Hello! Welcome to this new thing I am doing! Here I am going to talk about some of my favorite things from this month, what has been going on in my little indie world, and some stuff about real life. This blog post is a very new thing, so please let me know in the comments if you like this, if there is something I should add to it, or if you want me to include something in next month’s blog!
Lots of fun things happened this month!
Game Jam
I held a small game jam for my birthday! This jam was very sudden – someone suggested it – but it did get 17 entries. All of the games that were entered were super lovely in nature. Some of them are quite short and sweet, which is fine as the jam wasn’t very long and it fit in perfectly with how I cover games. One of the games – Rainbow Birthday Planet – was selected by AlphaBetaGamer for a super sweet article that they wrote.
I was really touched by each and every one of these games. Games made for jams are such a huge part of my life, so it was really cool to run a little jam about myself! You can check out a little compilation video of all the games here.
Livestreaming
Along with this jam, I ran a 12 hour charity livestream for Special Effect (in association with GameBlast17)! I have never done a livestream with more than one game or a livestream for this length of time. It was definitely a learning experience. I set everything up the night before, with the help of DJ Wildebeest. Without him, the stream probably wouldn’t have looked as awesome as it did. I am really proud of how nice everything went. At one point, half way through the stream, our internet crashed (which sucked) but we got everything back up and running again. We also hit our fundraising goal of £200! You can still donate if you’d like though – all of the money goes directly to Special Effect. Livestreaming was really fun, I enjoyed interacting with everyone in real time, though it was a lot of work. If you missed my livestream, you can watch the video version of it on my channel, which is coming out soon.
New Equipment
I was able to purchase a new tablet for recording android games this month. My old Nexus 7 has been slowly dying – not holding it’s charge, not playing games, and generally being horrible to work with. I purchased a new Fusion5 tablet to record with instead and I started using A-Z Recorder (which doesn’t require a root like my old recorder). I am not completely sure how I feel about this. The tablet is much bigger than my last one, which is something I am trying to getting used too. The recorder is the real issue, however. It works amazingly – half the time. The other half of the time it randomly crashes but doesn’t tell me it’s stopped recording. So I end up spending more time playing games (where i am assuming that it’s still recording. I am not sure why it doesn’t record some games (but does record others) and I am not sure how to really fix it or how to do something differently.
If you have any suggestions for recording software that doesn’t require a root, please let me know. I need software that records both internal and external audio together.
New Projects
I Interviewed Oliver Carson this month for my game developer spotlight. That is a pretty new thing for my channel and I think it is going pretty well. You can check out this interview here.
I also was interviewed for +7 Intelligence about how games have affected and otherwise changed my life. This interview went really well and I feel like it is going to be very interesting. I haven’t ever been asked in any depth about how games have shaped me. The episode is not out yet, but you can follow the twitter linked above to keep up to date with the podcast!
I started writing daily articles for Playsource last month. These articles are about loads of amazing indie games, so if you like my work generally you will probably enjoy these as well. You can follow me on this site to see what I write about. Feel free to comment on articles as well!
I now am creating the monthly newsletters for IndieGameLaunchpad, so if you want a couple of hand picked games from the site sent to your email, as well as some general information on the site, sign up for the newsletter!
Real Life
Lots of real life stuff has also been happening! Lewis and I are moving to London at the very start of March – which is a long distance from where we currently live – so we have been packing, storing, and generally preparing to move. I haven’t ever moved houses before (moving from the US to the UK is not like moving house) so I am realizing how much stuff you really have to do before you move. All of these little details to go over – things to change and arrange – it has taken up a fair amount of my time.
On the flip side, it was also my birthday as well as Lewis’ birthday this month! Lewis is born the day after me, so we normally just share a birthday. This year, we went on a nature walk at a local forest. This walk was really cool – there were lots of facts about stars along the way, large musical instruments made of wood, and some story about the gruffalo. We ended up walking super close to electrical lines (which I have never been that close to) as we were taking the butterfly walk (even though butterflies are not out yet). Apparently, the butterflies really enjoy the cracking sound electrical wires make! Such a weird thing for an insect to like.
