General Chat

If anyone happens to wonder what I get up to when I’m not creating music for everyone, I write and direct films that hopefully help kids (and grownups) learn important things.

Here's a link to the page on my new site where you can freely access all of the "Dune's Island" episodes. I’ve enabled the download function on Vimeo so you don’t even have to be online to share it with your kiddos.

https://www.dunesisland.org/episodes

Enjoy…and please feel free to share with anyone who might find it useful.

Stay safe and healthy.

https://scontent.ftpa1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/s960x960/94883299_60184…

I had always intended "Dune's Island" to be an immersive learning world. The idea was to produce films that teachers and home educators could actually pull lessons from to share with their students. After completing the episodes, a team of science teachers went through the films and created curriculum for grades K-5 that ties into the episodes.

Here's a link to it: https://www.dunesisland.org/curriculum

Please feel free to share it!

Click on dashboard on the top right and then "Post Journal"

ahhh thanks!

will close the survey tomorrow night!

Is it just in a basic place-holder state or not at all and just an idea?

Pretty much.
Had them subscribed for ages via RSS and haven't heard a peep.

You could say we've had a pretty good run, though. I remember migrating the database over to a new CMS and seeing how frequent forum posts used to be in the site's heyday. It really was quite a lot more active. I'm sure some of the old regulars like Kezza can attest to that.

I think a lot of niche and small websites like tsumea have found their visitors slowly migrate over to social websites (Reddit) and services (Facebook, Twitter etc) over the years. I've been contemplating on what to do with the site - either shut it down or re-focus on a few specific core areas (I've chosen the latter and have been working on some things for what seems like ages now). If that doesn't really do much to provide usefulness to local games developers, however, it might be an idea to send this ship out to sea.

I don't think you should shut down the website down though, it's a good location in order to find news of what's going on with the Australian games industry scene, plus you see a lot more Australian specific games job listings that are more current and relevant than say on GDAA. Plus the database of developers does help a lot in terms of keeping track of who's around and who's doing what. Basically, don't shut the site down, it's good! :)

I like your idea of refocusing the scope of the forums to specific areas, and agree with bugfush on saying it is good having something more for australia/NZ around.
I'd love to see it grow into something more, what exactly I'm not sure tho.

...wow, it's been forever since I poked my nose in around here.. but I really owe my beginnings to some of the people that frequented these forums 'back in the day' - I'm now working on the new Mirror's Edge at DICE in Sweden.. and it all started out with some very humble attempts to learn about the industry here :) I wish I could do something to give back and put some life back into this forum to encourage other aussies down the same path.

It's sad to see the site go!

Tsumea was where I went to find a list of companies to apply to, after finishing at the AIE in Canberra 8 years ago, and has been a staple read from before and since then.
Obviously, the industry has been hit from all sides in Australia over the last 5 years or so, and that surely takes its toll.

Souri, good luck with future projects, thanks for all the hard work over the years, we all look forward to hearing more about your adventures in Unity!!

In the blog post that I made previously, I outlined my plans with the site so that it can continue without me spending my time on it all day, everyday. So, we're not exactly shutting down the site, but it is going on automatic mode where people can submit their own news and jobs etc. People should still be able to find jobs and our listing of developers and services here and hopefully find talent here for their projects, but the days of me doing all the daily news writing, continual site maintenance, upgrades, research and development, and in the last year building new features and applications, are over. Web development was never my passion and I'd rather be sinking my time and efforts on something I love (and miss) doing, just like all you guys. Art and games!

Have you thought about handing the reigns to someone else?

Ah, yes, actually I read that post, and still managed to make it sound like Tsumea was going to disappear, even though I know it isn't :P
Sorry about that!

Good luck with everything, games development is the best :)

People may still check out the site some time later so it wouldn't hurt to keep using it passively and see who may be interested in utilising it for a small community or users.

Hi siir65,

There are many game engines out there for you to get started, but I'll just name two that I really know well. If you want to make mobile games, Unity or Unity3d are good programs for that. The main difference is that Unity is for free and Unity 3d charges a fee. If you want to build a Console/PC game, Unreal Development kit (UDK) is a good tool for that, however you can still build it for mobile devices.

My advice to you is, if you want to build your "first proper game" have a lot of patience. When I first got my hands on these game programs, I got so excited to build my first game that I rushed it so I can play it. I can tell you that I never finished it because I skipped some tutorials I thought weren't necessary and I thought it was wasting my time, later on it was hard for me to move onto the advance stuff.

Learning how to program can unlock UDK's and Unity's full potential, so go pick up a C# book(for Unity) or watch/read internet resources about unreal Script. Making your first game can be your biggest hurdle, but once you get over it the ride becomes much smoother.

Good luck

If you haven't read it already, I do highly recommend reading our article on making games without programming:

http://www.tsumea.com/articles/150413/making-games-without-programming

So if you want to make games without investing some serious time and jumping head-in into c# programming / UnrealScripting, then some of the programs/add-ons mentioned in that article will make your games-making progress much, much easier.

Hey siir65,

Firstly, it's great to see that you want to get into games development!

