I’ve been working with indie developers Marlon Wiebe, Noel Berry and Jeff Lindsay on an idea hatched at the last Mini PegJam – creating a free-to-play, Winnipeg-based arcade machine dedicated to indie games! We call it:
The Winnitron will feature a WiFi card and the ability to connect to a server to download the latest featured games automatically. (no manual USB stick updating!) It uses a launcher built in Unity3D. The 1000 model will feature two player controls. (one joystick, and two buttons each)
Our new beast of a beta unit
Where Will It Be Located?
We’re really hoping to get the Winnitron installed at Red River College. It’s right in the exchange district, near a lot of other cool places to hang out. It also means a lot of students would check it out, which might be a really cool way to bring new younglings into the indie game community.
There’s also the option to tour the machine around at different events, and we’re looking into ideas for this.
What Will It Look Like?
A true retro arcade machine! We have a design in mind, and we’re either going to refurbish an old cabinet or build one from a kit. It’ll be a big, sexy beast.
We Want Your Games!
Current we have the Winnitron loaded up with games by ourselves and other indie friends, but we want to pack this thing full of made-in-Winnipeg fun. To whit, we’re gonna hold a game jam specifically themed around building games for the Winnitron!
In fact: you can start right now. If you can restrict your game to 4 directional movement, and two buttons per player, you’re already halfway there. (we’ll get the details on the specific keybindings and high score stuff later)
You can build your game in anything that will run on a decently powered Windows PC. Flash, Unity and GameMaker are all good choices.
Dates for the JAM: The Weekend of October 23rd is looking good. Please fill out our Jam Survey over at the Winnitron site to keep us up to date on how many of you can make it! (let us know alternate dates if the 23rd doesn’t work for you)
Location for the JAM: To be Announced! It depends how many people are interested.
The Belly of the Beast
Why is this a Good Thing?
The WINNITRON 1000 will help build a creative and collaborative indie game developer community in Winnipeg. Having a strong, healthy and fun community is integral to honing our skills, learning new ideas, growing new teams and hopefully: keeping people in Winnipeg by making it slightly more awesome.
Update: We Built It!
We built the WINNITRON by refurbishing and old arcade cabinet. Check it out:
Click for more pics!
Support the Cause! Spread the Word!
Tell your friends, neighbors, grandparents, estranged pets – everyone should know about the Winnitron! It’s gonna be narbacular.
Hello again! This is a continuation of a series of audio podcasts, featuring myself and other independent game developers.
Each episode will feature a different developer, and the format will be more like a sprawling conversation than a formal interview. Topics covered will vary depending on the developer in question, but some of the same topics will pop up with many of the guests. I’ll also interject some of my own opinions and views into the discussion.
Why am I doing this? Personally, I’m very interested in how other developers work. What motivates them? How do they deal with criticism? What do they find meaningful about games? (if anything?) What are the stories behind the development of their projects? I hope to learn a lot, and also help spread more knowledge around.
Today’s episode is a discussion with prolific indie developer Edmund McMillen. Edmund is on the verge of releasing Super Meat Boy, a larger game project that he’s been working on for some time now. In this episode we talk about motivation, fear, depression, jealousy and maybe even some happy things as well. Edmund’s wife Danielle jumps in later on to talk about relationships and how intense game development schedules can sometimes conflict. I ask the creative couple how they manage to stay sane in spite of all the pressures that come with being independent.
Thanks to Edmund and Danielle for taking time out of their day to discuss!
Developer Name: Edmund McMillen
Location: Santa Cruz, California
Website: http://edmundm.com/
Howdy, I’ve decided to “reboot” my Unity tutorial series, with a look at the newest version of Unity: 3.0, beta 7.
Note: You can get access to the Unity 3.0 beta at the Unity website, if you preorder.
From here on, I’m going to diverge the tutorials into two separate streams:
N00b Series One will be for complete n00bs. It will attempt to explain scripting in a way that people who have never done any programming will hopefully understand. The end goal of the n00b series will be to build a really basic platformer.
Intermediate Series The other will go into more advanced topics, for those who already get the basics of scripting. These topics will include physics gameplay, 2D layering, connecting to online services, etc.
Requests Let me know if there are topics you’d like me to cover.
Why, hello there! I’m starting a series of audio podcasts, featuring myself and other independent game developers.
Each episode will feature a different developer, and the format will be more like a sprawling conversation than a formal interview. Topics covered will vary depending on the developer in question, but some of the same topics will pop up with many of the guests. I’ll also interject some of my own opinions and views into the discussion.
Why am I doing this? Personally, I’m very interested in how other developers work. What motivates them? How do they deal with criticism? What do they find meaningful about games? (if anything?) What are the stories behind the development of their projects? I hope to learn a lot, and also help spread more knowledge around.
The pilot episode of our podcast features Adam Saltsman. Adam’s a full time indie developer who has achieved a lot of critical and financial success with games such as Wurdle and Canabalt. He also happens to be a really good friend of mine, which made for a very smooth and agreeable (and possibly meandering) conversation.
Big ups to Adam for bravely volunteering for this experiment.
Developer Name: Adam Saltsman
Location: Austin, Texas
Website: http://adamatomic.com
