| Freeplay Independent Games Festival | |
| Native Name Lang: | eng |
| Logo Alt: | The Freeplay 2018 logo |
| Status: | Active |
| Genre: | Independent video game development |
| Frequency: | Annually |
| Location: | Melbourne, Victoria |
| Country: | Australia |
| Founder Name: | Katharine Neil & Marcus Westbury |
| Prev: | Parallels (2023) |
| Next: | 2024 Awards |
| Participants: | 50+ |
| Attendance: | 500+ |
| Sponsors: | |
The Freeplay Independent Games Festival is Australia's longest-running and largest independent games festival, first established in 2004.[1] The Festival celebrates fringe artists and game makers, and highlights grassroots developers and art games. It gathers artists, designers, programmers, writers, gamers, creators, games critics, games academics and students to celebrate the art form of independent games and the culture around them.
Freeplay is funded primarily through arts grants. Past and present sponsors include Australia Council for the Arts, Film Victoria, Victoria State Government, City of Melbourne, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), and RMIT University.
With the aim of celebrating game making as arts practice, Freeplay has consistently aligned itself with the arts, and over the years has partnered with arts organisations such as Australian Centre for the Moving Image, State Library Victoria, Next Wave Festival, Wheeler Centre, Federation Square, Arts Centre Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, City of Melbourne, Arts House, National Young Writers' Festival, and more.[2]
The current director of Freeplay is Chad Toprak (2017–).[3] Previous directors have included Dan Golding (2014–2017),[4] Katie Williams and Harry Lee Shang Lun (2013–2014),[5] Paul Callaghan and Eve Penford-Dennis (2008–2012).[6] The founding directors of Freeplay were Katherine Neil and Marcus Westbury.[7]
The Freeplay Independent Games Festival began in 2004 as Next Wave Festival's three-day-long Melbourne-based indie games conference 'Free Play', to celebrate independent game development and games culture. Since then, it has run in a variety of formats and venues across Melbourne.
In 2009, Freeplay hosted its first festival away from Next Wave, and rebranded itself from 'Free Play: The Next Wave Independent Game Developers Conference' into 'Freeplay Independent Games Festival'. Since 2009, Freeplay events have generally run annually.
In 2014, inspired by Venus Patrol's alternative E3 press conference Horizon, Freeplay introduced Parallels, a one-night event that serves as a counterpart to the main Freeplay festival. It takes place as part of Melbourne International Games Week, and highlights "unique, experimental, personal, and culturally significant games" made in the region. Parallels "is notable for providing the public first looks at games that would go on to be global gaming phenomena,"[8] including Untitled Goose Game, Necrobarista, Florence, Paperbark, Heavenly Bodies, the Frog Detective series, Unpacking, and Cult of the Lamb.
In 2015, Freeplay held, for the first time, both a multi-day Freeplay festival (10–19 April 2015) and a Parallels event (24 October 2015).
2020 and 2021 saw a virtual festival take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the online Parallels showcases, Freeplay created an online pixel art version of the event's in-person venue, The Capitol, called The Zone, described by Kotaku as "a pixel-art version of an art gallery, except its for video games and you're doing the whole thing through your browser."[9]
In 2022, Parallels took place at RMIT, marking Freeplay's return to in-person events.
| Date | Theme | Keynote Speaker(s) | Venue | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21–23 May 2004 | (As part of Next Wave Festival: 'Unpopular Culture') | Harvey Smith | The World Wing Chun Kung Fu Association3rd Floor, 96 Flinders Street, Melbourne | |
| 15–17 July 2005 | Greg Costikyan, Kieron Gillen | Australian Centre for the Moving Image | ||
| 18 August 2007 | Jonathan Blow[10] | Australian Centre for the Moving Image | ||
| 14–15 August 2009[11] | Petri Purho[12] | State Library Victoria | ||
| 14–15 August 2010 | Play Is Everywhere[13] | Brandon Boyer, Adam Saltsman | State Library Victoria | |
| 17–21 August 2011[14] | Handmade | No keynote | State Library Victoria | |
| 19–23 September 2012[15] | Chaos and Grace | Mare Sheppard, Morgan Jaffit | State Library Victoria | |
| 25–29 September 2013[16] | Volume of Revolution[17] | Erin Robinson, Steve Swink | State Library Victoria | |
| 10–19 April 2015[18] | Austin Wintory | Australian Centre for the Moving Image | ||
| 22–27 May 2018[19] | Intersections[20] | Zuraida Buter, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn | Australian Centre for the Moving Image | |
