High Score 2024

Richard Lapington (KEYNOTE)

Richard Lapington is the Audio Director at Remedy Entertainment with over 20 years in game audio. Key projects include the award winning Alan Wake II and Quantum Break. His passion lies in creating immersive audio experiences and leading teams to innovate in the evolving landscape of AAA game development.

Montaigne (KEYNOTE)

Montaigne is one of Australia's most accomplished and eclectic music artists with award-winning work spanning the recording, theatre and games industry. Notable work includes representing Australia at Eurovision, collaborating with Austin Wintory and Tripod on the AGDA Game of the Year winning Stray Gods, and performing on viral hit Red Flags with Tom Cardy, among many more things!

Yon Hall (KEYNOTE)

Yon, AKA Simon Hall, is best known for his work in comedy band Tripod, with whom he has written songs for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (Ubisoft) with Austin Wintory. He wrote songs for Stray Gods (Summerfall Games) also with Austin Wintory, for which he was nominated for a Grammy in 2023.

Angharad 'Rad' Yeo (MC)

Angharad 'Rad' Yeo is an award-winning television and radio presenter, MC, and critic. Her deep passion for technology, science, arts, and culture puts her in a unique position to dissect the rapidly changing landscape we find ourselves in - including the rise of AI - with insight, intelligence, and an energetic spirit. Her credits include pop culture podcast Game For Anything, Double J, ABC ME's Good Game Spawn Point, Catalyst, Queens of the Drone Age, ABC Science's Elevator Pitch.

Jini Maxwell (Moderator)

Jini Maxwell is a curator and critic specialising in videogames. They are a videogame curator at ACMI, where they have curated Out of Bounds: Exploring The Limits of Videogames, and Honk: Untitled Goose Exhibition, and co-curate Gay24, a monthly film night showcasing rare, radical and archival films.

Aaron Edwards

Aaron Edwards (he/him) has been working in the international media scene for over 15 years as a composer, sound designer, music editor & audio programmer. He now brings those different perspectives together as Product Manager for FMOD.

Amy McNickle

Amy McNickle is a Creative Director, Composer, and Sound Designer, best known for her award winning interactive film Worldline Corporations, and her music for animation and games. In addition to her creative projects, she has a wealth of experience in business administration and is a keen advocate for composers and audio designers within the Australian games industry. Amy is currently working on her own game, Planet B, with the support of funding from Screen Australia.

Dr Ash King

Dr Ash King is a psychologist, writer/designer & the Mental Wellbeing Content & Programs Lead at Support Act. After her life in the music industry came to a halt following a vocal injury, she’s now using psychology & mindfulness to help folks live their best lives with creativity, passion and purpose. She has worked across a range of creative fields, including film & tv, live music, visual arts and radio, and has run workshops and talks for Amazon, Pinterest, Linktree, Pedestrian TV, Sony and Universal. She believes that learning to manage the mind can be a fun and inquisitive process. Through insight, wisdom and a splash of pop culture, she helps individuals & organisations develop practical skills to go deep, get wise and be happy.

Ben Houghton

Ben Houghton is an Australian freelance composer and audio designer. Combining a wide range of traditional, hybrid and found sounds, Ben creates a unique palette for each project to enhance narrative and create emotional connection. Ben specialises in adaptive audio systems for games and is currently working on multiple local projects.

Belinda Coomes

Belinda is a Melbourne based music composer who specialises in writing music for video games and interactive media. Her game credits include Ring of Pain, As We Descend, Winnie’s Hole, Mistmoon Falls, and provided additional tracks for Game For Peace (PUBG Mobile China).

Ben Tyler

Ben Tyler, a Bininj man from Kakadu, is a true innovator. Living on his family's outstation, he’s tackled a range of careers from pearling to fashion. In 2017, he launched Kakadu Kitchen, an Indigenous-owned business celebrating Kakadu’s traditional bush foods and medicines. His recent venture into zero-alcohol drinks, through collaborations with ALTD Spirits and OzHarvest Ventures, led to the creation of ‘Conscious Beverages’—a category of eco-friendly drinks designed to support people and the planet. This breakthrough earned them the ‘Game Changer Award’ at the Drinks Business Innovation Hive Awards 2024. Ben is also a leader in Northern Territory business network and co-author of two children's books about Kakadu: 'Walking The Rock Country In Kakadu' (2024), and 'Walking In Gagudju Country. Exploring The Monsoon Forest.' (2021).

Brooke Maggs

Brooke is a Principal Narrative Designer at Remedy Entertainment and the Narrative Lead of the Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake. She also works freelance as a game story consultant on indie projects. Previously, she's worked on award-winning titles such as Control, The Gardens Between, Paperbark and Florence.

