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[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #98 - 10/29/2014

IndieCade Post-Mortem - Part 1



Earlier this year, I submitted Relativity to IndieCade. However, on September 10th, I received an email saying that the game wasn't selected as a finalist. I was pretty disappointed, but much of the judges' criticisms were valid, and I was happy to have received such detailed feedback. If you hadn't seen the feedback from the judges, I posted them here on this post.

Anyway, I decided I would go to IndieCade anyway, since as a dev submitting a game, you get a free 3-day festival pass (you can't go to talks or panels, but you get to go to the festival for all 3 days, as well as night games on Saturday). Between that and getting to stay with friends while in LA meant that I only had to cover the cost of flight. A lot of indies are at IndieCade so I figured, even though I'm not showing, I can still meet people and get really useful feedback on Relativity, so the trip will be worth it.

So, what is IndieCade?

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, IndieCade is a festival/conference of independent games that takes place in Culver City (LA). This year, it was from Thursday, October 9th to Sunday, October 12th. IndieCade consists of IndieXChange, a full day event targeted towards developers, with workshops, talks, and meetings with publishers. This takes place on October 9th. Then on October 10th, the main conference/festival starts, and you can check out the officially selected games, as well as games for PlayStation, Ouya, Nintendo, and XBox, amongst other platforms, in their respective tents.

Pre-IndieCade / Glitch City / Grand Ole Glitch

On October 8th, the day before IndieCade began, I went over to Glitch City, a co-working space in Culver City made up of a bunch of independent game developers and artists. A bunch of developers from out of town were already there hanging out, and playing each others' games.

Later that evening, Glitch City organized a party called "Grand Ole Glitch", which was a showcase of different talents from around LA. It was really cool, because even though most of the people in the audience were game developers who had come in for IndieCade, the showcase itself was full of artists from different fields.



One performer that really stood out for me was Beau Sia, a spoken word artist.

.

IndieXchange

The next day, on October 9th, I headed over to IndieXChange. As stated earlier, IndieXChange is an event primarily for developers. Everyone who submits a game to IndieCade is invited to attend. It's intended to help developers network, learn, and get feedback on their work. IndieXchange provided pastries and coffee at the event, which was really great as registration for the event started at 9 AM.

At IndieXchange, there was also Game Tasting, which was basically a show & tell event that was happening throughout the day. There was an online sign up form for Game Tasting prior to IndieCade had started, but if you didn't sign up, you could also ask to be placed on the waiting list. A key thing to remember is to always be ready to show your game. I think a few developers who were on the waiting list ended up missing their opportunity because they were either not present when their names were called or didn't have their equipment with them.

Anyway, I had applied online prior to the event, and had been given a table to show in the morning session, from 10 AM to 11:45 AM. This was a really great opportunity for me to get feedback from other developers, as I had made several changes after Tokyo Game Show, and I wanted to see how players would respond.



There were several talks and panels going on throughout the day. I went to one called "Physically Based Rendering for Indies" by Anton Hand of Rust Ltd. The talk focused on techniques of physical based rendering used by their studio, and how that specific pipeline allowed them to create really photorealistic stuff with only a small team.

Here's a pic of the talk:


At 4 PM, there was a "Best of Game Tasting" event happening at the IndieXchange reception. Like the name says, it was a selection of some of the best games that had been shown during the day. I was very fortunate to have been selected, so I was able to show Relativity again at this session.

Here's another pic of Game Tasting:


Here's the Mayor of Culver City giving a talk at the reception:



At the end of the day, there was the IndieCade Award Show. I went but didn't take any pictures.

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #99 - 10/29/2014

IndieCade Post-Mortem - Part 2

IndieCade Day 1

Much of IndieCade takes places outdoors. There are 5 locations: IndieCade Village, Fire Station One, Culver City City Hall, Foshay Lodge, and the Ivy.



Culver City City Hall, Foshay Lodge, and the Ivy are where the conference parts of IndieCade took place. Since I didn't have an access pass, I couldn't go to any of the talks, so I didn't make it to any of the locations. My time was spent instead between IndieCade Village and Fire Station One.

