tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61013153509389898642024-03-05T09:00:53.446-08:00Huh? It's just a blog...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-26164500425481661092015-07-27T03:58:00.000-07:002015-07-27T04:01:31.169-07:00<br />
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<h3>
Develop Conference 2015 - Being a Mother != the End of Making Games</h3>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What is Develop Conference?</span> </h3>
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If you’ve not been before, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.developconference.com/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Develop Conference</a></span> in Brighton is probably the biggest UK developer event. Amazing talks, free expo and of course fantastic networking opportunities (read parties). This year marks my fourth conference, and this years felt very different as it is the first where I’ve taken on more of an active role. Don’t get me wrong, attending the talks can be incredibly insightful and inspiring (check out <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdnKiyzsmDk" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Rami’s keynote</a></span> for example). Even if you just rock up to the bar and chat the day away with fellow developers you can absolutely get a lot out of the three days that is Develop Conference. It’s just this time I decided to sign up for the game jam and put myself forward as a speaker. </div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Taking Part</span></h3>
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Way back in the year the call for speakers happened and so I threw my name in the hat. Alex and I put forward a talk on how not to indie, Des put me in for a panel on how being an indie is not easy and I nominated myself as a noob speaker. Well after the first two talks got rejected, third time was indeed the charm (pro tip here, if you really want to take part put yourself forward as much as possible!).</div>
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Closer to the day the announcement for places in the game jam surfaced and as it’s been such a long time since I last jammed (and I already had a babysitter for the week - thanks again Aunty Vicky) I booked places (Alex needed more convincing, but I booked him in anyway).</div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Game Jam</span></span></h3>
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So 16 hours is a super short amount of time to make a game, but this is a jam and we’re all about the challenge! Oli teamed up with us once more and we felt good about having a bit of fun with a silly little game. So the theme was announced as ‘Pebbles’ and we were off.</div>
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Alex was all about using the pebbles as counters and to maybe revive ‘Trowerstone’* but this seemed really dull for me, and as the artist it wouldn’t leave me much to do apart from making the best goddamn pebbles 16 hours can buy… So I put forward the idea of using the pebbles to make tiny golems and BOOM! Tiny Golem was born. The POA we settled on was that we would have a box of procedurally generated pebbles with different statistics attached to them - big pebbles were slow with lots of health, small shiny pebbles were fast and flat pebbles were stable - the player would then pick 6 (head, body arms and legs) to create their golem who would then be unleashed on a sand castle. The golem would attack the castle whilst the castle defended itself with cannons, the aim to destroy as much as possible before the tide came in. The player would have indirect control over the golem, choosing to be defensive (and slower), normal or charging (fast but vulnerable).</div>
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We began. Oli created the pebbles using shader magic and Alex wrote the animation (all in code, none of these fancy Unity animation tools) and I got onto some UI and sand castle production. There was pizza and drinks provided (thanks Square Collective for sponsoring!) and by midnight on the first day we were quietly confident that we would get what we set out to do done. If you’ve not game jammed before, this line of thinking is basically what gets you in trouble.</div>
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Next day and the final 8 hours and we had lots of lovely visitors and could see we were going to have to drop some stuff. So Ken (Wong) was kinda right, he said we would get 45% done, I reckon we managed about 60%. We also had a fab visit from Luca (Redwood) who gave us loads of coffee (if you want to make friends at a game jam - bring coffee). So the tide was dropped (because don’t do water in a game jam) it became golem vs. castle and the indirect control was dropped so you really had to choose your pebbles wisely! But we finished (right on the nose) and have a very playable game!</div>
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A very playable game that only went a won! I knew there would be judging and a prize, but I didn’t realise the trophy would be so nice! Now we can get the asymmetric multiplayer in where one player builds the castle and another the golem, and more defences, leaderboards and sharing to social media. If anyone would like to fund the mobile release we also have plans for golem resurrection, gatcha special pebbles and for monetization ;) </div>
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<h3>
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Micro Talk</span></h3>
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The jam was a nice distraction from the bubbling fear that was starting to surface as the talk drew nearer. I maybe didn’t really think this through. I’m not very good at public speaking, I absolutely want to be a positive influence in the games industry and particularly for women and parents, but that means I have to put myself out there, so here I am bidding for a full talk slot at next years conference.</div>
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The format for the talk was, a group of new budding speakers had 3 minutes each to talk on one of a collection of topics and then be rated by the audience. I chose ‘What I Learned by Accident’, which basically gave me license to talk about anything in my indie career as it all began ‘by accident’. I almost didn’t talk about being a parent and an indie developer, but after a confidence boosting chat with another female game lady dev and on reading an article about ‘mother shaming’ in the workplace (it’s not just games that struggle) I decided to run with it. </div>
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There is a drop in the number of women in the industry in their mid 30s, and we think it is because they are having children and not coming back to the games industry. The point of my 3 minute rant was we should hire more parents. Why? Because if you want team members who are not just committed to making good games but also committed to your business succeeding then hire people who have responsibilities outside their work that mean they really, really need to hold down a job! Obviously we’re not going to want to work overtime, or crunch (because no one does), but to make sure we can leave the office on time we will work harder and smarter in the time we have. No one multitasks like a parent. For example, whilst waiting to give the talk, I was texting my sister instructions on how to prepare dinner for Willow. </div>
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Well the talk seemed to resonate with the audience, after all the talks were given and the cheer-ometer had whooped it’s last whoop, I was declared the winner!</div>
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So What Next?</div>
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Now I have 12 months to prepare to do it all again, but this time maybe stress less about my talk! So back to work it is, and hopefully some more talk opportunities along the way! </div>
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*A game for another post methinks.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-68682348696885150082015-04-20T07:18:00.000-07:002015-04-20T07:19:26.468-07:00Tiny Red Riding Hood Dev Diary 02 : Best Laid Plans<h3>
O' mice an' men oft go astray.</h3>
<br />
Well, last time I had hoped to get a lot done before showing my progress off at the next Brighton Indies. Suffice to say I didn't quite get there.<br />
<br />
It's not all my fault or all doom and gloom for that matter. Interrupting my progress was the very awesome <a href="http://alextrowers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/krieg-jam.html" target="_blank">Space Krieg Jam</a> that we hosted, Alex has taken up gainful employment which has had a massive effect on the work/life balance and Willow has been a bit poorly and needed lots of cuddles and attention.<br />
<br />
Also some things happened which have maybe slightly altered my perspective on the game. Mostly the release of<a href="http://www.retroepic.com/our-games/a-day-in-the-woods/" target="_blank"> A Day In The Woods</a>, which I think just looks a lot better than where I seem to be heading and has made me question everything (OK not really, just how it looks).<br />
<br />
So time to turn it off and on again.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Not a false start.</h3>
<br />
That is to say everything up to this point hasn't been a complete waste of time. As I said before this is a learning process and part of that means throwing stuff away and starting over with all the juicy new knowledge and skills you now have!<br />
<br />
So what's happening?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's OK just not right.</td></tr>
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<b>Red and Trees re-do.</b> There's more to this than me getting my knickers in a twist over a better looking game. Red is kind of broken. She hasn't skinned well and has lots of one sided polys which don't play well in Unity. I want to retain her look, I just need to make her better, and probably man up and face UV unwrapping her (*shudder*). The trees on the other hand are just not English forest enough for me and far too simple. They did the job of introducing me to low poly modeling and will do fine as place holder trees, but they just don't look right. I need to make low poly trees that resemble oak and fir trees. <br />
<br />
