Infinite Ammo

You can now register for TIGJam: Winnipeg!

What is a TIGJam? Well it stands for “The Independent Game JAM”. What is THAT?

Basically: Bunch of game developers get together, bring their laptops and work on whatever project they feel like.

New projects will be born, long-lasting friendships will be formed, skills will be gained – epic levelling-up! – and little or no sleep will be had…

It’s just sort of awesome.

Yes, Bring!
- Laptop (conserve space)
- Good Pair of Headphones (so you can get in the zone)
- Working Workflow (engine/tools set up ‘n ready to go)
- Your Game Development Skills (code, art, design, music, etc!)

No, Do Not Bring!
- Bad Vibes
- A Huge Setup

For more info and discussion: Visit the TIGForums

Dates: May 29 – May 30, 2010 (optional setup Friday evening, May 28)
Location: Fortune Cat Games Studio, 201-62 Albert Street Winnipeg
Province: MANITOBA.
Country: Canada. (duh!)

These indie fellas from out of town have booked travel already:
Adam Saltsman – Canabalt, Paper Moon
Kyle Pulver – depict1, Snapshot, Verge, Time Lapse Jam
Greg Wohlwend – 4fourths
Matthew Wegner – Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, Minotaur China Shop
Shawn White – Blush, Time Donkey
Mark Johns – stdBits, Owl Country, Das Cube
Eric McQuiggan

Local Manitobans:
Robin Debreuil – Video Profile
Marlon Wiebe
Tom Rab
Eileen Holowka
Chrissy Chubala
James Swirsky
Noel Berry
Evan Harasem
Dylan Fries
Chris Lobay
Kenley Kristofferson

Always remember to brush your teeth – and don’t forget to register!

HEY! We’re Looking for a TShirt Design!

I’m on the hunt for a funky and talented 2D artist to design a unique TIGJam: Winnipeg t-shirt. In previous years, the illustrious and batty Derek Yu has designed wonderfully twisted pieces to commemorate our jams. See the appropriate example below:

I would absolutely love to throw some money at someone who can mash together visual ideas unique to “indie games” and “Winnipeg”. The Golden Boy riding a curling rock whilst playing Game boy? The Weakerthans as 8-bit Nintendo characters? Surprise me!

If you have a design that you’d like to submit for consideration, fire it over to Chrissy and myself at hello@infiniteammo.ca or post a link on this here blog.

P.S. Due to my disorganizational skills, we’ll need to get this design wrapped up pronto so we can get shirts printed in time for the jam. But extra pressure just makes us more creative, riiiight?

Special Thanks To:
Fortune Cat Games Studio
New Media Manitoba
Matthew Wegner

Questions or Comments? Hit that “Read More” Button and Fire Away!

So I showed up on TIGRadio last night, talking about Marian, the Humble Indie Bundle and a number of other interesting topics! If you’re interested, you can check out the archives at TIGRadio.com. (direct link)

If you haven’t heard of the Humble Indie Bundle yet, (how is that possible?) then you should definitely check it out. Pay anything you want for 6 awesome indie games, including Aquaria – and part of your contribution will go to the EFF and Child’s Play charities as well. The site also features real-time stats, and a couple secrets…

Also: check out the responses to last week’s post about “Self-Management” – there are some interesting thoughts:

Previously…

Today’s Unity tutorial covers the basics of Unity’s built-in GUI system.

One of the weirdest things about being an indie game developer is the work schedule. Have you ever worked as your own boss? What about being your own boss as well as trying to coordinate a team of other people?

The idea of setting your own pace and being in charge of your own schedule might sound pretty good. And in many ways, it is. If you’re running your own game project, you get to choose what the priorities are, when you get up and when you go to bed, how many hours per day you should spend working on various tasks – etc.

However, by deciding to go down this path your responsibilities begin to increase exponentially. If you were working for a large company with several layers of managers, the managers would be the one keeping track of where the project is supposed to be. You’d only have to worry about your block of work; the rest of the project would be taken care of.

When you’re running your own project though, its success or failure is ultimately resting entirely on your shoulders. So it’s not as if you’re “more free” in the sense that you can just take whole days off to be lazy – in fact, your workload is going to be much larger…

Read On