IndieCade Village

IndieCade Village is a collection of tents in a parking lot. It is where most of the games are. The tents are split up by sponsors. There are a series of large tents belonging to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, as well as a series of smaller tents from places like NYU (showing some of their student games). Some of the official selections were there as well, in two tents titled "Digital Selects". There was also a tent for big games (games involving large groups of people), a board game area, and a social game area.

There was also a stage where there were live music acts throughout the day.



Here's a shot inside the Nintendo tent:



To be honest, I wasn't such a big fan of the outdoor tent setup for a few reasons:

1) It was extremely bright out, and the glare made it very difficult to see anything on the screens

2) I have a prescription glasses, and was forced to constantly swap between sunglasses when outside and my glasses when inside a tent.

3) Because of how sunny it was outside, there weren't really places you could sit down with people to look show each other games you're working on, if you're outside of the festival selection. When I went to IndieCade East in NY back in February, one of my favorite parts of that experience was being able to sit down in the cafe on the first floor, and show other developers my game. I got a tremendous amount of useful feedback this way. At IndieCade however, there wasn't really a setup conducive to this.

Fire Station One

The Fire Station is an actual fire station. It's where the official selections of IndieCade are shown. I quite liked the set up here, as it was a large indoor space, and there wasn't as much glare on the screens, so you could actually see the games.



New Friends

I spent much of the first day going back and forth between IndieCade Village and Fire Station One. The best part of IndieCade is meeting other developers and making new friends! So many people have traveled to Culver City for IndieCade, it's a really great opportunity to network.

Here's me getting frozen yogurt with a bunch of new friends I had made:



A few of us stopped by Culver Hotel a little later for some snacks, and of course ended up playing more games:



In the evening, there was a party organized by Sony at a place nearby IndieCade Village. It was pretty fun.

After the Sony party, I went to a midnight screening of a bizarre movie called 'The Astrologer' at an art house cinema called CineFamily, along with some Glitch City people:



All I will say about that is that it was a pretty weird movie.

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #100 - 10/29/2014

IndieCade Post-Mortem - Part 3

IndieCade Day 2 - Night Games

Most of the day time activities for IndieCade on the second day (Saturday) were pretty much the same as those on the first day. The main difference was that on Saturday evening, there was Night Games.

Night Games takes place in IndieCade Village, from 7 pm to 11 pm. The selection of games changes over from what it was during the day. It featured more local multiplayer games, and more installation based games.

There was a really cool installation piece that had an image of Sound Dodger projected on the ground. But instead of controlling the cursor with a mouse, it was controlled by calculating the midpoint of the distance between two people. It was pretty cool, but I don't know the name of it.

There was a Facebook tent where they were showing Oculus Rift games:



I also finally got to play a spontaneous round of Antimatters Matters, a quantum physics board game.



Here's a pic of the whole Night Games area, courtesy of Sun Park from Turtle Cream:



Here'a pic of me and Sun that he took sometime during IndieCade. He captioned it Good & Evil :D


Post-Night Games at Glitch City

After Night Games, a bunch of people headed over to Glitch City to hang out. As to be expected, people soon started pulling out their laptops and it became another game demo session!

Here's Sagar Patel demoing his audio-responsive game Frequency Domain with the Leap Motion controller:

[OniWorld]

You're doing bloody awesome.

[Zaphos]

These event writeup are really nice

Sad I didn't make it to the glitch city event and the indiexchange bit of indiecade; those both sounded really nice.  Hopefully next year!

Also, I saw The Astrologer at fantastic fest!  It was a pretty weird movie.

[William Chyr]

These event writeup are really nice

Sad I didn't make it to the glitch city event and the indiexchange bit of indiecade; those both sounded really nice.  Hopefully next year!

Also, I saw The Astrologer at fantastic fest!  It was a pretty weird movie.

Thanks! I feel like I have to write everything down, otherwise I would just forget it all. I would prefer for the writing to be more polished, but if I started to focus too much on that, I would never publish anything.

I wasn't expecting this devlog to have so much coverage of these events, but they do play a really significant role in the development of the game, especially this past year. In some ways, each event I've been to has been critical in giving me a really big idea and improvement for the game.

A lot of the stuff feels pretty stream of consciousness, but hopefully people reading this will find the info useful.

And yeah, Astrologer was weird. The cinema owner said that it actually came out a little bit before the Jerk with Steve Martin, which is quite interesting. Hmm...

Also, it was great to see you again during IndieCade!

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #101 - 10/29/2014

IndieCade Post-Mortem - Part 4

IndieCade Day 3 / Closing Reception

Sunday was the final day of IndieCade. I had seen most of the games at this point, so just took it easy and revisited a few of my favorites.

Some of the games I really enjoyed at the Fire Station were Nova-111, Mini Metro, Drei, and Gemini.

Here's my friend Jaime playing Mini Metro. According to the devs, she got the highest score out of anyone during IndieCade:



Later in the afternoon, the closing reception was held at IndieCade Village:



Post-IndieCade

I was set to fly back to Chicago in the evening of Monday right after IndieCade. I spent the day hanging out at Glitch City, alongside the regulars and a bunch of out of town devs:



Conclusion

So, was the trip worth it? Did I find what I was looking for?

The short answer is yes.

Here's the long answer: Yes, I got a lot of feedback on Relativity, and was able to have many in depth discussions about my game's mechanics and aesthetics with other developers.

The best part is that because I showed the game on the first day of IndieCade at IndieXchange, for that rest of the festival, I could continue to discuss the game in detail with people who had experienced it. Plus, they would say things like "I've been thinking about that one issue..." and offer me a bunch of suggestions and advice.

There were also a lot of opportunities to socialize, and because all of IndieCade takes place within several blocks in Culver City, you will keep running into people throughout the duration of the festival. You meet people for the first time on day 1, and by day 4, they feel like best friends. It's really awesome in this sense.

In fact, to me, I think what's best about IndieCade is actually not the game playing experience, but being able to meet so many developers. This is not a statement about the selection of games at IndieCade. On the contrary, I think they do a fine job with selecting the games. However, I think the format in which the games are presented (outdoors, in tents, with multiple categories), is actually not ideal for the experience of actually playing games, especially in contrast to the setup at other conferences and festivals.

I was discussing this topic with a fellow developer I met, and he pointed out how during IndieCade, he only really got to play around 10 or so games. Instead, most of his time was spent talking to people and hanging out.

So if you're going to IndieCade, it's really people first, and games second. I think it's more about building relationships with other indie developers, and just making new friends. That's what IndieCade does best and what makes it really great.

That being said, I think if you go as a developer, you should always be prepared to show people your game, or at least images of it. One issue I was trying to sort out, and which I've been dealing with for some time is, how can I have a minimalist art style with edge-detection, but differentiate the game from Antichamber?

What I did was that I used a screenshot of my game as my phone's lock screen, and at every opportunity, I would ask people for feedback. This worked really well, because I could immediately take my phone out of my pocket, and show people the problem I was having. I got lots of valuable feedback this way, such as the use of screen space gradient and chromatic aberration.

Finally, while IndieCade is a lot of fun, and the atmosphere is on the whole very positive, I would be lying if I said I didn't feel isolated or alienated at some points. I think this is largely due to the fact that I'm still a relatively new member of the indie game scene. 2014 is the first year I started going to game events, and this was my first time at IndieCade. But IndieCade itself has been going on for 6 years, and for some of the people attending, it's their 3rd or 4th IndieCade.

At times, it can feel like it's a large group of really good friends that you're just not a part of. I especially felt this way during the award ceremony on the first day. It felt like everyone there already knew each other super well, and I barely knew anyone.

However, it's important to remember that this is nothing personal. A lot of these people are great friends with one another, and for them, IndieCade is an opportunity to catch up and see old friends. It's not being done to exclude anyone. And when you start to talk to people, you'll soon start to make friends. The whole situation is much less intimidating than it might initially appear.

Everyone there is just someone who is passionate about indie games, and are more than happy to meet new people, despite how "big" they might seem on the internet. Don't worry if you don't know anyone. You'll easily make new friends, and they'll introduce you to people, and by the end, you'll feel like you know everyone. It was very difficult to say good bye to people at events later in the festival, because as you start to make your way to the exit, you keep getting drawn into conversations with different groups of people.

So yeah, if you get a chance to go to IndieCade, even if you're not exhibiting a game, I highly recommend it. Make friends and enjoy the beautiful California weather!

[mushbuh]

I love that you have the motivation to post this much v. good to read. I couldnt write that much if I tried without laughing at myself

[William Chyr]

I love that you have the motivation to post this much v. good to read. I couldnt write that much if I tried without laughing at myself

Who says I'm not laughing at myself?

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #102 - 10/29/2014

Gamercamp Post-Mortem - Part 1



After IndieCade was over, I had only one day in Chicago before I had to travel again, this time to Toronto for Gamercamp.

So, what is Gamercamp?

Gamercamp is an annual festival celebrating games that takes place in Toronto. It was started six years ago, and sadly, this year was its very last run.

Application

There was an online application to submit a game to Gamercamp, with a due date on September 2nd. I submitted the game, and was informed via email on September 15th. I remember the exact moment I read the message, because I was at the airport in Toronto, standing in line to board my flight to Tokyo for the Tokyo Game Show, when I got the news.

It was really uplifting for me to hear that Relativity had been selected, as only 5 days prior, I had gotten my rejection to IndieCade (see, don't give up! you have to keep submitting).

Location
Gamercamp takes place at Hotel Ocho, a four-story hotel located in downtown Toronto.



Gamercamp actually rents out the entire hotel for the duration of the festival, as games are shown on every level.

Preparation / Sponsorship

Prior to Gamercamp started, the organizers sent out a manual to all the exhibitors. I was told that I would have a 4' table to demo the game on, and large screen TV would be provided. From past shows, I know that having multiple computers works best for a game like Relativity. A lot of a local multiplayer games work best with a single TV, since you can have multiple people playing at the same time.

However, with a single player game, you can really only have one person playing at a time. On average, people seem to play the game for about 10 - 15 minutes at convention settings. I've  noticed that when people have others waiting in line behind them, to start to get self-conscious, and will constantly be asking other people if they want to have a go. This usually happens before they've gotten to the good parts, and they haven't gotten the best impression of the game they could have.

To avoid this, I decided I would have multiple computers at Gamercamp. From having shown at Indie MEGABOOTH back at PAX East, I knew that companies like Dell and Intel were often quite interested in providing sponsorship to indie developers.

I reached out to Alienware to ask if they were interested in sponsoring the show in Gamercamp by providing me with laptops. They were more than happy to do so, and after a discussion on the phone, they sent me a loaner request form. I filled this out, requesting two 14" Alienware laptops, and they mailed them out to me. I did this while I was in LA for IndieCade, and the laptops arrived just in time in Chicago for me to bring them with me to Toronto.

I also reached out to some Toronto-based friends, to see if any of them could lend me a laptop for the duration of Gamercamp. A friend who works at interaction design studio Glabacore responded, and told me that the studio was able to lend me two 17" Alienware laptops (these things are pretty sweet, but weigh a ton. They're pretty much portable desktops).


Day 1 - Interactive & Games Conference

The first day of Gamercamp was Friday, October 17th. This was a conference format, different from the pop-up arcade, which took place on Saturday and Sunday. There was a small section showing games, but most of the main selections were not shown. It was geared towards industry people, and the day consisted primarily of talks on game development topics.

I arrived at Gamercamp just a little bit before lunch, and was able to catch a talk from PlayStation about what it's like to work with them. 

The way the talks were set up was there were two sessions simultaneously. One on the first floor and one on the second floor. The acoustics of the space weren't so great for talks, as it was quite open, so the sounds between the two talks mixed a bit. However, it wasn't too bad, and you could still hear the speaker.

Lunch was buffet-style and was provided as part of the event.

After lunch, I went to a talk by Kan Gao, the creator of To The Moon. I was quite excited about this because I had played To The Moon one afternoon several months ago. I had picked it up at some point via a bundle, and it sat in my Steam library untouched. I probably would not have played it, had it not been for recommendations from a few sources. Normally, I'm not a big fan of narrative-driven games, but a lot of the people played To The Moon found it incredibly moving, so I decided to give it a go.

Playing To The Moon gave me a lot to think about. Relativity is heavily mechanics driven, and most of the games I play are centered around a set of core mechanics. As a designer, I sort of subscribe to Jonathan Blow's philosophy of games as an exploration of "truth" through the mechanic. However, To The Moon made me look at narrative-driven games in a new way. I won't go into too much detail about it here, but I'll just say that I really appreciated what the game did.

Anyway, Kan's talk was titled "Making Use Of Advantages In Indie Game Creation".

One part that really struck me was this quote Kan used in his talk:

"We do not choose between experiences; we choose between memories of experiences.
...
We do not think of our future[...]as experiences; we think the future as anticipated memories."
- Daniel Kahneman



Unless you have photographic memory, you can't remember an entire game from start to finish. It's important when designing to think about what are the moments that leave an impression on people, because those are the moments that will stay with people, and those are the stuff that people will talk about when talking about your game. What kind of memories do I want Relativity to leave players with?

Kan's talk ended a little earlier ahead of schedule, so I made my way upstairs, where Brie Code, the lead programmer on Child of Light at Ubisoft was speaking. Unfortunately I only got to catch the tail end of the Q&A session:



Later on, I went to a talk by Lyndsey Gallant of XMG Studio, titled "Simple Guidelines for Making Awesome Game Art". It was a lot about creating visual hierarchy and how use colors, shapes, and contrast to guide the players.

This was a really funny slide about how content can be a way to attract player attention:



The conference ended at 5 PM. I went to dinner with a bunch of game developers who were at the conference. Afterwards, we returned to Gamercamp for the opening party, which started at 8 PM.

Gamercamp Opening Party

As it was the final Gamercamp this year, there was a surprise element at the opening party to honor Jamie Woo, one of the co-founders.

Here's Jim McGinley, one of the founders of T.O. Jam (Toronto Game Jam) talking about the impact of Gamercamp on the Toronto game scene.



Jaime himself also gave a brief speech, thanking everyone for being a part of Gamercamp.



It was definitely a very emotional moment for everyone in the room. Even though it was only my first time at Gamercamp, it had been around for six years. For some people, it was around for as long as they were involved with indie games in Toronto, so it felt very much like a pillar in the community.



It was a pretty amazing experience for me to be a part of.

Oh, and there was cake! :D

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #103 - 10/30/2014

Gamercamp Post-Mortem - Part 2

Day 2 - Pop-up Arcade

Saturday was the second day of Gamercamp and the first day of the pop-up arcade, which was more like a festival, as opposed to a conference.

It opened to the public at 10 AM, so I arrived just a little before 9 AM to set up. Coffee and pastries were provided, which was really nice.

This is what my setup looked like:



I had three laptops running the game, one of which was hooked up to the large screen TV. The TV setup could only be played with an XBox controller, while the other two had both keyboard + mouse and XBox controllers. One issue that made the setup a bit awkward is that the UI for the game doesn't support controller yet, so to restart the game on the TV, I would have to go behind the table to operate the laptop.

This is what the entire setup of the first floor looked like:


As you can see, Relativity is set up on the left hand side, on the large table across from the bar. I shared the table with "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes", which was a festival favorite.

My Gamercamp show neighbors:


On the right, it was a dining area, with tables and chairs where people could sit down and eat. There were also a couple of games on display there.

The way pop-up arcade worked was there were two sessions. The first was from 10:00 am to 2:30 pm, and the second session went from 3:00 pm to 7:30 pm. In between, everyone who was not a developer or organizer had to leave Gamercamp. This gave developers a break, and also helped to manage crowd density.

Here's a shot of a group of people playing Relativity:



It was never too crowded during Gamercamp, and with the three laptop set up, it meant that people didn't have to wait in line to play the game, and also there was almost always someone playing.

Here's another shot of people playing:


Some people even managed to finish the demo!