<b>NavMesh, State machine and Lists.</b> So here's a whole bunch of things that are new to me! At the last Unity and Cake meet up I went to these things cropped up. Using a <a href="http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/navigation/navmesh-agent" target="_blank">NavMesh</a> to help Red navigate the woods in a less linear manner, an introduction to <a href="http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/StateMachineBasics.html" target="_blank">state machines</a> and how characters animations interact, and finally using lists, which I'm sure I do know but then I really don't! Basically if I want the apples to appear in different locations on the tree, it has been advised that the best way to do this is to have a list of possible locations on the tree which do or do not get populated with an apple.<br />
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<h3>
POA</h3>
<br />
Tomorrow is the final Unity and Cake meet up. After that Kerry will be busy nailing the public version and then the show hits the road as the newly branded <a href="https://twitter.com/makeplaycode" target="_blank">Make, Play, Code</a>. And I really want to have a working prototype ready! So, in the spirit of keeping it small and iterating on what I've done the aim for tomorrow evening is:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Have a basic UI in place</li>
<li>Have the apples appear on the tree</li>
<li>Have the player count (tap) the apples</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
I'll still be using the assets I have for now, once I get this much working we'll look at making it all look less generic and just nicer!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I wish I could Blender better...</td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-73103209833010820292015-03-23T18:30:00.001-07:002015-03-23T18:30:12.759-07:00Tiny Red Riding Hood: Dev Diary 01.So here we go, a dev diary! I'm going to try and document my first bash at creating a game myself. Obviously I will have help along the way, I've already had help up to this point, but for the most part I will be flying solo on this. So episode one of the dev diary - what I intend to do.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Aims</h3>
<br />
The major force driving this project is that I make something Willow enjoys interacting with, and can learn from. Also I want to try and make an interactive book app that improves on what's already available. What this app won't do is replace parent and child time. There will be no narration, mommy or daddy will still have to read along with Willow and give praise when she gets interactions correct.<br />
<br />
Things that I will be keeping in mind throughout the project:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Short and simple</li>
<ul>
<li>As my first run at this, it needs to be short enough and simple enough for me to finish it before getting distracted or disheartened! </li>
</ul>
<li>Fun for Willow!</li>
<ul>
<li>This is important as what I think might be fun is probably not entirely in line with what is actually fun for a toddler!</li>
</ul>
<li>That it's a learning project</li>
<ul>
<li>As much as I would love for this to be my first solo released game, this is my first go! This is for me to learn and to try and make something fun for Willow, if ultimately I need to throw this one in the trash and start over, that's what I'll do. </li>
</ul>
</ul>
<h3>
<br />Vertical Slice</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking forest-y! </td></tr>
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<div>
Normally I don't like this approach but there's a couple of reasons why I'm going this route:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Show and tell. Brighton Indies meet up is in a week and a bit, I want something to show off! It's really important to get a broader opinion on what I'm making and I know there are a few parents who attend so hopefully they might have some insight, or if their wee ones are of the right age they might help with some user testing!</li>
<li>Proof of concept. Mostly to myself over anyone else, show that I can do this.</li>
<li>Test the waters with Willow. I don't think there's such a thing as too young to try and teach Willow, but there may well be too young to get any meaningful feedback! Will she engage with it? Will it seem like she likes it?</li>
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The section of the game I will be making is what I'm dubbing a 'forest section'. Story wise Little Red is pretty simple. Mom sends you off to Grans, you meet the woodcutter or wolf (depending on the version) along the way, you get to Grandma's and the wolf has taken her place, you stop the wolf. That's it. Just the 4 beats. As with the other Little Red Story apps I've played the meat of the 'game play' is in the walk from Little Red's to Grandma's house, or the 'forest sections', and there can be as many of these as I like.</div>
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For this vertical slice I will be making a game where you need to collect apples.</div>
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Where I am so far </h3>
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So far I've started on making the art assets having decided to go for the low poly look. This means getting back into 3D, and how I wish I was using Maya! Now Blender is pretty good, and considering it's free, it's actually very comprehensive. I just wish it was more intuitive! It took me such a long time to make a simple tree, but once I got my head around Blenders many hotkeys the following tree took a mere hour and a rock no time at all!</div>
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Perhaps foolishly this has encouraged me to attempt a 3D character for the game. Now I know it's going to take me some time to make, rig and animate, but I've gotten much faster with Blender after only a couple of days so I hope that in a weeks time I can have a rudimentary character up and skipping. As I've said before, this is a learning curve, I'll probably re-do all of the art as I get better.</div>
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By this time next week</h3>
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<ul>
<li>A skipping Tiny Red Character</li>
<li>Forest section, apple tree and apples modeled</li>
<li>Sample level of picking either red or green apples</li>
<li>Some basic UI in place </li>
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Wish me luck!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-62130493049307057912015-03-16T16:47:00.001-07:002015-03-16T16:47:39.932-07:00The Mother I Never Knew I'd Become<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've said before that one thing about becoming a mother that really excited me was the idea of making games for and with Willow. I decided that the game I would start developing as part of the Unity and Cake meet ups would be my first attempt at an interactive book for Willow. Obviously I'm really excited about this, it's something I've had in mind since before I was showing, but now that I'm doing it I'm finding it's not nearly as simple as I thought it would be.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Willow's already a gamer.</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Little Red Riding Hood</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I was thinking about what games I would make for Willow, I had a grand idea of a woven fairy tale land where classic characters from different stories, fables and nursery rhymes would all live together in a big fantasy world. But this would be a huge undertaking! Firstly it needs a lot of writing, and not just taking the old stories and modernizing them or adapting them but also linking all the characters and weaving their stories together. Secondly it would require a massive amount of art, far to much for just little old me at the moment. And finally it would need skills to produce that I just don't have yet. I still want to make this game, but not yet. For my first solo project I need to start much smaller.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't know why but when I think of children's stories the first one that comes to mind is Little Red Riding Hood, so I'm going to start with this one and work up to the big world. I thought I knew the story pretty well but wanted to do some research, so I brought Willow some fairy tale books (thanks again to everyone who gave us gift cards for her birthday) and downloaded a bunch of Little Red story apps.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Turns out Little Red Riding Hood isn't nearly as warm and fuzzy as I remembered...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nerfing the Brothers Grimm</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I always thought I wouldn't be the type of mother who won't let their child fall over, eat dirt or grow up with the same stories that I did (yes Willow is going to know all about the Thundercats). And whilst she will happily eat floor fluff (as hard as we try to stop her), and has had more than a few tumbles leaning to walk, we get to Little Red Riding Hood and suddenly I'm reaching for the bubble wrap and thinking about how I can make the ending less horrid.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those of you who don't remember how it all ends (spoilers) the hunts man hears the wolf snoring (after a heavy meal of Grandma and Little Red he needs a power nap), so he cuts open his big belly to retrieve Nan and Red. They then decide to stuff the wolf with rocks and sew him back up so in the future they'll hear him rattling before they see him. Lovely. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Not what we want...</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now as a story at bed time I an see that this is totally fine. We can make all the noises and rumble Willow's tummy, and when it comes to all the bits that are a bit nasty, well that's left to Willow's cute and adorable imagination. My problem, and why I feel I need to nice it up a bit, is that when you're putting this into a game, and asking the player to interact with the story points, suddenly you've got a cross between Surgeon Simulator and Cooking Mama World: Hobbies and Fun. Which isn't exactly what I want.</span><br />
