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Last Friday, Dave and I were asked to speak with a computer science course at Inter-Lakes High School. We gave them a brief history of how we managed to stumble to where we are today, and explained things that they can do in order to make video games for a living. Half way through, we were unfortunately interrupted by a fire drill...it's been awhile since I've had to leave a building single file.
Inter-Lakes High School, Class of 2010
I had a phone call when we got to the parking lot, and took it a little ways away from the class so I wouldn't disturb anyone. A teacher actually came over and yelled at me to get in with the rest of my class. I even had to serve a detention, lame. Okay, I made the detention part up.
If you're a high school student (or early in college) reading our blog, then you probably already have a good grasp on the indie scene and know how to get started. In case you don't, I encourage any aspiring game developers to take a look at various middleware programs like Gamemaker, Flash, Unity...maybe some readers could comment on any tools they use too.
Also, get yourself to a traditional university after high school. I know those "game design degree in two years!" programs sound perfect (I almost pursued one myself), but you'll be much more versatile with a degree in computer science or the arts.
And as always, shoot us an email anytime with questions you have about making games. We love our jobs, and we love to help.
One more thing! Get your cameras ready, the next Snap-A-Shot Contest is a mere blog post away...
Inter-Lakes High School, Class of 2010
I had a phone call when we got to the parking lot, and took it a little ways away from the class so I wouldn't disturb anyone. A teacher actually came over and yelled at me to get in with the rest of my class. I even had to serve a detention, lame. Okay, I made the detention part up.
If you're a high school student (or early in college) reading our blog, then you probably already have a good grasp on the indie scene and know how to get started. In case you don't, I encourage any aspiring game developers to take a look at various middleware programs like Gamemaker, Flash, Unity...maybe some readers could comment on any tools they use too.
Also, get yourself to a traditional university after high school. I know those "game design degree in two years!" programs sound perfect (I almost pursued one myself), but you'll be much more versatile with a degree in computer science or the arts.
And as always, shoot us an email anytime with questions you have about making games. We love our jobs, and we love to help.
One more thing! Get your cameras ready, the next Snap-A-Shot Contest is a mere blog post away...
It's been a bit of a ghost town around here, hasn't it? Here's our excuse: we moved! From the sunny deserts of Arizona to the vast forests of New Hampshire. We're just now settling in our new office and rearing to go on Snapshot once again.
Development is in full swing, so expect some more screenshots, some more contests and perhaps even a video! We're incredibly excited with how it's coming along and can't wait to share it with you.
As a side note, we'll be attending Boston's IGDA meeting this upcoming Wednesday. So if you're in the Boston area, you should go too! I'll have a stack of Snapshot Art cards with me...
Retro Affect is here
Development is in full swing, so expect some more screenshots, some more contests and perhaps even a video! We're incredibly excited with how it's coming along and can't wait to share it with you.
As a side note, we'll be attending Boston's IGDA meeting this upcoming Wednesday. So if you're in the Boston area, you should go too! I'll have a stack of Snapshot Art cards with me...
Some people ask us what we do when we're not working on Snapshot. I've been meaning to make a couple posts about the fun things we've been doing lately, but instead it's all going into one.
We play ping pong
Dave bought a ping pong table a few months ago. It wasn't too long before we heard that our friends over at Broken Bulb Studios had one as well. As game creators, a competition naturally ensued. Dave and I were pretty confident going into the tournament. Little did we know...we would be annihilated.
We play dodgeball...on trampolines
I was particularly excited about this one. We discovered an indoor trampoline facility nearby. Every Thursday since, we've gone to jump around and hang out with the Flashbang crew. I can safely tell you that a floor covered in trampolines is every single thing you except it to be and then some. Matthew Wegner snapped some photos of the awesome.
We play StarCraft 2
You should probably send us your SC2 identifier and we'll play some matches!
We play ping pong
Dave bought a ping pong table a few months ago. It wasn't too long before we heard that our friends over at Broken Bulb Studios had one as well. As game creators, a competition naturally ensued. Dave and I were pretty confident going into the tournament. Little did we know...we would be annihilated.
