I think that anyone with an interest or a stake in the future of independent games should watch the awards. Also, anyone dissatisfied with the selection of games at retail stores. Or anyone who suspects that video games have an insane amount of potential as an entertainment and education medium, if only someone could figure out how to tap into that. This awards show is for you.
For my part, I’ll be the one on stage handing out awards to people far more talented than me. I’m co-hosting the awards with Kyle Gabler, who designed World of Goo. I haven’t made my World of Goo yet. But together, we did write a bunch of lame jokes that we hope somebody laughs at.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be an indie game dev, boy do I have some slides for you!
These are from my presentation at Indiecade about the fantasy vs. reality of indie game development. They were for a Pecha Kucha-style talk, where each slide was shown for a few seconds before advancing automatically. Most of the other presenters talked about their games, but I misread the instructions and made a presentation about myself. Hope you like it!
G4TV’s Electric Playground was kind enough to interview me for a segment about Puzzle Bots. We shot it last July, and it just aired this week. Check it on out! (You might have to wait a few days, if you’re in Canada).
You’re looking at some anime-grade hair shellac, on my part.
Meeting Donna and Leland (the tireless camera guy), was a wonderful experience. They managed to quell my anxieties a bit, even though I hadn’t been on camera since TVO Kids had an open house (hi Ontario).
They even took me out for cake after the shoot, which was like a birthday, but better. It was like a birthday where you get a year younger instead, and then 7 million people watch you talk about pixelated robots because it’s your job.
This is Slide 7 from my presentation about the fantasy vs. reality of indie game development:
Slide 9 is about asking your parents for money.
As you may have guessed, I frequently get asked questions about women, women who play video games, women who make video games, and the depictions of women in video games by predominantly male game developers. My immediate reaction is usually something like, “Buhhhh…”
Because, as I see it, anyone who knows how to attract more women to video games (and game development), has already done so and is making a killing at it. I certainly don’t know “what women want” in a video game. In fact, the subject of “what women want” is so fraught with peril that there is an Arthurian legend about it.
However, this is my recent attempt to make sense of that very question, in an interview by Igor Hardy. It sums up what I’ve come to believe about women and games, and I hope it makes sense to my readers at home.
IH: Game design jobs are still pretty much dominated by men. Do you feel that it shows in the games themselves? Are there any concepts that you think would be great to turn into games, but are either completely missed or misunderstood by the male game designers?
ER: I think everyone wants to know why females are underrepresented in both the gamer and game developer communities. But it’s important to remember that even though women make up a smaller percentage, there are still millions and millions of them buying games. So rather than listing specific examples of what I think games are “missing”, I’m going to explain why I think the types of games we play, and the face of game development, is going to change. Warning: anecdote ahead.
When I first told my parents that I wanted to make games for a living, they were very supportive of my decision. My dad saw it as a great opportunity, and he gave me some advice that I’ve taken to heart. He told me that historically, as women became more influential in the decisions involved in buying a house, or buying a car, it led to more women choosing jobs in real estate and car sales. Women could better predict which features of a house or car would appeal to a woman. And I do believe the same thing will happen in game development as more women begin to love games. There are also a good deal of female game developers (particularly in the indie scene) if you know where to look.
Barbara “Babsi” Lippe: Developer and visual artist for Papermint, one of the cutest virtual worlds known to science.
Brenda Brathwaite: Published author and industry veteran, who has worked on more titles than I can list here. I include her on my list of indie devs because of her controversial game Train, among other things.
Emily Short: Renowned interactive fiction author, with more than 15 titles to her name (Including the award-winning Galatea). She also wrote the story for the devilishly addictive word game Clockwords, in which I’m already at level 38.
FionaSarah: Freelance web developer by trade, she created the exploration-based Ludum Dare game Scavenger. It was written in Python and it’s about space, so you might feel a nerd-swoon coming on.
Robin Hunicke: Game designer and producer, currently working for thatgamecompany.
Supershigi (a.k.a. Laura Shigihara): Wrote that promo song for Plants vs. Zombies (you know the one) and is also working on an adventure/RPG called Melolune.
And we didn’t all spend high school study hall designing text adventures. Just some of us.
Five years making video games, and it’s a pair of hastily-made earrings that gets me on the front page of reddit. I don’t pretend to understand the internet, but I am going to roll with it.
For those of you who are new to the site, and/or interested in my games, I’m going to ask that you check out the Facebook page for my upcoming project Puzzle Bots. It’s a point-and-click adventure game about robots that must work together to foil an evil plot. We’re hoping to have it out in February. We’ve got an info page set up for the game here, and there’s also a trailer.
We’re a small indie team with a marketing budget of couch change, so if you think this is something you’d enjoy, I encourage you to promote it to your friends. Cheers.
Edit: Forgot to mention this, but if you participate in the holiday sale at Wadjet Eye Games, you can be part of the public beta of Puzzle Bots. Instructions are here.
Hello! I’m Eri–actually, I won’t spoil it for you. It’s all in the video.
Stacy Davidson of Odyssee Pictures generously put together this Puzzle Bots video for the IGF. It contains a bunch of new footage from the IGF build of our game, and a couple of new robots. You can also see both Dave and I talk about our vision for the game. Check it on out!
I’m late to this party, but I wanted to send a huge thank you to Brandonnn for giving my games a shout on Boing Boing this week. I now refer you to his awesome article about retro-style adventure games.
I’ve just managed to track down the Indiecade clip from GTTV. They were nice enough to surround it with an in-depth feature about Modern Warfare 2. You can watch the segment here; the Indiecade segment starts at 6:40, and the me stuff is at 7:33. I talk about PC/Mac compatability issues…in relationships.
Yes yes, but what do I win if I answer all the questions right?
