May 2020 Update
Hello Indies!
Hope you are coping well in this strange period, where Time means nothing, and every day is a Wednesday. Alas, despite the craziness, game dev must go on!
April Recap
We just wrapped up our annual Games for Our Future CLIMATE JAM, partnering with IndieCade! Due to the ongoing situation, the event was held entirely virtually. We ended up with 49 varied submissions (whoa!) which you can check out Right Here! We also had some great talks from mentors who helped inspire our devs and their creations including this excellent keynote from Elizabeth LaPensée, Ph. D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liCwZF2puLg
We also held our usual monthly socially virtually for the first time! Technical quirks were quickly resolved and the event was a lot of fun, including impromptu browser-based Penguin-MMO session (yes you read that right). Hope you join us for the next one!
Upcoming Events
Love turn based tactics games? We’ve got you covered! Join us on May 21st as we showcase the freshest strategy games from local indie devs, including
Phantom Brigade, Floppy Knights, Wintermoor Tactics Club and more!! Follow us on Twitch for live notifications: https://twitch.tv/seattleindies
PocketGamer Connects is back with another Digital Event June 8-12, and we have some free codes! You can apply for the event right here to get a free indie ticket. If they’re out, you can still buy a regular ticket here. If you are interested in being a speaker at the event, you can also submit an application. And lastly, the signature part of the event is the Big Indie Pitch where you can submit your game and pitch it to various publishers, journalists and other industry folks. Enter here!
There’s some big changes to other major events as well: GDC Summer (Aug. 4-6) is now officially a digital conference as well. Here’s some more info. Furthermore, Indie Megabooth here in Seattle is cancelled this year unfortunately, and the nature of PAX West (Sept. 4-7) is uncertain, but the event has not been officially altered as of yet.
Some of you may be looking forward to Seattle Indies Expo (SIX), our own annual event that overlaps with PAX. This year we’re planning for an online version of SIX and will be making public announcements about how that will work soon. Very likely, submissions and judging will still be mostly the same with the one main difference being that we may not be able to host in-person sessions for multiplayer game testing like we normally do. We’ll keep you posted with more info soon!
Our monthly Game Club meetup continues on our Discord server, like a book club we choose one game per month to play and discuss. Last month we played the award winning puzzler Baba Is You and this month we’re playing the procedural rogue-like action game Noita. Join us on Wednesday 5/20 at 7pm to be a part of the discussion.
Lastly, we started hosting our Saturday Indie Support Group digitally as well, and have had a lot of good feedback from the participants. If you’re in dire need for some (virtual) social interaction, come join our Discord to participate this weekend!
Local Dev News
EVC has just released Wintermoor Tactics Club, a story about surviving high school, with gameplay inspired by tactics RPGs and visual novels. Here’s the Steam Page!
Erin & Brad have also released A SWIFT AND SUCCESSFUL ONBOARDING, which you can play for free right here on itch.
Lastly, Zatch has released Duck Duck Goose, a local coop game Fight your friends as ducks and geese with explosive weaponry in this frantic top-down, local multiplayer shooter where you play as a crowd of royal birds overlooks your bloodshed. Check it our here.
Stay Safe & Game On
We’re still in the midst of dealing with the pandemic, so here’s some tips on how you can keep yourself safe:
- Keep your hands clean, and keep your distance from sick people
- Wear a face mask if you have to go out in public and are unable to maintain a safe distance from others
- Stock up on home supplies, medicine and resources
- Prepare your family, and communicate your plan
- With your children, keep calm and carry on — and get the flu shot
- About to go on vacation? Consider your destination and how you feel about risk
- Take a deep breath when thinking about the stock market
Lastly, if you are feeling bored or wanting to share unused game codes – we created a game key sharing Google Sheet that we can use to post our keys from past Humble Bundles, gift copies, cards, codes, whatever you may have around that you don’t intend to use or want to share with your fellow game developers to help keep spirits up while we’re all stuck inside for a bit.
Our friends at Humble Bundle have launched the Humble Conquer COVID-19 Bundle full of amazing games and books to keep you busy while you are stuck inside and help support charities fighting the disease.
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!