Indie Dev Podcast

Amanda Lange and were peers at Microsoft before we took different roles last year. She now works as Technical Evangelist on the academic team, where she partners with the premier institutions across the United States and Canada to host hackathons, design curriculum, and enable students to enter the workforce and immediately make an impact. Before this however, Amanda was involved in academia as a professor, but also as a game developer. She worked at Schell Games in Pittsburgh, where she was a community manager. In the last several years Amanda has been building games and workshops with Unity, Hololens, and Xbox.

Since 2007, Arc onyx provided animation and visual effects service to the TV and film industries. Recently, Arc onyx made the transition to indie game development to pursue projects with philanthropic goals. When we started planning the game to create this year, we came across many wonderful organizations (like GameChangerCharity.org) that use games to help kids cope with the trauma and hardship that stems from having life-threatening illnesses. We are entirely focused on bringing uplifting gaming experiences to those who need it the most. We discuss the animation industry, visually pleasing films from the 90s, and the success and failures of game studios over the last several years. We also dive into VR and talk about the potential future of that industry, and the feasibility of unique experiences.

Shawn Woods is a gaming veteran of 18 years. His background spans everything from interactive CD-ROMS and TV commercials in the late 90’s to creating Orcs and UI for Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, and Homeworld 2, art direction at Microsoft, and finally co-founding Alpha Dog Games focusing on mobile games. Alpha Dog Games was founded in 2012 in Halifax, Canada. Their original game, Wraithborne, was created by 3 full time people and 3 contractors in 6 months. It was featured by Touch Arcade as most anticipated game, and featured by Apple on Launch. It was originally a premium product but has since changed to a lite F2P game due to the market change. Without any ad spend, it has over 1.5 million installs. Their second game, MonstroCity: Rampage was in development for over 2 years as the team was slowly built up over time. The backend technology was built from scratch and engine/framework was integrated into Unreal Engine 3. The studio is focused on building mobile-first original IP with mass appeal.

Andrew Peterson is a software engineer who has spent much of his timing building the N3S, a NES emulator which works on Microsoft's Hololens. Best of all, the current games on display are not only holographic images presented in world space, but , but are also 3D objects in the form of voxels. **Although the project hasn't had an official release, you can still compile the source and get a feel for it yourself, if you have a hololens. A voxel editor is currently in the works as well. Links • The source code can be found on GitHub • Follow the project on Twitter or Facebook • Videos can be found on the N3S Youtube channel • Explanation of how the project works • @and0p • @pjdecarlo Video • Super Mario Bros. • HoloLens Showcase * Topics discussed 2D degree in graphic design • The C Programming book • Andrew explains how he got started in programming • Biting off more than you can chew & scaling back • Not having to write much Assembly code for the project • RetroArch - Libretro emulator for the browser • Object Attribute Memroy • Dolphin Emulator for GameCube and Wii • 3D NES - Ars Technica • Kyle Orland -- awesome journalist • It was extremely easy to get the NES ported to Hololens • Hololens documentation • Technical analysis of Batman: Return of the Joker on the NES

On the first episode of the Indie Dev Podcast, I interview Samantha Kalaman of Timbre Interactive. Follow along as she illustrates how she got her start by working with Unity in Denmark, before returning to her hometown of Seattle to take a job at Amazon. All the while she kept her dream project alive, and has finally brought Sentris to Kickstarter. Kickstarter – Sentris Timbre Interactive http://samanthakalman.com @samanthazero http://sentrisgame.com http://facebook.com/SentrisGame

