October 2024 Update
Hello Indies!
Can you feel the weather changing already? Are you getting ready for some hot pumpkin-flavored drinks and spooky video games to hunker over?
Major Events
Join Seattle Indies at our first ever Game Jam Plus site! We’ll be meeting in person at Venture Mechanics Startup Launchpad in the Bel-Red area, right off of 520 with plenty of free parking. The 249 bus stops about a block away as well. It takes place from Friday, Oct 18 to the following Sunday.
Click Here to read more info and register!
We hope you enjoyed SIX 2024! Check out our YouTube playlist If you want to relive the fun or catch up on anything you missed from the month-long celebration of indie games and game creators from our community. Congrats and thanks to everyone involved in putting on a great event for our community. SIX IRL and SIX Online will be back in 2025!
IndieCade Anywhere and Everywhere is IndieCade’s online festival for 2024 and will be held in the fall. This online event is built from the ground up specifically to highlight and feature games of all types, along with their creators, from around the world. Learn more about it here!
If you want to get a list of all upcoming game event shows and get ready early, The Indie House has published this fantastic list of upcoming festival that’s exactly that. Well worth a bookmark!
Seattle Indies Spotlight – Paul Kankiewicz
Each month we will be featuring a quick interview with one of our Seattle Indies community members so you can get to know them better and learn a little about their journey as an indie developer. Paul Kankiewicz is an experienced game designer boasting a diverse skill set that spans multiple facets of the gaming industry including technical design, mission design, programming, and QA. He firmly believes that cross-disciplinary skills help people work and communicate more efficiently in any collaborative environment.
Since graduating from DigiPen in 2011 with a degree in video game programming, he has most notably worked at Monolith Productions as a Senior Game Designer on award-winning AAA titles like Hogwarts Legacy, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Follow Paul https://linktr.ee/allyproductions and get Grapplers: Relic Rivals on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/2906890/Grapplers_Relic_Rivals/
What inspired you to become an indie developer?
Before going indie, I worked as technical designer on AAA games like Shadow of Mordor/War, Hogwarts Legacy, and Dragon Age Dreadwolf. It was great to work on these monolithic, impressive games, but I also started to feel like a cog in a machine. Maybe I just got unlucky, but higher-ups on multiple projects made decisions that showed they were really out of touch with the rest of the game’s development and the team as a whole. I eventually decided it’d be best to try making my own games, so I left AAA to follow my dream of becoming an indie dev!
What is one great lesson you have learned in your time as an indie developer?
Be kind to yourself. Beating yourself up isn’t going to solve the problem, and it’s going to make your work suffer as well. Give yourself the time and understanding that you would give your best friend.
What is the one piece of advice you would share today with your younger self before you started your career as an indie developer?
Before even starting on a project, do some market research into what types of games players want to play, paired with what types of games you’re interested in making and feel you can deliver on. My first game was a 2D local multiplayer PVP platformer – Not the most marketable game these days.
Oh, and don’t start with a multiplayer game – They’re so much more work to develop, test, get footage for, market, etc.
How has the game developer community had an impact on your career?
The game developer community has been incredibly supportive, gives invaluable feedback, and always seems ready to help out when people have issues they can’t solve. In fact, while working on Grapplers, there was a weird audio bug I just couldn’t figure out. After trying everything, I ended up posting to the GameMaker Discord and a GameMaker dev was able to help debug my issue. Grapplers might not have shipped if I couldn’t have fixed that bug, so they really came through for me!
What is something interesting and unexpected that people would be surprised to learn about you?
I have never been on a vacation in my adult life that wasn’t to visit family. My family’s spread across the US, so my trips have always been to go visit them for things like reunions, graduations, or seeing my nieces and nephews. I almost went on a cruise in 2022, but covid got in the way of that one. Someday I’d like to finally see Hawaii or Yellowstone.
Thanks Paul! Want to be featured in the Seattle Indies Spotlight or have a suggestion for a community member who should be featured? Send an email to contact@seattleindies.org and let us know.
Here’s our Meetup Page with all future upcoming events.
The Eastside Meet & Drink is happening at Pint & Pie Public House on Oct. 1, at 6:30pm! Keep in mind it happens on the first Tuesday of every month. It’s time to get together and swap stories. Put down your keyboards and brave the outdoors. Let’s meet for a drink, a bite to eat, and some good conversation!
