ALT: Games Festival is the first dedicated event for gaming in Sydney and will showcase local and international designers
This weekend’s ALT: Games Festival promises to bring together all elements of the gaming world, from international and homegrown developers to local gamers. This story is part of a CONTENT PARTNERSHIP with Powerhouse.
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Chloe Appleby doesn’t do things by halves. When the games curator for the Powerhouse
Museum set out to create a gaming festival for Sydney, she left no stone unturned.
The 30-year-old games enthusiast mapped out events held across the globe to see where gaps in the market existed to put together the best possible program for Sydney’s first dedicated gaming event.
The result is the ALT: Games Festival, at PHIVE in Parramatta Square this weekend (April 12 -13), and promises to bring together all elements of the gaming world, from international and homegrown developers to local gamers.
“We worked out a way to do an event for both industry and for audiences to try to
bolster the local scene,” Appleby says.
“I hope it really spotlights the game industry and the makers locally, to showcase that it’s not, as a lot of people perceive, all about violence or boy-based games, like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, which as great as they are, is not the only thing that is out there.
“We are trying to showcase that video games are a contemporary medium for
storytelling and that there are fantastic makers locally that you could support.”
Appleby says the ALT: Games Festival is not the first in Sydney to include gaming in its program – the popular SXSW Conference has had a gaming component in it and there have been smaller local events – but it is the first in Sydney dedicated solely to gaming.
She says she hopes the inaugural event, which she anticipates will become annual, will shine a
spotlight on the Sydney gaming community in particular, which has lagged behind
Melbourne since the early 2000s.
“(The gaming community) is growing in Sydney,” Appleby says. “A lot of people (in
gaming) are based in Melbourne because historically games started there after the 2008
recession.
“Basically a whole bunch of people went overseas then but anyone left in Australia who was still making games ended up in Melbourne. And they made a lot of mobile or independent games, which is why Australia is so known for independent games.
“But in Sydney, it’s mainly larger organisations that are based here, like Riot Games,
UbiSoft, Xbox and PlayStation, but they are mainly just offices.
“So the independent game scene hasn’t really taken off here as much, which is why events like ALT are great for really promoting the scene here and bolstering it and it will hopefully get people to work in NSW.”
A major component of the Festival is ALT: SESSIONS where industry experts across a
wide berth of the games industry share their knowledge with emerging local developers.
Award-winning Canadian developer Daniel Mullins is on the bill, as well as US designer Richard Garfield, the UK’s Daniel Coppen and Japan’s Tomo Kihara.
A highlight of the festival is an installation which will showcase Coppen and Kihara’s
collaboration, How (Not) To Get Hit by a Self-Driving Car, on display for the first time in
Australia. The fun display challenges participants to cross a road undetected by AI-
powered self-driving cars, but also asks you to consider the wider implications of these
modern systems.
Another element will be ALT: PLAY, which will showcase independent game makers,
from works-in-progress to newly-released games.
And ALT: FEATURES will present big names in the industry, like Sydney’s Ally Hennessy as well as Mullins and Garfield, who will give talks on subjects like why they make games and what their design process involves.
“One of the main bits of feedback we got when we were planning the festival was that it’s great to go to events and hear talks, but people also want to learn more about the craft, particularly emerging developers,” Appleby says.
“The event is designed to be accessible to as many people as possible and so a lot of the elements are free, with some ticketed $10 events.
“We have a great platform to really showcase how games are a fantastic contemporary
medium for storytelling, for music, for a whole range of things.
“It was kind of a no-brainer because we are the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and video games are literally a merging of the two.”
When Ally McLean-Hennessy gets up to talk at ALT: Games Festival this weekend, game developers and game enthusiasts alike had better pay attention. The Sydney-based artist, developer and writer, who has worked on several award-winning and critically-acclaimed games, has a wealth of knowledge to share.
A keynote speaker at the ALT: FEATURES program, McLean-Hennessy will discuss the creative passion that drives developers to make games.
“Ally has always been involved in bolstering the industry and video games, particularly for women,” says Appleby.
“Ally is quintessential to the Sydney games community through her advocacy in the independent games area.
“As a creative in the space, Ally’s work is a prime example of how game practices and art transcend the medium and can apply to film, design and textile making.”
McLean-Hennessy started out in cosplay and has collaborated on creative projects such as designing an environmentally-friendly artisan candle.
She moved into computer game development, co-founding independent studio Lemonade Games with Inge Berman and Adam Matthews.
Her main success has been creating games that resonate with people in distinct and meaningful ways — such as Remu, Solium Infernum and her upcoming title Mystique Haunted Antiques which will be on display at ALT: GAMES.
Solium Infernum is a game set in hell and was the second-highest-rated strategy game in the world last year.
Mystiques Haunted Antiques, for which she was the game director and writer, is about the four worst women you’ve ever met who run a failing antique shop.
It won the SXSW Sydney People’s Choice Award.
Here are all the details for the ALT: GAMES Festival this weekend.
Gaming is dominated by electronic, high-tech video adventures, but humans have been playing games of some form for millennia and many can still be found today in the Powerhouse collection.
Backgammon became popular in the late 20th century, but its origins date back as far as 3000BC.
Draughts, also known as checkers, is another ancient board game believed to be derived from Alquerque, which was drawn on temple walls as early as 1400BC.
Chess originated in India in the 6th century with pieces representing the military units most common in warfare at that time. Another well known-game, Snakes and Ladders, also came from India — and the Powerhouse owns a 1910 English version.
One of the first games to enter the Powerhouse collection was an ornate gaming box with mother-of-pearl counters made in China and acquired in 1943.
The card game Cribbage, which was invented in the 17th century, an English farmyard game from around 1820s, and a Merry Multiplication game from the 1860s are also in the collection. As is an 1866 version of Snap, one of the world’s most recognisable card games, where players match images.
More recently, the Powerhouse has been adding more video and electronics to its collection including an Atari games consul.
A Nintendo Game Boy, with a copy of Tetris, is the most popular game console in history selling more than 64 million units since its inception in 1989.
Some of this vast collection is on display at Powerhouse Castle Hill’s Holidays exhibition as part of a showcase called The Games We Play.
This includes popular games such as a 1955 Australian-made version of Test Match, the cricket board game. There is also an English board game called Croquet for the Table and a set of playing cards with Australian images from the 1930s.
Powerhouse Castle Hill is open every weekend from 10am-4pm.
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