This week is a bit different. I've got my co-worker in DC, Shahed Chowdhuri on the show, along with Pek Pongpaet (pong-pat) and Daniel Pesina. Shahed and Pek grew up together, and Pek met Daniel while studying at his Wushu.  Daniel played Johnny Cage and ninjas Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Reptile, Smoke, and Noob Saibot in several Mortal Kombat games, and Pek has worked on 6 MK games spanning 10 years.   Master Pesina is perhaps most famous for his work as Johnny Cage and the ninjas in the first two Mortal Kombat games. He has also worked on films such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, Book of Swords, Press Start, and Mortal Kombat Fates Beginning, winner of the 2015 Urban Action Showcase Best MK Film award.   Pesina appeared as one of Shredder's foot soldiers in the 1991 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.   Pongpaet’s expertise ranges from product design and development, and martial arts. Prior to Pinstagram, Pongpaet was VP of Product at Spoton, a loyalty and social media company. He's worked at Accenture Technology Labs in the research department coming up with next generation user interfaces.   He was introduced to  Chinese martial arts (Wushu) late in life when he met Master Daniel Pesina in 1998. He opened Pek to a new world of skill, discipline, artistry and mastery that would come to consume and permeate all of his life. His martial arts experience has led to motion capture roles in 6 Mortal Kombat games over the next 10 years.   [T3:00] Where did the idea of Mortal Kombat come from? [T5:30] Studying martial arts [T7:45] Trying out for mo-cap in MK5[T9:20] Van Dam was planned to be the original Johnny Cage [T13:30] Can independent developers utilize motion capture today? [T15:45] How car has mo-cap come? The early days of Mortal Kombat [T20:45] Lost Mortal Kombat footage and digitized sprites [T25:00] What keeps these two busy today? [T28:45] What are the benefits of martial arts? [T32:00] Studying Wushu [T34:45] Question of the week

@DaveVoyles Developed by Neon Deity Games, Shutshimi: Seriously Swole is a randomized shoot'em up about a muscle-bound fish with memory problems defending the seven seas. But there's a catch (there's always a catch): you've been cursed with an incredibly short attention span. Combat waves and upgrade cycles only last 10 seconds a piece. Listen to the podcast Download the .mp3 Subscribe via iTunes Topics Discussed [T1:30] Armless Octopus [T4:10] Getting started in games with a game jam [T7:02] Gameplay footage [T9:10] Composing the soundtrack with Famitracker [T11;13] Game development engine used [T17:00] Accessibility [T23:30] Their next game (footage!) [T31:50] Question of the week [T34:40] The new Mighty No 9 trailer looks terrible Where to find them @HangOnGetReady http://neondeity.com/ @Shutshimi All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs Benjamin Briggs Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing – Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic

Nick Robalik is an independent Game Designer & Developer who started the NYC-based game studio PixelMetal in 2012. His goal is to make fun, entertaining games for people of all backgrounds and ages. His professional career spans over 15 years of Art & Creative Direction in the advertising and marketing industries, including work for Audi, Coca-Cola, Google, M&M’s and Samsung. Nick also spent time as a professor at both Drexel and Temple Universities in the fields of interactive design and computer animation, and has been published on the topics of computer animation and digital audio production. Nick’s newest game project, Sombrero, marks his return to commercial game development after 10 years. Advertising work is paying for the development. Please don’t hold that against him.

Howard is an industry veteran who now works in academia at Shawnee State University's game development program in Ohio. Before working in education, Howard had roles at AMD, as well as Sony, specifically at Verant in San Diego, where he worked on Everquest. As someone who has spent a large amount of time playing this game during my middle and high-school years, I'm a huge fan. We discuss his time building lasers for the Department of Defense, writing assembly code to optimize Everquest, as well as finding work on BBS boards in the mid-90s. This is our longest episode yet, and perhaps the most technical one (or at least on par with the FNA episode!) HyperKat.com Shawnee State Gaming & Simulation program Topics discussed: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/15/7551365/playstation-cpu-powers-new-horizons-pluto-probe https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Altair_8800 http://www.shawnee.edu/academics/gaming-simulation/ http://shawnee.edu/game-conference/index.aspx https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ultima_Online https://channel9.msdn.com/Series/codenamegoa/Writing-a-GDD-Game-Design-Document Benjamin Briggs All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs. Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing – Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic

Ethan Lee is a software engineer based out of Georgia, who has a history of working on what previously XNA, but is now his own open source fork of the project. Along the way, he has ported a countless number of titles for independent developers across a broad spectrum of platforms including PC, Mac, and Linux. This is the longest and by far the most technical episode that we've had yet. Don't let that intimdate you though, as there is a lot to learn here. It's inspiring to see a young person learn so quickly (he only started coding 4 years ago!), and have such deep technical knowledge. On this episode we discuss speedporting, or the process of moving games to new platforms in the shortest period of time, as well as many of the 36 ports he has done since he got started. If software engineering or graphics programming is your thing, then this episode is perfect for you. https://fna-xna.github.io/ https://github.com/FNA-XNA/FNA/ @flibitijibibo All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs. Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing – Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic

Kevin Giguère is a programmer in his thirties from Quebec, Canada, and the man behind Dragon Slumber, an isometric RPG created with XNA. Previously, Kevin worked on a JRPG, Arelite Core, which went through Steam Greenlight. Originally started as a dream project to create his own game from scratch, Kevin has done everything himself.

Sean Colombo has been making games for 15 years. After quitting college to run web-startup "LyricWiki", he sold the site to Wikia in 2009. A couple years later he founded BlueLine Games to focus on making digital versions of award-winning board games. BlueLine's flagship games "Hive" and "Khet 2.0" are currently the top two rated board games* among the 80 that are on Steam. Currently, BlueLine is working on the Steam version of a famous Euro-game and updating all four of it's Steam titles which includes the free-to-play Simply Chess. @SeanColombo @BlueLineGames BlueLineGameStudios.com

David Catuhe is a Principal Program Manager on Microsoft's TED team in Redmond. He is also one of the master minds behind the open source WebGL framework, BabylonJS. WebGL has grown leaps and bounds in recent years, and Babylon continues to iterate with it. As mobile browsers continue to add support for WebGL, we will see more developers go from writing native applications to hybrid web-apps. Join us as we talk about the current state of WebGL, in addition to his thoughts on asm.js and of c

This week I'm joined Mike Gnade, from Indie Game Stand, a site to discover a new indie game every few days. Developers can upload their wares while consumers can purchase the latest and greatest indie games at an affordable price.Unlike many competitions, this platforms offer a monthly subscription service which gets consumers 20% off the price of the title, and includes 7 games each month.

This week I'm joined Mike Gnade, from Indie Game Stand, a site to discover a new indie game every few days. Developers can upload their wares while consumers can purchase the latest and greatest indie games at an affordable price.Unlike many competitions, this platforms offer a monthly subscription service which gets consumers 20% off the price of the title, and includes 7 games each month.

Tonight I am joined by Daniel Parente, CEO and Game Director of Hydra Interactive Entertainment, a young indie development studio based out of Madrid, Spain. He's previously worked on a number of titles, including Alien Spidy, History Legends of War: Patton, and Aliens in the Attic. The current title that his team is working on is Upside-Down Dimensions, an action adventure game of love and war, in a colorful paper crafted world, inspired by Japanese folklore and Origami. We talk about how to properly scope a title that you're developing, in addition to understanding the role that publishers play in today's game development landscape.

In this follow up to episode 15, Michael gives a brief postmortem about releasing his first Playstation 4 title. We discuss the process for getting approved through the ESRB as well as Europe's PEGI system, in addition to how to prevent burnout and fatigue from working on one project for too long. Sony's fatastic services for independent developers are highlighted as well, and I inquire about Michael's decision to stick with MonoGame for his current and future titles. All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs. Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing – Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic

Joining me today are Game Designer / Leader Developer Jacob Pennock, and Executive Producer Mike Schaiman, and Art Director Melissa Pennock of Livid Interactive. We talk diversifying a studio, making money in the middleware marketplace, how to stay afloat as an indie, and how they use Intel's RealSense technology and Unity to create their gesture based first person combat game, Head of the Order. In 2010, the husband/wife team of Jacob and Melissa Pennock founded a small studio in North Carolina called Unicorn Forest Games. Unicorn Forest was mainly focused on providing outsourcing services, for games on facebook and mobile devices. Soon after arriving in California, Jacob was introduced to Mike Schaiman, and joined the team at Helios Interactive. Helios uses a variety of technologies to build interactive experiences for consumers in retail and at large events. In 2013, Head of the Order, a tech demo, was entered into Intel's Perceptual Computing Challenge, and took the first place prize in the games category. Early in 2014, Helios took notice of the potential of the game, and the saw an opportunity for the company to open a new games division. So Livid Interactive was created, under the wing of its parent company, Helios. Their latest title, Head of the Order, is a magical fantasy game played entirely with gestural spell casts. It's format is similar to a tournament style fighting game but with magic instead of martial arts.

