Utah Indie Games Night - May 2014
We had another
awesome Indie Games Night this past Thursday night. We had a little over 40 people there so it
was a good turnout. Thanks again to UVU
for hosting the event and thanks also to everyone for coming and making the
night great!
We started
the evening with an awesome presentation by Josh Sutphin of Third-Helix on
"Starting an Indie Games Business".
He talked a little bit about the nuts and bolts of starting an indie game
business, and also about how to maybe do that full time. That's the dream
right? He also talked about how to pick up some contract work to help fill in
the gaps as the reality is you might not make enough on your games to pay the
bills. At least initially. He also talked about that dirty little secret about
going indie that not many seem to discuss and that is one of the motivation
trap. That is after first going indie your motivation is very high and you're
on cloud nine, but after a while you can get distracted by other things, because
"Hey, I can do whatever I want now. There's no boss". So you can find
yourself squandering your time and not really getting anything
accomplished. Sometimes it can be hard
to pull your motivation back up after falling into this rut. He talked a lot
about how to set boundaries for yourself (and others) so you can keep a good
routine going and make forward progress on your business. He had a lot more good points that he shared.
If you want to watch his presentation you can find it here.
Then we got
into our game demos as usual. Here are the ones that I was able to see, but I
know I missed a bunch.
Peter was
showing his new card game based in the world of Elduurn (Siphon Spirit). It's a co-op game for three players and where you are battling boss monsters. Everyone has different skills and abilities that they can use to kill the monster before they monster kills them. He'll be posting a free print-n-play version of the game soon.
Super Wall
Ball
This was a
cute skill based tablet game where you play as a turtle and try to keep a ball in motion by
repeatedly kicking it against a wall. You have to get the timing and rhythm down
in order to do this. It has a frustrating but addictive quality to it, sort of
like Flappy Bird in that sense. I
finally got to 10 volleys back and forth before I gave up. I really loved the cartoony art.
Cameron was
showing his exploration game called Parallax. I was blown away by the visuals. It looked incredible. There are doors that will teleport you other parts of the island. I believe it was built with Unity.
Andrew showed his creepy Unity game where you are in a house that has been haunted by ghosts. The game play is similar to "Gone Home" where you can move around, pick up and examine objects to figure out what is happening. The game is set at night and it's raining outside. You have a flashlight but can turn lights on in the house, but the lighting is still low, which definitely sets that creepy mood.
I saw this
one a bit second hand, but was told that this mobile game was created in only
80 hours. I was very impressed as it seemed very complete and polished. It was a game similar to Geometry Wars where
you have to move around and destroy your enemies while avoiding their bullets. Also it's already been released on the iOS app store now.
Goblin Dash
In this mobile
Unity based game you play as a hero with a sword that has to encounter a hoard
of goblins one after another. You have both blocking and attacking moves in
upper, middle, and lower directions. The
goblins will give you a slight hint as to where they will attack so you have to
be quick to block and then counter their moves, so that you can slay the goblin
and move onto the next one. I was very
impressed with the art and game play.
Curtis has been working on a match-3 game using tiles with Japanese characters on them. It's meant to help people learn the sounds and meaning of each character by repetition. Every time they get three matching tiles together, the sound of that character is said aloud. The English equivalent of the character is also shown.
Lyle was showing his co-op game "Together". I didn't get a chance to play it again but he has a Kickstarter for the game that just barely started. So go back it!
I know Vince, Jeff and some others had some games they were showing but I didn't get a moment to see them. As always there was so much happening and not able to absorb it all. What a great time to be an indie.
Viva la Indie!
P.S. You can find some other write-ups of the event at these links
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