Greg walks by Ska Studios booth. He is stopped by tall blonde man carrying a sketchbook. Pen is placed in his hand while he chats with tall blonde man.
Greg insisted on a Chinese dragon.
Might as well do my usual plug for my Twitter account here. That’s where you’ll hear about any more dragon posts.
I will never forget Ian Stocker’s face when I asked for his autograph, as if he never expected a request reserved for world-famous developers. Hey, you’re a friend, Ian!
Remember when I said I chose the theme of dragons because they are open to interpretation? Ian seems to have taken this to heart:
He has a hat.
Ian was a fellow Xbox LIVE Indie Games developer, releasing titles such as Soulcaster and Escape Goat.
To get alerted when I make another post on this blog, along with other mini-ramblings, please follow my Twitter.
While creating titles for Xbox LIVE Indie Games, I was a one-man show. It was exhausting, but obviously you learn a lot more about the different areas of game creation, even down to the minor details. Programming, design, art, sound, and so on.
Out of those, I feel programming and design are my strongest points. Most indie developers find art to be their strong point and programming to be the esoteric busy-work. For me, it’s the other way around.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve spent the last few years learning how to draw at a non-embarrassing level. I enjoy doing art. I enjoy doing programming. I do not quite enjoy doing both at the same time. Perhaps it is the switching between left-brain and right-brain that is really exhausting me.
Since the design and programming for TwoGlow is coming along nicely, I’ve decided to give up the one-man band and shop around for an artist. The main question at the moment is: what kind of art style should the final game have?
This is a question I’ve had to think about for every game. Before you start your artwork, think of a set of rules, and stick with them for everything. “Good graphics” is not about getting close to realism, but about consistency within your game.
So, what to do for TwoGlow? Interesting question. I’m actually going to take the Dilbert Pointy-Haired-Boss approach: I’m not going to make the decision at all so that I am absolved from blame.
Actually, the reason is because I want to give my artist the one thing that makes them happy besides money: creative freedom. Not only will I potentially see a brilliant style I would’ve never thought of, but the artist will find much more enjoyment in working on the project.
And I will be less exhausted.
Andy Schatz is the bright-pink-shirt-wearing developer of IGF winner Monaco. Monaco is looking much more polished than when I last saw it.
Silly dragon, you’re too big to stealth around and hack treasure chests!
There’s still a few more dragons left, if you want to know when they’ll be scanned and posted then follow this Twitter.
Call me a hipster. I just enjoy simpler indie games more than anything else I saw at the show (although Project P-100 was very intriguing)
Kyle Pulver is one of those devs I respect because I always respect someone who breaks into the mainstream and becomes successful by my obscure-indie-ass standards. He made Snapshot, Offspring Fling, and a lot of other stuff you may or may not have played.
Yes you are.
Because I’m in pretentious-overload, quite a few indie-dev dragons will be coming up soon! I’ll announce any new dragon posts on my Twitter.
Well, I promised you he was next…
Don’t Be Sca Red. He certainly didn’t waste any space on my Letter-sized sketch paper.
During the signing, he had a camera guy there to film everything. As I asked for my dragon, and Tim began drawing, the camera guy made sure to shove the lens almost right on the paper to capture every second of it.
I’m pretty sure when Tim Schafer goes to his barbershop, he brings along a big photo of Jack Black, silently hands it to the barber, and leans back in the chair ready.
Well, I loved the Indie MegaBooth, let’s go see how the friends I made on Friday are handling the no-doubt enormous overflow lines for their titles on Saturday.
Once again, I have no idea when I’ll be able to scan the next one, but I’ll announce it on Twitter.
So given that PAX was half-over at this point, I had to rush if I wanted some more big-name dragons in my sketchbook.
Either that, or get incredibly lucky and just bump into some developers.
Tim Schafer was doing autographs, so naturally I joined the line. Psychonauts posters. Psychonauts posters everywhere. Talk about a game with legs.
A lady behind me got all star-struck and asked for a photo with a man I hadn’t noticed until then (apologies John, you’re not exactly the tallest broom in the cupboard). I knew it was John Romero, even though he had his back turned to me; nobody else has hair that lush. What luck! He seemed to really like my dragon book idea (of course he would, he’s John Romero) so he got to work.
Problem is, it was almost my turn to go up and meet Tim Schafer. Oh no. Would John finish in time? Would I have to snatch the book from him? Would I have to forfeit my spot in the line? (I’m not being melodramatic; the enforcers were very strict)
Phew.
Thanks John! Just as the enforcer came to pick me up.
I don’t really have a set schedule for when I’ll post these dragons. I’ll announce every new post on my Twitter though!
I had vaguely known Robert Boyd and Bill Stiernberg of Zeboyd from us both making RPGs for Xbox LIVE Indie Games. Zeboyd was successful and I was…not, but it was nice to meet up at PAX!
Having gotten Notch’s autograph and dragon, I couldn’t wait to get a dragon from a really talented artist like Bill.
Sorry Robert, I forgot to have you co-sign it!
They both manned the booth showing of their latest game, Penny Arcade’s On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness 3, right next to the PAX swag store.
Can’t wait to meet you both again!
After breezing through the 4th floor expo hall on Friday, I went to the 6th floor on Saturday. Aside from the League of Legends spectacle, booths included SuperGiant Games, Halfbrick, and Mojang.
Standing in the corner of the Mojang booth, was Markus “Notch” Persson, wearing, if I remember correctly, a bright green polo shirt, only 3 or 4 people waiting in line to chat and get a photo.
We met and talked about 0x10c, his upcoming project about creating a video game out of an emulator. Some hero already ported GCC to this machine, so luckily I can avoid the nightmare that is assembly language. Before we parted, I offered my book for his autograph.
I remembered my dragon sketch idea, so it was now or never. Time to ask for my first dragon!
A for effort.
Notch was surprisingly unperturbed, maybe even amused, by my request, so I gained confidence in this project (yes, I’m calling it a project now) and in asking other developers for their sketches.
I just needed to find them. Or magically bump into them…
I’ll try to post these regularly, although I might miss some days due to being busy/tired/drunk/CBF/whatever. I’ll notify everyone when a new scan goes up via Twitter (hooray for begging for followers!)
Who’s ever gone to a video games convention and asked for an autograph from a game developer? The answer is likely, “most of you”.
Just before PAX Prime 2012, I got myself a nice big sketchbook hoping to fill it with signatures. Trouble is, I had one of those things called “thoughts”. They suck, don’t they. “These developers probably sign tons of autographs. Is their squiggle (I use that term deliberately for some developers, trust me) really going to be a valuable thing to chase? Why not get something unique and interesting out of them?”
So my first thought was to ask them to draw me a sketch. Great! However, I anticipated another problem. Imagine if someone simply asked you to “draw something”. That’s it. What would your reply be?
“OK, draw what?”
Creativity is triggered by limits. It’s that old “tell a joke” problem. This would be much more successful if I gave them a theme or a topic.
Well, why not dragons? They’re well-known, open to interpretation, and they’re just plain awesome. At the end, I’ll have a collection of dragon sketches I can compare. When I told some of my friends about this idea, they looked at me like I was from Mars (as they would).
Would the developers react in the same way? I was still confident this would work, so I went developer-hunting. Who would the first lucky guy to be harassed by a 6’4″ indie with weirdo ideas?