May CGDA Meetup - Hamish Oliver and AGM!

Welcome to the May 2025 Christchurch Game Developers Meetup!

Location:
EPIC Innovation, 106 Manchester St, Christchurch 8011

The meetup will also be streamed online:
[To be added on the day]

Don't forget to check us out at:
Website: https://chch.gamedev.co.nz
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CHCHGameDev
Facebook: https://fb.me/CHCHGameDev
Discord: https://discord.gg/68YqqFZ
If you like our meetups, consider supporting us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/CHCHGameDev
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Speaker - Hamish Oliver
Hamish has enjoyed a 25-year-long career as a composer, sound designer, musical director, arranger and performer for television, film, video games and theatre, and has a Master's degree in composition. He is a Screen Sound lecturer at Canterbury University, working in areas like sound design, music composition, implementation of interactive audio, production, mixing etc. In 2015 Hamish was the recipient of an $10,000 APRA Professional Development Award to further his career in music composition for video games.

Hamish has toured internationally with Elaine Paige, Aled Jones and Hayley Westenra and has performed with Serj Tankian, Shapeshifter, Tiki Taane, Bic Runga, Julia Deans, Anika Moa, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra among many other artists. He plays piano and celeste for the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and has had several composition commissions from them.

His arrangements have been performed by The Phoenix Foundation, Alien Weaponry, Shapeshifter, Tiki Taane, Julia Deans, Anika Moa, and most of the major orchestras in New Zealand.

6:15 PM - KICK OFF
Welcome to the Christchurch Game Developers Meetup, with news from around New Zealand!

6:30 PM - Elegant Audio Easily
Game audio no longer needs to be primitive or rudimentary! Simple is good, but simple and effective is even better. Chances are, you want your game's audio to support and enhance the gameplay as much as possible—and the good news is, there are many surprisingly accessible ways to achieve this. In this session, Hamish will showcase a variety of techniques to help you work with sound design and music that genuinely enrich the player's experience, in ways that are sometimes subtle but always elegant and effective.

7:00 PM - PIZZA
Enjoy some refreshments (AKA pizza) and catch up with/meet other game dev enthusiasts.

7:15 PM - Annual General Meeting
Join us for the annual Chairperson's report, Treasurer's report, and the announcement of the new Committee for 2025-26. Afterwards we will be taking suggestions for the new Committee's agenda.

Event Photography Notice: The CGDA occasionally takes photos and/or videos at our events for promotional purposes. If you would prefer not to have your image recorded for marketing purposes, please make your wishes known to the photographer, and/or reach out to a committee member, and we will accommodate your request. Thank you!
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Massive thanks to all our supporters for making our meetups possible!
Our Corporate Supporters:
Yoobee College of Creative Innovation - a tertiary institute committed to developing creative and technical talent across New Zealand.
https://www.yoobee.ac.nz/courses/

HIT Lab NZ - a multidisciplinary, Human-Centred Research environment that collaborates with industry.
https://www.hitlabnz.org/

CerebralFix - a Christchurch-based game development studio specializing in work for hire from some amazing companies.
https://cerebralfix.com/

Screen Canterbury NZ - a Canterbury-based film office helping creatives get their projects delivered to the screens of their choice, providing fantastic resource-sharing & advocacy for our screen production industry.
https://www.christchurchnz.com/screen-canterburynz

And our awesome Patreon Supporters:
Matt Barton
Leith Caldwell
Samantha Cook
Nik Scarr
Carl de Visser