annual event where every microsecond counts. Henry "Genxa" Sham, Tournament Organiser and Brand Manager of OzHadou joined us this week to talk about community, competition and congratulations. Head to OzHadou for more information on their monthly events. If you were like me you were probably told off in class for playing games on your calculator, especially if you weren't in maths. Today we're exploring the use of games in education and how serious games can be used to teach concepts in engaging ways. The mechanics of gaming are even being applied to the classroom, with the gamification of lessons. How can games help people learn, and what can we learn from games to teach better? Finally Riot Ga

We are joined live by Dr. Kate Raynes-Goldie, Director of Games & Interactive at FTI and winner of the WAITTA Incite “Achiever of the Year” award for her passionate advocacy for the Western Australian games industry, Kate filled us in on her hopes for the future of WA game development, her thoughts on the power of the indie game scene and how our favourite small creators may well hold the key to the future success of Australian made games. You can visit one of Kate’s projects, Playup Perth, a collaborative game testing night, at the The Nostalgia Box to sample some of WA’s finest indie games. You can visit http://playupperth.org/next-playup-event/ for tickets and details. Last week Mitch had endless trouble trying to run No Man’s Sky on the office PS4 with no web connection, so this week we’re looking at the internet connection conundrum. With more and more games requiring the internet to even launch, total offline gaming could be a thing of the past. What happens if you’re in an area where internet is sp

Live across the internet Steve Heller joins us, he’s Community Manager and Production Coordinator for indie publishing label Surprise Attack Games. Have you ever wondered what it takes to get all these Aussie indie games off the ground? Steve happily show us the ins and outs of indie game publishing. You can check out the growing stable of games Surprise Attack offer at http://www.surpriseattackgames.com. Most console owners dream of buying one machine and sticking with it for the long run. Even our Mitch doesn’t have the patience to constantly look for new graphics cards or hunt for driver updates. With confirmation that both Sony and Microsoft will be prepping new mid-cycle revamps to their respective consoles are the hardware developers wanting us to update more frequently? With the Xbox One S already on the shelves, and Xbox One Scorpio and the PS4 NEO somewhere over the horizon we asked what this means for those of us who’ve been happy updating their console every 5 or so years. Indie games are a particu

We had a chat to Bob Hayden, Bob is a West Australian developer working on a new game called Vectonic. Vectonic fills all your neon spaceship smashing needs. Bob filled us in on the challenges of creating good control feel as well as incorporating as many memes as possible into his colourful creation. You can find out more about Vectonic on http://www.vectonic.com The Olympics are right round the corner and that got us thinking about the relationship between games and official sporting tournaments. With international interest in the Olympics seeping away with every passing instance, could the introduction of eSports into the Olympic Games be the key to drawing the crowds once again? Aside from historians that spend their days in museums and libraries, no one is more obsessed with the past than the gaming community. Nintendo has a long history of catering for this with the release of a remake once every couple of years, however they have gone one step further this time with the NES Classic Edition. But in a wo

Films and television have used political intrigue as a basis for their storylines for a long time, and today we look at the games that do the same. Games can examine the ever changing and volatile nature of the politics, and can transport us to different worlds and contexts. Whether showing the conflict of interest those in power have, or simply having a joke at the spectacle of it all, games help us to understand the impact politics is having on our lives. We also had the pleasure of speaking to the founder and director of CheckPoint, Jane Cocks. CheckPoint is a new non-profit organisation dedicated investigating how games can be applied and designed to promote a positive headspace, or how games can help us understand the experiences of mental illness. Head to CheckPoint’s website to learn more about their mission http://www.checkpoint.org.au/ Valve’s DOTA 2 tournament “The International 2016” this week blew through the last prize pool record reaching a staggering $18,771,084.00 and counting. With the humung

We’ve reached our fortieth episode this week, and like every week before it we’re exploring the world around gaming. Have you ever seen another player gloat about winning a match or display less than sporting behaviour?  We’re looking at when other players aren’t “good sports,” the sore losers and the arrogant winners. Is it just part of online culture, or should we be working together to encourage more civility in competitive multiplayer? The last time we spoke to League of Geeks it was all the way back in episode 11, this time we’re joined by community manager Darcy Smith. Darcy was kind enough to talk to us about how LoG have made Twitch streaming a part of the way they work as a game development studio. We also brushed off the crystal ball and looked into the future of media and what part live streaming might play. You can watch League of Geeks do their thing over on http://www.twitch.tv/leagueofgeeks Finally we’re talking classism and elitism in games. In days gone by a person’s gear was measured in hour

This week we tackle cultural appropriation in video games. It's no secret that video game developers tend to borrow heavily from historical events and cultural tradition, but is this changing the way we approach history and culture for better or worse? We also got a chance to talk to Ari Gibson, William Pellen and Dave Kazi of Adelaide's Team Cherry. They talked us through the ins and outs of their new game Hollow Knight, a stylish platformer where you take control of a ground dwelling insect hero uncover the secrets of a mysterious and decaying world. You can find out more information about Hollow Knight at teamcherry.com.au We take on Pokémon Go for a second time this week. It's been a wild ride over the past eight days, as a result productivity has hit an all-time low due to Mitch and James contantly forsaking their duties to go after the nearest Pokéstop. With so many stories of heroism and cowardice revolving around the app what does the future hold for Niantic's newest world dominating g

