Tag Archives: creative

Game Conventions In Ontario & Beyond! A Helpful Guide For Local Indie Game Developers

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One of the best parts about indie development is the ability to participate with the community. There are many conventions and events every year throughout the world that celebrate video games, anime, comics, television, and geek culture in general, perfect opportunities to promote yourself. However, I noticed that most major game events in North America are on the West, East and South sides of the United States, central North America (specifically Ontario, Canada) has very little for indie games. Comics and tabletop games, sure, but indie games don’t really have much to be at. Its also really difficult to find any reviews or information outside the events’ homepages, so its hard to know what to expect.

If I Want To See Indie Games in this "Dead Zone," Where Do I Go?

If I Want To See Indie Games in this “Dead Zone,” Where Do I Go?

The following is a list of events I’ve been to, with my impressions of what type of atmosphere they provide. I hope the following information will be useful to developers in the Ontario area. This comes from me being in Windsor, Ontario, depending on your location you might have other better options.

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Windsor, Ontario – The Comic Book Capital of Canada?

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I take pride in being from the Windsor, Ontario. That being said, I also know it’s very easy to make fun of. It’s one of the most southern parts of Canada, at the very bottom tip of Ontario. It happens to be a major border crossing with the United States, being across from Detroit, Michigan, which has its own infamous reputation.  We used to be a city with a big part in the automobile industry, until it crashed in the late 2000’s and we were left without any real identity. You could write a joke book of “dissing” Windsor based on this information alone.

However, I’ve spent the last couple of years living near enough to the downtown area to start to notice public events that make our city what it is. One of our biggest identities right now is comic books: we love them, and 2015 has been a big year of showing it, with multiple comic conventions and even an art gallery exhibit.

"Comic Book Syndicon," one of several Windsor Comic-Cons in 2015

“Comic Book Syndicon,” one of several Windsor Comic-Cons in 2015

 

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Retrospective By The Numbers: One Year After My First Game, One Week After My Second

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For several months I’ve promised to write a retrospective about the release of my first game “Drew and the Floating Labyrinth.” But then it was released on Steam, on IndieGala, and available during the Steam summer sale.  Then I was working on my second game “Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament,” which took longer than expected, but has now officially been released for one week. This gave me a lot more perspective to write about, and a year after the first game, I think now is the time to write about it from a functional point of view. This summarizes in-depth time and money spent and made for my first two indie games as an indie developer, which were not necessarily successful, but hopefully helpful for others wondering how their experience in game development may go.

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Review of “Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament”

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Disclaimer: I am the developer of this game. Which makes it a conflict of interest that I would write a review. But with the expected lack of written scored reviews elsewhere, I felt it best to write something as unbiased as possible to make sure people know what they would be getting into should they buy the game. It also acts as a release for me, a psychological exercise after releasing my second game, having doubts about it. In the meantime, there are a variety of preview posts and playthrough videos online that I encourage you to check out.

“Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament” starts (after a minute-long cutscene of the main character being drawn) with a stick figure in a white empty level. Rotating the camera, you see a blue pencil drawing, slowly moving away from you. With nothing else to do, you move towards the pencil. As you get closer, the perspective looks odd, especially when you rotate the camera and look at it from a different angle. A thought bubble and audio prompt suggest something about a wall: after moving around the wall you see that the pencil was just a flat texture on a large wall that merged with the rest of the white background, and that the wall hid what looks like a more interesting space of old paper making up a level to explore.

In a way this speaks to what you are getting into with “Unfinished.” There’s worthwhile game and story to find here, but most people would likely give up in frustration before even thinking of going around the wall. Even then, those who stay might be disappointed with their reward.

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“Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament” unfinished sketches from other artists

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In June, I introduced a promotional contest of sorts for artist’s to contribute to my new indie game “Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament.” I wanted unfinished works of art by as many artists as I could find to enhance one of the levels. 25 artists (most of which made new work live in front of me at Toronto’s “Stage Select Gaming Expo”) contributed work, which you can see in Level 4 along with my own collection of sketches, making for over 50 scattered drawings across the place. You can also see the contributed art works individually in a gallery in the Options menu. I place them here as an archive for you to see.

Remember that these were “unfinished” artworks. Some of them are fantastic, others less so, many of these people admitted they are not very good artists. All the same, I would frame them all on my wall if I had the space. If you were one of these artists and do not agree with how you are given credit or would like your work removed from the game, please contact me at ahlynka@fromdustscratch.com and I will sort it out. I had contacted all the artists weeks ago, but some have still not gotten back to me.

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