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I<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'m not saying that it's all as bad as say the </span><a href="http://flavorwire.com/344667/the-disturbing-origins-of-10-famous-fairy-tales/2" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">original story</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (before the Grimm's lightened it up a bit), or Todd McFarlane's vision of Little Red, but it still doesn't sit well with me. I'd rather not have both Grandma and Little Red cut out of the wolf. There must be a better way of telling the story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And A Better Way to Play</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whilst doing research into story apps I came across a lot of criticism for interactive story books. One article in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/26/childrens-book-apps-technology-story-nicolette-jones" target="_blank">particular</a> quotes author and critic Nicolette Jones</span> as saying "I’ve never seen a picture book-app that does something that a book doesn’t do better" and having looked at 6 different Little Red Riding Hood story apps on iOS I would have to say she might have a point.<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the one hand I'm really disappointed with the apps available. The interaction really doesn't add anything. If all you're doing is moving the character across the screen or selecting a fork in the road you might as well be reading a 'chose your own adventure' version of the story. But there is opportunity here.<br /><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://appsplayground.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/nosy-crow-red.jpg" height="300" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Of the apps I played, the Nosy Crow version was by miles the best.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I always had it in mind that the interaction in the story would be more involved and teaching areas such as numbers, colours and letters. Like when your little one is watching kids TV and the cartoon character on screen asks if they can see the white sock? It doesn't matter if Willow interacts or not, the cartoon will continue by congratulating the audience on finding the sock. This is where an app has the advantage, not only will the story wait until the child has located the sock but next time we read the story it could be a shoe or a flower that needs to be found, or this time a red sock not a white one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Making the App</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here's the tricky bit. Not only do I need to figure out a 'better' way of ending the story that doesn't involve cutting up the wolf, but I need to come up with interactive learning games within the story and decide how it all will look. The games I think will be the easiest part, and the most fun to test with Willow. How the game will look is proving to be the hardest part.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTPeO2hsDic0WEsdC6I8J28RrsnVyk-30Bhmf10BXU8MJEKQMaif_4fPXpDDB_h2sWMyMlbOo9DAfSbPqevOWelf3Co9j12Sm2LM_wgzLuinXC3dHKcfxJpIK3IjnxkvsoEjtaBO2dU-F/s1600/RedDoodle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTPeO2hsDic0WEsdC6I8J28RrsnVyk-30Bhmf10BXU8MJEKQMaif_4fPXpDDB_h2sWMyMlbOo9DAfSbPqevOWelf3Co9j12Sm2LM_wgzLuinXC3dHKcfxJpIK3IjnxkvsoEjtaBO2dU-F/s1600/RedDoodle.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>First Red doodle</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A part of me knows that I'm doing this for Willow, well and for me, so how it looks needs to only appeal to us. And she doesn't care. She's fascinated by anything on our mini magical colour boxes, but I am my worst critic and I'm finding this part really challenging. I can't make my mind up if it should be magical like the setting of a Ghibli film, or clean and contemporary like the Toca Boca games, or crafty and homemade like Lumino City.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At least I know Red is going to look like Willow. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfIZ__t9mYB0CnVvzCFgSr9QdbgeKioBwi5C_knMAcuWIvvPnqbKI9qsFnEA8Xt6xzQX2wpRNTcYJE-gPPM4D72jS9qErjo5PQ-wAfvei5XpM-HJmvbSbfT-a4iJhxgQ_nDtBcnFrcWR8Z/s1600/mock1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfIZ__t9mYB0CnVvzCFgSr9QdbgeKioBwi5C_knMAcuWIvvPnqbKI9qsFnEA8Xt6xzQX2wpRNTcYJE-gPPM4D72jS9qErjo5PQ-wAfvei5XpM-HJmvbSbfT-a4iJhxgQ_nDtBcnFrcWR8Z/s1600/mock1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I have no idea what the forest should look like.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Right now I've a bunch of ideas for endings and lots of interactive games so I can start getting the mechanics and interface up and running (least I'll have something to show at the next Unity and Cake meet up!). For now I'll keep hitting my head against my artistic block and hopefully something will fall out that I can use.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next I suppose I should start worrying about Kings who murder princes and Children pushing witches into stoves...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-74437402495161856712015-02-23T06:12:00.002-08:002015-02-23T06:12:41.570-08:00Women in Games<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've been taking part in a few Women in Games type things recently, and there's been one major theme throughout; if we're going to have a positive impact on diversity in the games industry we need to talk about it. So here's me talking about it.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But before we get started on all the good and positive stuff, there's a not so quiet elephant in the room that I'm going to address now. This post is not about GamerGate. Maybe that will be a post for another time, but all you need to know from me right now is that I do not support GamerGate and if you have genuine concerns with ethics in journalism, I implore you to adopt a different hash tag. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Empowerment</span></span></h3>
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<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently Next Gen Skills Academy conducted a survey, of which 40% of the women employed in the UK games industry took part in. The results from that survey show that 45% of women have experienced barriers to their career due to gender and 16% of the women who took part had experienced bullying from a superior. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Personally my experience working in the games industry has been amazingly positive in terms of my co-workers and employers. However, at both Game when I was a manager and at conferences such as Develop Brighton I have had to more than once defend my validity in that space. At Game I can remember very vividly being asked on more than one occasion if there was a man around who knew about a certain game/console/accessory. The absolute shock that caused one customer to not only double take but also completely spin on the spot when told I was the resident PS3 expert will stay with me for a long time. And the number of people at Develop who would assume I worked in HR or PR and would be genuinely shocked that I am in fact a Designer. One gentleman (who worked for Konami but i don't believe his actions represent his company) told me I was 'far too pretty to be in games development'. I later found out he made one of the students there feel so uncomfortable that she had to leave. So there are still dinosaurs in the industry and indeed in the consumer space who feel girls aren't welcome in the tree house, but thankfully this is happening less and less and soon I'm sure we'll only remember when it was an issue.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes I'm a gamer, no not a fake one!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Based on the information collected by Next Gen Skills Academy a series of workshops were set up, the first of which was an Empowerment workshop with speakers covering 'Finding Your Voice & Understanding Your Personal Branding' and 'Cultivating your Capacity for Creative Leadership'.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My takeaway from the work shop is that I'm already a fairly empowered individual. I've been fighting against the boys' tree house rules since SEGA vs NINTENDO was the playground banter, I spent most of my first pay as you go top ups helping male friends complete Soul Reaver and Metal Gear Solid and yes I am buying XCOM for myself not my boyfriend, and no I don't think it'll be harder than Dark Souls so are we done here? It's not that I would say I'm a confrontational person but I won't let people think I'm less capable at (then) playing and (now) making games. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second talk was really useful to me in terms of learning skills for delivering talks to groups of people. As I said, a theme running through these past few weeks has been we need to talk about this more, especially to encourage the next generation of game makers. When I was at school I was told that making games wasn't a real job (!), if I can make a difference to any young girls playing games who want to make games in the future I will happily go to schools and show them that they can absolutely do that and it's not just for the boys. I agree we need more female speakers to step up and get involved by being positive influences, it's why I was happy to talk at the Eurogamer careers surgery, why I wanted to talk at Animex and why I'm putting myself forward to speak at Develop. So to pick up a few tips on how to do that was very useful indeed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/reallyfancy" target="_blank">Kerry Turner</a> is an experienced developer and coder who decided to start a meet up to teach a group of her female friends how to make games in Unity. Kind of like a knitting circle but with laptops instead of knitting needles, retaining the tea and cakes of course. </span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This is a perfect example of how to influence and change the industry (for the better) from the inside by helping empower a group of women to be able to create their own games. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aside anything else it's an amazing evening spent with wonderful women, and on top of this we are learning invaluable skills and will (eventually) have a game at the end of it! I can't thank Kerry enough for setting it up and inviting me to be one of the 'guinea pigs' for the courses content. I do need to decide what my game will be, so far I'm making a Myst like but I'm not sure that's what I want at the end of this. What's also very cool is that I get to come home and teach Alex some tricks he didn't know, he's already very upset that my code best practice is better than his.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.38;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So this is the big one. Making the top 100 women in the UK games industry </span><a href="http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/mcv-s-top-100-women-in-games-revealed/0143979" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">list</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">! I was very shocked! Especially when you read some of the other women on this list. Putting me up there with Dr. Jo Twist, Gabrielle Kent, Roberta Lucca, Siobhan Reddy and many more industry veterans, studio founders and women who have a profound influence on our industry.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.38;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Attending the awards was another really positive event with lots of talk about being strong role models for other women in and coming up in the industry.</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So when I told my mom I made the list she asked 'what for, you haven't done anything?' (thanks mom), but it did get em thinking about why I should be on the list, or rather if I should be (impostor guilt). And you know what, I should be. I don't think anyone should underestimate just how hard it is to make video games, or rather make successful video games as it is, never mind the fact we completed and released two games within a year AND had a baby at the same time!</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope my story is inspiring to women in and choosing to be in the games industry. Yes you do belong here and no having a baby does not end your career if you don't want it to. I worked on Glyph Quest full time until two weeks before the baby arrived, and even then I was still doing press and community management. And we continued to work even with Willow crawling around, sitting on our laps and otherwise bothering us for attention. Full time mum and full time game developer. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's not easy, but then anything worth doing never is.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.38;"><br /></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-82850856327187434052015-02-17T03:31:00.001-08:002015-02-17T03:31:19.310-08:00Animex 2015 Since the first <a href="http://animex.tees.ac.uk/default.cfm" target="_blank">Animex</a> I attended back in 2009 I've had a real soft spot for the festival. Amazing speakers, inspiring talks and workshops, and a fantastic networking opportunity for students/grads to get some advice, tips and feedback on portfolios. Back in 2009 I attended as a graduate looking for help and a break into the industry, this year was my fourth Animex, and my first as a speaker.<br />
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Indie Game Day</h3>
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This year's Animex saw the first Indie Game Day. Speakers included Georg Baker, Michael and James Brown, Richard Franke, Barry Meade, Ian McClellen, Alex and myself. There was a huge range of experiences and advice on offer. </div>
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Georg (A Brave Plan Ltd) gave 110 (!) slides of invaluable advice to budding independent developers with so much gusto it was a hard opening talk to beat! The Gang Beast's (Boneloaf) were next up showing an insight into the process that has lead up to one of the most exciting indie games coming. Basically; prototype, play, iterate and once you have something to show, show it and use that feedback. We followed after a short break giving advice on what we did, and why you should do what we say and not what we did (another blog post methinks). After lunch we were treated to the musings of Barry (Fireproof) giving an inspiring talk on why you should make the games you want to play. Up next was the fabulous Richard Franke (Magic Notion) talking about Kitty Powers' Matchmaker, a perfect example of a personal project driven by passion. Then we had a very quick talk from Ian (Plug and Play) about marketing your games core message (your 'X') before the almighty panel session come game show for all the speakers and hosted by Alex.</div>
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If you thought a panel couldn't be gamified you clearly don't know Alex... (Also my team won thanks to my brilliant team mates Georg and Rich!).</div>
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Wow, what a day. Every Animex gives you a surge of inspiration, and Indie Day was no exception, we went to the bar that night buzzing with ideas and creativity, and this was just my first day of talks (we missed the start of the week and the VFX/Animation talks) there was so much more to come.</div>
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The Game Bridge in the student bar was the evenings entertainment. Loads of local (and not so local) developers showing of their games and the incredible Ms Powers came along to spice up the evening.</div>
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Animex Game</h3>
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The later half of the week was all things game industry and again, amazing speakers giving inspiring talks. I wish I had made it to all of the talks as the ones I did catch had me enthralled.</div>
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Ken Wong (Ustwo) was the first talk I caught, encouraging this new age of developers to shake the shackles of what we've let ourselves believe makes a game, a 'game'. Instead make experiences, channel emotions, produce works of art, think outside the (x)box. Following the pink haired hipster force was Nicole Stark (Disparity Games) who gave one of the best openings to a talk I've ever seen. Stating that she is a self confessed 'fake' mountain biker. Nicole has the gear, knows the lingo but cycles faster uphill than down. And despite getting horribly in the way of 'genuine' mountain bikers she has never been made to feel that she does not belong on that trail and as a part of that community. Something that our gaming community could really learn from. Nicole's talk was another personal journey in game development and the battle of balancing work and life.</div>
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I then skipped tracks to catch Jenifer Clixby (Lionhead) talking about her role as a cat herder (producer). Some really useful advice in this talk especially her personal tip to always leave the 'TO' field empty when writing an email. That way you can't accidentally send it unfinished, without attachments and/or full of errors, also you have to really think if you want to send that message. Useful if you're in a bad/angry mood. Following up this super useful talk was another amazingly helpful session from Wyeth Johnson (Epic) on how to give and ask for usable feedback. Ask for specific feedback, and don't rush your reply, give yourself time. It's a skill and it takes work to get good at so don't shy from it. Closing the day was Nathan Stapley (Double Fine) showing us some of the beautiful art behind Broken Age. I loved this talk and had to start making notes on things I want to try for our next Glyph Quest game (more on that another time).<br />
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<i>Nathan gearing up for awesomeness and the doodle I stole after his talk. Haha!</i></div>
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Players' Lounge</h3>
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Another of the networking events this week (and another evening with the irrepressible Ms. Powers!) held at the student bar is the Players' Lounge, the evening where you get to meet the speakers. This evening also held a charity auction for Special Effect, speakers bring along game merchandise, usually unique, limited and/or signed, and this year auctioned by special guest Kitty Powers. My contribution to the action was an original Cthuttlefish drawing (Sharpie and water colour on canvas, signed), we were also giving away the opportunity to be a character/enemy/monster in our next Glyph Quest title. This was auctioned for a whopping £260 making it the joint highest win of the evening (matching the signed Monumnet Valey print). <br />
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Wrap Party</h3>
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The advantage of being a speaker at Animex is attending the wrap party. Every year there's an evening of saying thanks to all those behind the festival and the speakers for making it what it is. What was really special about this years party was Alex taking home the Animex Honorary Award! Now of course I have to work on getting one for myself so we can have matching bookends! </div>
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Networking!</h3>
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And this is really whats so special about Animex, the networking. This year I was blessed to also meet Phil Co (Valve), Gary Napper (Creative Assembly), Andrew Walsh, Allesandro Taini (Ninja Theoy), Zach Parish (Disney) and Michael Molcher (2000AD) and catch up with some old friends and Animex regulars. Played some excellent Mafia games and was introduced to the fantastic Escape and Super Fight games (thanks Jim!).<br />
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<i>Seriously epic Mafia game.</i></div>
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There's always so many excellent speakers at Animex, hand picked by the wonderful Gabrielle Kent. Getting to meet people in the industry that I have nothing but respect for is a treat year on year. </div>