We play dodgeball...on trampolines
I was particularly excited about this one. We discovered an indoor trampoline facility nearby. Every Thursday since, we've gone to jump around and hang out with the Flashbang crew. I can safely tell you that a floor covered in trampolines is every single thing you except it to be and then some. Matthew Wegner snapped some photos of the awesome.
We play StarCraft 2
You should probably send us your SC2 identifier and we'll play some matches!
What a weekend. Over 15 people showed up, made some games, and ate some cake. There were some spectacular results. If you haven't checked out our RAjam Feed, you should probably do it now. There, you can find a great summary of all the different projects. We'll be posting some of the results in the coming weeks but in the meantime, enjoy some of the photos taken during the jam, courtesy of Matthew Wegner from Flashbang.
making our final presentations
What game from the jam do you want to play the most?
making our final presentations
What game from the jam do you want to play the most?
It's true! We're hosting another game jam. This time in conjunction with Ludum Dare, an online jam. We're expecting a decent sized crowd, and more than a few awesome games. Make sure you check out our RAjam page. There you can watch us work, chat us up, and keep an eye on our project's progression.
Postcard Delivery and igdaPHX...
Posted by Peter Jones on April 14th, 2010 in General
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All was a little quiet on the blogosphere last week wasn't it? Well the good news is that we've been quite busy with Snapshot, the bad news is...well, I guess the only bad news is that we haven't had a chance to write about it. For now, I wanted to let everyone know that our new post cards have arrived!
We'll get these sent out to our Birthday Contest winners as soon as we can. Did you miss out on our latest super-awesome post card? Fear not, I sense another Snap-a-shot contest in the near future...
One side note: our first Phoenix IGDA meeting last week was a success! We were privileged to meet over 40 of really cool developers from the area. If you're in the valley, make sure to check out www.igdaphx.org for more information about out fledging chapter.
We'll get these sent out to our Birthday Contest winners as soon as we can. Did you miss out on our latest super-awesome post card? Fear not, I sense another Snap-a-shot contest in the near future...
One side note: our first Phoenix IGDA meeting last week was a success! We were privileged to meet over 40 of really cool developers from the area. If you're in the valley, make sure to check out www.igdaphx.org for more information about out fledging chapter.
We're happy to announce that the Phoenix Chapter of the IGDA is nearly up and running and this Thursday is the first meeting! You might already be a member, curious about the IGDA, or just want an excuse to get out for a couple drinks with some new friends; whatever the reason, we'll see you there.
IGDA Interest Meeting
Thursday, April 8th at 7:00PM
@ Boulder's on Broadway
There's a pool table, foosball table and even a Pacman table, we'll have a computer there too if you want to bring your own games for demo. I'll be speaking for just a little bit about the IGDA and where we plan on taking the chapter. Head on over to igdaphx.org for more information.
IGDA Interest Meeting
Thursday, April 8th at 7:00PM
@ Boulder's on Broadway
There's a pool table, foosball table and even a Pacman table, we'll have a computer there too if you want to bring your own games for demo. I'll be speaking for just a little bit about the IGDA and where we plan on taking the chapter. Head on over to igdaphx.org for more information.
Questions and Answers: An Interview
Posted by Kyle Pulver on March 25th, 2010 in General
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We recently sat down with a mysterious internet figure known to mortals only as "Entar" for an interview. He runs the Games Fascination blog in which he writes about nearly everything involving games. Since we are a game studio making a game, we were the perfect fit. The interview is quite awesome, and to prove it, here's a snippet:
Entar: Can you talk a little about some of the dandy features we can expect to see in Snapshot?
Kyle Pulver: Dandy features include multiple dandelions in each level to take photos of.
Peter Jones: Haha, well we've added a decent amount of features since the prototype. I think the one we're most excited about is the ability to capture the physics of an object. So, when you snap a photo of a falling rock, that rock's velocity is preserved in the picture. When you paste the picture, the rock will continue on its way. That, combined with the ability to rotate photos creates some really fun puzzles and hilarious moments. Physics is fun.
Kyle Pulver: When it doesn't break and freak out. Physics are indeed fun.
Entar: Ah yes, physics bugs. I can relate.
David Carrigg: Yeah, debugging physics... not quite as fun as watching physics happen.
Kyle Pulver: It's a cruel mistress, to make physics into something that actually feels correct in both a real world model and a game world model... Dave should write a novel on this after we're done.
David Carrigg: Is a blog post a novel? ...because I could do that.
Entar: Well, it's worth a shot at any rate. Maybe just go for it and let the masses decide.
I greatly recommend checking out the entire interview.
Woah, were we in San Francisco last week? A full seven days of catching up with other indies, schmoozing at parties and handing out Snapshot Promo Cards like they were candy....eye candy. Kyle and I kicked things off with the First Annual Indie Disc Golf Open hosted by our friends at Wolfire Games.
Numbers grew from just a few to at least a dozen indies. Thankfully, no one was injured and further more, no one kept score. It's safe to say we all had a great time catching up, and I hope it becomes a pre-GDC tradition.
Festivities continued into the first day of the conference, and the start of the Independent Games Summit where Ron Carmel explained the Indie Fund. It's an awesome program designed to help fund indie games without the inherent fine print that comes with most publishers. You can read more about it here. To name a few others: John Graham of Wolfire Games spoke on community, Colin Northway gave a postmortem of Fantastic Contraption, and Cactus explained how to torture the player for fun. All in all a great week of sessions.
Thursday night was the Independent Games Festival, an award's show near and dear to Retro Affect's heart. This year's entries were astounding. Monaco by Andy Schatz took the Grand Prize. It's a cooperative game about thievery, stealth, the French and most certainly deserving of its recognition.
There were so many other great games in the mix. The IGF pavillion was easily the hot spot of the conference expo hall. Make sure you check out igf.com to read more about the other finalists.
Those little promotional cards we made worked wonders. They fit so perfectly in our badges it was like we planned it. I even heard of an attendee asking, "Where can I get those badge inserts?" Success! If you managed to snag one these gems, hold onto it! I can't say why quite yet....but let's just say I would contest if you gave away those cards.
The rest of the week saw a lot of parties, a lot of games and very little sleep. So, keep an eye on our blog! We'll post some of our take-aways and I'll have more to report once I recover...
The big bulk of our GDC promotional materials arrived today, and it's like Christmas in March! Whoa, March? Holy crap, it's already March. Game Developers Conference is just a week away! How did this happen?!
Today we received the remainder of our business cards, and we also received about 300 postcards that were mentioned in a previous blog post. On top of that, we got a slick business document to hand out to some very important people at the conference. Look at all this Retro Affect stuff!
We're going to be handing out all three postcards at GDC, but each of us will be armed with a different one. If you want to get all of them, you'll have to track down all three of us at GDC. It'll be like collecting pokemon cards, but not as expensive. (Actually, if you paid for a GDC pass it will be just as expensive I guess...)
Neeka, one of our mascots, has already collected all three. Yes, they are delicious.
After we got all this awesome printed Snapshot spam, we thought we could take it one step further. Handing out business cards and post cards just doesn't seem like enough now a days, so we took to the skies...
Today we received the remainder of our business cards, and we also received about 300 postcards that were mentioned in a previous blog post. On top of that, we got a slick business document to hand out to some very important people at the conference. Look at all this Retro Affect stuff!
We're going to be handing out all three postcards at GDC, but each of us will be armed with a different one. If you want to get all of them, you'll have to track down all three of us at GDC. It'll be like collecting pokemon cards, but not as expensive. (Actually, if you paid for a GDC pass it will be just as expensive I guess...)
Neeka, one of our mascots, has already collected all three. Yes, they are delicious.
After we got all this awesome printed Snapshot spam, we thought we could take it one step further. Handing out business cards and post cards just doesn't seem like enough now a days, so we took to the skies...
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