Paul Turbett is part of Perth’s thriving indy game scene and Brains? salutes them all. Click here to visit the Let’s Make Games site to check out other Perth developers.

Who are you?

Paul Turbett, I’m an independent video game developer.

What do you do?

I design and build video games! I have a small “boutique” game company called Black Lab Games, which has been my main pursuit since around March 2009.
I also help other local developers out with their game projects.

What have you done?

Well, I’ve been interested in making games for a long time. I got interested in game development in the mid-80′s, before it was even technically an industry. When it was time to face the workforce, there were no game development companies in Perth, so I started my own. It was called Silver Lightning Software, and it was active from about 1992 until 1998-ish. SLS made games for Windows PC’s, and released a number of games locally and internationally.

Recently, I’ve been working on getting Black Lab Games off the ground. Instead of doing PC games, I’m interested in exploring the options to make games for consoles. Now that all of the consoles have Internet features, and ecosystems like Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network, their are a number of opportunities for enthusiastic developers to get games out and in front of the huge audiences using these system.

Recently, Black Lab Game released its first title, a strategy game called Star Hammer Tactics, on the Xbox 360. It’s available via a channel on Xbox LIVE called Xbox LIVE Indie Games. (Don’t look for this channel in Australia though, it’s not available here).

I’ve also been working on bringing Star Hammer Tactics to the Sony PlayStation platform. Last year, Sony announced the “minis” program, which is small downloadable games for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3. Black Lab Games was accepted into that program, and should have Star Hammer Tactics out soon.

What will you do?

I’m not 100% sure what project Black Lab Games will work on next, but I’ve got a number of ideas.

Where can we find you?

On the web! The Black Lab Games site is at www.blacklabgames.com, and a site for Star Hammer Tactics can be found at www.starhammer.com. All of the standard social media sites are covered too, like Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/blacklabgames), and Twitter (twitter.com/blacklabgames).

Physically, I’m based in Perth, and don’t have any plans to change that.

Any last words?

Sure. Generally, it’s a pretty exciting time to be involved in game development. There are now more ways than ever to get a new game out to an audience, and the “artform” as a whole is evolving in interesting ways. The fact that we now have “Indie” games along with the mainstream big-budget behemoths is awesome and cool.

It’s also been great to see an increased interest in game development in Perth over the last few years.

Check out the list of developers on the community group page Lets Make Games (www.letsmakegames.org). Not all are full-time studios, but most are working on something or doing something interesting. Also, the events that the community holds every few months are pretty well attended, which is great to see.