If you've had experience with Game Maker then you're already on your way to making your first game! Although some people tend to look down on Game Maker, I think it's a great place to start. I've heard 100 times that "your first 10 games will suck, so get them out of the way quickly". Although this might not be entirely true for everyone, making a handful of small, simple games will really teach you a lot about the processes of making a game, all the small details that can often be overlooked or taken for granted, and the importance of scope. You won't be able to build your dream game as your first project, but that doesn't mean you can't spend some time making a small 5-minute game the best it can be. You'll have a quick turn around time, and a solid base to start building your portfolio and collaborating with other developers. If Unity/UDK seem a little intimidating, stick with Game Maker until you feel comfortable making the switch, and once you understand more about what it takes to build a game (other than just art and code), you'll be on your way to start moving up to bigger projects.

Oh, and if you ever get stuck on a project, never be afraid to ask the community for help! We have an awesome game dev community here in Australia, and you'll quickly find that a lot of people are happy to give you a few minutes of their time to help you overcome problems that we've probably all faced in the past! :)

Edit: I just noticed that this thread is about 5 months old, haha! Hopefully the new changes to Tsumea will awaken the forums again! :)

The Binary Mill (developers behind the awesome Mini Motor Racing) are located on the Gold Coast.

http://www.thebinarymill.com

There's also N3V Games who are doing some cool stuff on mobile...

http://n3vgames.com

Bitfrost Studios are said to have set up on the Gold Coast from mid 2012...

http://www.valhallastudiosbifrost.com.au/learn/valhalla-overview

There's also 2 Dudez, although they've been fairly quiet lately.

http://www.2dudezstudios.com

A smaller group of us also formed Well Placed Cactus last year.

We all work from our separate homes and I am on the Gold Coast so technically we qualify as well. We are still trying to find our feet a little, but we will get there on game at a time.

http://wellplacedcactus.com/

Thank you souri for the links , they are very much appreciated.

Also thank you Paul for the link to your business site also.

I'm trying to find out what's a smart way to get into the gaming industry. I've a huge passion for games and have created a couple of board game concepts as well as currently designing a MMORPG (on paper). I have no qualifications though and was hoping for some suggestions from industry experts on a good path to follow. I'm currently looking into courses and have downloaded a few programs to get familiar with including Blender, Unity, and Visual C# 2010

Cheers all.

Rhino.

Because the website isn't fully operational yet, we can start to post our own ideas and themes here in this thread for discussion.

Currently, on an overall level I think we should keep the scale small and make the game work on a 2D level. 2D plane and interactions; side scrolling or top down.

We can still use 3D art we will just export 3D models out as single images or multiple to make animations.

What would you guys like to see done?

I recently did a 24 hour game jam set up by Harry Lee who was at the global game jam as well. We came up with this unity game I'm pretty proud of, Carniverse, which of course was in 3d.
http://toeofdoom.com/carnivale/

So theres no reason to get attached to doing a 2d style game at this point, unity and a number of other engines support quick prototyping for 3d gameplay.

That said, theres nothing to say we can't use 2d style either, though I'm going to recommend against using a 2d style with sprites exported from 3d programs. If you have the geometry, use it.

Theres so many good ways of using lighting and economic re-texturing with 3d that unless we're using a dedicated 2d engine and art-style (which I'm all for, 2d fighters are one of my favorites) that theres really no point in not using 3d geometry in engine, if your going to go to the trouble of making it.

~Kai

Well currently we are looking at using the Shiva 3D engine because it is far more cheaper for iOS dev than unity. It will also enable us to make 2D games the same way Unity does.

the main problem I for-see with 3D dev is that so much more work will be needed in order to get it to operate functionally, especially given that rendering any sort of 3D game on an iOS platform has a lot of frame rate restrictions. And we also don't yet know just how capable Shiva is.

Going for a 2D style with 3D sprites simply enables some of the artists involved on the project to exercise their 3D skills, not because its the most optimal way haha.

However with a theme and game concept we should have a better idea as to which technical direction we will take the project.

heres one of my theme words: lost socks.

your objective in the game is to match lost socks lost in a space vacuum at the back of a drier/washing machine.

~ RyanK

How many 48hours sessions are you guys planning to have before the game is published?

currently we are looking to do 4, one weekend per month from april to july.

~ RyanK

would you have time to write up the simple description/dimentions/frame count for each asset or upload pixel templates which artwork could be put over? i'm currently making some zombies but being for a 'house of the dead' clone they might be a bit skinny. (alternative is to let you play with the max geometry and textures)

http://www.tsumea.com/journal/davidcoen/270111/iphone-development-openg…

Hey everyone,

The website is now live!

Check out www.vgprices.com to search and view the best video game prices in Australia.

New features will be coming in the next few weeks!

VGPrices.

Hey again everyone.

We have updated the site, and added new features.

The last Top Ten of the year has the coolest 10 games of 2010.
Our new feature is Specials. You can now browse through the specials on offer from 11 different game retailers.

Don't forget to spread the word of the site, the more support we get means the cheaper prices for you!

Cheers,
VGP

great idea. I generally use cdwow.com.au for most games or import from the uk. A quick test for alan wake on xbox 360 was marked $59.94 as the cheapest on your site but was $29.95 on cdwow maybe you would think of adding it and other smaller online retailers to your site eventually

Thanks for the tip, we will add cdwow to our list of retailers.

Don't forget that we list in-store and online prices, so the $59.94 price you saw was the in-store price.

Cheers,
VGP