Less than half a year ago, I embarked on a journey as a freelancer. I started off with a few projects - being paid ten bucks here or there but eventually I became bored with the idea of shilling myself out on something I wasn't applying myself to or even cared about. I knew I had the skills for it but what were they really going towards?  I realised one afternoon after writing a script for an app company in Serbia what I do do care about.


Video Games. Everything about the medium has this unbridled potential just waiting with every single game I hear about. So I started to write more about them - analysing them, reading about them and eventually I got this gig. But I want to make something clear no matter what anyone tells you when you’re writing about video games or anything you love for that matter. A job is a job is a job and I saw some of the hardest working people on Monday night on the top floor of the Arthouse Bar.

I was informed via Twitter after watching a show here in Australia called Good Game. It was an upcoming event in Sydney. Even though I live a good hour away from the place (2 hours via train), I just knew I had to go. I’d never really met any game designers in real life. Just people who play games, crap on about games or who genuinely like games. Her name was Rebecca Fernandez - a local game developer with a group called Convict Interactive.


The fact I’d never heard of them in my life depressed me. They were at the same University I’ve been going to for 3 years and had developed a game for the XBox Live Arcade and I had never heard of them. It was frustrating to say the least, but we’ll get to Rebecca and the gang at Convict later. So, the event in Sydney was called Bits and Pieces. The woman who started it all up was named Epona. Not a big Legend of Zelda fan, but ‘twas a sign, some would say.

On Monday night, I grabbed my girl, she grabbed her camera, we grabbed a train and took it to the city. We discussed on the way about how nervous I was.  I personally thought that this was my make or break time. Was I going to be a real person and say what I am in the video game world or am I just gonna be an observer, just on the outskirts, enjoying what video games are as a passive medium, even more passively? We got there just a few minutes after the event started, climbing a large set of stairs to get to the Attic Bar. Epona was waiting at a big table with a smile, we all introduced ourselves and we were both more than ecstatic to meet one another. From the get go it was fantastic.

There were already twenty or so people there, but my girlfriend and I were hungry so we went and got dinner an hour out of our way. (Un)Fortunately, we returned an hour later to find the place packed. The room had blossomed from the “twenty or so” to at least a hundred. Drinks in hands, laptops out, controllers in - the room was a buzz with talking and sharing alike and it was truly magical.

I always say that I cannot mentally fathom what a group of people looked like. If you stood me in front of a crowd, I could not tell you how many people were there or even give a “good guess,” but there were at least a hundred people in that room. All interested in talking about games, about making games, about being in the games industry.

I decided to go to the closest person to ask my series of stock questions and then dive into more. I felt like introducing myself formally, I’m Harrison Engstrom, I write for QJ.net, I do this, I say that, I want to interview you and I did. I talked to a lot of people who I will outline the eight different games I played, talked about and loved at Bits and Pieces. I took notes and business cards and I just could not believe my luck that all these people were so passionate about video games and they were all here.

Title: Speed Assassin’s
Platform: (currently) PC
Genre:  Action/“Dodge’em”/Toy
Developer: Michael Chu

The first person I talked to was Michael Chu. Michael was nervous about his game - to say the least, and I say that in the most objective way possible. He was nervous because I think he didn't know if he had a game or not. The Facebook Invite talked about how you didn't need a finished game to show off - just something that was a game, whether it was just pen and paper or even just a demo. If you had a game or wanted to make a game, show it off, talk about it. Michael had a small flash demo of something entitled Speed Assassins. The game had an incredibly detailed knight with a sword against an unending batch of horsemen and soldiers constantly coming towards you in three lanes.

Michael said that it was less of a game and more of “a toy” at the moment. He said that he wanted to make a progression in the game and make more levels and include a boss at the end that he was talking about to different people who would play it. You would move the knight between the three lanes and press spacebar to take out any soldiers in your midst, but you could not take down any horsemen. Michael had hoped to put in an upgrade system to eventually have a weapon to take them out, but also more enemies.

We talked briefly about the progression of the game and to make a difficulty curve that wasn't “twitch-based”, but also in that progression, it would not just be oh upgrade this guy, get this weapon, getting and killing a certain amount or type of enemies “would effect how the end would play out.” I wish I asked Michael about whether he meant the game’s ending with assassinating the captain or he meant the next level of the game. I had made a few suggestive remarks about how the game was one score board and some epic music away from being addictive.

I’m not sure what it was about Michael’s game, but it just screamed being one of those classic unending iPhone games. I gave examples of Frogger, Pac-Man and Tetris and Donkey Kong being games that have no final.  Speed Assassin could be the next killer app where you go through wave of wave of wave of soldiers and horsemen and keep upgrading, or even like using a microtransaction system to take out men...anyway I got way too ahead of myself and wasn't being journalistic, I thanked Mr. Chu for his time and moved onto the next game.

Title: Zombie Team Defence
Platform: (currently) PC
Genre: Co-Op Action Game
Developer: Tim Gurto

Moving just a few metres up from Michael was a game I had noticed when I first came in on the night. There were zombies, there were guns, there were mines, I was in, but one thing made it a bit different. There was just a boy and a girl playing the game, one on the left side, another on the right, one using the Mouse, and the other, wrapped up in pressing WASD and spacebar.

One player would be dropping mines and the other would be taking on the zombie horde head on, shotgun in hand. I absolutely loved the style of the game. All the action and animation was fluid and the sound effects were solid. The art design was actually done by Michael Chu and Gurto coded it in 5 days as a Valentine’s Day present for him and his girlfriend.

It is one of the best stories I’ve heard about game making. The co-op zombie game begins and you’re on a heart-shaped land mass and have to take on constant waves of the undead and the game begins. A score counter keeps racking up with each kill and once one of you are dead...that’s it...you’re on your own...You’re either dropping mines or you’re blowing up heads and you really feel the pressure come along without the mines or the shotgun - it’s devastating, in it’s own little animated way.

Tim talked about how the game was originally made with an RTS in mind and then it was coded in C++ with an SDL library of graphics. But the timing and the heart of a strong man turned it into a really fun and enjoyable zombie game which would be great with a timer, separating waves and a leaderboard, possibility separate control system, but again, I will probably make criticisms as I go along.  But these games are so good an there’s so much potential and anyway, I’ll get to how passionate I am about these games as I go along.

Actually, after I spoke with Tim, Epona took the floor to address everyone about a recent gaming conference and a prize was given away, which my girlfriend actually won and was shocked as much as I was. Epona and a few other speakers, including myself, talked about what they heard from the conference and what they really felt about the industry and having everyone in the room. It was stunningly beautiful and then and there, I knew what I wanted to write about and for, possibly the rest of my life.

After the discussing and prize giving and heartfelt speeches, I returned to look at more and more games.

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