The Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Game Devs of Australia!
This might be the end of Trans Awareness Week around the world, however their creativity does not. Here are a wonderful selection of trans and gender non-conforming developers who are making a change in the Australian video game industry.
Jemma Hooper – Works under Arachnoid Flux
Jemma Hooper is a trans woman who has had more than 20 years experience in enterprise IT. Essentially this means that she’s skilled in a range of areas:
- DevOps
- Architecture
- Project Management
- Able to code
- FMOD
She is also learning to use:
- WWise
- Unity (already knows c#)
- Unreal
- Godot
- CryEngine
She is currently a freelance developer and is open to sound design and composing gigs within the video game industry. Although shorter gigs are better outside summer break due to study commitments.
You can find Jemma and her wonderful portfolio here:
Spotify
https://arachnoidflux.bandcamp.com/
https://twitch.tv/storygirl
Spiral Atlas
Spiral Atlas is a Perth based genderfluid developer focusing on gorgeous visual novels. They often focus on under-appreciated stories of LGBT+, Australian based fiction and physically disabled main characters.
Spiral Atlas is leading the way in creating diverse and unique visual novels in Australia and their unique and charming art style only heightens the player’s experience!
They also have a Regency Romance Cover Generator and it’s a good time!
https://spiralatlas.itch.io/regency-romance-cover-generator
You can find their work on their itch page:
https://spiralatlas.itch.io/
And can follow their twitter here:
https://twitter.com/spiral_atlas
This is the cover that I got when seeing what greatness the generator came up with!
Dr Hannah – Lumi
Dr Hannah Gunderman is the non-binary wellbeing researcher at Lumi Interactive, a Melbourne based studio.
Currently Lumi is working on a gorgeous game, Kinder World!
Kinder World is a free-to-play mobile game about houseplants, healing, and practising kindness. It’s part cosy game, part evidence-based wellbeing practice, built from the ground up to foster kindness to ourselves, each other, and the world around us. It’s available to download right now on Android and iOS!
You can download it here for Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.LumiInteractive.KinderWorldGreen&pli=1
And here for iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kinder-world-houseplant-game/id1541796687
Check out Lumi Interactive, the amazing team and more about Kinder World here:
Erika Verkaaik
Erika is a Brisbane based game developer who has worked on a range of games. Many of which have been made entirely by themselves. They are heavily involved with the community in Brisbane and help to support and empower minority and underrepresented people in game dev.
You can check out their games here:
https://erikaverkaaik.com/
Check out their community work here:
https://twitter.com/SquigglyRiver
https://twitter.com/makingspacecoop
You can follow their twitter here:
https://twitter.com/erix_makes
