It's been an interesting time for animation this spring in cinemas. Two new features are competing for audience attention, Ponyo from Studio Ghibli and Disney Animation Studio's latest The Princess and the Frog. Their parallel release is further energised by the way they promote traditional drawn animation. This emphasis is particularly felt in the wake of Avatar, James Cameron's computer animated epic. In our first feature article, we compare the Goldfish and the Frog, and ask the question, what makes a good drawn feature in 2010?

Australian Animators Studio Joho comment on games and work in their recent short, Dan the Man. It tells the story of the eponymous Dan in his daily grind. Except things aren't that simple, since Dan is modelled as a classic videogame hero from the 16-bit videogame era.

Parallax is the new Animation World Network blog, penned by David Surman and Ian Gouldstone. It's a sideways look at animation old and new,  celebrating classics and profiling new, innovative work. Alongside animation, Parallax looks at games and advertising design with the same enthusiasm and curiosity.

It's been a couple of weeks since the Freeplay festival took place in the State Library here in Melbourne. This blog post is a summary of my response and the ideas that kept cropping up in my mind; it's about attitudes in design and is super long, my apologies. Freeplay is a games festival that has been running for around 5 years now, and for the past couple of years it's been helmed by the team of Paul Callaghan and Eve Penford-Dennis. The event provides a great environment for the local development community to come together and talk about their current projects, and in the process raise the level of awareness about current game development activity in Melbourne and elsewhere here in Australia.