Interactive Indies

Brett Lowey is an independent game designer/developer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, publishing under the name BrainGoodGames. BrainGoodGames are single-player strategy games designed with simple rules, emergent depth, scaling difficulty and procedurally generated content. They feature a heavy emphasis on board-game-like design aesthetics. Brett loves designer board games, music and nature walks. He designs, codes and publishes BrainGoodGames.

3D Artist at Zenfri Inc, and these days I do a lot of procedural / technical environment art with SideFX Houdini, Substance Designer, and Unity. I have a few years of experience in the 3D industry here in Winnipeg, having worked with Electric Monk Media and Tangent Animation in the past. I'm a DMD + 3DCG grad from Red River College too! I love finding ways to automate or improve the efficiency of art stuff, so I end up fiddling around with Houdini both at work and at home. I listen to a lot of metal, and play a lot PC games and Magic. I'm a big fan of dark coffee and dark beer, but not at the same time.

Zi is an engineer at Owlchemy Labs, having worked on titles such as Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, and Rick & Morty: Virtual Rickality. He enjoys working on complex things, wacky things, and everything in between. He has a good dog.

Lesley co-founded Flipside XR, a VR animation company that makes Flipside Studio, a real-time animation app that enables vTubers, animators, and creators to bring their animations to life. He has directed multiple virtual reality experiences and real-time animations since he started working in Virtual Reality in 2013 and he has presented at Oculus Connect, the VR developer conference held by Facebook.

Game Developer (Surprise!), Avid Learner, King in the North? I've worked on a variety of games for a variety of platforms and game jams are one of my favorite things on the planet. I enjoy games that create interesting social situations, be it board games which I have an excessive love for, video games, or playing sports of any kind (but never ask me to watch them!). I spent 3 years in Nunavut freezing my butt off, going on wild adventures, and conquering the North. Now I've come back to Winnipeg to do the same!

Albertine Watson is a Game friend at Infinite Ammo Inc, working on #ProjectPotato and others. Julian Beutel is a freelance composer for film and video games / explorer of weird sounds. Watcher's Woods | An Object At Rest | My Magical Friend | Field of Fate | SkyBoats. Rebecca Harrison is a texture Artist at Tangent Animation, Game Designer on FREERIDE Streaming Gamedev Character Art: http://twitch.tv/flightyfelon Matt Woelk made #PropagandaLlama. Runs @SpaceWagonGames and @GamesExplained, loves games, rhymes with elk. (portrait by @sarawildeart)

Justin Ladia is a Winnipeg-based graphic designer and illustrator; a volunteer staff illustrator and 2017’s Volunteer of the Year at The Uniter; and a graphics assistant at Ai-Kon Winnipeg, Manitoba's largest anime convention. Justin is also the City Host and Organizer of PechaKucha Night Winnipeg.

Corey King is an International award-winning story-teller, game developer & producer with experience in building mobile, augmented reality and virtual reality games through his company ZenFri which he co-founded with his wife Danielle.   His expertise is in writing, designing and producing unique and original story experiences across mediums ranging from short fiction and film to video games. These experiences have lead to Corey participating in talks and panels all over the world and allowed his company to raise over 3 million dollars in funding,  without giving up any creative control.Based in Winnipeg, Corey was the 2016 recipient of the Future Leaders of Manitoba Award  and named one of CBC Manitoba's Future 40. ZenFri's most recent game was nominated for 2 Canadian Video Game Awards.

Educator, musician, and gamer. His career as an educator came naturally and practically from his passions as a musician, and his love of music career arguably came from dissecting the songs from the games he grew up on. Besides being the editor of this(Interactive Indies) podcast Daniel also hosts a video game music theory podcast called Overtune Warpzone. He is also involved with the YouTube channel Games Explained, where they host videos covering board game rules, podcasts and editorials.

Noah is the CEO & Creative Director of Complex Games, Winnipeg's first video game development company (as far as we know), which he co-founded in 2001.  During his tenure at Complex he has been involved in some capacity with pitching, designing, developing and launching over 20 games. He's served on the Executive of the Board of New Media Manitoba, has served on the boards of On Screen Manitoba and North Forge, and was a co-founder and co-organizer of the Winnipeg Game Development Meetup Group, later formalizing it as the Winnipeg Chapter of the International Game Development Association in 2008, and coordinating it until 2015.Before he got too old he played a lot of Soccer and Ultimate, speaks 3 languages (though none of them particularly well), and outside of being born in Manitoba has been lucky enough to have lived and studied in both Japan and Sweden.

Graeme Borland is a multidisciplinary game developer, frequent game jam participant, and tall person who does not play basketball. From working on VR games at Owlchemy Labs to his daily sketch blog, Graeme is seldom without a handful of projects on the go. He enjoys coming up with tasty bite-sized games for events like Ludum Dare and Pegjam, and daydreaming about what to work on next. He also likes cats, ramen, and grapefruit juice - none of which are discussed in this episode.

Kert is a renowned indie game trailer craftsman and VFX industry veteran. He helped pioneer the creation of high quality Mixed Reality VR videos with the debut of the Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator trailers for the HTC VIVE. While he isn't immersed in VR, Kert is making some of the greatest indie game trailers out there working with the teams behind games like Nuclear Throne, Hotline Miami, Spelunky, FEZ, Broforce, TowerFall, and many more. In a past life, he contributed to over 25 Hollywood movies such as Superman Returns, Across the Universe, X-men III, and Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.