Byron Scullin

Melbourne practitioner Byron Scullin explores the technological representation and amplification of sound, creating sonic environments that transition into noise and offer experiences of mass and multiplicity. His notable works include Bass Bath, an installation for 22 subwoofers, and Siren Song, a citywide audio piece using 500 speakers and a helicopter sound system. These have been showcased at Dark Mofo, Perth Festival, and internationally. Scullin has contributed sound to films, dance productions, and theatre, and created installations for museums and public spaces. He co-founded MESS, the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, which houses one of the largest synthesiser collections globally.

Byron Webb

Byron Webb is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based music producer, DJ, and taonga pūoro practitioner. Producer of the acclaimed soundtrack for the forthcoming video game; Toroa, a soundtrack which blends traditional Māori sound culture with contemporary electronic music, creating a richly immersive experience.

Carly Dober

Carly Dober is a psychologist living and working in Naarm/Melbourne. She does workshops with Support Act for creatives, is a Director at the Australian Association of Psychologists Incorporated and Body Safety Australia, and is obsessed with music.

Ceri Hutton

Ceri is a game designer and business consultant for the creative industries specialising in culture transformation and marketing strategy. He has 15+ years’ games industry experience, holds an executive level MBA from Monash University and directs a specialised mentorship and accelerator program for underrepresented and emerging game developers.

Chris O'Neill

Senior explosion engineer, creature creator and music meddler at PlaySide Studios. Chris' time in audio has seen him cover an eclectic variety of areas; everything from Paramount and DC universe mobile titles through to VR film, live installation pieces, and projects for Google, Square Enix, and IBM.

Daniel Bunting

Daniel Bunting, audio engineer for Sydney’s Metropolitan Orchestra, recently debuted his first game score, Copycat. He is a composition alumnus of AFTRS Screen Music and the Queensland Conservatorium, and the 2022 winner of the national youth arranging competition. Dan has composed for feature films, shorts, television, musicals, documentaries, and commercials.

Dean Ormston

Dean Ormston is the Chief Executive of APRA AMCOS, Australia and New Zealand’s largest music industry organisation with over 119,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. Dean has worked with APRA AMCOS for over 20 years and across all key areas of the organisation. He has led advocacy with Federal and State Governments for the recognition and support of creators’ rights, and championed the local music industry as a key economic and cultural asset that drives exports and educational outcomes across the country.

Dylan Bennett

Founder and Director of NT's first video game studio Larrikin Interactive, as well as Founder / Director of the NT's NFP Tech Hub, The Array, Dylan was born and raised on Larrakia Land and feels immense pleasure at supporting creatives to tell stories that reflect the Australia that he grew up in.

Jacob Leaney

Jacob Leaney is a composer and artist/producer (aka Monster Mansion) from Melbourne. Career highlights include winning awards for the AGDA’s, NZ Games Festival, and the International Songwriting Competition, collaborating with K-Pop hitmaker Alina Smith (Itzy, Chungha, Red Velvet), and performing music on Channel 10’s ‘Thank God You’re Here’.

John Oestmann

John Oestmann is a video game and electronic music composer (including Rooftop Renegade, nominated Best Sound at GDEX conference), and APRA AMCOS SongHubs mentor. Passionate about Open Source and Open Culture, John also publishes his personal compositions into Public Domain, and creates the monthly Freeware Creator Magazine.

Kuya James

Kuya James aka James Mangohig is both an ARIA nominated producer and artist living on Larrakia land in Darwin, Northern Territory. Both a musical director and music producer, he has made records with many artists including Emily Wurramara, Tasman Keith, Caiti Baker, A.B Original and Daniel Johns amongst others. He also writes and produces music for dance, film and theatre.

Lisy Kane

Lisy Kane is production & business consultant, Managing Director and co-founder of Girl Geek Academy, board member (VicScreen & IGDA Foundation) and EMBA graduate, obsessed with connecting the dots between shipping great games and building creative teams. Since her recognition on the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, her curious and pragmatic approach to leadership has seen her career move from indie studio to AA production publisher specialising in supporting the operations and growth of teams.

Louie Roots

Louie Roots is a games curator, creative technologist and event producer, currently co-Directing the independent games organisation Freeplay. His work focuses on playful human interactions and experimental hardware, and in a broader sense facilitates community across industries and creates space for emerging artists

Luke Henry

Luke has advised a range of tech and game studios on complex tax and business issues for over twenty years. His team assists over sixty game development studios of all different sizes from around Australia. They strive to bridge the gap between tax technical issues, industry language and the latest in business practices.

