Attending ALT: Games at Parramatta

I recently attended a gaming festival called ALT: Games hosted by Powerhouse Museum and supported by NSW Screen, along with Screen Australia. It was a festival to promote the indie games scene in NSW, Australia. This is an inaugural event; as such, the activities are small but very entertaining, with a variety of games that have been set up. 

The first thing I did was visit the expo section of the festival, as this is where many of the game developers showcase their projects that have been in development. In these expos, it's better to lower your expectations, as the majority of these games are demos. There were many games ranging from pixel-based art themes to 3D Cartoon themes, covering multiple genres, such as action, adventure, etc.

While there are many interesting games, one game that fully caught my attention was Key Fairy, developed by Niosis and Tex Barnes. You play as the titular character 'Key Fairy' traversing through the dark, magical forest using a simple grappling hook with bizarre friends and foes roaming around this forgotten forest. While the gameplay is simple but interesting, as your character has less friction, making it difficult to fully stop, hence the grappling hook acts as brakes and a quick getaway from immediate dangers. However, that is not the reason for grabbing my attention; it was the design of the game as it utilises a 2-D hand-drawn art style using black and white to emphasise the environment and the characters, making the game feel like an old, magical bedtime story.

Afterwards, I attended the key presentation of the festival, where I was excited to witness a presentation by Game Developer and Writer Ally Mclean Hennessy. Along with a Discussion between Daniel Mullins (creator of Inscription) and Richard Garfield (Founder of Magic: The Gathering). I enjoyed the presentation, particularly with Ally, who shared an interesting journey in the gaming industry, and her engaging personality kept the presentation very interesting. Unfortunately, the discussion between Richard and Daniel was less interesting as the discussion was mostly focused on card games, a very niche retro genre of gaming, rather than the development process of gaming.


Overall, I enjoyed this festival and wish for its future to be brighter, as this has the potential to solidify the indie gaming community in Australia. I hope for more space for game dev to showcase their games, bring in more famous game developers to explain their process and host competitions like game jams.