I feel like my role as a young developer was to watch with open eyes as talented people were talking about projects they were passionate about. Freeplay: A night of world-renowned speakers at Parallels Longest Independent Game Festival Freeplay, my eyes got bigger. By highlighting the voices behind independent gaming and viewing gaming more as an art exercise than a product, the evening proved to be an inspiring one.
Participating in person for the first time reminded me of what I love about making games and how complicated things can get.
read: Freeplay: Parallels 2022 – Everything I Learned
Throughout the night, the talks felt as if they were having conversations with each other, reflecting similar emotions and discussing the same struggles. . His Freeplay Festival in Maine was recently in danger of being canceled thanks to the pandemic. And the past two years of Parallels talk couldn’t have moved forward very easily.
The reason Freeplay survives is the passion behind it, felt by an audience that shared a sense of camaraderie at Parallels.
Also, what struck me particularly was that a lot of the talk felt like it was about making games your way: avoiding optimizing development for commercial success only, making games The choice to support participating in the process of making is artistically fulfilling and meaningful.
narrow road
dawn has come Mars First Logistics, a physics simulator that builds strange modular machines to transport goods across Mars. What sets me apart is the game’s compelling aesthetics and personality.
Kalonica Quigley, the game’s 3D artist, said a key moment in how she was looking at the game was realizing that one of the transport objects was a watering can. Why do they need a watering can on Mars? who knows! In creating the game, she gave herself the freedom to not take the game’s tone too seriously. “What if making games was fun?”
It really struck me to hear Shape Shop’s Ian MacLarty and Quigley argue that making a game you can enjoy with your friends has a meaning in itself.
Eli Macdonald and Katie Elizabeth guk Talk about upcoming games from emerging studios, futuristic folktale, discusses the importance of Guck being a First Peoples-driven studio and how that affects their work process. They also brought up that inclusion without justice is just visual. This means that there is no point in giving back to the community by superficially engaging with Indigenous topics.
read: Freeplay: Parallels 2022 – Everything I Learned
The point is that it’s very easy, as a marginalized individual or group, to try to dilute what you’re making or “tutorialize” your experience for a wider audience. Their passion and backbone was inspiring.
the story in a way studio folly It was also about the backbone.Jessica Sheppard and Darcy Smith Talked About The Game Gavins Entry into the mobile game market. morally questionable Put simply, practice. They have stated many times upfront that they do not belong in that industry with two goals: to build something they are proud of and to build something that feels mutually exclusive and commercially viable. I have been told.
But still they chose to try. Gavins If we can assert that it will not be commercially successful, at least it will fail in our own way.”
read: What is the game worth?Australian mobile game developer talks monetization
As an independent developer, it’s very easy to get pulled in different directions. Projects are long-term, and people’s outlooks and circumstances can change radically along the way. Developers face audience expectations, commercial viability issues, or the effectiveness of their time and effort. It’s a difficult balance, and often a very conscious choice in how the game is made. you I want to make them
topm studio We talked at length about how easy it is to go down a route that’s doable but doesn’t actually want a game. wizard chess They developed multiple viable paths, but that wasn’t what they were aiming for, so it only doubled their progress.
This process allowed them to create the game they envisioned when they actually set out.
Ricky James and Ben Follington’s team do not use game development as their primary source of income. In a way, I had the freedom to work on the game without worrying about money cutting development time because I had a different job.
somewhere in my heart
The next team we talked about at Freeplay: Parallels was little pink cloudsI have long admired this studio as many members graduated from my degree the year I started. I jumped. Letter to Alaraa cute game about exploring an Australian-inspired island and sending mails to its inhabitants.
I was curious as to what kind of games she ended up making. Letter to Alara, and how it fits in with previous games she’s made, and her ideas for the future. “I wanted to make a very exploratory game,” she said. “I made games because I loved exploring the worlds I created.”
For Eagle, Letter to Alara It is also an opportunity for her to develop her ability to create games with an awe-inspiring sense of adventure. “I have these wonderful worlds in my head, but I don’t yet have the skills to create them. Hopefully after this, I will be able to gain experience and practice. Worlds, you can create large worlds that you can wander around and explore.
“My goal in creating this game with my team was to create a game that I would be proud of and that my teammates would be proud of.
It’s a very sweet ambition, but there was a certain amount of intention behind it. Eagle continues, “Anything bigger than that can lead to a lot of self-doubt and toxic thinking.
“Why am I not famous in this game? Why is this person doing better than me?” So I set myself far more realistic goals that I would be happy with no matter what happened.
At Freeplay: Parallels, many developers talked about affordances for making things they actually wanted to make. There is a feedback loop between the developer and the game, and changing something changes the feel of the game, and something can be changed accordingly. I love hearing how developers talk about their relationship to what they make. This inspired my talk with Chantelle.
Hearing this, she gave me some advice. Every team, every living environment is completely different from the next developer.
“There’s no right way or wrong way. What’s important is that you’re okay and healthy during the process and that you can be proud in the end.”
She then pointed out the crux of all this: “If that’s what you start with and you know how difficult that journey will be, there’s something very special about that game. There must be…that.speaks to every developer individually.
Making even a small game is a big effort, and embarking on a game is a sign of faith both in the idea of the game itself, but also in your skills as a developer or team.
Other talks at Freeplay: Parallels focused on similar concepts, featuring gorgeous, diverse and exciting games in development across the Melbourne gaming industry.
sbag game‘ Isopods: Webbed Stories It already looks like a lot of fun, but it continues the studio’s love for very small creatures.story by tempo lab introduced me Bits & Bopa rhythm game that I am excited to support now. catchweight studios discussion of conscription It sheds light on how much passion and attention the developers themselves put into it. frog detective 3the game, full of charm and humor, received a big show from developer Grace Braxner, who explained an important decision to give the game the time it needed to develop.
These ambient thoughts have been in my head for a long time, both as someone entering the gaming industry and as someone who likes games. It is an age-old concern to think about how to make It was really priceless to see so many people continuing to discuss this and that the developers are still so passionate about their game.
Clearly there is no easy way to balance all this, but it is possible. Hopefully, if you’re someone who likes to build things, listening to a lot of these stories can make you feel a little less lonely. Helped me.
This article was commissioned by GamesHub and Creative Victoria wordplaya game creation instructional program held during the Melbourne International Games Week 2022.
