Utah Indie Game Night - Fall 2008
Once again, the time came for another indie game night. And once again, our numbers were completely unpredictable. Last time, we had an excess of pizza when we were done, and this time we ran out. It's almost like you can gauge indie night by pizza consumption. Poor Lane, hosting the party on behalf of NinjaBee, never knows exactly how much pizza to order, but there are so many of us now that he has to order in advance.

Well, that's got nothing to do with indie games, really, though I imagine there are tons of indie games that could be made about pizza. I guess the point is we had a great turn-out. We had around 30 or more people show up, which I think exceeded our numbers from last time.

Once again, I felt like I viewed indie night through some sort of tunnel vision. We had a presentation on the Unity game engine, which was actually a lot more interesting than I'd expected. I'm not ready to move over to it for my own development or anything, but I like to keep up with what is happening on the inexpensive game engine front, yet I find myself continually pressed for time to try and keep up and evaluate. It was great to have somebody else provide an overview and answer questions.

He also showed us the steller Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, which anybody who has played it knows is full of oodles of indie goodness. It was built with the Unity engine.

Some students from ITT Tech who I have chatted with at earlier events were there showing their capstone project - an RPG using the new RPG Maker VX engine. I apologize to them here for not remembering the name of the RPG in development. What's cool about it is that the adventuring party you play is of... questionable morality. Not a nice bunch. People in town are all supposed to be capable of being pickpocketed, and being hounded by the law for getting caught in your misdeeds is all part of the game.

Where that takes the story, I don't know yet. But it sounds like an interesting start. The game - at least the "pilot" version of it (sound familiar?) is supposed to be done next month.

I also got the chance to see NInjaBee's new Wii game, Boingz. It looked extremely cool, and is very close to release.

Beyond that, the big chance for me was to chat with other indies and see how things were going - not to mention visit briefly with some friends at NinjaBee. One strange feeling I got from this meeting was that I don't feel quite as in tune with the "indie community" as I was, say, a year ago. No doubt my schedule and the growth of said "community" play a major role in this feeling.

One conversation we had last night involved the extreme growth in low-end Flash games. I was told that with the new built-in ability to provide cheap ad revenue in Flash games, there's been surge in low-quality flash games and applications as inexperienced developers attempt to "cash in." This means that quality games are harder to find through the crap. That's the double-edged sword of indie-dom, I guess.

I was also informed by Greg that Mike Smith's Caster was entered into the IGF competition. Mike is, unfortunately, no longer a local, but I wish him the best of luck with his game!

We also had a couple of 3D artists show up, who were immediately pounced upon by we "dime-a-dozen" programmers. Hopefully we'll be able to find some interesting collaboration opportunities there.

Anyway, as usual, it was a great night. Well, *I* had a great time. I don't know if anyone on the other side of my conversations can say the same, but I appreciate them humoring me.

Labels: Indie Evangelism

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