Name: Paul Turbett Company : Black Lab Games Occupation : Game Developer Website : www.blacklabgames.com.au Blog : www.blacklabgames.com.au/blog Background : I guess my Linked-in profile is a good summary Hi, just found this thread and thought I'd add my name to the list. I started making games as a hobby in the mid-80s, and it's all I've ever wanted to do. I've started a few small companies over the years (the first was in 1991), and recently worked for other peoples companies, as the local industry in my home town (Perth, Western Australia) has grown. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities for independent development, now that games as a hobby are becoming more mainstream, and the barriers between creators and players are breaking down (in theory, at least ).
Name: Jeremy Maughan Occupation : Web Developer Location: Provo, Utah USA Blog : http://solarfrontier.blogspot.com/ Background : Been a web developer for over 10 years. I know a bunch of programming languages and love everything and anything on the web. I have worked on a few browser games in the past and figured I should really make one of my own. Hobbies: Photography, Magic the Gathering, programming, design, reading and playing games. I am excited to find a place where others have the same passions that I do.
Wow, never noticed this thread before... even though I don't spend as much time here as I used to, here are my vitals: NAME: Tony Barnes COMPANY: Currently Electronic Arts OCCUPATION: Design Director LOCATION: OC, CA. USA BACKGROUND: I've been in the videogame business longer than many have been alive. Starting in the 80's, when I was 12, I worked on Vic-20's, C64's, TRS-80's, Apple's, Amiga's, Atari 8/16-bits, making "one-man-band" games (or "indie" games as you kids call them nowadays), where I programmed, art, design, music, etc... the whole works. Eventually, I joined the ranks of professionals, working for such companies as; Electronic Arts, Crystal Dynamics, THQ, Collective, Rockstar, Psygnosis and even Reflexive (unfortunately). Some of my bigger contributions to have been; The Strike Series (Desert, Jungle, Urban, Soviet, Nuclear), Madden Football, Legacy of Kain, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Midnight Club Racing, Star Wars: Episode III, Zoetrope/Cyberpaint, AMOS/STOS programming languages, etc. HOBBIES: Cars (the faster and meaner, the better), my family, music (composing, remixing), video editing (trailers primarily), game making (not what I LIKE to do, not what I LOVE to do, what I was BORN to do!)
NAME: Laura Shigihara WEBSITE: www.mybluedream.com OCCUPATION: Composer/Game Designer LOCATION: CA BACKGROUND: I've been working as a freelance VGM sound designer and composer for the past 5 years. I've done soundtracks for about 15 published titles so far, my most recent project being Plants vs. Zombies. I've also been independently developing a Super Nintendo style rpg for the past couple of years. And of course, I've been playing video games since the original NES ^_^ HOBBIES: video games (my favorites: Chrono Trigger, Megaman 2-5, Starcraft, Yoshi's Island, Secret of Mana, etc.), hiking, dancing, making music and singing, baking, Shotokan, drawing, trying out new restaurants, going on adventures...
Name: Marque Pierre Sondergaard Company: Imagination Technologies Occupation: Business Development & Marketing Location: London, UK Hobbies: gaming, art, psychology, business strategy, cinematography & visual storytelling, I have loved gaming deeply since I saw that big old Atari Gauntlet arcade machine on that fateful summer day in 1985. After jealously watching the Commodore 64 enthusiasts from the sidelines I finally joined the revolution with my beloved Commodore Amiga 500. Taught myself to program Assembler on it - what other options did you have back then, if you wanted something on screen? But Deluxe Paint was much more the place where I felt at home. I got involved with various outfits on the demo scene and explored the joys of pixel art through those outlets. Since then, I decided against pursuing games - to be fair it never actually crossed my mind that it could be a job as such - and have worked in quite a few different business roles. In 2002 I went back to university and retooled via a Bachelor degree in Games Art and Design from University of Teesside. I went on to study games on postgrad level at Liverpool John Moores University as well. I have been involved in about a million mod teams and small indie games efforts. Some I have put together myself, others I have joined. On a professional level in the games industry, I have done testing and art, and now I do business development and marketing for a graphics hardware company towards the games industry. I love games and I love making games. I suspect that will never change. After all, the joy of creating - to point to something and say "I made this!" - how do you beat that?
