The New Zealand Game Developers Association Conference is a one-day action-packed conference for professional and indie game developers. The conference pulls no punches, with experienced presenters telling it like it really is.

Featuring some of New Zealand and Australia's leading game developers from Sidhe/PikPok, Cerebral Fix, Smallworlds, Gameloft, Grinding Gear Games, NinjaKiwi, Runaway Play - plus maybe a few international surprise guests (details coming soon).

New Zealand's games industry grew 46% or 110 jobs last year and is on a roll. Digital distribution has led to a boom in online and smartphone game development, but are you ready to capitalise on it?

Conference sessions

The conference has introductory, expert and extreme talks on a range of game development subjects. The full programme is coming soon, and topics include:

Dungeon King is an extremely playable, beautifully rendered, browser-based dungeon crawler created by New Zealand dev studio Bulletproof Arcade.

Bulletproof Artist Rod Smith's art is impeccable as usual - the quality of Dungeon King's art is mentioned with great admiration in all the reviews of the game I've seen to date. Check out the trailer and you'll find a visual quality that calls to mind much more expensive titles that have taken far bigger teams to develop.

I don't have the time to play as many Triple A titles as I'd like these days. What I love about Bulletproof's games is that I can get a quick, casual fix with production values on a par with far more expensive games. I don't have to spend time learning a complex interface, convoluted item and skill management system either - like their other titles, Red Riot and Orbital Guard, Bulletproof adhere to a strictly accessible and eminently fun philosophy of game design.

Quirky arcade puzzle game to hit the App Store in March 2012

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – February 27, 2012 – Leading Smartphone games publisher, PikPok®, today announced it would publish Monster Flip™ for iOS, an original title developed by Launching Pad Games. Monster Flip challenges gamers to swipe, flip and match monsters to help them return home, blending match three gameplay and puzzle cube mechanics in an incredibly addictive way.  Create massive combos and chains for extra points, but watch out for mad monsters that are out to ruin your day!

The 8th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment

21-22 July 2012, Auckland, New Zealand

          The Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment  is

          a  cross-disciplinary  conference   that   brings   together

          researchers from artificial intelligence,  audio,  cognitive

          science, cultural studies, drama,  HCI,  interactive  media,

          media studies, psychology, computer  graphics,  as  well  as

          researchers  from   other   disciplines   working   on   new

The Global Game Jam is a 48-hour event where artists, video game developers and programmers create a video game over just one weekend in January. Held in over 120 locations worldwide including New Zealand, it’s creative, cooperative, chaotic and huge fun.

New Zealand gamers will be the first in the world to kickoff, when the theme for the games is unveiled at 5pm on Friday 27 January 2012 and the teams work flat out until Sunday night.

Game Jams inspire upcoming generations of developers and enthusiasts to come up with new game ideas in small teams in an intense jam session.

Wellington, New Zealand - 16 November 2011 - The New Zealand video game development industry grew by 46% this year, boosted by the huge growth of smartphone and online games.  114 game development jobs were created in the 12 months to September 2011 and the industry now employs the equivalent of 359 full-time people. 

In addition, local game studios expect to create 99 new jobs in the coming 12 months.  Approximately 40% of these will be for programmers, 40% for artists and 20% for managers.

Heaps has happened in the Kiwi games industry over the last few months, and the NZGDA has been very busy.

Here’s what’s been going on:

• See you at AnimFX, 15-17 November
• Kiwi Games Industry Grew 46% this year!
• NZ Gamers: Not Sweaty Teenage Boys
• Spreading the Word: Raising the Games Industry’s Profile
• Coming Soon: The New NZGDA.com Website
• Discussions with Government about Games Sector Support

See you at AnimFX, 15-17 November, Te Papa, Wellington
AnimFX is three days of gaming, vfx and animation with an impressive line-up of international speakers plus the chance to network with game developers from throughout New Zealand. The Games Masterclass which is limited to 40 places is nearly full, so book fast.

The Interactive Games & Entertainment Association represent game publishers and distributors in NZ and Australia, and are supporters of NZGDA and GDAA too. Each year they commission Bond University to do a survey of game playing in NZ and Aus, which well and truly dispels the stereotype of gamers being teenage boys.  The last survey in July 2011 interviewed 846 NZ households.

The report found that:

AnimfxNZ is an Animation, Games and Visual Effects conference held annually in one of the world's leading cities for Digital Media creation-Wellington, New Zealand. Now in its sixth year, AnimfxNZ 11 brings together a mix of international speakers, including animation feature directors, vfx supervisors, digital artists and game developers, to present, share and interact with attendees from all over the world.

AnimFX is held at Te Papa, Wellington on Tuesday 15 November. Hands-on masterclasses on game production and game business development will be held on Wed 16th.  The conference costs $95 (or $75 for students who get in quick).

Speakers include: