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[Ammypendent]

Greetings!

I'm Justin and I am half of Hammerwing Studios, a startup game company.

I've only gotten serious into learning Game Design and Development on my own since December 2011. My experience is mostly design however I have done my fair share of C# programming in Unity3d(Gameplay, UI). Education-wise I'm in my last year of college at UCSC studying Economics.

I've been playing games nearly all my life. It started when I was under 5 with Tie Fighter and Super Mario Bros. My favorite games change depending on the day you ask me. I grew up on the Nintendo classics and PC games but I'm always looking to expanding my gamer experience.

My current work is going to be my first commercially published game called Techno Dash! Myself and my partner (3D artist/programmer & the other half of Hammerwing Studios) have been working on it since last October (when time permits) and we're planning on getting it out later this year.

[Z_guy]

Hello everyone!

I'm Johannes, a 21 year old from Sweden and I consider myself a programmer.

I played a lot of games growing up and when I was around 10 years old I realized that I had no idea how they were made, or how any application were made for that matter. So I asked my dad "How do you make games?", to which he replied "I can show you". At the time I had no idea that he used to be a programmer. He introduced me to Turbo Pascal.

I can still remember the sheer joy I felt the first time I managed to make a program ask for my name and then echo it back to me prefixed with a "Hello".

After a few years I switched to C++.

I only recently got serious about game programming when I decided to go to a game design school about three years ago.

Here's a bunch of screenshots from games I've made (not the art though, just the code).


Gregs World (think Osmos as a platformer)


Pulse Control (control traps with a sine wave)


Weapons of Gravity (yellow circles curves bullets by gravity)

[pmprog]

Hi,

 My names Marq, I tend to not really get past tech-demo stages, I have managed to make a few local multiplayer games for gatherings with friends.

Here's a bunch of vids of stuff I've made and recorded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsj-mEaXMFM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1EPmZ2p2dM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aLQOzALQAw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPBqGvvrgU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q5OwjxiL30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2HoGDqE1So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHynyfjY4Nk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgLLx8lNQnI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGwuuTDyCFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=672Fp2q0M6o

The last one is my current project. It currently supports local mutliplayer, and I'm just working on the "Survival" single player mode, then I hope to add network support in the not too distant future.

 Regards,

[nicotuason]

Guh... introductions! Can't do them, here's my character sheet instead.



I'm Nico. 27 years old. Born in the Philippines. Played command and conquer. Got hooked on strategy games. Got hooked on everything else. Made a flash game. Made another. Got a job. Got a wife and son. Left the job. Making flash games again except now they're on mobile. Sorry I don't like talking about myself. I'm shy.

Regards,
- Nico

[team23]

Hello Folks,

My name if Jeff.  I'm 30 years old and from Seattle, WA.  I'm currently working on my first indie game release and have been since ~Oct, 2011.  Previously I worked on the business side of the software game.  Two years ago after building up some savings I decided to try my luck at self funding an indie game from start to finish.  I'm currently trying to push that project to completion.  Right now I'm acting as programmer/producer/designer on my project and wishing I had more artistic talent. 

How did I get into gaming?
I've been playing games since roughly the original NES.  I also picked up PC gaming around the same time, grabbing Shareware games from my local library.  My gaming interests varied from then on, focusing mostly on PC gaming, although generally keeping up with the consoles up through the N64.  Once online/networked gaming came to the PC I basically abandoned console gaming until the Xbox and Xbox Live came out.  I now generally split my gaming time between console/PC. 

How did I get into game development?
It took me a little longer than most.  Initially my focus was primary on modding.  I tried my hand at the level editor for Duke Nukem 3D, as that was the FPS of choice for my particular hometown.  I never really got into it however, and my next semi-serious attempt was at Half Life.  It was also my first attempt at putting together a team over the internet, and it failed much as you might expect it to.  I finally got into a more structured/traditional programming environment in high school.  My gaming experience there was limited to basic card games and a Tic/Tac/Toe AI.  In college I studied CS and started dipping my toe into 3d graphics via Java3D.  Finally during a summer course I developed what I would consider my first game.  A simple multi-player top down space shooter which I envisioned growing into the next Escape Velocity.  While looking for employment I continued to build on this game until finding full time (And then some) employment in the business side of software development.  I continue to work on my game in my free time, until that time basically got consumed by my 9-5 which had grown to more of a 7-7.  Two years ago I decided to go back to game development.  I wanted to give it a full shot at making a living before spending too much time on the business side of things.  Two years later and I'm pushing to release my first game by the end of this year. 

How did I get to where I am now?
So two years ago I had a decision to make.  Continue working on the game I already had up and running, or to begin a new project.  The primary detractor to resuming my old project was my estimate as to the sheer ammount of content needed that I could not produce.  It would be a heavily art dependent game and the art needed would be non-trivial, such that I could not produce it myself.  The game itself was also written in Python, and I had been hitting issues with the language which was impacting the project.  Finally I did not believe the game to be commercially viable to support myself as an independent developer.  Space games have a following, but not a large one, especially for games relatively small in scope such that they could be completed by a single developer.  So I decided to put off completing my original game and to start a new project.  At the time I was looking for an interesting technical challenge, that would also lend itself to less intensive art.  I started playing around with some simple voxel implementations in the vein of Minecraft.  The game itself lent itself to low art requirements.  The procedural generation of content helped to lower the cost for large scale art.  And the current implementations seemed to be easily matchable and possible to exceed.  Finally I decided bringing it to a mobile device would be the most interesting of the possible target platforms, especially if the game could be released on PC and allow cross platform play.  So a few months before I left my full time job I started prototyping, to see if what I wanted to do was possible given the hardware available.  Fast forward a few months and I started full time development of my game.  Over the next few months I built in my initial features and the game started to take shape.  The hardware did require some additional time to optimize implementation along the way in order to allow for regular playtests, but it seemed I would be able to release my vision on mobile devices without significant issue.  I spent the next 8 months working on the game untill I started to hit a wall.  The big features were coming in, though not fully completed, but the game didn't feel right.  I began to realize that although the hardware itself could render and execute the game, the available controls for the player were not equally up to the task.  It became clear that although I could release a functioning and "workable" game on mobile devices, it would not be a great game.  If I wanted to release I would have to accept that the controls would hamper the experience significantly.  Unwilling to release a game I wasn't happy with completely I decided to retarget the game.  I needed a platform with actual physical controls and with some reasonable distribution platform.  While PC did give me the necessary controls, it lacked a distribution system that I could rely on, outside of Steam.  I regarded my chances of being allowed on Steam rather slim.  So I finally focused on the Xbox 360.  The system allowed me to target a specific piece of hardware.  It had a marketplace which was non-currated, so I knew my game would make it onto the store.  And it offered a fairly robust marketplace for voxel/boxel style games.  Finally the games on the service were either focused on the creative aspect of the genre, or were significantly more faithful to the Minecraft survival gameplay mode.  I felt I had something different to offer.  So roughly a year ago I switched to focus on an XBLIG/XNA release of my game on the Xbox 360 as my intial launch. 

What is the actual project?
My current project ZombieBlocks (Working title) is basically a urban survival game in a voxel/boxel world.  The environment is a procedurally generated cityscape.  Every building can be entered and has items to be scavenged.  Enemies are able to imapct the world in many of the ways the player can.  So they can break down walls, dig through the earth or build piles on which to climb.  Construction/building is focused on modifying existing structures to make them less vulnerable to attack, rather than crafting entirely custom structures.  Most enemies are persistent, so you can "clear" buildings or areas as you would expect.  A waved attack system prevents players from ever being in an entirely "safe" state. 

That's enough blabbing on about myself.  Look forward to interacting with you all!

[shriek56]

Hey everybody,

My name is Mark Zimmerman and I'm 22 years old. I was a life-long gamer and always wanted to get in to video game development. When I was in second grade I made a game for a science fair (with my dad's help of course). My senior year of high school I took an AP Java class to see how I liked programming and found it really enjoyable. I went to RIT for Game Design & Development and graduated in March.

Since graduation I've been developing my very first indie game and it's finally finished! I'll be posting it here in a couple of days when it officially launches, so keep an eye out yall.

Mark Zimmerman

[Sansduke]

Hi Mark


Hello, my name is Sean. I like playing games and I even sometimes like making them. I also like beer. A am a programmer, I went to school and got a bachelors degree in CS, so I like programing. The hard part comes when I need to make art assets for my games. It takes forever and the results are not good. Sure I can partner with artists, but the role of the solo developer suits me too well.

As for my games, well, it's a lot of abandoned projects and long periods of inaction. That sounds bad, but luckily game development is purely a hobby for me. Recently I am trying to work on projects more and actually get (more) finished products.