Feedback Circle is happening on Oct 9 on our Discord. It’s time to stop coding, animating, making art or audio or adding that amazing new feature you thought of while you were falling asleep last night and come to Feedback Circle to get some real responses to what you have been working on from game creators in our community like yourself.
Northside Social is taking place Oct 10, 6pm at Watershed Pub & Kitchen on 10104 3rd Ave NE (note the new address!!) It’s time to get together and swap stories. Put down your keyboards and brave the outdoors. Let’s meet for a coffee/tea, a bite to eat, and some good conversation!
Seattle Indies Social is happening on Oct 15 at 7pm at Stoup (formerly Optimism) in Capitol Hill. Join us for some well-deserved mingling, drinks, and socialization! Make some new friends, catch up with old ones, and find out what the community’s up to.
The Game Club is happening on Oct 16 at 7pm right on our Discord and focusing on Crow Country. What a book club is to a discussion of literature, this event is to a discussion of game design. Every month, we agree to play a game, then meet to discuss and analyze its design and presentation.
This month’s Show and Tell is on Oct 17 at 5:30pm at Niantic offices at One Bellevue Center – Chinook Room
411 108th Ave NE · Bellevue, WA. Bring your laptop and show off what you’re working on at the Seattle Indies Demo Night. Use this event to get feedback on your game and to network with other game devs. Pizza will be provided. Please bring everything you will need to demo and record feedback for your game.
Seattle Indies Board Game Meetup is happening on Oct 20, 3pm at at Phoenix Comics and Games. Come play board games with Indie Game Developers!
The Writer’s Room is taking place on Oct 24, 6:30pm in our discord. Bring your scripts, flowcharts, character bibles or whatever you’re working on to share and get feedback on your storytelling.
Indie Co-working Support Group in-person will take place every Saturday, from 1:00 PM to 6:30 PM PST, at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. Seattle Center wifi will be available for use. Please bring everything you need to be productive. We will be meeting every Saturday of the month at AIE going forward. We have also added a Co-working voice channel in Discord for people to use any time they want a quiet space to work alongside their peers.
Southside Social is happening on Monday October 21st from 5-9:30pm at at Logan Brewing Company in Burien. It’s time to get together and swap stories. Put down your keyboards and brave the outdoors. Let’s meet for a coffee/tea, a bite to eat, and some good conversation! This meetup will alternate between Kent and Burien for the next few months at least so we can find out which location works best for people.
final (Sarah R.) released demo on steam for Grimshire, Go Play It!
Allie M shared some more info about their Post-Cyberpunk Survival Horror RPG ! Wishlist it Here!
game boy shared their latest game, check it out here!
Roberto released their latest adventure game, go play it on Itch!
Paul K (Ally Productions) added four single player speedrun challenge mini-modes to Grapplers: Relic Rivals! Check it out on Steam!
Derek launched their fighting game’s Kickstarter! You can now also play the demo version from PAX West at home, with most of the bugs fixed. Please check it out and consider backing!
Danielle Osterman is crowdfunding a second edition of MONSTER GUTS, an action-focused ttrpg inspired by all our favorite monster hunting videogames. Check it out!
rangerwang released a small adventure game! It is the first non-gamejam indie game they finished. Play it here!
Dylan Gedig launched Fowl Damage on Steam!! Please check it out here!
C.C. Kenzie shared their Pax West vlog – Check it out!
Linus also finished and uploaded their Gamescom Vlog! Watch it Here!
AustinBMX has New Updated Demo for Temple of Shadows. Including new mechanics, collectables, achievements, speed-run timer and more. Check it out!
theonixie (Elias) released their gamejam gameIt’s a first-person parkour game, sorta like Mirror’s Edge but without combat. Play it Here!
MooseAndMagick released their first indie mobile game on Android “Resourceful”. Play it here!
Ezra(DeveloperEzra) made another GMTK jam game, and shared their experience with the jam in this devlog! Give it a Watch!
PinkLunaFae (Mio) launched pre-orders for their new line of (Hazbin Hotel) Fall Fashion merch. Take a look here!
Harassment Policy, AAPI, Black Lives Matter, and Resources
Seattle Indies stands with the AAPI community. We are here for our members who have been affected by the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes both locally and nationally. For further resources to educate yourself on the issue and how to take action, here is a useful link: https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/
Seattle Indies believes the stories of the victims of sexual harassment and assault in the games industry that have been shared. 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 August 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 august@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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