At GDC last week, a scheduled meeting with a single iPhone game spawned a crash course in the world of independent Australian game development. In a short span of time, I got my hands on a selection of choice titles that are in different stages of development arising from the land down under. Some projects spawned from government grants, others from their past successes, and all with bright ideas from this unique country.

Jolly Rover

First up was the adventure game Jolly Rover from Brawsome Games. Andrew Goulding, Brawsome Game’s director, gave me a glimpse of the current build of the game. It’s a pirate themed adventure game that uses dogs as the main characters. It’s a four to eight hour experiences with around sixty scenes and twenty five characters. The art is cartoony and enjoyable and a callback to the adventure games of yore.

It’s got a great visual story with interesting characters, and Andrew played some audition clips from the voice actor’s submissions. The actors they’ve picked to voice the adventure are fantastic choices, and should add a lot to the story and it’s world.

To make the game unique, Andrew’s implemented some elements to add replayability and avoid the pixel hunt that ends up in a lot of adventure games. By tapping the space bar, the player is shown all the areas that the main character can interact with, and to further aid the quest, items are labelled in either blue or white text, depending on whether or not they have already been interacted with. It also includes a loot and achievement system, where the player collects crackers as they go. Once they start earning achievements for different actions in the games, they can unlock features such as a developer commentary to shed some light on the creation process.

The game is currently in an alpha state having started development in August 2009, with a beta scheduled for May and a release in June. All the elements I was shown indicate polish and a great-looking adventure, I’m looking forward to the completed product. We’ll be in touch with Andrew as the game nears release.

Train Conductor

Simon Joslin approached me with an iPhone in tow and and information on the game’s pending update. Arsen reviewed the original game extremely positively, even dubbing it his favorite iPhone game of 2009. Not being a mobile game myself, this was actually my first time playing Train Conductor.

For those not in the know like myself, the game is a puzzle game, involving directing trains across multiple tracks to reach their destination. For example, there are three tracks running horizontally across the playing field. A train will enter on the top track and have a number 3 posted, meaning you must drag your finger from the top track to the third track, creating a new path for the train to travel. Then multiple trains start arriving and you must direct each one to its destination without crashing into each other. Our review explains it in even more depth.

But after showing me the basics, Simon broke out the update. While the original game is set across three locations in Australia, the expansion is taking the title to the United States. There is now going to be a survival mode in which players need to last as long as possible, and there are two new playable levels: The Grand Canyon and the NYC Subway.

The Grand Canyon was a five track level split down the middle by the canyon itself with no tracks crossing over. It’s up to the player to connect the trains over the chasm while not crashing into each other and trying to wrack up the highest score for speed and efficiency. For a novice player like myself, this was no easy feat. Sure the trains stop at the gap on their own, but I was moving so slowly to get them to their proper exit point that I wasn’t scoring points successfully. Then moving on to NYC created a new game mechanic. The tracks weren’t broken in the middle, but cement columns blocked paths and tracks could only be crossed in between certain pillars which narrowed the window with which the game could be played. These levels are for a more advanced Train Conductor player and should make people very happy. Not only is the update due out next month, it’s going to be free.

While they weren’t being shown, the map of the USA had a few extra locations outside of Arizona and NY, but Simon indicated to me that these are still under construction. We’ll keep you posted as we find out more about the update and the game’s future.

Raskulls

Halfbrick Studios are no stranger to making games, as their main focus until this point has been working on licensed titles such as Sponge-Bob Squarepants and Avatar. But they have a new independently produced game coming to XBLA called Raskulls. While Halfbrick is much larger than the other developers I met with, I think they still have a place in this discussion of what’s coming out of Australia these days.

Phil Larsen showed off the game by taking me directly into the action. Raskulls is a well animated game in which all the characters have skulls for faces. It’s a racing platformer, in such that some levels you’re jumping and digging your way through the level and others you’re racing groups of NPC characters (or real players once it hits the marketplace). The action is quick and frantic, and you’ll find yourself digging through Tetris-like blocks and using items to boost your speed and efficiency through levels.

The game will feature over seventy levels across three chapters. This leaves a lot of variety for a simple XBLA game and with its fun factor and polish be quite a hit. The controls are tight, the characters memorable, and the action simply enjoyable. I played through the introductory story, the earliest platform levels, and my first race, getting a taste for the variety. You bust through multicolored blocks, you swim through floating chunks of water, and with power-ups you do everything it takes to win a race. All the elements that make a platform game fun, and then some. There’s no exact release date yet, but they’re hoping to launch it in early 2010. By my count…that’s soon.

Gamebook Adventures and Mole

Ben Britten, a figure from Escape Factory, partner at Tin Man Games and developer of the iPhone game Mole: Quest for the Terracore Gem showed me what he’s been working on.

Tin Man Games have created a series of Choose Your Own Adventure books for the iPhone. They’ve already released two titles An Assassin in Orlandes and The Siege of the Necromancer. They’re originally works written just for this series. The next book comes out in May and then they’re aiming to release new ones every four to six weeks. While you’re not directly flipping pages, the book leaves you choices just like the old fashioned books with a “If you want to Y turn to page X” choice structure. Conflicts and fights in the books actually turn into a minigame of dice rolls, which is a nice break from reading and should keep this new form of interactive fiction fresh. While the win or loss aspect doesn’t directly change things, just leave you another “turn to page x if you died” aspect, it does keep things interesting. The books are peppered with artwork and an interesting new application for the iPhone.

Then I got the game Mole in my hands, which is a fun digging game where you’re collecting precious gems and digging through different layers of earth on your quest to find the “Terracore Gem.” You must stay alive by finding pockets of air, and drills found throughout the playing field return you to the surface where you can purchase upgrades to help you on your journey of getting deeper and deeper. It’s a fun digging game that reminds me of a few different things I’ve played on Newgrounds, but fits in the palm of your hand.

Steam Pilot

Last up with a prototype build of a game John Lycette of the Lycette Bros. was working on. He’s a member of the Escape Factory, which is an indie game collective that help each other out on their projects.

Steam Pilot has you piloting a kind of blimp through the silhouetted skyline of an old-fashioned city. The whole game plays in black and white and you travel in a circular pattern around the city picking up pieces and putting them in their proper place, such as a weather vane or a missing ampersand.

The game had very little work put into it at this point, but it was just a glimpse at the art style the Lycette’s are capable of and what is to come. At this point there isn’t much to undertake, just floating up and down and positioning your blimp in the right place to grab things with your claw. There are also birds to avoid who will cause you to drop your cargo. There can never be too many stylish iPhone games, so I’m curious to see what this simple gameplay prototype evolves into.