GAMERella is the world’s longest running game jam focusing on supporting aspiring and emerging marginalized game creators and on of TAG’s flagship projects. Our latest initiative is to find similar, alternative game jams, share knowledge, and build a supportive community for the generous, but sometimes overlooked and undervalued organizers.
The first season of The GAMERella Podcast features interviews with a selection of alternative game jam founders and organizers from around the world. These 60-minute recorded conversations will present listeners with behind-the-scenes, narrative accounts of challenging, inspirational, and ordinary experiences that ensued during the process of game jam organizing. Interviewees will share their paths to innovative game-making and offer practical tips for emerging and experienced organizers. Desirée de Jesus, media scholar and previous GAMERella co-organizer, will conduct the interviews.
In this episode we discuss how AccessJam!, Accessibility Unlocked’s month-long game jam, breaks down barriers, addresses a range of accessibility needs (e.g., emotional, financial, mental, physical, etc.), and challenges those in power to make games and the industry more welcoming. Our guest, Meredith Hall is a games industry consultant, advocate, and a co-founder of Accessibility Unlocked: an impactful initiative that connects disabled developers in Australia and New Zealand with resources and community support.
You can download the transcript of this episode as a PDF from here.
The episode is available on Spotify, iTunes, iHeartRadio, and Spreaker.
Meredith Hall is a multi-award winning producer and marketer. She’s currently Lead Producer at Aconite and Strange Scaffold, the cofounder of Accessibility Unlocked, was previously at VicScreen in grant funding, and is a frequent public speaker and advocate. She was named one of 50 under 50 in InGames 2019 Gender Equality in Games list, and was named Rising Star at the 2020 Australian Game Developer Awards. As an independent creative, Meredith supports the games industry locally and internationally.
Website: merryh.dev & accessunlocked.games
Twitter: @merryh & @accessunlockanz
Projects: HoloVista, Strange Scaffold, as well as personal games.
Desirée de Jesus is a video essayist and moving images curator whose digital projects concentrate on girls, women, and folks of colour. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University. Her research uses experimental animation to reimagine Black girls’ critical resistance strategies and participatory filmmaking to explore racialized girls’ experiences of COVID-19 inequalities. Her experience with game jam organizing includes working as a GAMERella co-organizer and co-developer of GAMERella’s Game Jam Guide.