“Heather Kelley, Rod Humble and Gregory Peng — all experienced game designers — give a look into the process, people and resources involved in creating a video game. Aside from a game’s plot, art and music, they argue that game developers offer an artistic statement in controlling, through “rules,” the way a player interacts with the game’s environment, characters, and what they have to do to win.”
WARNING: I am ask to define an art game, as well as what indie means. Tread at own risk.
Trying to get a job these days is strange. Everyone’s got a role for you to fill. “Hey, I can do that!” I think to myself. “Sorry, we’re looking for somebody more senior,” they return.
Rather than simply filling a role, I’d like to carve my own niche in the games industry. The games industry, however, is averse to carving, running away as soon as I draw near. Maybe one day I’ll get tired of chasing, and take out the “indie axe of mightiness” and chop a hole so big, a manbaby could fit inside of it. But until then, the resumes go out on Fridays.
GDC was amazing. So amazing that attempting to describe it might cause the writer to undergo convulsive seizure due to overexposure to awesome. I dare not tread those waters.
In my opinion, what do I think defines an indie game? One word: heart.
I’m talking about the pulsating organ within your chest that fills arteries with warm blood. In other words, Indie games are all about warm blood. That’s why people are always talking about the Indie Spirit; one sip of Indie Spirit and you’ll feel warm all over. This also explains why a few commercial game companies are able to make games with heart. It’s because they have the Indie Spirit!
Somehow I landed myself the CA position for GDC, leaving me speechless flabbergasted fühlen fantastisch.
Lest I miraculously get a chance to be a CA at GDC, I’ll likely have to make some sort of decision amongst the remaining pass options. Looking at the options, other than the fact that each of them is a financial equivalent of a kick in the balls, these passes otherwise share little in common, catering to the fact that we as developers are segregated into our own little niches. By skipping over the parts of game industry that don’t interest us, we save a bundle. What a great deal.
Or is it? I for one don’t like that we have to choose between the indies and the professionals. By separating these two groups in the most effective way – that is by instating both a monetary and temporal barrier – we arrive at a suboptimal situation: main conference goers will miss out on the ragtag indie gamedev insights and methods, while the indies can only sit outside closed doors and imagine what juicy industry secrets are being discussed. And the students? Well they can more or less stand in the hallways and hope to “network” with random passers by.
While I’m not proposing some sort of communist distribution of passes, surely there must be some better arrangement that lets us get a slice of both worlds for less than the cost of a shiny new laptop?
Yesterday morning I got the call. This summer I’ll be interning at Electronic Arts Los Angeles as a Technical Designer.
What do you want to be when you grow up? How many people can say that their current employment accurately reflects their childhood aspirations? The amazing combination of events that brought me to this point, successes hidden under the guise of failures, mistakes that opened opportunities, and the all nighters that tied them all together… it’s been quite a ride. But I’m there. The industry barrier is broken.
An entry level design position? Did such a thing exist ten years back? Until two years ago, when a colleague proved me wrong, I didn’t even think it was possible. I expected to break in as a programmer, work my way through the ranks, and finally obtain that coveted “game designer” job title after half a decade at the bottom. Of course, my conception of what a game designer actually does was quite a bit off, but the fact remains, I’m five years early.
For everyone who dreams of breaking the barrier I have this advice: Don’t sit on idle hands, start developing games now. Though my life is consumed by it now, looking back I wish I had started even earlier than I did.
Yes, it’s that time again. Planning on entering the IGF Student Showcase myself next year (production has already begun), I typically use these finalists to gauge the chances of a GCS game making the list. The prospects? Not too bad.
Typical IGF final picks seem to hinge mostly on innovative and deviant gameplay (quite opposite of the rest of the industry), and the Student Showcase is no different. Of course, being around the indie game block a couple times myself, somehow the same “innovative concepts” seem to pop up again and again, great ideas rehashed if you will. But as I always stress, it’s all about implementation.
Requisite favorites list:
And Yet It Moves: mixing the classic world orientation changing gameplay with interesting 2D paper cutout visuals gives this game a real good atmosphere. Also note the ambiance created by beatbox sound-effects. Who knew mouth noises could sound so right?
Invalid Tangram: So close to being a shooter by ABA Games, but still not quite there (it lacks ABA’s magical touch). In any case, puzzle shooter game mechanics are quite clever, and I just can’t say no to these genre pieces.
Gelatin Joe: Namesake’s about where the similarities end, Digipen’s Gelatin Joe takes a gameplay concept and molds a world around it. Though a somewhat impersonal approach to game design for my tastes (can’t really relate to a circle), the puzzles seem quite solid, and the interface is clean and well thought out.
Euclidean Crisis: Requisite math-joke. Focusing more on tech than the other entries, the tablet pen based multiplayer action looks pretty good from the videos. I just hope there’s unit micromanagement involved…
I’ll be interested in seeing how these games turn out before the final presentation in March (feature creep? polish? anything can happen really). Well, back to working on my own future IGF entries (both of ‘em).