[TheHermit]

Hello, I'm Nich.

I've been a physicist for the last five years or so, but I've always done a lot of hobby game stuff on the side. I hadn't really considered it as something to try to make money with though. Often it was just a result of me wanting to play 'another game sort of like X' and realizing that the only way it would happen is by writing it, especially during the years where turn-based games had become somewhat unpopular. My inspirations were games like Wizardry, Realms of Arkania, Master of Orion, Alien Legacy, and the like.

I recently moved to Oregon from Illinois, and I realized that there's something very valuable about being able to choose exactly where you live while you work, something thats difficult in the academic market. So I figured I'd see if I can actually make money with games before the deadline for my next academic job search looms, and if nothing else that'd give me some additional choices when the time comes.

In my job I've done a lot of C/C++ code, mostly for simulations and some batch data processing and visualization stuff, but I decided to move away from that and go HTML5/JS for games. Mobile is clearly huge right now, and I didn't like the idea of writing a game 4 times over to be able to port it to different platforms. I also liked the idea that the game would just work outright for most people without issues of libraries, hardware incompatibility, or even having to install the game (although we're going to package things with Node-Webkit for purchase, in which case they will have to install the game).

So about three months ago I set myself what I considered a moderate-scale project - something bigger than a 'toy' but still modular and easy to release in whatever shape I could get it into by the time I had to start my job search. I got some friends together who were also interested in this sort of thing and were willing to just see how far it could go, and we started 'Urban Hermit Games' and got to work on our first game - an exploration game called 'Travelogue'. Its sort of along the lines of a fantasy Oregon trail. Since it wasn't a story-driven game, we could just add richness, subplots, etc to the game for as long as we had until release.

Currently I've got about 3 weeks before it has to go out, and we're 90% (the infamous 90%) done. I've learned a bit about graphics, writing music, marketing, and the various ways other people make money doing this kind of thing, etc since we started, so I think its been a worthwhile experience either way. I now know that for this kind of game, most people make their money with commissions and by licensing their games to portal sites, which Travelogue wasn't really well-designed for, but on the other hand it seems harder to build a reputation with that kind of thing.

As part of this whole experience, we started a blog to chronicle the development of our stuff and the various things we learned along the way: http://www.urbanhermitgames.com/.

[fullmontis]

Hey guys, my name's Andrea, 24 yo from Italy. I want to make games I'd love to play because no one has made them yet. I love the creative process of making a game and hopefully it's something I'll do my whole life, even if as an hobby.

My only finished "game" at this time is The Call, which is a visual novel in the form of an interactive phone call. I made it for the Ludum Dare 26. Along with that there is a heap of prototypes I'll finish some day (yeah sure) and a small game I'm currently working on that I'll release next month.

That's enough for now, have a nice day.

[Heftig]

Hey everyone! My name is Heftig, I'm an indie dev working on my first title.

I've always wanted to be a wizard, ever since I was little, I wanted to fly to strange far off lands, conjure monsters to be my pets and build fantastic machines to operate and do wonderous things with them. Through game development, I'm able to do just that, so when people ask me what I do, I tell them I'm a wizard. (Well, maybe not really, but I think it!)

Games have always been an integral part of my life since I was 4, when I got my first SNES, along with Mario Paint, gaming stimulates my imagination, lets me work out my frustrations, and brings joy beyond words. I hope through my own humble creations to inspire the same emotions I myself have cherished for almost the entirety of my life.

Peace everyone!
~ Heftig

[fenryo]

Hi everyone,
My name is MADIBA and I am from cameroon. I am trying to launch the 1st african fantasy video game in the world. I hope to share with you about this and I hope I will also be a good ... you know... buddy for ya. Thanks   

[Gimym JIMBERT]

Sorry to bust the bubble but it won't be the first ... However I can only encourage you to make it : )

[DaCo]

Hey, my name's Colin.

I've been fiddling around with art and programming for about eleven years now. I've learned a lot in that time. Most of all, that making a game requires a whole hell of a lot of motivation and time, as well as the support of onlookers.

I haven't made a whole, big game yet, only a slew of experimental, incomplete games and a couple small jam games. I hope to change that pattern with the help and feedback of people like you.

My resources are scant, and my works are obscure at best, but there is a slight possibility that you will have heard of my roguelike project, Clarion. That one's on the backburner for now. My current project, which is going better than any of my projects before it, is Foxhole: Scrapshoot (in my signature there). I'm not giving up on this one.