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Thanks Animex! Please have me back next time!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-84629107554381518722014-10-30T08:56:00.001-07:002014-10-30T08:56:47.702-07:00Finishing Super Glyph Quest (for now) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OK, I'm really very bad at blogging on a regular basis. But that's not because I don't want to, it's just I'm really busy! This said I have managed to tick a big task off my to-do list: Release Super Glyph Quest!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">epic battles await!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">YAY! After what has seemed like far too long in development (by comparison to Glyph Quest which only took us 4 months) we pushed the button and let our pretty fly. The reviews have been tricking in and so far it's all good:</span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-6b75cfc2-5c80-1920-eda1-741a08761b27"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'bigger and better than before, simply put... you're going to love Super Glyph Quest' - <a href="http://toucharcade.com/2014/10/28/super-glyph-quest-review/" target="_blank">Touch Arcade</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-6b75cfc2-5c81-3165-5d9a-4e487fbb612d"><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘Super Glyph Quest will have you entertained for a lengthy spell’ - <a href="http://arcadesushi.com/super-glyph-quest-review-ios/" target="_blank">Arcade Sushi</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-6b75cfc2-5c81-deec-9cdd-e4fa3d4476c6"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Super Glyph Quest</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> really does offer that ‘just one more go’ factor' - <a href="http://www.148apps.com/reviews/super-glyph-quest-review/" target="_blank">148 Apps</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And after a week of not knowing if we would make a Feature, we got the Feature! US store to start with and then the UK! All good news, thanks Apple App Store overlords! </span></span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So that's it now right? Time for a very well deserved and much needed break? Well sort of.</span></span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marketing, Marketing, Marketing. </span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">there are pigeons in our game!</span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no such thing as 'stick it in a box and ship it' when you are an indie developer. Well I guess there could be if you have a budget that stretches to outsourcing your marketing. We don't. So it is down to us to reach out to the press, keep on top of social media and generally harass as many people to start talking about Super Glyph Quest as possible. Oh, so if you are reading this and you are from a company that can help us grow our target market and guarantee us downloads and chart positions please don't waste both of our time by sending me a link to your premium service for a one off payment of $5000. If however you are a reviewer and would like a review code feel free to get in contact just please link me to your site/blog/Youtube channel because if I Google you and find nothing then I'm probably not going to give you a free copy of my game (that only costs 2 quid) no matter how abruptly you ask... Rant over.</span></span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Truth be told I don't enjoy marketing. And we have really picked a really bad time to try an get noticed. </span></span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Right now we are fighting for attention against every existing games Halloween/Thanksgiving/Xmas update news, the new releases for the Holiday season - especially from the big names, all he iOS8 updates for games, the new games for iOS8 and iPhone6 and the noise being created online by a collection of angry gamers rallying against the press.</span></span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not ready to comment on this 'movement' just yet, what I will say is; all their efforts are doing is the very best to give the small independent game makers a hard time of it.</span></span></div>
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<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the middle of all this we did get to fly over to Bergen, Norway and give a little talk on making Super Glyph Quest at the wonderful Konsole conference.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Konsole had an amazing line up of speakers and we we're really excited to be a part of it! Aside our making of talk we also took part in an impromptu AMA (ask me anything) panel with the other speakers and Alex was a dragon on their Dragons Den.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was really awesome to hang out with the all the speakers and the guys from Henchman and Goon. So many passionate gamers. And of course to speak to the attending indies and students. It still baffles me how many students on game design courses discount mobile games as 'not real games'. When asked if they think Candy Crush or Farmville are 'real' games they will say no, but ask them if Tetris or Animal Crossing are real and they will agree that they sure are! I hope at the very least we encourage some people to stop looking down on mobile games as not worth their time, and that there's plenty of opportunity to develop cool, interesting and new games in this space. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not only was this my first trip to Norway but also Willow's first trip abroad! She handled it all remarkably well, apart from one little scream off with her new friend Brage (we're not sure that there was a winner here).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Too soon our 'break' was over and we had to leave rainy Bergen for rainy Blighty and get ready to get neck deep in more marketing. While we were away Super Glyph Quest made it through review and we had the power to 'push the button'. We sent out another wave of emails announcing our launch date and then another round with review codes. With us one review away from a <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/game/ios/super-glyph-quest" target="_blank">metacritic</a> score (again) it's all about finding and reaching out to the sites that review mobile games. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, and merchandise;</span></div>
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Siren vs Sphinx - place your bets now!</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And as if we aren't busy enough we have opened up a store on <a href="http://society6.com/glyphquest" target="_blank">Society6</a> and <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/glyph-quest/works/12902141-siren-vs-sphinx-crest?ref=recent-owner" target="_blank">Redbubble</a> to sell T-shirts and the like with adorable Glyph Quest motifs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next Steps</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First things first we have a couple of updates coming for Super Glyph Quest. A Super 'Gift' Quest coming for Christmas (do you see what we did there?) and another quest pack in the new year. Once these are out in the word and we've finished picking up any wee bugs that slipped the net we can take a well earned rest from Glyph Quest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or maybe we'll make more Glyph Quest games. Glyph Quest Battles, Ultimate Super Glyph Quest HD, Glyph Quest Zero, World of Glyph Quest... </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-27743334974950680232014-08-24T18:34:00.002-07:002014-10-29T08:14:33.101-07:00The Life/Work (im)BalanceIn the past couple of weeks I've read a couple of very interesting articles which have got me thinking a lot about how we work and the future.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Becoming Super Mom</h3>
<br />
First up I read<a href="http://www.selfishmother.com/finding-the-u-in-mum/" target="_blank"> this article</a> from the Selfish Mom blogzine. Having it all, living the dream, being a super mom.<br />
<br />
Now most days I don't have the energy to get dressed in the morning let alone spend all day playing, feeding, looking after Willow, feeding Alex and myself, general chores AND all evening working on Super GQ, but it looks like the trick to having it all is working your butt off. It makes sense really. And it's not about the short term, this is all about paying it forward because in the short term you're going to be tired, irritable and to busy to notice that it will all be worth it.<br />
<br />
Of course things will get easier as she gets less dependent on us, and it's really in my best interests to make sure I've 'feathered by nest with more than just fluffy chicks'. I'm already dreading the moment we have to send her to a nursery and then school, and before we know it she'll be off and carving her own path... OK the last two are a long way off, but there is the prospect of day care. One of the awesome things about the both of us working from home is all the time we spend with her, it's also the single reason why it's taken us so long to get to this point with Super GQ.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">me, not working...</span></div>
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If Alex and I can keep making games, I'm sure the 'empty nest' feeling will be less of a blow, as I'll have my other 'babies' in development. I think that's one of the best things about being in a creative industry and getting to make things you love. And I don't think I need to worry so much about 'having it all', I'll be happy enough keeping what I have. I could just use a few more hours in the day...<br />
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We are not alone.</h3>
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And then I read the second<a href="http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/12/5994689/game-developer-family-ninja-pizza-girl" target="_blank"> article</a> that got me thinking a lot.<br />
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It was doing the rounds on my facebook so I had a read and saw a very familiar story.<br />
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Another couple choosing to take the plunge and go indie, working from home and balancing bringing up their daughters and working on a new game. It's slightly different in that their kids are significantly older than Willow is now, raising different issues to what we have on a day to day basis, but the thing I was really interested in was how they planned to make the work/home life happen.<br />
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In the article the couple talk about how they wanted to keep work and home life separate, even though their stations where now in the kitchen. Working their normal work hours and not spending all their work time talking about family and all their family time talking shop. This failed spectacularly though as life gets in the way, not to mention that their girls are into gaming and so are naturally curious and wanted to be involved.<br />
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Alex and I didn't plan. Sometimes I think we really should have planned what we were going to do, but you know what? I'm glad we didn't. At the time we just rolled with the punches. I couldn't get a job so we started a little side project then Alex got fired so we up-scaled the side project. If we had sat down and made a 'sensible' plan where we get 'proper' jobs to give us some security* for our soon to be family, we wouldn't have gone indie and released Glyph Quest. <br />
