Unity in Ireland

At this year’s Unite Europe 2015, our own Chris Gregan (Fungus Games) was chosen as one of the speakers. As an Imirt Steering Committee member, he also met with the Unity team to plan their first official visit to Ireland. One month of planning culminated in two days’ worth of talks and meetings.

The main event was hosted in the Odessa club in Dublin on Tuesday 28th July. It ended up being the largest gathering of developers this year, with a lot of new faces joining in to meet Unity and fellow developers.

Imirt’s Brenda Romero was on hand to introduce the first speaker of the evening, Unity Evangelist, Josh Naylor. He began by taking everyone through a live demo of Unity 5. He then showed some of the features that the Unity 2D team, based in Singapore, are currently working on. All of these additions can be found on their BitBucket repository.

After that, Josh had time to show some games that have switched from Unity 4 to Unity 5. Rust and Gang Beasts both saw some impressive improvements by making the change.

Josh ended with a runthrough of Unity’s services: Cloud build, Unity Analytics and Unity Ads. On the Cloud Build side, he demoed a new feature that is currently in beta called Cloud Data. It allows you to modify MonoBehavior values in your released games for all your users, which is an incredibly powerful feature.

After that, there was a Q&A session, starting with the all important question - “Why can’t we have nested prefabs?” :)

The evening ended with six talks from developers based in Ireland. These were from David McDermott, Danny Moffatt, Kevin Murphy, Paul O'Donnell, Elaine Reynolds and Noel O'Connor.

SixMinute networking

The following day, there was the open house in SixMinute, giving everyone a chance to meet with the Unity team face to face. During the day, the team had over 20 meetings with developers from all over Ireland.

Overall, the visit was a great success, and we were happy to hear the Unity team plan to come back to visit again soon.

The Unity Team: John, Josh, Cathy & Mo

Imirt Logo Design Competition

Calling all artists, designers and inspired community members! Imirt: The Irish Game Makers Association is looking for a new visual identity and needs your help.

The logo we are currently using was designed for temporary use while the steering committee go through the process of establishing the organisation. We are seeking all Irish Game Development community members who can design a creative, innovative and professional logo design. The logo should be recognizable and help promote our organization's mission “to represent game makers from all disciplines throughout Ireland, both analog and digital.”

The rest is up to you! Could your awesome design be on the banner representing Irish made games on the international stage? Please read below for more details regarding logo design, contest rules & submission requirements.

How to Enter the Contest

The contest begins on July 1, 2015. Submissions will be accepted through August 1, 2015. All entries will be considered by the steering committee, before being shortlisted and then opened up to the community for a public vote. The winning entry will be announced via our website, social media and by direct contact to the winner's email. In order for your entry to be submitted and reviewed by the steering committee, all entries must be:

1. Submitted directly to contact@imirt.ie with the subject heading “Imirt Logo Design Competition”    

2. Submitted in their original source file and

3. Submitted as a high resolution .pdf with 300 DPI or higher.

Logo Requirements    

• Professional: This logo will be featured on our website, our social media platforms and other mediums (stationary, pamphlets, t-shirts etc). As a result, while we want the logo to be eye-catching, it must still be legible.    

• Theme: Logo must promote the mission of Imirt, “to represent game makers from all disciplines throughout Ireland, both analog and digital.”      

• Text: The text “Imirt” must be integrated into the design. Ideally the text and iconography of the logo design can easily be separated for flexible use and formatting.    

• Color: There are no limitations and any colors may be used. However, logo must look good in color (if any) or black and white.    

• Integrity: Logos cannot contain copyrighted material. Logos must have been created and edited by the contestant(s). Logos may not include images or licensed images that have been previously published. Must be easily reproducible and scalable for large and small formatting.

Contest Details

Contestants agree that Imirt may publish their logo and name(s) and may use both for advertising campaigns and/or marketing materials in the future. The winning contestant(s) assign all ownership rights, including all intellectual property rights to the logo, to Imirt: The Irish Game Makers Association. Additionally, Imirt may alter, modify or revise the logo as it sees necessary to achieve the goals of the organisation. Imirt reserves the right to not select a winner if, in its sole discretion, no suitable entries are received.  

IMIRT: THE IRISH GAME MAKERS ASSOCIATION TO HOST INAUGURAL TOWN HALL MEETING ON JUNE 30, 2015

CONTACT: contact@imirt.ie

26 JUNE 2015 -- Imirt: The Irish Game Makers Association has announced the time and location of its inaugural town hall meeting. It is to be held June 30, 2015 at 5:30pm at the Odessa Club, 13 Dame Court in Dublin, Ireland. The meeting will also be broadcast live on Twitch TV at http://www.twitch.tv/imirt_ie.

Imirt was formed in April 2015 and represents game makers from all disciplines throughout Ireland, both analog and digital. The Irish game industry is thriving, passionate and driven and is comprised of everyone from award-winning freelance game makers to massive multi-national companies like Demonware, Blizzard, Activision, Bethesda and Zynga. The goal of Imirt is to increase awareness of Ireland’s game makers on the national and international stage while providing opportunities for networking, community growth and development.  

"As a game developer based on the west coast, I'm happy to take part in forming an organisation which will be a unifying force for the Irish games development community," said steering committee member Paul Conway of DoomCube.com. Conway is joined on the steering committee by Owen Harris of bitSmith Games, Chris Gregan of Fungus Games, John O’Kane of Snozbot, John Halloran of SixMinute Games, Elaine Reynolds of Simteractive, Dave McCabe of Greenheart Games, and Brenda Romero of Romero Games.

At the meeting, members of Imirt’s steering committee will present information on Imirt, its formation, its goals, membership details and also provide announcements for upcoming Imirt-related professional events. Imirt looks forward to electing its first board in September. Prospective members will be invited to participate in Q&A for the remainder of the meeting.

Committee member Elaine Reynolds of Simteractive expressed enthusiasm for Imirt. "Since I returned to Ireland in 2012, it’s been brilliant to get to know so many people making games here.  The game development community has grown so much even over these past few years. It’s a really supportive, vibrant community with many regular game development events being held around the country. With Imirt, the aim is to give the game development community a unified voice to ultimately help it grow and success in the long run."

The group presently has an FAQ on its site http://www.imirt.ie/faq and has also published the results of a survey it conducted in April to gauge the needs and desires of Irish game developers.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/imirt

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Imirt_ie