Second Floor
The second floor of the hotel was also an open lobby-type area. There wasn't a bar or dining area, but there were many more games. All of these games were part of the offical Gamercamp selection.



]

Third & Fourth Floor
The third and fourth floor had a really cool setup, as they were where the hotel rooms were. The third floor was XBox games while the fourth floor was PlayStation games. Inside each room, one or two games were being shown. Out of all the conferences and festivals I've been to, this was by far the best way to show a game.

Each game got the attention it deserved. The lighting was right, it was comfortable and intimate, and the sound didn't travel between the rooms. So you could have people playing a local multiplayer game like Nidhogg in one room, and be shouting and screaming, then walk down the hallway and see someone playing Night In The Woods and just hear the sound in that game. I'd love to see more festivals adopt such a setup.

Here's the Sunset Overdrive room:


And down the hallway, Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime:


Night Arcade
After the day sessions ended, it was time for Night Arcade! This was a special session on Saturday night starting at 8 PM. It was for age 19 and older, so it felt much more like a party. The local multiplayer games were especially popular during this session.

Here are some people playing Nidhogg:

[Slader16]

I had no idea that there was more areas at IndieCade, we spent all day at IndieCade Village 

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #104 - 10/30/2014

Gamercamp Post-Mortem - Part 3

Day 3 - Pop-up Arcade

Sunday was the same as Saturday, with two sessions, the first from 10 AM to 2:30 PM, and the second from 3 PM to 7:30 PM.

I arrived around 9:30 AM to set up. The day before was a pretty long day - I was there from 9 AM to to Midnight, so I was feeling a little exhausted. But they had coffee and pastries, so that gave the day a good start.

I had a great showing. One of the highlights was that Jonathan Mak, the creator of Everyday Shooter and Sound Shapes, came by to play the game and gave me a lot of really good feedback.



After the second session wrapped up and the booths were cleaned up, there was a small closing reception to celebrate. There was also an N++ tournament. I participated in it, but didn't win (I'm really, really bad a platformers). My friend Diego won a t-shirt.

Hing
Afterwards, a group of around 10 of us exhibitors decided to go get some food. We ended up at a pub nearby.

This is where I was introduced to the wonderful game of 'Hing', which was actually invented by Nico Disseldorp of Push Me Pull You and Ian Snyder of The Floor Is Jelly. Apparently this was invented during the Sony party at IndieCade. Clearly I was sitting at the wrong table at that event.

Anyway, what is Hing and how do you play it?

Hing is a game that's played by 3 people. You need three coins.

At the start, each person takes a coin, shakes it around, and then places it flat on their forehead, without knowing which side is facing forward.

So now each player sees which face of the coin is facing up for the other two players, but not him or herself.

How to win?

Let's say Player 1 gets heads, Player 2 gets heads, and Player 3 gets tails.

Player 1 and 2 can win by shaking each other's hands.

Player 3 wins by shaking hands with either Player 1 or 2.

If all three players have the same face, then if two people shake hands, they lose.

In any case, you have to try to figure out which face the coin on your forehead is facing, and who to shake hands with, while trying to not let the others win. It was a lot of fun.

I might actually have gotten the rules wrong here, but I think it's a lot easier to explain in person and when you're actually playing.  

Post-Gamercamp

The next day, after Gamercamp, I went over to the Capybara office, which was just across the street from Hotel Ocho, and hung out there for a few hours.



It was really cool to talk to some of the people working there, and very inspiring to see what a larger indie studio is like.

Conclusion

Gamercamp was definitely one of the coolest events I got to be a part of this year. Even though it was my first time there, I'm sad that it won't be around next year, but also excited to see what the organizers do next, and what emerges from the Toronto game scene to fill its place.

I'm incredibly honored that Relativity was chosen to be a part of the last run. Gamercamp did a lot of things differently from other festivals and conventions, and some of those worked incredibly well. It definitely offered the best setting for actually playing games. It didn't cram the space with games, so people were not overwhelmed with the selection, but could take their time to enjoy each game and still get to see everything.

The hotel room setup worked extremely well, and I'd love to see other festivals and conventions adopt similar arrangements.

