December 2020 Update

Dec 1st, 2020 by Tim Cullings

Hello Indies!

We’ve almost made it through this crazy year of 2020, congrats and we hope you had a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the Holidays. Speaking of the Holidays, save the date of 12/20/20 for our annual Holiday Party! This year as with most things we’ll be doing the holiday party online and doing our best to recreate the fun of the parties from years past….

Support Seattle Indies this Holiday Season

Today is #GivingTuesday we have two for getting deals. This year support #GivingTuesday, a nation-wide day for giving back. On Tuesday, December 1, global charities, families, businesses, community centers, students and more will come together to participate in this national day of giving. Your continued support through Patreon enables us to keep creating and hosting fun and memorable events throughout the year and with options as low as $1/month your support goes a long way to helping us improve our service to you, our members. You can also always make a one time donation here on our PayPal page and support us through the loyalty and giving programs outlined below. If your employer offers a matching program then we encourage you to donate through their system to maximize your impact.

If you choose to shop on Amazon, at QFC/Fred Meyer or on the Humble Store you can support Seattle Indies in the process. Use smile.amazon.com and set Seattle Indies as your charity of choice to support us with a percentage of each purchase donated from Amazon on qualifying purchases. Here’s the Links:

Monthly Recap

We have just wrapped up the fourth annual Seattle Indies Game Jam, making it a Slow Jam spread out over 17 days this year and it produced 10 incredible games on the theme of Frighteningly Cute. Cryptozootography took Best Single Player game, Which Wizard too Best Multiplayer Game, Divine Intervention too Best Narrative, Pushy Shovey Funtime with Friends (™) took Cutest and SheepCreep took Creepiest. We had a blast playing these games during the post-jam play session and awards ceremony and will be doing a recap stream on our Twitch channel this weekend with AlchemistJoker who was one of our excellent co-hosts of SIX Online this year. Details will be posted to our social channel as soon as they are solidified.

Upcoming Events

As mentioned previously the annual and hotly anticipated Seattle Indies Holiday Party is happening on December 20, 2020 on a Zoom meeting near you. There won’t be the open bar and endless amounts of Chipotle as usual but there will be friends and games and fun, keep an eye here and on our social media outlets for when registration goes live. This year’s event will be completely free to attend but if you feel like donating you can find information on how to do that above. If you have pictures from previous years that you feel comfortable sharing please send them to us at contact@seattleindies.org for a slideshow we’re putting together of all of the great memories from our previous in person events.

IGDA Seattle is partnering with the Diversity Collective+ to bring you an online talk series called “Becoming”, where games industry professionals reflect on their career path and retrace their journeys through the industry in their respective fields.

This month, we are featuring an excellent panel of people in Business Development leadership roles in the industry.

Join us on https://twitch.tv/igdaseattle for this talk by some high level producers in the games industry as they talk about their journey to becoming who they are today and hopefully inspire you to follow in their footsteps.

Moderated by Sarah Belhumeur

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/128827595807

Webinar – Launching your game with Google Ads

Join us on Twitch for a special presentation with Ashley Black, Head of App Gaming, Americas from Google Ads for a webinar and Q&A about launching your game with Google Ads. We will watch her presentation full of insight and advice on how to successfully launch a mobile game with Google Ads then have time for Q&A with Ashley afterward. This is your chance to get answers from an expert at Google to help your ad supported game launch be successful!

Register now!

Indie Support Group is going strong and meeting every Saturday from 1pm on our Discord in the #isg-voice channel, Curious how to start learning something? Want to chat with someone of another discipline? Need a place to work on a project and share it with others? ISG is a social, game development focused work group that encourages people of all skill levels and disciplines to come together and collaborate for the benefit of all.

Game Club is taking December off for the Holidays but we’ll be back in January playing and discussing the critically acclaimed hit Hades. Check out the Event Here and join us on Discord on January 18, 2020 at 7PM Pacific!

The Seattle Indies Social is also taking the month off since we’ll be having the Holiday Party this month but we’ll be back in January. Keep an eye on our Discord or Facebook for more details. Join your friends from Seattle and beyond to catch up on what everyone is working on and doing to keep busy while we’re practicing social distancing.

Local Dev News

Max Sandler announced their newest album “Pocket Tracks” in time for the Holidays dropping on Dec 14th. Check out the official tweet for the sample track “Road Repair”.

Scarlet Season released a haunting new track called “One Day I Woke Up”. They have participated in a couple of game jams with us in the past and we hope you will check out their music and that they will join us for a jam sometime in the future.

SIX 2018 Nominee Keyboard Kommander debuted on GameJolt. Download it now and get typing!

Arrow Ball is officially released on Steam! It’s a fast-paced Arrow-Sports game where you use explosive arrows and acrobatics to outmaneuver your opponents and control THE BALL. Engage in 1v1 or 2v2 local multiplayer battles across a variety of unique Stages.

A special congratulations to long time Seattle Indies member Albert Shih for being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Games list for 2021! Albert’s studio Pillowcastle Games recently released their game Superliminal on Steam and is now available on all major platforms. You may recognize it from multiple appearances at our Show & Tell events and SIX, now you can play the full mind-bending experience at home on your platform of choice.

Harassment Policy, Black Lives Matter, and Resources

Seattle Indies believes the stories of the victims of sexual harassment and assault in the games industry that have been shared this past week and before. We strongly condemn the actions by people in power preying on the dreams of vulnerable people trying to make their way in the industry and strive to build an inclusive community that welcomes all minorities to provide a safe environment and a better vision for the game industry.

While our code of conduct states a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind we are especially sensitive to the daily challenges faced by womxn due to the ingrained sexism that has existed in the structure of the games industry for far too long. We are actively working to build a better community of game developers and we all need to do better.

Additionally Board Member Sarah Belhumeur has offered to be a personal resource for anyone who needs help, someone to talk to or some guidance on next steps if you have experienced harassment in the industry either at our events or elsewhere. She can be reached at sarah@seattleindies.org.

Our friends at Take This Org have compiled valuable resources for anyone in immediate need of professional help for their situation.

Lastly, Seattle Indies and Diversity Collective+ support Black Lives Matter. Here are some resources compiled by Diversity Collective+ for how you can offer support, whether this is financial, contributing to petitions, preparing for protests, or getting informed. If you have additional resources, comment below and we will add them.

As always, keep an eye on our Discord for any last-minute news and discussion, and let us know about any projects you’re working on that you’d like shared on our Steam or Itch collections or tweeted about from  @SeattleIndies!

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