Matt Hammill, funky, fearless creator of IGF Student Showcase nominated Gesundheit!, has been a busy, busy man. After IGF (which was fun, man — sucks I got sick!), he finished school, joined an animation studio, and even released a children’s book. Which is all thoroughly rad (congrats, Matt!), for sure, but, let’s be honest, what we here at TIGS want is more of that super cute, hand-drawn, homemade gaming goodness. Thankfully, he’s been “pluggin’ away” at that too!
Just recently he did a little making-of feature on Gesundheit! for Game Developer Magazine’s fall Game Career Guide, which you can find right here. It’s got design sketches, fun mock-up artwork, and useful reflections on the game development process, specifically working with AGS. Groovy.
Update: He’s also got a collection of misc. game art he’s done up on his personal site. Bonus grooviness.
Matthew Boyd (Three Panel Soul), who interviewed Tarn Adams for Kwanzoo.com about a month ago, just did another, shorter, interview with Jonathan Blow, where they discuss Braid, Microsoft, and the nature of being an independent developer.
In the past, I’ve noticed that before Braid was released, some people have took issue with Jon being vocal about his opinions regarding the games industry and the development process. Has that changed at all for you guys?
In any case, I’m digging these interviews. Keep ’em up, Matt!
Around September of 2007, insertcredit‘s Brandon Sheffield arranged a meeting of the abstract shoot ’em up minds in Tokyo, to talk about everything from bullet patterns to the Japanese “doujin” game scene. The transcript of that discussion went live today on Gamasutra (link), and it’s a fun one! It’s cool to hear, for example, Jon Mak ask Kenta Cho how he feels about random behavior in games. More of this, please!
TIGdb: Entries for ABA Games, Everyday Shooter, and Every Extend
Quoth Cactus:
The fourth episode of Game Maker TV was posted here yesterday. Check it out!
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Addendum: He also released a new game, called Stallions in America, which is an existential adventure in the art of killing people on the beach, and man is it a doozy!
Watch out though, the balloon things drop eggs.
39d was released today, bringing with it a host of nice, shiny improvements. There’s also a really good three-part interview with Tarn up on kwanzoo (part 3 goes up tomorrow). The interviewer is Matt Boyd of Three Panel Soul.
Tarn: Oh sure, it’s just something I’m going to have to slowly do myself, and I have many dev items along those lines. It’s just not something that I currently think is a good idea to do in a moddable fashion.
One thing I was a bit saddened to hear was that Tarn’s making less from donations now than he was before (EDIT: Tarn meant before, when he was a mathematician). But hell, I want the guy to live comfortably, given how much enjoyment he’s brought me and the internets over the years. If you’re a fan, consider giving a little to toast the new release. And I don’t know how well-known this is, but as a reward for donating you can get some awesome presents: either a short story that’s illustrated with a single line of ASCII art, or a crayon drawing.
And for those of you that are tired of hearing about DF, well, tough plump helmets! But seriously, I imagine this will be the last release for this particular arc. See ya!
Tale of Tales’ Michaël Samyn (The Endless Forest, The Graveyard) recently put up an interview he conducted with Takayoshi Sato, the man responsible for the haunting CG work in Silent Hill, and who is now employed at Virtual Heroes, a company that makes training games for various clients (they worked on America’s Army!). Michael asks Takoyashi about Silent Hill, games and art (natch), and his decision to now work on “serious games.” It’s an interesting discussion.
And definitely check out his other interviews, which go back to May of last year, when he chatted with American McGee! In the indie gaming sphere, Michael conducted two interviews before Sato – one with Simon Carless in December and one with Jenova Chen following this year’s GDC.
Tale of Tales has a unique approach to game design and the same goes for their interviews. A very worthwhile read (and very nice to look at, of course).
Tim W., editor of the almighty IndieGames.com blog, has compiled a list of his awesome indie developer interviews, including one with the notorious MDickie.
His latest interview, with Tommy Refenes (shown above), is not currently in the list, but must be read at all costs. Tommy’s multiplayer action/strategy game Goo! was an IGF finalist this year. A public PC demo of the game is available from his website.
P.S. Tim, I still want to do an interview with you. Please return my calls! :-*
Scott Sharkey wrote a nice little round-up for the all the indie video interviews 1UP did at GDC last month. The feature has links to the developers’ interviews, and their websites, along with a nice photo of each one (which I’ve collected in the image above). Always great to see the beautiful faces behind the games!
Also, check out this great clip from DL.TV, where 1UP’S Garnett Lee expresses his admiration for Crayon Physics Deluxe and Fez (starting around 1:30):
His descriptions of the games are pretty spot-on, in my opinion!
I always enjoy listening to Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany) talk about games, and I’m not as familiar with Dylan Cuthbert (Q-Games), but he has good things to say. Hearing from developers who are passionate about what they do just makes my heart swell! It makes you feel very fortunate to be able to take part in this shift in gaming.
Finally got around to reading this Gamasutra interview with Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams (the other half being his brother, Zach). It’s a really great read that covers a lot of Dwarf Fortress’s history and pre-history, and also gets into a lot of geeky stuff like pathfinding and fluid dynamics.
But this is the best part:
Yes, frickin’ Beastmaster! I love that movie! I love you guys!
The image depicts YADFA (Yet Another Dwarf Fortress Anecdote), from DF forum member goldminer:
Via this DF forum thread.