The NZGDA will be having it's Annual General Meeting at 6pm Friday the 18th of May. The AGM will be held at the Media Design School on Level 16.

At the AGM there will be a vote on who will be representing the NZGDA on the committee this year. Here are the candidates:

PikPok® and DreamWorks Animation Collaboration Now Available for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

Are you passionate about the future of game development in New Zealand? Consider nominating yourself for the NZGDA Board.

We'll be holding our Annual General Meeting and elections at 6pm, Friday 18 May at the Media Design School (followed by a social event and the NZGDA conference the next day).

To nominate yourself email NZGDA Secretary Jonathan Rodgers (j.w.rogers at gmail.com) before 5pm Friday 11 May. Candidates will write 350-word blurbs about themselves which will be posted on Playmaker.org.nz prior to voting (which can be done electronically).  You can stand for the positions of Chairperson, Secretary, or Committee member (6 positions).

All NZGDA members are welcome to the AGM, and it's free to join too.

Who said the games industry has a low profile in NZ?  Here's a list of recent media articles about local studios over the last few months:

Organizers of the 10th annual GDC Online have announced that the call for submissions for this October's show is now open through midnight PT on May 2. As in previous years, the show is looking to coordinate lectures, panels, tutorials, and roundtables that cover pressing topics relating to online game creation and beyond.

GDC Online, which will take place October 9-11, 2012 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX, focuses on development of connected games, including social network titles, free-to-play web games, kid-friendly online titles, and large-scale MMOs.

Submissions should address the most pertinent development challenges for online and connected games with submissions related to the following tracks: Business & Marketing, Design, Customer Experience, Production and Programming.

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!