I am interested in invitations to speak! My topic areas are diverse, but I’m mostly interested in AI, mobile, video games, and any combination of those. I’d love to hear from you via email, so please feel free to reach out.
Hello! I’m Paris Buttfield-Addison! I’m an author, programmer, game designer, speaker, and occasional academic.
Here’s what I’m doing in 2021:
- working on Secret Lab projects far and wide:
- we’re most of our time to our incredibly popular open source narrative game development framework, Yarn Spinner π§Ά, and we’ve launched a Patreon for the project
- we recently shipped the BAFTA- and IGF-winning Night in the Woods πΌ for iOS
- speaking at conferences
around the worldlive from the Secret Lab studio:- you can keep up to date with my conference appearances over on my events page
- if you want to invite me to speak, check out this page
- writing a lot of books and content for O’Reilly Media
- building great content for Practical Artificial Intelligence with Swift, which came out in late-2019, and the Unity Game Development Cookbook and the iOS Swift Game Development Cookbook (3rd Edition), which came out in mid-2019
- we’re currently working on Head First Swift, and a book on Practical Simulations, and are about to start Swift for ML and Data Science book!
- studying Law and learning Mandarin, very slowly!
- ζζ£ε¨ε¦δΈζ!
- on the executive of the AUC
- 2020 would have been 13th year for AUC /dev/world, Australia/New Zealand’s longest running iOS/Apple/Swift developer conference, but instead we ran EveryWorld, a special online event (for obvious reasons!)
- I served on the board of the ACS until 2020, as well.
- occasionally teaching at UTAS in the School of Technology, Environment and Design
- I teach all sorts of things, including KIT107 Programming (first year Java and C programming for ICT students), KIT105 ICT Professional Practices, and KIT714 Research Principles (research for Masters students), KIT607 Mobile Application Development (a iOS and Android development unit for masters students)
Other things about me that you might want to know:
- I run Secret Lab, a game and product development company, with Jon Manning. We’ve existed in some form or another since 2008. We think we’re Tasmania’s longest-running professional game development company.
- For clients, Secret Lab has built everything from acclaimed and award winning children’s games, such as the ABC Play School iPad games, and the Qantas Joey Playbox, to cooking apps, to interactive guides for world heritage listed former convict settlements, narrative frameworks for high-profile indie games like the BAFTA- and IGF-winning Night in the Woods, to music visualisers for Internet connected holiday lights.
- We’re currently working on a number of games of our own, including: Button Squid, a puzzle game, and Leonardo’s Moon Ship.
- you can hire Secret Lab to build games and experience for you
- I live in beautiful Hobart, Tasmania, Australia π¦πΊ
- You can hire me via Secret Lab π
- I co-organise the /dev/world iOS and OS X developer conference.
- Between 2008 and 2013 I worked in Mountain View, CA, USA πΊπΈ for Meebo as a Software Engineer, and then as Product Manager for their mobile software.
- Meebo for iPhone was a huge success, and featured on stage at Apple’s event for the launch of iPhone OS 3.0 (the previous name for iOS) in 2009
- Meebo was acquired by Google in 2012 π
- I write technical books (nearly thirty so far) for O’Reilly Media. They are awesome.
- I previously wrote two books for Wiley, in their For Dummies series.
- I have a PhD in Computing π¨π»βπ
- … as well as a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Medieval and Early Modern History, and a Bachelor of Computing with First Class Honours.
- I’m currently studying a Diploma of Languages to learn Chinese (Mandarin), as well as a Juris Doctor. Both of these are being studied very, very slowly.
- I collaborate on a number of research projects through the University of Tasmania.
- I am on the executive of AUC (formerly known as the Australasian Apple University Consortium), as well as the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) (until the end of 2020)
- I was a 2016 Gold Disruptor at the ACS Digital Disruptor Awards, which are part of the Reimagination Thought Leadersβ Summit.
- I enjoy speaking at conferences.
- I wish I had more time to take photos of things. I’m a very enthusiastic amateur photographer.
- I currently use an Olympus OM-D E-M1X, a Sony Alpha R Mark IV, and a Fujifilm X100F.
- I have a one-eyed terrier rescue dog, and a whippet.
You can download a (infrequently updated) copy of my rΓ©sumΓ©/CV here, if you need it for some reason.
My preferred bio, for use by conferences/events/etc., is:
Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison is co-founder of Secret Lab, a mobile development studio based in beautiful Hobart, Australia. Secret Lab builds games and game development tools, including the award-winning ABC Play School iPad games, BAFTA- and IGF-winning Night in the Woods, and the Qantas Joey Playbox, and the popular open source YarnSpinner narrative game framework. Paris formerly worked as mobile product manager for Meebo (acquired by Google), has a degree in medieval history, a PhD in Computing, and writes technical books on mobile and game development for O’Reilly Media. He can be found on Twitter @parisba and online at http://paris.id.au
You can find me around the Internet on:
If you want to donate to Yarn Spinner:
- http://patreon.com/secretlab
- Or Direct Entry to: 067-000 / 1062 1318
Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison 