Well the layout of the blog is prety much has good has it gets for now, so I should start the content.
This was meant to be published a month ago, but I work in retail and it can be pretty hectic during the holidays. By the time I publish this there are 4 days left for Rocket Hub donation.
On monday Nov 7 2011 was the launch of indie Québec, a groupe of five studio ( Nine Dots, Iota, Anonymality, Berzerker, Scarecrow Digital ) wanting a little more. More space in the public eye, more space in the market share of the big studio, better funding wheter by the banks or crowd funding (rocket hub). Also better developpment conditon, has would Guillaume Boucher-Vidal owner and founder of nine dots studio would put it «most developer definitvly qui after 5 year in the industry», latest exemple of that is LA NOIR (but I won’t get into detail, not the point).
Who are they?
Anonymalty
Dayviewying with Squid Escape, an IPhone game that got great review in the sea of games/apps that is the Apple store. They are looking forward to the future with grab big eye of a child and their mission to entertain gamers big and small.
RocketHub page
On facebook
On Twitter
Scare Crow Digital
Formed on february of last year, Scarecrow has worked hard on their prototype game Blown Away, and it shows lots of promises.
RocketHub page
on Facebook
Iota Studio
Iota is a new approach in therm of studio structure, more akin to a collective enterprise. The game is first made through voluntary participant, then once published the participant receive profit form the sale base on the amount of work they put in. This also means that there are no starting cost to a project. The intended approach is to let juniors and students contribute to a game and getting much needed experience.
On Twitter
On Facebook
Berzerker Studio
Berzerker studio are… er … well… A bunch of heavy metal listening over the top game artisan and it’s obvious in their games (hehe berzerker ball ). But beneath that over the top exterior they show lots of experience and know how about the game industry.
Least but not last,
Nine dots Studio
This studio is on the verge of publishing thier first title Brand on xbox indy. For an indy game it boast professional quality graphics an has a development time of about 7 months. No small task for studio owner Guiallaume Boucher Vidale that also initiated the Indie Québec mouvement, hopeing that industry condition would change for the better.
RocketHub page
On Facebook
On Twitter
… And ?
Yes there where other people here too …
Most notably Frima, that has made the studio family friendly and more flexible for it’s employe.
La Planque is a little shop in Québec that sales video games and consoles of all generation and they are passionate about video games. (on Facebook)
There where a notable quantity of students, professional and enthusiastic people.
I met old friends and made new ones, learned a couple of things , all in all a good evening.
But why have I put my nose in all of this?
I’ve been trying to get a job in the game industry for a while now, Ubisoft is nice and big and there are lots of opportunity. But I didn’t see my self cleaning motion capture for the next 5 year of my life. I need a bigger challenge, I need take part in a project where I can put my skill and creativity to good use. In the recent year technology has grown to a level where we can do incredible things (ie near realistic rendering). This takes bigger team more time and money, yet I feel that the medium isn’t evolving, except for the Indy crowd witch is generally more open to exploration both in stylistic and gameplay. Take minecraft for example, ask any gamer about it, they may not have played it but they at least heard of it, has much has the last Call of duty or guitar hero. And yet Minecraft is composed of pixeled-texture cube, has define style to it and was made by a six person team. So have we mistaken container over content? style over substance? I want to be able to mess around with video games like it was acrylic paint on a canvas and split my skull open and ask my self how am I going to achieve that…
Also I want a family one day, I don’t mind overtime (heck bring it on) but back to back death march to crunch a project is something I don’t want in my future family life. So I put my faith in the little ones.