[William Chyr]

I had no idea that there was more areas at IndieCade, we spent all day at IndieCade Village 

Well, there was definitely plenty to see at IndieCade Village!

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #105 - 10/30/2014

INTERPLAY Arcade/Conference Reception Post-Mortem

After I got back to Chicago from Toronto, I had another event I was showing Relativity at (last one for now, promise )

INTERPLAY is a graduate student conference on game studies jointly organized by the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

The conference took place over two days, October 24th and 25th. On the first day, it was held at the University of Chicago campus, and the second day, it was held at Northwestern.

I didn't go to the actual conference itself as I had just gotten back from Gamercamp and was quite exhausted.

At the end of the second day, there was a reception held at Jackson Junge Gallery in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. The reception was an arcade style event, and a number of different games by Chicago-based developers were being shown there.

The other games included: Pop Methodology One, We Are Chicago, Tango in Paradise Simulator, and A Fitting.

I arrived at 6 PM to set up. A table was provided, along with a large-screen TV, and an HDMI cable. This is what my set up looked like:



As I still had a few days left in the loan period for the laptops from Alienware, which were originally requested for Gamercamp, I was able to use them for the show at Interplay (Thanks Alienware! ).

Here are some photos from the event:












 

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #106 - 10/30/2014

Whew... the devlog is finally all caught up!

I've spent much of the last three days writing in this devlog. So much so that I think this activity deserves its own devlog post!

Anyway, just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for reading the devlog. It takes a lot of time for me to keep this updated, but I do enjoy writing here, and I hope the information is helpful to you all.

Ultimately, it's really more for myself. It's hard to feel like I'm making progress on the game on a day-to-day basis, as the project is so massive. I often feel like I'm just making tiny changes here and there that don't seem to have an impact.

However, those changes do add up. And coming here, seeing the devlog, really makes those changes noticeable. I'll sometimes go back to the first page of the devlog and look at the early posts, just to see how far the game has come.

I mean, just look at that! The difference is night and day!





What's even crazier is that at one point, I actually thought the first image looked good!


Now that I'm done with the whirlwind tour of shows, I'm going to go stay put for a little while, and get back to working on the game.

Expect more normal posts here about level design, optimization, and shaders!

[GMacD]

That second shot looks fantastic!  Do you have a shader that does that lovely thin-line-edge and flat shaded rendering?

(I previously asked here and was pointed in this direction)

[jgrams]

I'm sure you'll get a reply from Willy Chyr, but thought I'd point out that if you look through, he has written a bunch about it already...
(here and here for instance). I think it's mostly from March through June or July of this year (2014)?

[William Chyr]

That second shot looks fantastic!  Do you have a shader that does that lovely thin-line-edge and flat shaded rendering?

(I previously asked here and was pointed in this direction)

Thanks! Glad to hear you liked the screenshot!

As jgrams pointed out, I've written about the shader a few times in the devlog. I was going to link to those exact same posts, so if you take at those, that should give you an idea of how to get started.

The only thing is that there's only edge-detection, but no flat shading. The flat shader is mostly due to lack of textures and the lighting setup I'm using.

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #107 - 11/2/2014

Finally getting back into programming and prototyping new mechanics. As it was my first real day of programming in something like two months, I was very unproductive. Had to look up how to work with lists in C# again.



Anyway, I'm back to working on the water mechanic. I'm trying to set up an object pool so that the water isn't instantiated during game time. Instead, all the water objects would be generated at the beginning, and then recycled during the game as needed.

I'm a little concerned that this could prove to be very expensive performance-wise though, as water plays a very important role in the later parts of the game, and I want the player to be creating lots of water. We'll see.

I've got the basics of the object pool working. Basically, I have one list of gameobjects, and as I need to know which objects are active and which aren't, and their states are changed in numerical order, I just have to keep track of how many objects are active at one time. This is just so I don't have to do any complicated sorting process to determine which ones are free and which ones are in use.

This is probably pretty basic, and/or doesn't work very well. But like I said, it has been a while since I've done any major programming, so I'm a little rusty...