Posts in Client Work
Doing things the hard way

This year, we gave a talk at GDC called “Making Night in the Woods Better with Open Source”. In it, we talked about how Night in the Woods, which came out last month and you should totally go buy, used the open source process in its development.

Unlike most of our other talks, we did something a little ridiculous with this one - we built an entire presentation system, from scratch, into Night in the Woods. We’re actually pretty proud of this, and so we put together a video showing how it was done. Check it out!

The talk from GDC is also available online, and we've embedded it below:

iOS Developer Training Workshop

If you're interested in attending our intensive 2-day iOS Developer Training Workshop in Melbourne, to be run in the Melbourne CBD on May 9 and May 10 this year, please let us know. When we open registrations, we'll get back to you with a discount code and further information. 

Our intensive 2-day workshop is designed for programmers who are proficient with any modern, object-oriented language, such as Java, C++, C#, Python, Ruby, or similar. No knowledge of Swift, Objective-C, or the Apple frameworks is required. This iOS Developer Training Workshop will teach the latest, best practices for iOS development using Swift.  

Our team has written more than ten highly regarded, popular books on iOS and Apple development, and has been teaching software development for Apple platforms for more than 15 years. You're not committing to anything by submitting this form.

Winners at the 20th AIMIA Awards

As we posted about a few months ago, we were really excited to learn that an app we built was nominated for two AIMIA Awards. We're now thrilled to report that the app, Play School Play Time for iPad, built for the ABC, was the winner of the 20th AIMIA Award "Best of Tablet – Entertainment" category, as well as the overall "Best of Tablet"! You can watch the winners videos on the AIMIA website.

We couldn't be more thrilled! We're incredibly proud of the Play School apps, and enjoyed working with the ABC team. The ABC team included: David Glen, James Welbourn (pictured), Priscilla Davies, Tali Gal-on, Peter Marks, Jake MacMullin, Sam Gain-Emery (Sonar Sound), Luke Mynott (Sonar Sound), and Kate Highfield (Education Advisor). Thank you all!

If you haven't already checked out Play School Play Time for iPad, check it out and let us know what you think!


Secret Lab are finalists in the 20th AIMIA Awards
Secret Lab built the Play School Play Time app for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Secret Lab built the Play School Play Time app for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

We're really excited that Play School Play Time for iPad, an app we built for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is a finalist in two categories of the 20th AIMIA Awards!

Play School Play Time is a finalist in "Best of Tablet – Entertainment" and "Best of Tablet – Learning and Education". 

If you haven't checked out the app, if you're in Australia you can grab it from the App Store here, for free, or here, if you're elsewhere!

We're thrilled that Secret Lab is in such good company again this year! Previously, in the 19th AIMIA Awards, Play School Art Maker for iPad, also built by Secret Lab for the ABC was a finalists in "Effectiveness", "Best Application for a Tablet", and "Best Children's", and in the 18th AIMIA Awards, Foodi for iPad was a finalist in "Best Cultural or Lifestyle", and Play School Art Maker for iPad was a finalist in "Best Application on a Tablet or Mobile".

Recently, we were also thrilled to win a Tasmanian ICT Industry Award for 2013, for our work on innovative apps for kids! 

Tasmanian ICT Industry Awards 2013

We're absolutely thrilled to have won a TASICT award last night at the Tasmanian ICT Industry Awards for 2013. We won the "Best Software Product" award for our work on innovative apps for kids. Thanks to TASICT, TasmaNet for sponsoring the particular award that we won, and Michael Ferguson for presenting the award to us. Congratulations to all the other amazing nominees and winners: Elan Projects, Jobric, CGI, ISW, Vodafone, Anittel, Kingborough Council, UXC Eclipse, Ionata Web Solutions, Synateq, Acrodata, Aurora Energy, and RBF. Thanks also to the event sponsors: Autech, Fuji Xerox, Insight4, Aurora Energy, HP, Hays, Anittel, and the Tasmanian Government.

Don't forget to check out Malcolm Turnbull's recorded message, regarding the NBN, on YouTube (thanks, Josh Deprez!)