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In the end they include their second daughter in the development of their upcoming game <a href="http://www.disparitygames.com/ninja-pizza-girl/" target="_blank">Ninja Pizza Girl</a>, a game about much more than delivering pizza! I think it's awesome that they are working with her to make this game. It seems they were fighting to keep the two worlds apart and really it was better to let them combine. In the future I hope that we will get to include Willow in game making (if of course she wants to be involved in making games). <br />
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Now this is Agile development!</h3>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">the living room walls are covered.</span></div>
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We've never tried to separate work and family. In reality it would be almost impossible. Instead we work around Willow. When she sleeps we work, when she's with me Alex works, when she's with Alex I work. We have lists of all the things that need doing on post-it notes, spread sheets, and note pads. It has taken over our living room. It means some days more gets done than others and some days one of our lists won't get ticked off at all. But when you're working all day everyday it's OK to sacrifice an hour to play practicing sitting up or experimenting with eating pear, or having a really long nap.<br />
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We've set ourselves a mid September deadline, so now more than ever we need to be on top of this family/work balance. Despite not having a 'plan' or really much of a balance I don't think we're doing half bad. I guess we'll just have to see if we make this deadline or not. <br />
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*Not that there's ever much security in the games industry, small companies live and die by their games, medium companies close all the time and even the industry giants cull staff when they need to cut costs.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-75495482953251443702014-08-04T06:27:00.000-07:002014-08-04T07:25:49.378-07:00Game dev, Mommy guilt and not blogging.So, I haven't done this in a while...<br />
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Actually I've written a bunch of posts between the last one and now, just never actually published any of them! The main reason being because on rereading them, they were all quite negative, ok some of them were very negative. I don't know why. Possibly I needed to vent a little, possibly the fact that it was taking me three days just to get one post finished, possibly because my hormones/emotions/energy levels are all over the place most of the time. Could be any reason really. But here we are, and I've promised myself I'm going to publish this post.<br />
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Two devs and a baby</h3>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The bunny's for scale, not eating.</span></div>
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Here's a thing we didn't consider; game development with a baby will be harder than game development when 6,7,8 months pregnant. And by harder I mean almost impossible. I mean we knew we would have less time, Willow needs us for absolutely everything (even getting to sleep) but how little time we had was something we just hadn't seen coming. It's a steep learning curve this parenting lark.<br />
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The first few months Willow was very needy (and as I write that line the guilt creeps in, but more on that to follow), she wouldn't be put down, for the first month not even to sleep. Sleeping involved taking it in turns to have baby sleeping on our chests, soon after she would sleep on the bed with us (she had to lie on her side tho), and this resulted in me not really sleeping and doing the night time feeds. Once we figured out that she needed to sleep on her front things got much easier, but we wouldn't have let her before she got to the stage where she could lift and turn her head, thankfully she's always been really strong at holding her head. In this time I did zero game development and Alex did very little. <br />
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Once Willow started sleeping through the night (8pm to about 6am) I was able to start getting some work done. By this point I was of course well behind Alex. It's a good job we decided to go with Super Glyph Quest as Alex is able to use all of the old art as place holder! Of course this meant working on assets for Super whilst she was sleeping, going to bed around 2am, waking up at 6am, and then 8 or 9am when Willow will proudly announce that she is awake and therefore so must we be. Naps when she sleeps are essential. <br />
Now at six months old, Willow is far happier to entertain herself for chunks of the day. Her travel cot is a makeshift playpen (we've a proper one to come) to contain her as she rolls and shuffles around, and she will feed herself a bottle freeing up my time a little more. At this stage we are able to go (almost) full crunch. She still demands some of our attention, especially with her first teeth coming!<br />
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Mommy Guilt</h3>
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See where I write 'demands' and 'needy'? I feel just terrible about this.<br />
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Becoming a mother has certainly made me a much soppier person. I well up without any warning, am incredibly sensitive about almost everything (don't get me started on my figure) and I feel guilty anytime I put my own needs before Willow's.<br />
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Right now she is feeding herself a bottle of formula. Until very recently she was exclusively breastfed, but now we are entering the weaning stage I need her to stop associating me as the source of the food. As my mother puts it 'she looks at you like you are food'. Now she is happy enough with it (she wolfs it down!) and formula is developed so babies who cannot be breastfed grow up just as strong and healthy, and to be fair she has two tiny teeth (sharp as razors) so it's a dice with death every feed, but still, I feel I'm letting her down because I use this time to do something other than look after her.<br />
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Even when we put her on the play mat, she is happily gurgling away, chatting to Camelopard and Zeblim (yes we have named her toys for her) and having a roll around, but I feel bad, like I'm ignoring her. Or even worse, when we leave her with a family member for a few hours an evening (and she will be sleeping almost the entire time) so Alex and I can have a night off, man that racks my heart strings. And it's all because up to now I have been playing with her, helping her roll and crawl, feeding her all of the time!<br />
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So I feel guilty, when really I should be feeling proud of her! She's growing up so fast and learning so much, including how to not be so attached. Something I need to learn. <br />
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Super Glyph Quest</h3>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">New logo, new motto</span></div>
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When I'm not feeling like a terrible mother for letting my baby grow and develop, I am trying to get as much work on Super done as I can. Because there's a lot that needs doing!<br />
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Super is an opportunity for us to add lots of things that we didn't have the time to add to Glyph Quest, like a proper narrative. Adding actual quest lines and story arcs is something I feel we were desperately missing (thankfully peeps were happy enough to go around slaying monsters), and I'm really happy with what we've come up with but it does mean more characters to draw.<br />
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Then there's avatar customization. I would have loved to have added this to Glyph Quest but we just didn't have the time, as it turns out it requires a hell of a lot of work. But it's worth it! Also coming to Super is more gear (not just two robes upgrades), which players will craft from monster parts and have the ability to mix and match (possible set bonuses if I can convince Alex it's a good thing). <br />
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And there's the new monsters. Alex didn't want me adding some of the more obscure beasts from the depths of mythology in the previous game, but this time he's letting me go nuts. Partly I feel this is due to our new found love of Pointless, where the obscure answers win, but mostly I think he's fed up of monsters that are part this thing and part that thing - with wings.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The town of Helmstone for Super Glyph Quests' map</span></div>
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The bit that I'm dreading however is the UI art. I am not very good at it. It's taken me about a week just to draw the new map (it's a lot bigger than the old one) and that's before I get into buttons, pop ups, text boxes and health bars. I can draw a new beast in a couple of hours, it takes me the same amount of time to do a button. Maybe I over think it? I mean, it's just a button right?<br />
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Well there we go. Man has it been a busy and rewarding few months! But there is plenty to get on with, so I'll leave this post here and try to update again sooner. Much sooner.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-61167140214670807232014-03-06T17:09:00.002-08:002014-03-06T17:09:30.468-08:00The Biggest Challenge and the Greatest Reward<h3>
A Long Break</h3>
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It's been over a month since my last blog update and that's all down to my newest favorite person in the world, my beautiful daughter; Willow Victoria Trowers.</div>
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So, I knew that as soon as she was born I would have to take a break from game development, what I didn't know (or maybe chose to ignore) was that I would be taking a break from almost everything that isn't either holding, feeding or just staring at her. I know I'm bias, but she is just the most beautiful thing I've ever known, and as much as I know I need to put her down when she sleeps so that I can get on with things (even if that's to get some sleep myself!) I just don't want to. I'm told this never gets old, and I'm OK with this.</div>