It's nice to enter into a new community. I hope you'll have me with all my warts.

[johnjoemcbob]

Hey

About Me
I'm Matthew, an 18 year old game design student studying in Scotland. I've been in game development for over four years, and my interest in the subject was first piqued by Garry's Mod.

Background
Throughout my time developing games I have created many variations of the same basic idea; a medieval, multiplayer RPG in which the player takes on a role within society and has the ability to create for themselves.

Medieval Roleplay - My first game mode, a simple medieval mod built on top of other mods, which gave the player the ability to mine and smith items. The old page for the mod can be found here, though the actual mod no longer works
The Middle Ages - My follow up to the Medieval Roleplay game mode, added more advanced skills such as crafting and alchemy, and a simple inventory. Experimented with a fantasy theme, as well as NPCs.
Garry's Mod Civilizations - Another take on the idea, this time more focused on realism, with pre-designed buildings to construct, and further advancements such as trading, chests, farming and a faction system. A demonstration of game play and features can be seen here.

I am currently working on my latest take on this idea, which aims to be a standalone game rather than built on top of Garry's Mod.

Leisure
When I'm not making games I love to play them, I'm really into RPGs and creative games, at the moment I'm playing 'Risen 2 - Dark Waters' which I am 21 hours into.
My all time favourite has to be Garry's Mod however, and I have more than 3000 hours logged.

[JesseM]

Hey guys!

My name is Jesse. I'm 24 years old and from Finland. Happily married and father of two!

Gaming, as well as art and music has been always very important for me. So I have always been drawing and playing different instruments. At some point I started to learn digital drawing and composing. It have been my dream to create something that is "me", but I did not feel I can manage it all back then.

After maturing, maybe after I got my own family, it came to me: It felt I was "ready" to start developing my very first indie game and that's what I'm currently doing. I'm hoping to make our living by developing games some day!

Cheers from Finland!

- Jesse

[RobotJoe]

hi im joe and i like to draw.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21712615/trash/TONGUEDEMON1.jpg

[SyradineGames]

Hi all, name's Tuan Vu. I have a Computer Science degree and currently working as a software developer for a big company. Last year, I decided to just create a simple game for fun. It ended up consuming my life and now I am close to releasing. Learning the difficulties of marketing and just how many more developers and games out there at the moment.

My first time to see a video game was at a friend's house who had just bought Super Mario Bros on NES. I promptly begged my mom to get one and spent the better part of my childhood, teens, and college years playing video games. I'm a console guy. I've owned a NES, SNES, Playstation, and Playstation 2, basically following where my favorite RPGs were going (Final Fantasy mainly). After getting married, I've stopped playing video games, but I read magazines and stay up to date with the news.

I made my first game entirely by myself, but I hope to make some friends, devs, artists, designers, musicians, and business people I can trust to build a team together. Send me a message and I'll gladly talk with you. Thanks.

[RoyL]

Hi everyone,

I'm part of Astro Assembly, a studio based in Boston, MA. We are working on two games. Our first game, Multilytheus, is a challenging abstract first-person puzzle game. Our second game, Pharaoh's Dance, is an action-platformer-roguelike that takes place on a giant spinning wheel. Nice to meet you!

[Boopable]

Howdy all, Brenton here, working under the name Boopable! I've been a lifelong gamer, although it was PC only until my family got a tv and N64 in late elementary school.

My most formative games were probably Doom and Eye of the Beholder, which I stayed up way too late "playing" with my dad--I was too young to help much, but those games pretty well worked their way into my psyche as what awesome looked like.

I've been tinkering with programming on and off for years, but in the last year and a half or so have gotten really serious and am now working on my first hopefully-commercial release, which I should be announcing soon. I'm using GM studio as my engine, but also have experience coding C# and PHP.

Hope to see you all around!

[antionio]

Hiya!

Another lifelong gamer and wannabe indie game developer here! I started gaming with the Commodore 64 and later NES when I was a wee lad. I've been programming stuff since I had my first 286 PC and have been working in the IT industry for over 6 years programming uninspiring business software as a software architect. Six months ago I changed jobs and now I'm programming full time at a closely gaming related company which has been great.

I've constantly been tinkering with games in my free time - they are the reason I wanted to learn programming. I really want to create great games that everyone can enjoy. I take great inspiration from Nintendo games and wish to create something of that caliber some day.

So, let's do something great!