Showing posts with label makegame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label makegame. Show all posts

Monday, March 13, 2017

Theorizing local games cultures in a post-TIGSource era

Colin Northway tweeted this about a week ago:

As Colin implies, I suspect there is actually no real equivalent of a central "cultural nexus" like TIGSource today. In fact, I've been in on the ground floor of several attempts to make new TIGSource-likes, such as Super Friendship Club and Makega.me, and both of them eventually petered-out in the end for one reason or another. I'm still not sure why, but maybe it's possible that internet forums are a poor fit for what we need these days?

The indie games moment arrived, and has now stabilized into a satellite commercial industry of the game industry. We don't need a central place like TIGSource to imagine it or to advocate for indies to exist. Commercially indie showcase events like Day of the Devs, The MIX, and Indie Megabooth have been been running for a while and will probably keep running.

Today, what would be a public game organization's "mission" now? Everyone has so many different needs and concerns. It's kind of absurd that we even imagined one global "public" that TIGSource was supposed to serve? Local games community problems here in New York City are very different from local problems in, say, Pittsburgh or Capetown or Teheran or Shanghai. One single internet place cannot hope to address all of that.

Many local communities and friend groups have Slacks and chatrooms, but most of these are private and unlisted -- they don't have the "public" face that TIGSource provides / provided. What, are you going to invite Colin Northway to your Slack now? Even if he accepted the invitation, he likely wouldn't stay very long, because Slack requires constant (hourly? minute-by-minute?) engagement and labor to function as a community -- and it'd still be difficult for Colin to understand the tone of your Slack, or what it's really about.

To me, a public games culture should serve two functions: (1) help a local community cohere together, and (2) articulate that community's voice(s) and concerns to the rest of the world.

Monday, September 1, 2014

September pageant at Makega.me: "MAGIC IS REAL"

Merritt Kopas is the makega.me pageant runner for September, and she has come up with a doozy:
"We're all born a Witch. We're all born into magic. It's taken from us as we grow up." - Madeline L'Engle

magic has been incorporated into games for decades. but it's most often in a way that borrows from the tabletop games like dungeons & dragons -- as just another means of inflicting damage. magic in videogames is both spectacular and mundane. fireballs are boring.

magic is the power to change our circumstances, to invoke the world we want to inhabit. magic is a little evening ritual, the charms we carry to protect us, the spaces and times we invest with meaning. magic is a response to the destructive, crushing weight of oppression. magic is spectacular and mundane, but not in the way it's depicted in games.

instructions:
make a game about magic that veers away from the usual treatments of magic in games.
The full pageant brief is here. I'm looking forward to seeing all the new games people will be making!

Saturday, May 3, 2014

"SERIES" is the first MakeGa.me pageant theme!

"We make game, do you make game? MakeGame is a place for you to show some similar-minded folk what you're working on. Get feedback, discuss design problems, share inspirations. Every couple months we host a pageant. A month-long 'slow-jam' where we all make games to explore a chosen theme. Welcome!"
MakeGa.me is a new game development forum from the ashes of the former Super Friendship Club. A lot of the original guiding principles remain: to learn from each other and help each other make great work. To help motivate each other, there are monthly "game pageants" -- a game jam-like that de-emphasizes winning or losing. Ian Snyder's organizing the first one, focusing on the idea of a "series"...
"Instructions: Make a two or more small games all revolving around one central theme or idea that when taken together form one cohesive whole. Make the games good. For examples of this in other media, you might look to Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji36 or Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird30 or [if you have other examples or items of inspiration, reply below!]

Starts on May 1st, finishes on May 31st. You're welcome to enter any media you prefer, games or not. Disobey any instructions, or follow them rigorously. If you haven't made games before, and aren't sure where to start on the technical side of things, just ask : there're plenty of people here who can give guidance."
Full briefing is here. Looking forward to seeing you all over at MakeGa.me!