Tales of the Rampant Coyote
Ye Olde Archives. Visit the new blog at http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/ - and use the following feed: http://rampantgames.com/blog/wp-rss2.php
Ye Olde Archives. Visit the new blog at http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/ - and use the following feed: http://rampantgames.com/blog/wp-rss2.php
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Utah Indie Developer Meet
Last night we had a “Utah Indie Game Developers” get-together. The NinjaBee / Wahoo guys graciously opened up their office (and arcade machines) to us, and we got a chance to meet fellow indies, chat, mingle, and consume mass quantities of pizza and chips.
We had fourteen people show. The night began a little slowly, with everyone going around the room, introducing themselves, what they’d worked on, and their current projects. One interesting thing was how many of the group had experience working in publisher-contract-based game studios prior (or concurrently) to “going indie.” We also had Russell Carroll there, the man behind Game Tunnel (http://www.gametunnel.com/), who knows a lot about indie games, building a web presence, and kicking developer’s butts at the Super Sprint arcade game the Ninjabee guys had in their breakroom.
After the intros, we ended up eating pizza and breaking up informally into smaller groups and discussing current projects, tools, rumors, and ideas. We also spent some time looking over current projects and providing feedback. I had nothing to show this time around --- my current project is only a month old and not very far along due to the day job clobbering me.
One of the coolest things about the night was being able to be in a room with very bright people, and being able to pool the collective knowledge held there a little bit. Beyond that, I was able to pick up a few contacts, put faces to names, get some advice on running an indie game shop successfully, and share thoughts and ideas with people. Inspiration, Motivation, and Education!
Hopefully we’ll do it again soon. Maybe then I’ll have something worth showing to the group :). And maybe I'll remember to bring a camera for pics. Many thanks to Greg Squire for getting the ball rolling on this, NinjaBee for hosting, and Eric Peterson for contributing to the munchables! And to everyone else who showed up for a great time and great conversations!
Labels: Indie Evangelism
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:39 PM (Permalink)
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Meetups are great, aren't they? I talked about the recent meetup in Chicago here: http://gbgames.com/blog/index.php?p=81
Up until that day, I thought that game developers in Chicago had all moved away to California or Texas. It was refreshing to see so many people who actually make games for a living.
And it is cool that you got to see Russell. I've only seen him once, and it wasn't in person. It was on that G4/TechTV segment.
Up until that day, I thought that game developers in Chicago had all moved away to California or Texas. It was refreshing to see so many people who actually make games for a living.
And it is cool that you got to see Russell. I've only seen him once, and it wasn't in person. It was on that G4/TechTV segment.
Yeah, I read your blog entry on that a few hours before I went to the one here. I really wasn't sure how it would go, but I found it really useful. I wasn't really sure we had that many "indie" developers in the state!
I knew we had some "independent studios" - they don't self-publish, but they aren't owned by a larger publisher. They mainly do contract work - ports of games and so forth. Not the sort of thing that excites people about making games for a living, but it pays the bills and can provide opportunity for more exciting projects.
I've met Russell twice - once at a lunch with the NinjaBee guys, and then Wednesday night. He expressed great concern that I was working on an RPG as my current project, because as much as he personally loves them, they take FOREVER to make and usually die long before completion. I'm hoping to break that trend, but his warning is far from unfounded, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about it too. I think I have some solutions to the problem, but they aren't complete solutions - just ways of changing the paradigm a bit to make it more achievable.
Russell's a great guy. I'm really excited about the attention he's been able to garner for Game Tunnel - I think that's a victory for indie games as a whole.
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I knew we had some "independent studios" - they don't self-publish, but they aren't owned by a larger publisher. They mainly do contract work - ports of games and so forth. Not the sort of thing that excites people about making games for a living, but it pays the bills and can provide opportunity for more exciting projects.
I've met Russell twice - once at a lunch with the NinjaBee guys, and then Wednesday night. He expressed great concern that I was working on an RPG as my current project, because as much as he personally loves them, they take FOREVER to make and usually die long before completion. I'm hoping to break that trend, but his warning is far from unfounded, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about it too. I think I have some solutions to the problem, but they aren't complete solutions - just ways of changing the paradigm a bit to make it more achievable.
Russell's a great guy. I'm really excited about the attention he's been able to garner for Game Tunnel - I think that's a victory for indie games as a whole.
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