In the evening, we also walked up blue backlit stairs that are built into the side of the cliffs near where we live and overlook the ocean. I had never seen these stairs before (well I had not been up them or seen them completely lit up)! These stairs are really cool. During both of these adventures, Lewis and I played Pokemon Go. I got to level 21 and collected a bunch of awesome Pokemon. On the nature walk, we captured a gym, which we still are in a week later!
Kiwi Update
So a few of you want to hear more about Kiwi, our green cheek conure. Kiwi is molting currently, getting ready for spring mating season. He has been obsessed with cleaning his feathers and making sure he looks nice. We got him a new accessory for his cage – a sort of skewer that holds vegetables and hangs in his cage. He has been enjoying these fresh fruit and vegetable sticks hanging in his cage very much.
He has been very affectionate lately, not really in the exploring mode, but more into cuddling and being close to people. The other day, he did something I have never seen him do before. I was making breakfast, and he was making loud happy noises. I assumed this was because Lewis and I had woken up and uncovered his cage – as we normally put a towel over him at night. I looked over at him and he was on his back in the bottom of the cage, lifting a dried chilli pepper with his little legs, chewing on it and lifting it up and down. By the time I called Lewis over, he got back onto his feet and was standing normally. Kiwi does not like being on his back often, so it was really cool to catch him lying like that on his own! We do need to get him some toys that help work on the grip in his feet, but it’s quite hard to find something for his size (he isn’t a big bird, but he isn’t small either).
Share your pets with me using the #GameDevPet on twitter so I can check them out!
Favorite Things
This month, I have played quite a few indie games and game jams! I have picked out just a few favorites that stuck out in my mind for this month.
My favorite jam that I covered this month (other than my own) is the Flat Jam Annual. This jam had developers making a flat 2D game (graphically) that showed an event that went on in their life in 2016. Most of these games were hand drawn, which is a pretty unique and cool thing to see. Many of them were really personal, showing a small window into someone’s life. I really enjoy playing games that connect me with the person behind the game – and all of these jam entries did that. These gems were all almost like works of art. I really enjoyed covering each and every one of them.
My favorite Android game for this month is Flirt! Flirt is a cute, simplistic game where you play a circle looking to flirt with – but not touch – squares. As you flirt with the squares, a line links your character to the squares around you. While this line is there, the square will spin and release hearts. The more squares you are linked to, the higher the hearts are worth. More and more squares start appearing, so you must keep your distance! If you do collide with any squares, the game is over. This game is adorable and I loved how simple but smooth it is.
I have two favorite indie games this month. The first one is ‘Put a Sock in it!’ This is a charming story based game where you play a girl who is locked in a stairwell. To pass the time, she starts playing with sock puppets. You get to decide what character each of these sock puppets get to play in their story. Then, you get to control the story and shape it to have some sort of message. Both of these characters have rather different personalities.I do wish this game had more stories and characters, (which is not a bad thing as I enjoyed it!) but I love the stories and the ways you can interact with these little puppets!
The Depths of Limbo is a really well made roguelike that I played with my partner Lewis. This game is extremely challenging – you must destroy rooms full of enemies with limited ammo, switching guns and collecting various different items along the way. The levels are procedurally generated and the items are varied, giving Depths of Limbo lots of replay value. There are plenty of different monsters to take on as well. This game did remind me of the Binding of Isaac, but with a new concept and a multiplayer mode!
Anything Else?
I think that’s all I have to talk about for this month. Let me know how you feel about these new articles and what you think of what I have been up to generally. I am not sure what is really on the cards for next month, as we have been mostly thinking about moving and focusing on real life stuff. Hopefully I can get back into properly recording game jams soon! (By properly recording game jam games, I mean recording more sets a day.)
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