I went to the last day of this conference in Seattle. The sessions were okay, but since the conference was focused on casual games, I had to pick through material for scraps of relevance to me. I decided a long while back that DROD would not be a casual game. The very idea that someone would play DROD without a soul-devouring commitment is offensive to me. The best part of the conference, was not actually the conference; it was hanging out with people who attended the conference, many of which I've know from e-mail and online encounters, but never met in person.
Here's
a picture that Keith Sink took of a great dinner we had after the conference. Keith is a game developer who lives in my city that I run into from time to time. In the picture, I will point out some minor indie celebrities:
At a separate "
pariah"
table against the window:
* Russell Carroll, editor of Game Tunnel and Reflexive Entertainment press guy. He is talking to...
* Jamie Cheng, who made the awesome
Eets puzzle game. Jamie wrote the AI from
Dawn of War and left the retail game industry to make his own games.
At the main table on the left side from far end to near, it goes:
* Mike Boeh, Retro64 games owner/developer and guy that runs IndieGamer forum.
* Doh. I forgot who this guy is though I talked to him for a tiny bit. A game developer from the UK, I think.
* Brian Fisher, owner of ArcadeTown game portal and generous billpayer for all the people eating dinner there.
* Forgot the guy's name. Cool guy though. He was pimping some $10,000 software for making games called Virtools at the show, and generally being very apologetic about the price tag and other aspects. In fact, he didn't even work for Virtools, but I figure they owe him a hefty paycheck for helping them out.
* Don't know who the long-haired guy was. Probably someone very special that I will regret not meeting.
* Keith Sink of Piddlepup Games is holding the camera so you can't see him.
On the other side of the table, back to front:
* James C. Smith, owner of Reflexive Entertainment, who made Big Kahuna Reef, Ricochet, and runs an indie game affiliate empire called Reflexive Arcade. One of the few developers at the table that works in an office with employees and all the usual corporate trappings.
* Me. I had a couple drinks and injected myself into conversations with wild abandon.
* Gabriel Gambetta, a really cool guy from Uruguay that made Betty's Beer Bar, Wild West Wendy, and one more recent game I forgot the name of. Last year he went full-time developing his own games and that was a big achievement.
* Dustin Sacks, owner of Sillysoft and developer of
Lux. Sillysoft sells DROD from their site. Dustin always looks like he's about ready to crack up laughing.
* I don't know who the blue shirt guy is. From this angle, I think it is Larry David, but I'm not sure.
-Erik
____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals |
twitch stream |
youtube archive (NSFW)
[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 07-03-2006 07:46 PM]
to the forums Keith! I checked out your site and Crumb really does look like an interesting game. So the beta will be out soon, I can't wait!