Illyriad-Games Listen to the podcast. Illyriad (ih-lih-re-ad) Games is an independent studio based across three continents. Realizing that WebGL isn't just a pipe dream, they've built their latest game on it. Their lcurrent title, Age of Ascent, is built on a custom WebGL engine, and is using Azure as a backend, with the ability to scale to 50k+ concurrent users. Joining me tonight are CTO, Ben Adams, and CEO, James Niesewand. We discuss what it's like to manage a small team of developers across 3 continents, the importance of managing every last bit of processing power, when it comes to a game that scales to this size, and performance implications across browsers. ageofascent.com @Ben_A_Adams @Jniesewand Technical Whitepaper from Microsoft Benjamin Briggs All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs. Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing – Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic

Founded in 2011, and based out of Wilmington DE, Wimbus Studios is the culmination of a few friends wanting to get together and make video games! Fueled by the passion to make awesome games that they would love to play themselves, Wimbus Studios is dedicated to making games that don’t suck! Their first title, The Island of Eternal Struggle, is a turn based RPG adventure. Joining me today is Steve Sefchick, and Mike Williams. Becky Mount is also part of the team, but not able to make it on that evening. Join us as we talk about how they got started, why game development can often take so long, and their decision to stick with XNA and MonoGame at this time. wimbusstudios.com @WimbusStudios

Ep 15 Michael Hicks

erik umenhofer Listen to the podcast here. .NET Developer by day, and game dev by night, Bay Area resident Erik Umenhofer has been quietly working on games for several years, from the comfort of his own home. First he started with XNA, before making the transition to Construct 2, and has finally settled on Unity. Listen in as we talk about the good old days of the Commodore 64, solving problems through technology, and the way Construct 2 handles wrapping games for each platform. Going by the studio name Firebellys, their upcoming release, Temporus, a 2D sci-fi sidescrolling platformer is aiming for a release in 2015. Kickstarter [successfully funded] @firebellys http://www.firebelly.net www.tempor.us https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004821035951 Subscribe via iTunes Download the .mp3 here All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs. Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing - Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic

  Total Monkery is an independent game development company and family business with a healthy fixation on mockery, puns and primates. Created in 2012 by game development veteran Richard Weeks (LucasArts, Psygnosis), Total Monkery aims not only to produce high-quality products, but also to foster new talents, collaborate with passionate indies and contribute value to the industry we love. We talk the FM Towns Marty, his experiences at Psygnosis and LucasArts, and the necessary skills for establishing and maintaining a studio of his own. Furthermore, we conclude the discussion with the importance of keeping in touch with your audience during development, either by use of Twitch.TV, blogging, and attending industry events. TotalMonkery.com @TotalMonkery Facebook.com/totalmonkery Subscribe via iTunesDownload the .mp3 here All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs. Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing - Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic

  West London Games is a British independent game studio founded by Russ Clarke to develop the ultimate exploration and combat game, TerraTech.  Russ has previously worked at London’s Ideaworks mobile studio until 2012. He developed the first prototype for TerraTech by himself shortly afterwards, pulling in his experience from working on beloved franchises like Metal Gear, Call of Duty, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider and Fable. After spending some time working as a consultant he returned to the TerraTech prototype to turn his vision into a full blown indie project. Join us as we discuss the radical growth of "Let's Plays" and how they can be beneficial to the developer. Moreover, we start with his first machine, the BBC Micro, and how the experiences for gamers in the UK contrasted those of gamers in the US in the 80s and early 90s. TerraTechGame.com Facebook/TerraTechGame @TerratTechGame @_higuken BBC Micro Exile game Metal Gear Solid Mobile (N-Gage) Subscribe via iTunesDownload the .mp3 here All music is courtesy of Benjamin Briggs. Intro / Outro: Diddy Kong Racing - Hi There! (Lobby) http://benjaminbriggs.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/bbriggsmusic