Lightmap - Conversations with video game creators

The digital boardgame ARMELLO was how Melbourne's League of Geeks made their name but seven years since that ground breaking indie game was released the studio this year will be sharing not one but two new games.

Kelsey Gamble is the Publishing Producer and has a hand in both the scifi anime colony sim JUMPLIGHT ODYSSEY and the hellish political game SOLIUM INFERNUM.

Listen to find out how the team is able to produce both games...

STRAY GODS: THE ROLEPLAYING MUSICAL combines narrative adventure games with realtime dynamic songs that change as you make choices. 

Liam Esler, Managing Director of Melbourne's Summerfall Studios shares how musicians Montaigne and Tripod helped create the soundtrack to this game inspired by the musical episode of Buffy. Written by David Gaider (DRAGON AGE) and composed by Austin Wintory, it's an all star team.

Catch up wi...

Retro inspired videogames are a dime a dozen but what happens if you lean in all the way, play with the nostalgic experiences of those people who grew up with the NES and the Gameboy to make something truly modern.

Joshua Hallaran from Critical Games has been working on 8-BIT ADVENTURES 2 for seven years, studying the classics and creating a true love letter to the pixel graphics and chiptune of the early nineties.

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What is a game without it's soundtrack? Meena Shamaly, composer and host of ABC Classic's The Game Show joins Gianni for a musical journey through some of the best sounds in video games.

Check out the full list on our website: The Best Video Game Soundtracks of 2022 with Meena Shamaly

Support SIFTER's independent gaming journalism by buying us a coffee on KoFi or some merch on the SIFTER STORE

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It's our bumper Game of The Year special, we've got six different games for you as well as a bunch of honourable mentions from the SIFTER team. It was a very hard choice this year with lots of incredible games.

You can read a full write up of our favourites on the SIFTER website. SIFTER's 2022 Games of the Year

Support SIFTER's independent gaming journalism by buying us a coffee on KoFi or some merch on the SIFTER ...

Alex Johannsson has been working on MORSE, inspired by a love of alt controllers and limited button inputs, in this game that combines real morse code and grid based combat.

Alex joins Gianni to talk about the development of the game over many years and why cool weird controllers are really a big source of inspiration.

Support SIFTER's independent gaming journalism by buying us a coffee on KoFi or some merch on the SIFTER STORE

Miltia is one of the biggest Vtubers in Australia, a partnered streamer on Twitch and she's made a career connecting with fans all over the world.

You'll find her playing Apex Legends most days and she said vtubing as really allowed her to connect better with her audience.

Mitch finds out what it's like vtubing, how the community responded to her new look and what she thinks of the current Apex Legends metagame.

WATCH T...

Jeff Van Dyck is a BAFTA award winning composer and sound designer, who has worked on FIFA, the TOTAL WAR series, and most recently UNPACKING as one third of Queensland based studio Witch Beam Games.

Jeff shares the story of how he came to work with a small indie studio after working Triple A titles for years, the story telling in each of the pieces of music and how the next project TEMPOPO mixes rhythm and puzzle solving.

You can ...

WE ARE OFK is an episodic visual novel by Team OFK that pulls together a lot of really interesting elements. It's not only got it's own virtual band with an EP of great electronic pop, but contains some of the most genuinely written conversations you'd expect to overhear from that cool group of twenty somethings in the bar.

Director/Writer, actor and OFK Vocalist Teddy Dief (HYPER LIGHT DRIFTER) and Co-Writer Claire Jia...

Starring legendary Australian actors Michael Caton, Anne Charleston and newcomer Nancy Curtis as lead character Casey, WAYWARD STRAND is a very Australian narrative indie game with as much voice acting as 18 feature films.

Nancy Curtis who plays Casey and Maize Wallin sound designer, audio programmer and composer from developer Ghost Pattern share the process of recording these performances all across the world to put together this...

Do you remember WAY TO THE WOODS? The post apocalyptic game where you play as a magical deer moving through the ruins of humanity was revealed in 2019 as an Xbox exclusive but for mostly solo developer Ant Tan, it's been a long process of getting everything right. We sit down with Ant to find out some of the design inspirations, learn more about the game play, how Steven Universe and IKENFELL composers Aivi & Surrashu are m...

CURSED TO GOLF is a rogue-like or as developer Liam Edwards likes to call it a "golf-like" platformer with some excellent tunes and beautiful pixel art graphics.

We speak to Liam about the origins of the game as a small personal project, building up the team to polish it, design decisions and gameplay design as well has find out what tips he'd give to new players.

There are also a few secrets and easter eggs hidden in t...

CULT OF THE LAMB is really two different games in one, a town builder and a dungeon crawler, but they've been welded together using arcane magics by the creative team at Massive Monster (THE ADVENTURE PALS, NEVER GIVE UP) into an experience that keeps you busy.

Julian Wilton, Creative Director and Will Mesilane, UI Developer share the secrets hidden in this world, what it took to build this cult management game and what they ar...

CARD SHARK is a beautiful picture book styled video game where you cheat your way through 18th century France and every single graphic you see was hand printed and then scanned into the game.

Lead artist and animator Nicolai Troshinsky was inspired by a love of card magic and sleight of hand, as well as a 1975 Stanley Kubrick film to build this amazing and unique game and joins SIFTER for an in depth conversation about the process ...

WITCH STRANDINGS is a mouse controlled "strand-type" game, where you make connections and paths across a cursed world.

Even though Hideo Kojima wanted to turn DEATH STRANDING into a genre, it was Xalavier Nelson Jr and the team at Strange Scaffold who did it first  

Learn more about this open world adventure through a forest, how the game runs WOLFENSTEIN 3D every single frame, and the hope that can be found in connections ...

DLC and expansions could be a possibility for NEON WHITE, the anime inspired speedrunning shooter , but you'll need to let Game Director Ben Esposito know what you'd like to see.

Ben shares the Y2K Dreamcast aesthetics of import CDs from Japan and how Machine Girl's music shaped this world, what they are doing about leaderboard cheaters, as well as how he feels about your thirstiness for all the characters in the game. 

Everyone is talking about V RISING, Stunlock Studios' survival game which has just entered early access and then rocketed up the Steam charts to be one of the most popular new titles around.

For Community Manager Jeremy Fielding, it's a dream come true, this is the first game Fielding has worked on and there's also the challenge of managing more than 1 million players in the first couple of weeks.

Learn more about the ...

What if Link was a cute fox? At first glance TUNIC looks like a beautiful spiritual successor to THE LEGEND OF ZELDA franchise, but as lead developer Andrew Shouldice shares with us in this interview, it also embraces modern "souls-like" gameplay. 

TUNIC is filled with lots and lots of secrets, the game was at one time called Secret Legend, and Shouldice said it's all about capturing that feeling of playing a game in th...

CITIZEN SLEEPER is a tabletop inspired roleplaying game from Gareth Damian Martin (IN OTHER WATERS) that puts you in the shoes of person trying to escape their digital enslavement in the far future. If it sounds grim, in parts it is, but quickly you discover your place in the world where you can make a life.

Each day you've got just the dice you've been dealt, as you choose how to fulfill your goals or avoid negative countd...