Name: Mike Gnade Company: Graduate Games URL: http://www.graduategames.com and http://www.indiegamemag.com Occupation: PartTime Indie Game Developer + Part Time Indie Game Mag Editor + Full Time Boring Desk Job Location: Outside Philly, PA I started making games when I was 12-13ish. I never really finished anything, but it was a fun hobby. I rediscovered my passion for game programming and producing while I was in graduate school in 2005 (hence the studio name). Since then, I have released 2 casual-type family games and started the Indie Game Magazine in 2008. The Indie Game Magazine has done really well it's first year and has greatly surpassed the revenue of my 2 games. We're not giving up on game development though and recently refocused and restarted a project we were passionate about when we formed the company. Since 2005, I've learned a ton from these forums and hope to shift to full time indie by the end of 2010. that's good for now.
When I try and access your site in Internet Explorer I get a message saying the site cannot be opened, operation aborted (even though I can see it in the background). When I click OK on the feedback box it takes me to a blank page. It works fine in Firefox. You should check this out, if people can't access your games that could be why you've had less revenue from thme than than your magazine.
That's great that IGM is doing well for you - I honestly wasn't sure that it'd be viable. I'm very glad to be proven wrong! Best of luck with growing it further.
Name: Benjamin Jarvinen Company: Currently unnamed URL: Coming eventually Occupation: Customer Service / Student / Part Time indie Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia Background: Currently working my way through uni studying Applied Computer Science, majoring in Software Engineering and minoring in Games design. Spend all my spare time working on my own projects with my brother (he's 2d/3d artist). Hoping to get up and running within the next year to grow our business to the point where it becomes the fulltime job, which no doubt will take a few years (joys of being young). Been lurking here for awhile and just wanted to jump into the community and try contribute.
I am Craig Stroenker, right now I am in school, so I haven't progressed much and because of my daytime work. But 1 more year and Im done.
Name: Mattias Häggström Gerdt Company: Morsel Games / freelance URL: http://anosou.com/ http://playmorsel.com/ Occupation: Freelancing composer/game designer, part of Morsel Games Location: Stockholm, Sweden Background: Been doing music all my life, got into the indie scene in 2008 when I got to score a few Xbox Live Indie Game titles (then called Community Games). It has followed that path since. I've scored roughly 10 games including Dream Build Play finalists Artoon and Kaleidoscope. I also contributed tracks to Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix together with OverClocked ReMix ( http://ocremix.org ) where I'm also a remixer and part of the staff. Game music is basically my passion in every way. I compose, arrange, write essays, study and try to enlighten people about it. Indie games in general have very varying quality of music and even if some music is fantastic, it lacks the fits-like-a-glove quality of professional game/film music. My goal is to really, REALLY make music that fits to make every game I work on a more engaging experience.
Name: Mikołaj Kamiński Company: ghbrvlowabrvfladberogvlwrvfwlo games URL: http://ghbrvlowabrvfladberogvlwrvfwlo.pl/ Occupation: Uberlord Location: Poland Background: IRL I am actually an english teacher in pirmary school, but i guess no one cares, so now about my dev bg. I have been making games since 1999. My first steps were made on C64 assembler. I love compos, especially the speedhack "make game in x hours" ones. Also I love making music. I guess that's it.
Hello everyone, allow me to introduce myself. I have recently found this forums and would like to join the community. Name: Tom Vrda Homepage: www.qsoftz.com Occupation: Senior developer currently working in automotive industry Location: Zagreb, Croatia Games published: Add-Venture - risk clone for Windows Mobile, 2006 Background: I have been programming since the 90's, and have worked in various corporate setups, from programming embedded systems to GUI development in PyGtk. I'm really sick and tired of my day-jobs and am currently in the process of gathering all the little bits together and going indie full time. These forums are a source of a lot of motivation and inspiration for me. See you around Tom
Name: Lukasz Lukasik Company: Bionic Nose URL: http://www.bionicnose.net Occupation: Game programmer Location: Poland Hello, this is my first post here . Currently I'm working at "Two Worlds II" as a game programmer and I have about 3 years of working experience (~12 years of coding in my life ). Even though I'm employeed, I'm trying to hit into the indie business and I hope I will find needed information thanks to all your help guys and gals .
Hi there! =) My name is Jesse Klugmann and i'm a young hobby-gamedeveloper.My interests are graphics programming,game programming,philosophy and the internet.I'm also a member of the german Chaos Computer Club.I am developing 2 engines since three years and now i'm starting my first commercial game project for the Xbox360 and the PC.I have also some experiences with AI and the .Net-Framework.I have no position in a company, because i'm a student.In my freetime i work for a local software developer company. Greetings, Jesse Klugmann PS: Please forgive me my bad english!
Name: Maurício Gomes (actually, it is way longer, this part is what matters) Company: Awesome Games Factory Site: www.agfgames.com Occupation: Starving student Location: São Paulo, Brazil. I am a Game Design student (stupid idea taking that course), I am finishing my degree (or trying), and I need to figure a way to move out of my country, I fear that I won't survive (literally... I witnessed already 2 firefights from my bedroom window, in two different cities that I lived, among other bad stuff) to release all the games I want if I stay. Currently I am trying to make my first commercial release, without money... But I think that I can still do it Even if it is insanely hard.
Name: Jonathan Ho Company: To Be Done Site: To Be Done Occupation: Just Quit Location: Sabah, Malaysia I just quit my day job to pursue my life-long dream, start a game company. I like all kinds of games, but most especially the RPG/Simulation type like Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher, Princess Maker, etc. Working on my first demo and an HTML 5 game engine...
Name: Adrien Debesson Company: D2P Games Occupation: Part time student, part time game developer Location: Montreal, Canada Background: I started developing games really early as a kid with RPG Maker 2000, my specialty was starting a project, work on it for a week, then restart everything with even more ambition. It's not a good way to finish things but it's a good way to learn After this I jumped into programming and C++ because "everyone know it's better". My productivity goes worse than ever before, instead of half-finishing games I was half-finishing engines. But it was super-interesting and I learned a ton of things. One year ago I've started an independent game company with two friends, D2P Games. We released our first game, Reckless Squad two weeks ago and are now moving to new projects Hobbies: Video games of course, but also movies, books, music, etc. I love drawing too and dedicate a fair amount of time practicing, as it helps me in my game developer job. PS: I hope my english is good enough (I'm living in Canada but I'm french), feel free to correct me, I need input to improve
Substance20 Name: Michael Lee Company: None (solo) Occupation: Former 2D artist/art director Location: Philippines Background: Graduated with a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts - Advertising. Had a short stint as a layout artist for a fashion and modeling magazine before getting chance to work at Anino Games as a 2D artist. Became a lead artist and eventually Art Director after almost 3 years, mostly working on hidden object games, before deciding to quit and pursue entrepreneurship. The very last game I worked on was Dream Inn: The Driftwood, published by Crown ADAM. Ironically the very first game I was assigned to while in Anino was SteveZ's "Enlighten", which was the working title before it became Enlightenus (Steve, if you're looking at this, I was the guy that drew the lineart-heavy concept work and also did the touchups for the rendered scenes--a different person did the painted ones. That was the company's very first hidden object game back in 2008 and so we had no idea what we were doing--lol.). So, yes, I know at least two guys who visit these forums. I am currently making an indie shoot-'em-up using Game Maker 8.0, using what little software engineering background I have. Pleased to meet everybody.