Maize Wallin

Maize Wallin is composer, sound designer, and audio programmer working across indie games and AAA. Focused in 3D spatialised audio, and dynamic music, Maize lectures and consults in Australia and around the world on these topics, as well activism and representation within game development as co-founder of Game Workers Australia.

Matt Schenkel

Matt Schenkel is a Melbourne-based sound designer and director/co-founder of Sub-Zero Sound, a game audio studio specialising in audio creation and implementation for games. With almost a decade of experience in the Australian games industry, Matt has contributed to projects across many genres and platforms.

Max Kearney

Max Kearney, a Naarm-based composer and sound designer, works full-time at iRacing and collaborates on indie games. Inspired by the intersection between procedural and handcrafted, he loves the expanding potential of game audio. Max also runs the monthly work-in-progress event at Sabby Gallery and performs electronic music as 'File Explorer'.

Meena Shamaly

Meena Shamaly is a composer, session musician, and presenter of ABC Classic’s Game Show. He scored Innchanted (DragonBear Studios) and Every Hue of You (Cactus Jam Studios), and performed on Christopher Tin’s Grammy-nominated Old World as well on Total War: Pharaoh by Ian Livingstone and Ed Watkins.

Michael Theiler

Michael has worked in game audio for over ten years. He has been BAFTA nominated for audio achievement, is a G.A.N.G award winner, and is currently the Audio Director of the million selling Forest and Sons of the Forest series.

Narayana Johnson

Narayana Johnson AKA River Boy is a music producer, composer and songwriter from the Northern Rivers who takes a lot of inspo from his childhood spent playing in the rivers with the homies. Music has taken him across the world. He is most known for his work on Cult of the Lamb and as one half of Willow Beats.

Nathaniel Chew

Making games in the day, playing games at night, Nathaniel is an Associate Lead Audio Designer at Ubisoft Singapore. Nathaniel has had the privilege to work on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and continues to strive in crafting dynamic audio experiences that enhance gameplay and storytelling.

Pascal Cross

Pascal is an audio software engineer at PlaySide Studios building tools and tech to support the large audio teams across multiple platforms and titles. With a background in game engineering and tooling it has been a huge learning opportunity to apply these skills to support audio across systems such as narrative pipelines, VR interactions and gameplay systems to enable the team to deliver high quality game audio.

Samantha van der Sluis

Samantha is a NZ-born Aussie composer based in the United States. She is the composer for cozy games Cloudscape, Petit Island, Love, Ghostie, and Islands & Trains, as well as having credits on Star Wars IX and Toy Story 4.

Dr Sam Whiting

Sam is a Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University. His research is focused on issues of capital, labour, and technology as they relate to the music industries, and has featured work with the SA Music Development Office, City of Adelaide, Live Music Office, and City of Melbourne. His recent book, Small Venues, is out now.

Sarah Wolfe

Multidisciplinary artist Sarah Wolfe has featured in Rolling Stone, NME’s Global 100 Emerging Artists, & collaborated with multiple video game studios. She came back swinging after a surprise brain surgery in 2023, releasing 'Eternal Nights' for League of Geeks' game Solium Infernum. Alongside an upcoming EP, she is also composing for SXSW showcase game Mystiques.

Scott Boyd

Sonia Coronado

Sonia Coronado is a senior music designer from Cartagena, Colombia currently working at PlayStation Studios Creative Arts. Some of her recent game credits include God of War Ragnarök, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part II.

Dr Susannah Emery

Dr. Susie Emery (she/they) is a Game & Narrative Designer and Lecturer at UniSA. Her game design and research focus on the use of games and digital media to foster equity, diversity, and inclusion by promoting empathy, inciting social change, and enhancing learning.

Talia Raso

Talia Raso is a sound designer and audio obsessor, enthralled by the effects of audio-visual cohesion in multi-sensory experiences. She has been a member of the audio department at PlaySide Studios since 2022. Lending her work to such titles as Age Of Darkness, WorldBoss, The Godfather and Legally Blonde mobile games as well as the Dumb Ways to Die franchise. Talia has been working in audio engineering and audio post production since 2012, and has had the privilege to join some incredible teams on feature films, animations, documentaries and national advertising campaigns.

Tim Shiel

Tim Shiel is a musician and radio broadcaster working on Wurundjeri land. He is the composer behind the music for award-winning Australian titles Duet and The Gardens Between, and has also worked with some of Australia's most creative musicians including Cub Sport, Mindy Meng Wang 王萌, Gotye & Genesis Owusu.