A couple of weeks ago, we ran our 6th ever WIP Night at our office in Sydney. In conjunction with International Women’s Day, we invited a few women in gamedev to talk about their games, as well as share them for playtesting on the night. Here’s a summary of how things went if you missed out!
Oraculus by Lucidity Loveworks, presented by Sophia Westmacott
Oraculus is an interactive murder mystery novel that allows the player to craft their own musical numbers based on the actions they take. It features whimisical and fabulous set pieces, music, characters and more!
On the night, we heard from Sophia, the team’s Game Designer, Creative Director, Sound Designer, Composer and Narrative Designer. After introducing the basic premise for the game, she went on to talk about how music shapes the world of Oraculus. More specifically, how traditionalist and modern composition shapes the factions that exist within the game. With samples of both types of music, Sophia shared that the characteristics of traditional music were that they were natural, had organic resonance and utilised heritage skills. Meanwhile, modern compositions were synthetic, with amplified clarity and a degree of customisation.
Kamata by STEMtoto, presented by Neema Iyer
On the night, Neema introduced Kamata, a cosy adventure game where you help Nia save the future of her island. Exploring the tropical paradise of Zimzemba, players help by recycling, composting, and uncovering hidden secrets.
During her talk, Neema expressed the difficulty of marketing a game like this. Specifically, achieving a message with Kamata without it being a serious game, as well as the challenge of reaching intended audiences in Africa. These hurdles ranged from lacking disposable income for paid games, limited access to devices, high data costs and even payment barriers. To resolve these, she brought up her team’s exploration of buy 1, donate 1 models off Steam, partnerships with corporates and foundations like the UN, to even travelling arcades- where the game might be distributed offline and via community.
It was eye-opening to hear her team’s efforts to overcome these challenges, resolving accessibility issues to allow players enjoy wonderful games like everyone else!
Tea, Please! by Siobhan WIlloughby
Tea, Please is a short 30-minute game that explores the contrast between the drudgery and noise of office life and the surprising happiness and peace gained through remote work during lockdown.
For WIP Night, Siobhan spoke about her past as a web and app designer for 15 years, before making the jump into game development only last year. She introduced how she came to make Tea, Please! over the course of the pandemic, documenting her own everyday experiences. In addition, Shib showed a few early prototypes of the game, which she eventually used for the Screen Australia Emerging Gamemaker’s grant, allowing her to stop freelancing and work on the game’s fleshed-out prototype / demo!
Dungeons of Freeport by Elissa Black
Dungeons of Freeport is a play-once-a-day classical roguelike game presented with vintage text-style graphics. With randomly generated dungeons, a stealth mechanic, and recently implemented graphical UI, the game’s looking more and more like a pencil and paper role-playing game. At WIP Night, Elissa shared a playable build of the game for everyone to try out!
And that’s a wrap on WIP Night! We hope everyone had a wonderful rest of evening, with free food and drinks, lovely games, and lovely people. It’s a little sad that this will be our last WIP night in this office as we’ll be moving out soon, but stay tuned for plans we have in store! If you’re keen to share your WIP project, sign up here. Catch you at our next Games Exchange, happening soon!
We hope you enjoyed reading this! Have a question or want to chat more about game development? Reach out to us!
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