| 7–12 May 2019[21] | Introspection[22] | Hannah Nicklin, Richard Lemarchand | RMIT University | |
| 10-14 June 2020[23] | Belonging[24] | Bahiyya Khan | Online (due to COVID-19 pandemic) | |
| 8-13 June 2021[25] | Soft Voices, Loud Roars[26] | Squinky, Zedeck Siew | Online (due to COVID-19 pandemic) |
| Date | Game | Creator | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | |||
| 18 October 2014[27] | Push Me Pull You | House House | Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) |
| Gonubie HotelBooot Action Painting Pro | Ian MacLarty | ||
| Magister Ludi | Christy Dena, Marigold Bartlett, Trevor Dikes, Cameron Owen | ||
| Movement Study 1 | Sam Crisp, Marigold Bartlett, Jamie Anderson, Adrienne Owen, Alexander Perrin | ||
| FUTUREVOXIMAGINARIUMDOTEXE | Ben Weatherall, Jason Bakker | ||
| Magenta SunsetSpacething | Impromptu Games | ||
| Provision Supply Cat | Alexander Perrin | ||
| Bush Bash | SK Games | ||
| CTRL_CODA | Josh Cousins, Maize Wallin, Sine Morris, Amani Naseem | ||
| 2015 | |||
| 24 October 2015[28] | Knuckle Sandwich | Andrew Brophy | Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) |
| Undercity_Discotech | Chalk in Rain | ||
| Vertex Meadow | Ian MacLarty | ||
| Project Ven (later renamed Necrobarista) | Joe Liu, Ngoc Vu, Kevin Chen | ||
| Broken Sounds | Lee Shang Lun, Amani Naseem, Harrison Smith | ||
| Untitled Project | Marigold Bartlett, Lizzie Bartlett | ||
| Intergalactic Space Princess | Izzy Gramp, Laura Stokes | ||
| Polymodal Arcade | Andrew Trevillian | ||
| Paperbark | Nina Bennett, Kael Jessup, Terry Burdak, Ryan Boulton | ||
| 2017 | |||
| 26 October 2017[29] | Wayward Strand | Ghost Pattern | RMIT University |
| Totem Teller | Grinning Pickle | ||
| Putty Pals | Harmonious Games | ||
| OfficeBots: Reality Bytes | FutureStateMachine | ||
| Road TripDo You Remember | Joanna Tran | ||
| A Moment Between Us | Ruby Simpson, Aaron Williams | ||
| SandstormReapPlanetarium | Daniel Linssen | ||
| It Will Be Hard | Hien Pham | ||
| Florence | Mountains | ||
| Action Loop | PlayReactive | ||
| Untitled Goose Game | House House | ||
| 2018 | |||
| 25 October 2018[30] | Rise | Dakoda Barker | RMIT University |
| Unpacking | Wren Brier, Tim Dawson | ||
| Pigeon Game | Leura Smith | ||
| if not us | Ruqiyah Patel | ||
| Sign In / Sign Out | Tegan Webb | ||
| NovenaTouch Melbourne | Cecile Richard, Andrew Gleeson | ||
| Desert Child | Oscar Brittain | ||
| SIMULACRA | LeeYing Foo | ||
| Dead Static Drive | Mike Blackney | ||
| Vignettes | Pol Clarissou | ||
| 2019 | |||
| 10 October 2019[31] | Paint Game | Max Myers | The Capitol Theatre |
| Dollhouse | Olivia Haines | ||
| I Must Reach the TopEvery Brick Laid | Fenreliania | ||
| Need 4e+9 Speed | Kalonica Quigley, Jason Bakker | ||
| Heavenly Bodies | 2pt Interactive | ||
| The Library of Babble | Demi Schänzel | ||
| سايبر تصوف Cyber Tasawwuf | Mohamed Chamas | ||
| Acrylic | Lucy Morris | ||
| Mutazione | Die Gute Fabrik | ||
| Way to the Woods | Anthony Tan | ||
| Worm Club | |||
| 2020 | |||
| 8 October 2020[32] | Dap | Melting Parrot | Online (due to COVID-19 pandemic) |
| Umurangi Generation | ORIGAME DIGITAL | ||
| Street Tape Games | Helen Kwok | ||
| Spiritwell | David Chen | ||
| Completely Stretchy and Uncomfortably Sticky | Daniel Ferguson | ||
| Webbed | Riley Neville | ||
| variations on the word ghost | Shastra Deo | ||
| The Stranger Next Door | Fae Daunt | ||
| Short Creepy Tales: 7PM | Cellar Vault Games | ||
| 2021 | |||
| 7 October 2021[33] | A Long Goodbye | Dana McKay | Online (due to COVID-19 pandemic) |
| Monomyth | Billy Dent | ||
| Blueberry | Mellow Games | ||
| An Altogether Different River | Aaron Lim | ||
| Soup Pot | Chikon Club | ||
| Where the Snow Settles | Myriad Games Studio | ||
| Cult of the Lamb | Massive Monster | ||
| 2022 | |||
| 6 October 2022[34] | Mars First Logistics | Shape Shop | RMIT University |
| Future Folklore | Guck | ||
| Gubbins | Studio Folly | ||
| Wizard ChessSong of the Fae | TWO PM | ||
| Letters to Arralla | Pink Clouds | ||
| Isopod: A Webbed Story | Sbug | ||
| Bits and Bops | Tempo Labs | ||
| Conscript | Catchweight Studio | ||
| Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy County | Worm Club | ||
| 2023 | |||
| 5 October 2023[35] | Moss Island | Iris Anstey | Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) |
| Beyond the Lens | Ben Koder | ||
| Knuckle Sandwich | Andrew Brophy | ||
| Bell's Beach | Chloe Kilroy, Billy Dent | ||
| Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (and a Witch) | Pete Foley, Scott Ford | ||
| The Dungeon Experience | Jacob Janerka | ||
| Video Shop Algorithm | Jessie Scott | ||
| Mystiques: Haunted Antiques | Ally McLean Hennessey | ||
| Proximate | Cain Maddox | ||
| Year | Awards[36] | |
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