Julian Beutel grew up in the Canadian prairies playing classical piano and jazz trumpet, then moved to Los Angeles where a passion for composing for film and video games was awakened. In 2015 he composed the music for An Object at Rest, shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Animated Short. He now lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba as a freelance composer and game jam enthusiast. Other projects he’s worked on include My Magical Friend, SkyBoats, and If It Ain’t Got.

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Matheu grew up on the golden age of 8-bit video games. After graduating from the University of Manitoba with a degree in Film Studies and Philosophy, Matheu had a not completely unsuccessful run as a independent filmmaker before he became a programmer. Once he got into coding, his love for art and his love for video games drove him to get involved in the indie game community. While attending Red River College, Matheu founded a game development club where his classmate programmers, and the students from the school’s digital arts program could meet, collaborate, and create games. A passionate student, Matheu is loving working in industry and is looking forward to the endless learning that lies ahead of him.

Adrian Cheater is a transgender woman, game programmer and co-founder of Complex Games, contributing to the development of over 15 titles. Born and raised in Winnipeg, she became interested in computers at a young age and has been actively coding for 30 years. She has worked with a number of languages and platforms over the years, though her professional work focuses mostly in Unity3D, and web development using a combination of C#, Ruby, and Python.

The bombastic Michael Gooch. QA Tester for Square-Enix by day, Game Designer by night, this nomadic fellow has been developing his own games all over Canada and the UK for over 4 years, with his most recent mobile release delving into the historic recreation of Hnefatafl, a board game played by traveling Vikings in their quest of discovery and up-to-no-goodery. Currently working on a Space Dog Fight Card Game and other small side projects, Michael hopes to not only develop mechanically interesting games, but emotionally expressive and intrinsically investigative experiences that allows the player to explore complex ideas in the sandbox of game design.

Aaron Kostuik is the CEO of AYBOnline Inc which started as a small internet cafe in 2001 and grew to host multiple LAN parties a year by 2003. Eventually, AYBOnline directed its focus to competitive gaming and started to host some of the largest gaming tournaments in central Canada and the northern United States, these events have become known as BaseLAN. Although considered a university drop out, he is also an engineer for cloud security at Microsoft Azure/O365.

Josh Grand, formerly a SharePoint Developer/JIRA Administrator with Bell MTS, is a hobbyist game developer and professional procrastinator. When he's not playing games, he's thinking of game ideas that are far too difficult to implement at his current skill level. One day, he hopes to release an RPG that will rival those of his childhood favorites. Shera Starr is a 3D surfacing/modeling/character FX artist, having recently worked on the movie Next Gen. She loves making video games, gardening, crafting, and baking in her spare time. She's developed many personal RPG projects starting at the ripe young age of 11, dabbling within OHRRPGCE. Together, they're a crime-fighting duo that teams up to tackle ridiculous game jam challenges and overall have a great time.

Daniel Blair founded Bit Space Development in 2015, working in interactive digital media focused on developing augmented and virtual reality experiences for serious purposes. He serves as technology advisor for North Forge Technology Exchange where he founded the Advanced ICT Lab. Dan also sits on the board of directors for New Media Manitoba where he works to grow the IDM industry in Manitoba. In 2016 Daniel received the future leaders of Manitoba award as well as the CICAN award. Daniel enjoys working with emerging technologies and will tell you he is almost addicted to new tech. 

Sara Wilde is a 3D Character Artist, a coffee drinker, travel enthusiast and cat lover. Living and working in Winnipeg, Manitoba Sara does a combination of freelance, teaching, and convention work. Her love of learning and new challenges makes her extra appreciative to live in a community that allows for so much diversity in her work.

Matt Woelk is a game developer, improviser, and musician. To Matt, being is learning, mathematics is exciting, and stories are the lens through which we see the world. His goal is to make a game that you've heard of, while supporting the people around him.

I'm Rebecca, and I've always been an artist. Currently I'm living a dual-life: 3D texture artist for Tangent Animation Studio by day and a Dental Hygienist by night. I have no actual formal training in art of any sort, though I do love sharing my ideas and emotions through artistic mediums, especially video games, and that seems to be enough. :) I love meeting new people and exploring wild places! 

Ben Bergman is the interactive developer for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. He likes to work with his hands and his brain, with bytes and electrons. The world of human computer interaction and physical computing is his playground, be it making intuitive interfaces to help people learn tough concepts or making completely impractical devices for his own amusement.

Amy Gerardy is an illustrator and game developer who works as a freelance artist. She works on a variety of things, from prints and marketing materials, to art assets for games. In her spare time she likes to play video games and enjoy stories. She is influenced by nature, cute things, and magic. She frequently forgets that her tea is still steeping.

Aaron Klaassen is a web developer who definitely doesn’t make video games. These days he leads the API team at Unsplash, and when not doing that he’s working on the Winnitron Network, an indie arcade machine platform and online library of games. In the sliver of time left, he smokes meat, concocts hot sauces, and hangs out in disreputable drinking establishments.

Albertine Watson is a communications specialist focused on public relations, marketing strategy, and community management in the games industry. She’s worked on projects for Games Workshop, Focus Home Interactive, and a bunch of indie titles in the past four years. Albertine also gives presentations to junior-high girls on how to get into the game industry. She endeavours to make her own games someday too.