Seattle Indies – January 2021 Update
Happy New Year Indies!
First month of the new year is already done, and a lot has been happening. Hope you’re staying busy with your projects!
Monthly Recap
The Global Game Jam has JUST wrapped up and we had 253 jammers registered at our (online) site this year. We ended up with whopping 60 games, all of which are available on our Jam website right here! And if you don’t have time to play, we also had our Final Presentation on the 31st showcasing all the games on live stream, which is uploaded right here on our Twitch Channel or on YouTube. Check out all the awesome work from our community! Join us on https://twitch.tv/seattleindies on Saturday, February 13th for a full recap stream of GGJ including some of your favorite games and developers from the jam, hosted by Stephazoid.
Pixelles, a non-profit initiative committed to helping more people make and change games, has announced a BIPOC Creator Program: “We’re offering personally tailored mentorship and up to $10k CAD to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and Person of Colour) Canadian game creators, as a grant. There’s no recoup, no publishing or platform requirements. You don’t even have to credit us if you don’t want to. You just have to make the game.” Find out more on their website.
Upcoming Events
Check out an upcoming online talk: How to Sell a Game on Steam in 2021: A Talk by Chris Zukowski happening Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 3pm PST right on our Seattle Indies Twitch channel! The event will also leave time for QnA, allowing you to ask Chris your pressing questions about marketing your Steam games.
Indie Support Group is still going strong as ever in the new year! Tune in 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 will take place on February 17 at 7pm and chat about Iris and the Giant this time. Check out the full event info here.
The Seattle Indies Social is coming on Tuesday, February 16th as well! 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.
Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #5, running entirely online, Feb 8-12 and they have a bunch of free passes available for our members! Sign up now.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-DCNcYQG5aWoV3qAIyKVj1O9vFeZ6X8dMU_4lzmY69JsjSw/viewform
Local Dev News
HoovlerInd just released What’s Left Behind, a post-apocalyptic city re-builder game releasing on January 15. It has been 20 years since a plague ravaged the planet. The dead rose to shamble across the dense urban expanses and vast plains around the globe. Cities crumbled and humanity retreated into their last safe bastions to fend off the relentless hordes.
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Unclechau announced here.fm, a new platform where you can “Build and decorate spaces where you video chat, write, draw, screenshare, post pics and gifs, and move around–all in your browser.” Check it out!
Goblin King is releasing a demo for their multiplayer creative browser game Goblin Life. Free with no accounts. Check out the Steam Page right here!
Ian Bechtold made a game the other day called Maze: The Ritual. It’s a short first-person maze crawler with horror elements.
And lastly, Fluffy recently released a stepmania song pack of some of her music. It was fun to make and fun to dance to, too! Check it out here.
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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