![]() ![]() ‘I hadn’t actually played before,’ Brier said. At a later event, Brier played a demo of Assault Android Cactus for the first time and was so impressed she messaged Dawson to ask if they could catch up. All’s fair in love and video gamesĭawson and Brier first met in 2016 at a BIG Dev meetup, a regular networking event for Queensland-based developers. When they eventually did, it sparked a new era for Witch Beam – and the start of a relationship. With Dawson and Brier were both heavily involved in Brisbane’s game development scene, it was inevitable they would cross paths sooner rather than later. Aside from Halfbrick, Brier also produced art for various other projects, some of which never saw the light of day. This work saw her involved in live ops, helping to create post-launch content. It sold healthily over a long period of time, however, boosted by multiple console ports and promotions with various companies, recouping costs and allowing Witch Beam to continue as a small studio.įor Brier, her career prior to Unpacking was primarily in art, creating assets for various games including for fellow Brisbane studio Halfbrick and their popular Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja games. ![]() Assault Android Cactus, Witch Beam’s debut game, launched in 2015 to strong reviews but it ‘was not a massive success’ commercially, according to Dawson. ![]() When Sega Australia closed in 2013, it was time to go indie. Woke up to the surprising news that Sega is releasing the Golden Axe prototype I coded in 2012 under crunch conditionsĪt least I'm not alone – this appears to be a surprise to everyone I know who actually worked on it - Tim Dawson October 15, 2020 Unfortunately, despite strong relationships with colleagues, Sega was a difficult workplace, highlighted by the cancelled Golden Axe project – which was publicly dredged up last year by Sega without consulting those who worked on the prototype, as explained by Dawson on Twitter at the time. While working on various projects at Sega, he built a strong rapport with designer Sanatana Mishra and composer Jeff van Dyck. During his time there, Dawson met several colleagues who would go on to become founding members of Witch Beam. Japanese video game company Sega held an Australian office, which remained open longer than most. Noire.Īfter the late-2000s global financial crisis, many of Australia’s large game developers shut down local operations. Following this, Dawson spent time with several notable Australian-based teams including Pandemic Studios, Tantalus Media’s now-defunct Brisbane office, and a stint working on Team Bondi’s ambitious detective title, L.A. His first game development foray was with former Adelaide studio Ratbag Games, where he worked on The Dukes of Hazzard: Return of the General Lee for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. And there were things that were holding us back or making it more difficult to do that than we’d like.’ ‘Looking back on it, there’s this interesting pattern where I always found really cool people at studios I’ve worked with that felt really like-minded that really wanted to do cool things for the game. ‘Ultimately, it was being frustrated with the studios that I’d worked at,’ Dawson said. Harsh working conditions, poor communication, leadership without vision: all challenges Dawson faced at varying points during his career. Witch Beam was founded in 2013 as a result of the systemic issues plaguing large development studios. Witch Beam’s beginnings (L-R) Tim Dawson, Jeff van Dyck, Ella Van Dyck, Wren Brier, Angus Doolan.
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