Dev Links: See The World
Game jams, indie festivals, Ouya developers and more fill out today’s Developer Links.
Game Jams and the Romance of the Last Minute (DashJump)
“If creative work of any kind is an epic adventure, then the deadline is the dragon guarding the treasure at the end. No matter how disciplined your approach, there’s always that rush to get the last details just right before the final countdown. In games, this can be exceptionally problematic due to all the multidisciplinary integrations that need to come together in a final package, and crunch is an unfortunate reality of the industry.”
Dark Side of the Jam: A NASA game jam postmortem (Gamasutra)
“Jams are a great way to get people to talk to each other, make games, and generally feel good about the industry and themselves. But what happens when you hook up directly with a government agency for your jam? “
Octodad: Dadliest Catch F.A.Q. (Octodad Blog)
“We get asked many of the same questions on a regular basis. Here are some of the most popular and what we have to say about them.”
Redshirt development video (Positech Games)
“I think this update on redshirt from the developer pretty much speaks for itself.”
What is gimbal lock and why do we still have to worry about it? (AltDevBlogADay)
“If you have ever worked with rotations and Euler angles you are probably at least somewhat familiar with the phrase “gimbal lock”. But like many things concerning rotations, angles and spaces it can be tricky to visualize and get a good grasp of.”
A MAZE. Indie Connect – German Indie Festival – 2nd Encounter (IndieGames.com)
“Every year in the last week of April, Berlin celebrates games with an indie festival, business meet-up, specials and a retro games market at the Computer Games Museum, and the Computer Games Award Lara.”
Ouya newbies: First-time developers bet big on $99 Android console (Ars Technica)
“Marco Williams never knew how hard game development would be. He and the team at Hashbang Games—which included his brother and his best friend—spent eight months working on Orbital Blaster, a space shooter that pays homage to games like Galaga. The development process was riddled with problems from the get-go, and even the process of making a simple game turned out to be a bigger endeavor than expected. To make matters worse, Williams’ effort to fund the game’s development on Kickstarter failed at around three percent of its $75,000 funding goal.”
choose your own death: star wench (Auntie Pixelante)
“this all started one weekend i was staying over at slut’s house – that’s how long ago this was, we weren’t living together yet. we were lying in bed together, reading a choose your own adventure book out loud to each other. specifically, it was “YOU ARE A MONSTER.” this particular volume begins with a long description of how you’re kidnapped by a mad scientist, imprisoned, experimented on, turned into a hideous creature, and ultimately manage to escape. that’s when the first choice finally happens – when you manage to escape, ten or so pages in. the book keeps directing you: turn to page 54, turn to page 23, but this whole prolonged opening scene is completely linear.”