This week we return to the Counter-Strike Global Offensive gambling scandal with news that prominent YouTubers Trevor 'TmarTn' Martin and Tom 'ProSyndicate' Cassell were revealed to be the owners of Counter-Strike skin gambling site CSGO Lotto. CSGO Lotto and sites like it have been accused of specifically targeting children and minors who wouldn't normally be able to gamble, but are spending real money on in game items. TmarTn and ProSyndicate have been accused of fixing matches on their site to make it appear that the odds were better than they actually are, and with audiences of more than 10 million people this has a significant impact. Joining us this week is Sydney based developer John Kane of Gritfish joined us on the line. We spoke about his newly released game Killing Time at Lightspeed which explores a cyberpunk future through the familiar world of social media. We spoke about some of the challenges of an extremely connected world, but the isolation that also brings. You can find

Its federal election time here in Australia and with less than 48 hours until voting begins. We were fortunate enough to have a chat with Western Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlum. The Greens have just announced a policy to not improve funding for game development in Australia, but broaden incentives for foreign companies making games in Aus based on feedback provided by the industry. With a half quota for senate seats, and polls sitting and nearly 50/50 smaller players like The Greens could have a big say in Australia's future.  We’re also talking violent vs non-violent problem solving in games. It seems that more often than not developers are pointing us toward an armoury as opposed to a handshake or negotiation. We explore why this is. Can we find peaceful solutions to the problems in our games without pulling the trigger on sight? Lastly the team take a closer look at Twitch’s new “Cheering” initiative. This new tool provides an alternate option for viewers to support their favourite streamers, b

This week on the show we were joined by two of the fantastic team at Giant Margarita, based in Tasmania, and making the cracker new game Party Golf. Dr Ian Lewis and Adam Zulkifly joined us today to talk about their "seconds to shouting" metric, designing a game perfect for parties and securing state government funding. You can check out their game at www.partygolfgame.com, and pick up the game on Playstation 4 and PC later in the year.Developer Tiny Build revealed this week that gaming key reseller G2A had sold approximately US$450,000 of their games. While many of the users who use this site are selling legitimately purchased in bundle a small number of people have been selling a large number of keys which in some cases have been purchased with stolen credit cards. We talk about the impact this has on developers, gamers, and the expectations on those sitting in the middle. With gaming media expanding beyond the older mastheads, and the push from game developers to get their games in front of as many

This week we speak to a master of animated gifs, Jacob Janerka. He’s a talent artist and designer and he’s working on his first game Paradigm, inspired by the weird and wonderful point and click adventure games made by Lucasarts and Sierra. We spoke about the challenges of making a game by yourself and the freedoms a one person dev team can bring. You can find more information about Paradigm over at http://www.paradigmadventure.com where you can download a demo right now. It’s one of the biggest events in gaming of the year and this year’s E3 was no different. We dive into the big announcements, some of the missteps, and pretty average justifications for decisions from the biggest developers. Finally today with a massive desire from the film industry for new stories, video games are being optioned to be made into feature films at a blistering rate. We explore when this has been done well, and when games fall far short of expectations. You can find us on all the social media sites, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

We’re back from our two-week break and we’re hitting the ground running, Gianni has returned from the land of pineapples and beaches to host once again. First off this week we’re talking justice for cheaters in online games. With player vs player elements in pretty much every title these days, the temptation to cheat can be too much for some people. But the creators of Overwatch, Blizzard have found a unique way to take down cheaters and keep them out of their servers for good. This week we spoke to sibling founders Elissa and Leigh Harris of Flat Earth Games. They spoke to us about their game “Objects in Space”. This space fairing simulator strays away from classic twitch based space combat to a more strategic system management style game coupled with a unique home built physical interface. Elissa and Leigh tell us how they are taking the genre into a new direction. You can find out more about their game at www.objectsgame.com With many new developers making great games, systems like Steam Greenlight can rea

This week on Pixel Sift we had to do without our fearless leader Gianni. In his absence Mitch took the helm along with guest presenter Brad Power. A long-time friend of Pixel Sift, Brad is a lecturer in Games Art and Design at Murdoch University.  We started off on a grimmer tone, with a discussion on how the Australian Government has recently cut funding to the arts, which may see many of the indie studios that benefit from more general arts funding losing out.  Earlier this week we spoke to Lisa Evans, a PHD candidate at Murdoch University and developer with Stirfire Studios. Lisa was kind enough to share her knowledge on implementing video games in research, and how that research will help with teaching people about science. Lisa is looking for more participants so if you have a moment to contribute, or you'd like to learn more about Lisa’s project visit her website to sign up. With game betas getting more publicity every year you could be forgiven for mistaking a beta period for the actual retail rele

There are many games that are so tough you feel like you can't win, but some games can be designed to be completed but at the end you aren't "victorious." We explore the different types of narratives, and compare stories in games to films, where the protagonist isn't always better off at the end. We spoke to Michael Cann, he's a Perth based developer from Epic Shrimp, and maker of the newly released Steam game Mr Nibbles Forever. We talked about how a misstep caused the removal of all his apps from the Google Play Store, and how working with a publisher to bring his mobile games to PC. You can find Mr Nibbles Forever on Steam, or check out Epic Shrimp's other games on their site http://www.epicshrimp.com This week it was claimed that developer Squad, makers of the hit indie game Kerbal Space Program, were paying their developers only US$2400 annually. With conflicting goals, and changes in direction have Squad bitten off more than they can chew or are they taking advantage of peopl