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Melbourne International Games Week 2022

Melbourne International Games Week of 2022

This year Mini Mammoth Games was able to go to Melbourne International Games Week for the first time! We managed to make it to all four events and had an excellent time there, being able to interact with both South Australian developers and developers from across the country. It was an unforgettable experience.

Here is a short recap of our time!

GCAP

At GCAP our goal was to both increase our professional network, while also learning practical skills that can be applied in our day to day game developer work from the variety of talks and panels available. GCAP ended up being a great experience overall with lots of industry connections being made and a variety of talks on a diverse range of topics. Stand out talks and panels were: See That Mountain, You Can Climb It by Osama DorIas and the panel on Queer Games.

We hope to be back next year with more of our team members to learn even more.

AGDAs

Rounding out GCAP were the Australian Game Developer Awards. This was a great experience to see just how big the games industry is in Australia, and the amazing games from Australian developers over the last year. For us, It was also a great excuse to dress up and look fancy (insert photo) while taking advantage of the catered food and drink. Throughout the night we talked to and met different people, not just other developers but the IGEA representatives who helped keep everything orderly too. All in all, the night was fantastic and we are looking forward to returning next year!

Photo of 3 Mini Mammoth Games' staff members and another attendee at the 2022 AGDA awards night

Games For Change APAC

Asia Pacific Convention ran concurrently with GCAP and involved both a teachers summit and 2 days of panels from industry representatives. The summit had a diverse array of teaching representatives from Kindergarten teachers through to University Lectures and educators covering the gap. Between lectures from organisations such as Scienceworks to practical exercises that taught teachers how to teach through games, the first ever Games for Change Festival was a raging success. Each evening allowed Mini Mammoth Games developers to connect with different industry representatives in networking drinks, and we were even able to chat with the managing director of G4C, Arana Shapiro. She had us sold on their mission in moments, and now we are die hard G4C supporters!

PAX

Rounding out the week was the 3 days we spent exhibiting Idle Gangs at PAX! Our main goal here was to get as many people to play the game and provide feedback as possible, while also providing awareness of our brand. Pax proved a huge success in this regard as we estimate around 500 people played Idle gangs over the weekend. This provided us with invaluable feedback and we left with multiple pages of notes detailing ways to improve the game. Feedback covered everything from the speed through which players should progress through our tutorial, to fine detail about the way different effects should feel. PAX is single handedly responsible for the feedback that lead to our muggables being trampled for extra money. Sometimes, it’s all about the little things.

PAX also proved to be a great learning opportunity as our first exhibit at a convention. We realised very early on that we should have bought a dev machine with us so we could update the game each evening, fixing small bugs and providing us with a better way to exhibit the game. Next time we will be far better prepared!

Image of Mini Mammoth Games' booth at PAX 2022

Overall, we had a great time in Melbourne, travelling between venues and meeting a variety of people. Being able to meet developers from around Australia and learn from them was something that Mini Mammoth is looking forward to experiencing again next year!

Congrats to every developer and their achievements this year!