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Willow Arrives</h3>
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Before her arrival, I knew that giving birth was going to be difficult/challenging/painful, the subject was talked over at length throughout our ante-natal classes. Of course, taking about and planning for the birth and experiencing actually giving birth are worlds apart! </div>
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There was also little point in 'planing' our birth experience. The hospital we should have gone to was full, sending us 15 miles through rush hour traffic at 7am to the next hospital over. Now I was having contractions every 3 or so minuets at this point so the actual journey to the hospital is a bit of a blur to me, but as I remember it Alex was totally cool, composed and supportive as he drove us to the hospital - not panic'd and worried about having to deliver the baby himself as we were stuck in stand still traffic at all, but like I say, it's all a bit of a blur now. What I can tell you is; contractions hurt. A lot. </div>
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As soon as we reached the hospital we were sent straight to a delivery room, and one with a pool. During the pregnancy I wasn't interested in having a pool birth, I thought it just wasn't for me, but by the time we got to the hospital I was in so much pain that anything which could help relieve that was welcome so the midwives started filling it up. Having now had a pool birth I can't recommend it enough. I was 8 hours into labor by the time I got into the pool and the heat and the weight lift were a massive relief. Having not slept before the contractions started, I was exhausted. Everything ached and my limbs were starting to give up on me, even with the support of the water. I started to feel like I couldn't do this without more help - some more effective pain relief or intervention. The contractions had slowed down and the midwives were talking about getting me out of the pool and seeing what needed to be done to get the baby born, it seems that threatening to take me out of the pool was all we needed to move things along.</div>
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After 10 hours of labor and with the help of some gas and air, a pool and Alex continually assuring me that; yes I could and indeed was doing great, Willow was born. </div>
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her first sleep, really I should have slept at this point too...</div>
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The first I realized that it was all over was the midwife telling me to pick her up! I looked down and floating just below me was this perfect tiny baby, I pulled her up to the surface, keeping her body in the warmth of the water and she opened her eyes and just stared at Alex and me. It took a few moments of taking it all in before I remembered to check to see if we had a little boy or a girl, because at that point I didn't care, all that mattered was that she is perfect. </div>
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The one thing that we had talked about and wanted for the baby was to leave the placenta attached until it had stopped giving baby the last wave of blood and nutrients from me, and we couldn't do that. No one had mentioned that to test baby's blood to see if I needed the final anti-D injection, a sample was taken from the umbilical cord so the midwives needed to clamp it before it stopped pulsing. So much for planning. After this Alex did get to cut the cord (which is not nearly as easy as you think), Willow was weighed at 7lb 7oz and after Alex changed his very first nappy she was handed to me for some skin to skin and her first feed. </div>
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It's maybe cliche to say that it's overwhelming, life changing or the greatest thing I've ever achieved, but it is all of these things and more. It was hard work and I have never been prouder of myself. I didn't think I would be able to do this without all of the pain medication and possibly intervention but I did!</div>
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Feed, Wind, Change, Sleep. Repeat.</h3>
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Everyday is different with her. She's learning everything so quickly and so are we! There is a basic formula that needs to be followed and so long as she is fed, winded, changed and gets to sleep she is by all accounts a happy baby.</div>
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multitasking like a boss</div>
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This cycle is however my entire life right now. OK, that's a bit of an over exaggeration, we do get to go out as she is really well behaved (as in she mostly sleeps in her buggy) and Alex and I tag team for the most part (but feeding is mostly on me, literally) but getting anything else done is difficult. For example; it's taken me 3 days to write this blog post, never before have I wanted extra arms more than I do now.</div>
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So game development is firmly on the back burner for now. Which is frustrating in that I have things I want/need to do, but the time I am spending with Willow is priceless. We will never get this time back and I'm so glad that Alex gets to enjoy it too. </div>
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We have been amazingly lucky with the reception of Glyph Quest. Our first foray into indie development has been more of a success than we hoped it would be and this has given us the opportunity to enjoy the first moments with our daughter, but we will have to get back to work soon. The great thing that going indie has given us is that Alex hasn't had to return to work after 2 weeks paternity leave, but the reverse side of that coin is if we're not making games, we're not making money.</div>
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So, time to start looking at a Glyph Quest sequel... </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-59907008525507052772014-01-23T10:30:00.002-08:002014-01-23T10:30:51.525-08:00Maternity Game Jam<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glyph-quest/id792412685?ls=1&mt=8" target="_blank">Glyph Quest is out!</a> Beating Sproglet to be first out (39 weeks, come on Sproglet!) Glyph Quest is now available for iOS (coming soon to Android).<br />
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What an intense few months it has been. Making this game in such a short amount of time was however necessary, I'm at the point where sitting at a computer is not at all comfortable and Sproglet is not a fan of having the laptop on the bump. Which means of course that I have no hope of taking part in the Global Game Jam this weekend or the Candy Jam that's happening now (but hopefully I'll have a baby to distract me soon - fingers crossed).<br />
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But it got me thinking, I'm not the only game developer in the world to get pregnant, I wonder how many other mums make games during their maternity? Like a Maternity Game Jam.<br />
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Mums making games.</h3>
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<a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/209100/taking_on_the_challenges_of_being_.php" target="_blank">Leigh Alexander has written an amazing article about mums in the industry.</a> My pregnancy left me unable to find a new job; and yes for those you asking employers cannot discriminate against pregnant ladies, but unless they outright say the reason you're not being hired is because you are pregnant, there is no way to enforce this - and no one is going to do that - but my unemployment gave me the opportunity to make a game that I am truly proud of. All of my time these last few months has been taken up with working on Glyph Quest and now that it's finished* I feel a bit lost!<br />
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My take away from this article is that although having a baby is gong to make life hectic for a while, but eventually it'll bring a new structure to my days and in this I can continue developing games. If the experience of these other mums is anything to go by, having children should make me more focused and driven than I was before, and that is only a good thing!<br />
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I was never planning to stop making games, but I know I will need to take a break. It's just very reassuring to see other inspiring women taking on motherhood and games development and succeeding at both. <br />
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*Well we have an update and a bug patch on the way but that's all in Alex's corner not mine!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-39454777418688680902014-01-14T07:42:00.000-08:002014-01-14T07:43:55.610-08:00The final furlong: Sproglet vs Glyph Quest which will make it into the world first? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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And we're off! Glyph Quest is in the hands of the app store guardians and we have just reached 38 weeks pregnant, Sproglet could be here at any moment. So with up to 14 days for submission to be approved and the same wait for our due date, the race is on!<br />
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Crunch</h2>
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For Glyph Quest the last week has been non stop, all cannons blazing, condition one set on the good ship Tiny Flat - crunch was officially here. <br />
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Now how in the world did we end up in self enforced crunch?<br />
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We've known the due date for the baby for a long time, it just always seemed so far away. It was next year after all - that's ages away. And Glyph Quest spent the longest time being just two weeks away from finished, two more weeks of knuckling down would have this bad boy ready to go. OK so suddenly it's January, suddenly that lofty deadline of 'before the baby is here' is now only two weeks away (well, 'ish') and Glyph Quest still needed that final push.<br />
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Players pick to be a Witch or a Wizard. We still don't know which Sproglet will be...</div>
