I’m the co-founder of Secret Lab, a game development studio based in beautiful Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Secret Lab works on games and game development tools, including the award-winning ABC Play School iPad games, BAFTA- and IGF-winning Night in the Woods, the Qantas Joey Playbox, and the popular open source Yarn Spinner narrative game framework. I formerly worked as a software engineer, and product manager for Meebo, which was acquired by Google in 2012. I have a degree in medieval history, a PhD in Computing, and write technical books on machine learning, programming, and game development for O’Reilly Media. I can be found on Twitter @parisba and online at http://paris.id.au.

I’m the co-founder of Secret Lab, an indie game developer based in Hobart! I’m best known for my work on Night in the Woods, and for building the narrative tool Yarn Spinner. I’m the treasurer of Tas Game Makers, and I’m here to make sure that the association provides a useful foundation for the Tasmanian game development industry.

Originally I was a scarecrow brought to life by a curse and had to work out how best to be a person. I long for a return to silently guarding sorghum from birds so towards that end I have been a part of numerous societies and even got a PhD.

I’ve come to the conclusion making games is the best way to achieve my goal and as one of those weird Tasmanians who moved here instead of being born here it is impressive to have watched Tassie’s growth. It is now the best place to make games and I want to make that known to all.

Drew has experience in event management, business ownership and was a founding member of AV Con (Adelaide’ s Anime and Video Convention, in a past life. He currently resides in Launceston, and studies game design and 3D animation.

“I’m very proud with what Tas Game Makers has already achieved, and I am excited for the future. My goal is to be as inclusive and supportive of Tasmanian’s across the state and doing all I can to getting more people involved in making games.”

My skills and perspective is that of a university student studying in the games and creative technology area. I hope to provide a fresh perspective of someone who has not yet been working in the area to allow insight into some of the differences between newcomers and people already working in the area and how we can all help each other with our goals.

To do this I plan to focus on helping to grow our community so upcoming and established game creators can collaborate.

I’m a self-employed software developer with lots of hobbies. I like to be apart of and contribute to local tech communities, and keen to contribute to TasGM, however I can, such as running monthly meetups. Very enthusiastic about local game jams.

After sitting on the board as one of the interim members, I have joined the TasGM board again to focus my time on supporting and helping creatives in the state. Based up north in Launceston, I have a real passion and drive to grow the state to the best it can be, as the founder of Smash Attack Studios, I intend to share everything I have learned in my history as a game developer to help others achieve their own goals.