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Now crunch is never really a good thing, crunch when you work from home is equally a terrible idea, crunch when you work from home AND are heavily pregnant is just asking for all kinds of trouble... but then at least I could nap whenever and no one would mind! For how exhausting it has been (for <a href="http://alextrowers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/to-wire.html" target="_blank">Alex</a> too, he's been able to put far more hours into this than I could) the pay off has been huge. Massive leaps in content and polish day by day, getting the task lists down to nothing, and even adding a few bonus bits (yup we are still suffering with 'wouldn't it be cool if...' syndrome).<br />
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We had to tell ourselves to stop. We've being trying to 'put it in a box and ship it' for days now, but keep getting hooked in playthroughs and finding small tweaks we could make. Finally (4am Monday morning) we pushed the button. <br />
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And the weight off both of our shoulders is lifted, mostly.<br />
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The weight of the baby bump is still increasing.<br />
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Next Steps</h3>
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It's all about those chains and reversal bonuses!</div>
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So what do we do now? Aside getting the flat in a state ready for the little one (the housework may have taken a backseat during the crunch...), and maybe taking a day to catch up on sleep, there is of course plenty we need to be doing. Least of all some sort of marketing push.<br />
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We are very proud of the game we have made, and all bias aside it is really good fun and addictive, everyone who has played it so far has agreed with us on this! But Alex and I can only put it in so many peoples hands, we are confident that if it's your kind of game you will enjoy it, we just need you to find it!<br />
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So the <a href="http://www.glyphquest.com/" target="_blank">website</a> is up and running, <a href="https://twitter.com/GlyphQuest" target="_blank">twitter</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/glyphquest" target="_blank">facebook</a> accounts made and of course we are both blogging about the adventure - so that's social media covered. Now we just need to push these, get a new trailer out, hit up the press and so on. Simple right?<br />
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And then of course there is the possibilities for updates; new play modes (local turn based multiplayer and an endless mode have both come up in 'wouldn't it be cool if'' conversations), Game Center leaderboards and achievements (we are baffled at how Alex and I have got this far and not added achievements) and of course support across more devices (Android, Windows even Vita maybe).<br />
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So it seems 'stick it in a box and ship it' is a bit of a misnomer. I would say the hard work is done now - we've made a game that we both love and want to promote - but now we have to promote it and with all of zero experience in self promotion it should prove another interesting challenge.<br />
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Hopefully we'll have created enough of a buzz before baby arrives. Sproglet vs Glyph Quest - place your bets now!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07924866882025546154noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6101315350938989864.post-57543063064171839772014-01-03T10:07:00.000-08:002014-01-03T10:07:43.091-08:00Why getting pregnant meant going indie.As I write this two very significant things are happening; first, I am eight months pregnant with my first baby and second, I'm about to submit my first independent game with <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/102574105914497883471" target="_blank">+Alex Trowers</a> to the app store.<div>
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Right there are two things that should probably never be attempted at the same time, but then I didn't really have much choice. So how did I end up here? </div>
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Good News and Bad News</h3>
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Way back in May 2013 my personal life started moving in a different direction to my professional life, without wanting to bore you with all the soppy stuff, the decision was made that I would re-locate and move to Brighton from Plymouth to be with Alex. So I handed in my notice and prepared to walk away from my wonderful creative producer role at Remode Studio, it wasn't an easy decision (I'd miss the people first and foremost) but also it wasn't all that hard, after all the opportunities were fantastic. Brighton is a hub of game studios and there was always the option to commute to say London or Guildford. And so the job hunt began in earnest.</div>
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A month later I find out I'm pregnant. Now this wasn't planned but, it wasn't an unwelcome surprise! Alex and I needed little to no time to decide that we would see the pregnancy through, the timing wasn't great but starting a family was something we both wanted (and in fact still want, we're not there just yet). And although I knew this wouldn't help my getting a new job I was still optimistic, I was after all still perfectly capable, willing and wanting to work.</div>
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Of course what had happened was I'd become unemployable. </div>
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Rejection is never easy, even when you know that it's not a reflection on your skills, personality or passion. There is however a limit to how many times you can be told to 'keep in touch for future opportunities' before it drains the last of your self esteem. And of course it only got worse, the longer I couldn't get a job, the closer to the inevitable maternity leave I was getting. Eventually I gave up. We decided that we would wait until after the baby for me to find a new job and in my extended maternity leave I could have a crack at some personal projects, make some indie games and have a stab at learning Unity.</div>
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So that was the new plan and a very exciting plan it was! I had been hoping to get some Unity under my belt for a while (programming is not exactly one of my strengths), and making a game myself from inception to product was something I had been itching to do.</div>
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And then the plan changed again. Alex had to leave his job. Suddenly the game we had been pottering around with in our spare time was promoted to Plan A, and we had to make it work. </div>
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Glyph Quest</h3>
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Don't be fooled that Unicorn is not your friend.</div>
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Glyph Quest started as an experiment, a simple puzzle game for iOS we would release to see what the process was like as neither of us had done it for ourselves before. When it evolved from experiment to career choice we knew we had a very hard deadline to make and a lot to learn and produce. Alex took charge of the code (he's a self confessed non-programmer but he's a damn sight better at it than I am), I took the role of art monkey, and between us the game design continued to evolve and grow into what is now (very nearly) the <a href="http://alextrowers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/glyph-quest.html?spref=tw" target="_blank">finished game</a>.</div>
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So there we are working from our tiny one bed flat in Brighton (ah yes did I mention that we are soon to be moving house too?). It's not the most ideal of set ups, although my desks proximity to the kitchen fridge has proven useful (it's within arms reach, yup I'm practically working in the kitchen...) and the further along the pregnancy has got, the greater the need to be as close to a bathroom as possible has become (did I mention this flat is tiny?). So things are nice and cozy, the biggest challenge we've found to this games production has been reigning the design in. It turns out Alex and myself are the worst for 'wouldn't it be cool if...' and by worst I mean best, we are very good at coming up with great features, mechanics and tweaks. But we are a production team of two and as such there is only so much we can do before our time to actually produce this game is up, having a baby on the way as your deadline is a milestone that can't slip. Once the baby is here that will certainly mark the end of any production time, at least for me (did you know it's possible to have to spend up to 12 hours a day breast feeding in the baby's first week? No, neither did I...). </div>
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I've had many challenges with this pregnancy (if it could er on the side of complicated it has), 3am hospital trips, crippling back ache, pre-natal depression. But this blog post is not about that. Despite all that pregnancy has thrown at me, and for that matter every other bit of bad luck and timing, we have made this game. I have continued to work right to the wire to make this happen. I couldn't get a job when I was looking, I wasn't desirable at the time, so now I'm an indie. It's sad that I had to go through all this to get here, and no doubt I'm not the only person who's given up with trying to fit a job description and gone it alone, but that's what had to happen. </div>
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By the end of the month I will have achieved two life goals. I have wanted to have children for a long time and now I've found someone I can share that with and very soon we will meet this little person who will change our lives forever. I have wanted to make games for longer than I've known I wanted to be a parent (after completing FF7 in 1998 if you're curious), and soon I will be releasing my first independent game. It has not been smooth, easy or painless, but it will hopefully enable me to continue to work for myself. Well, for my family.</div>
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