The Last of Posts

Hey everyone. It's been a super long time since my last post. A ton of stuff has happened, both good and partially bad. I will say this will be my last post on this blog and will explain later in this post, but first things first!

ONE

The game I've been working on for over a year now, Disorder, was recently entered into the Student Competition at the Captivate Conference. WE WON FIRST PLACE!!! This really boosted the teams morale and let us know that people actually enjoy playing our game.

During the competiton we decided to make a Greenlight page for the game. You can check out our Greenlight page HERE. Please help us out by giving us a thumbs up. Additionally you can visit the game's Facebook Page HERE. Disorder has been long in development, but the team and I want to see this game get done. We've put so much work into it that to give up now would be pointless and a disappointment.

TWO

I made a game for the Indie Speed Run called Secret Formula. The Indie Speed Run is a game jam competition where you have two days to make a game based on randomly given theme and element. We received "Secrecy" as our theme and "Vines" as our element. So naturally we made a game where you swing around on a vine and avoid armed cameras while finding out about your origins.

Play Secret Formula

I did Art and Level Design on Secret Formula. I couldn't have made this awesome game without the incredibly talented Frank Force (Programming) and Jerry Yuan (Muisc / Sounds). I'm not sure if public voting has officially been closed but if it hasn't you should play and rate our game!

THREE

I'm not working Get Dat Swag: The Secrets of Swag Island. I realized I learned what I needed to from the current state of the Unity port and that I wanted to work on a new project. I might come back to Get Dat Swag but for now I'm more excited about new projects and finishing Disorder. 

FOUR

On a personal note I moved back to Houston during the month of August. I'd been applying for game design positions at several studios. I felt like I was in an odd position where I couldn't work on new projects because if I did I would have to abandon them if I was hired. The whole situation kind of stunted me creatively and caused me to be a little depressed. Then after several weeks I received emails that I had been rejected from several studios I had applied to. Being stuck in Houston, which didn't have a huge game scene and the fact that most of my friends were in Austin added to that depression. Graduating from college is weird. Through out most of my life I've had everything planned. You go to school, then college, then you get a job. So when I graduated I felt odd not having this next step to go to. It was super weird waking up and feeling like there wasn't a huge responsibility I needed to be a part of. After sending out emails and resumes over the past couple of months I didn't really feel like I was being myself. Putting on a professional persona felt like I was trying way too hard to be somebody else. After a couple of weeks in Houston I decided I wanted to move back to Austin. I felt that it would be better for me to find a job and network with people in Austin. Additionally, Fantastic Arcade was coming up and I really wanted to help out and have a good time. I ended up winning a Spelunky Tournament against one of the top players, which ended up in an article online for the Austin Chronicle. Moving to Austin and being a part of Fantastic Arcade really made me feel like I had found a new home. Then I started working on games (like Secret Formula) and other projects I just wanted to work on. I find that I'm being creatively satisfied just by waking up and working on games. At the moment I feel pretty content with what's going on. I'm not sure if I'll get a job at a game studio in the upcoming months, but I know that making games is still what I want to do and it makes me happy. With that said the era of this blog is over. I won't be posting on this blog anymore, but I'll be moving to a Tumblr blog which I'll update occasionally. You can check out that blog here. I wont be deleting this blog because I think it's a great to see my progress throughout the years and I hope people that are currently entering a game development program or going through some of the same things can check out this blog. 

FIVE

I recently started a podcast call The Loading Screen podcast and the first episode is out today! I wanted a chance to interview game developers / people involved with games. I feel like most game podcasts don't talk about the people behind their games or how they grew up with games. Austin has a huge amount of developers so I thought it would be the perfect time to start it. 

You can listen the Loading Screen Podcast here.

I think that's all for this post. Once again you can follow me on Twitter @saampahlavan. It's been fun. Cheers.  

Get Dat Swag Update #1

Things are going pretty smoothly with GDS. I've added a lot of neat particles and effects thanks to Unity's awesomeness. I'm hoping to have a playable version done by the end of this week so I can put it up online for people to play.

Here's a SS of it currently with fire particles!

Also here's an little concept thing I did.

Bringing Swag back

It's been about a month since my last post. But I'm here to make a big announcement. Get Dat Swag is being ported to Unity! The game will now be titled - Get Dat Swag: The Secrets of Swag Island. I'm hoping to add more levels and more features to make the game packed full of chaotic fun.

I'm really enjoying Unity so far. Having a editor is awesome! I'm about 50% through recreating the original game. Once I do that I'll be prototyping new features and adding more levels. Additionally, this version will have controller support. If you would like to follow the game's progress you can visit the TigSource Devlog here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=33752.0

Possible New Features:

-More Levels

-Power-ups

-4 Players?

-Phat Beats

-More Swag!

When will it be done? I don't know, but as soon as I finish recreating the main level I'll be putting it up on my site for testing and feedback. Hopefully I'll continue to update the Unity web version whenever there's a big change.

Play the original Flash version here: http://saampahlavan.com/getdatswag.html

Catching Up

It's been about a month since my last post so this is going to be a long one. Let's break this down.

1. I GRADUATED FROM SCAD!

It feels pretty good to be finished with school. It didn't really feel like four years went by at all. Now I'm looking for a job in the game industry and it's exciting and terrifying. After a couple of days after the last school quarter I started freaking out about a job. But I realized I need to just calm down, I basically have a head start on everyone else whose graduating in June. I'm going to take this time to continue working on Disorder and I'm going to start learning Unity. Next point.


2. GDC THIS YEAR WAS AWESOME


I attended GDC again this year. This time only for about 4 days and not the whole week. I met some amazing people and saw some amazing games. I met people from Capy Bara Games, Crystal Dynamics, DrinkBox Studios, and Jim Guthrie! I also attended the IGF / GDC Awards and it was incredible. I will win an IGF award one day. GDC just reminded me of how badly I want to be part of the game dev community. I hope to inspire other game devs with my games some day. I also met up with some SCAD buddies since I wouldn't be seeing them again till June for commencement. It was great to see everyone again and I think next year I'll have a different game plan when it comes to meeting people. Next.

3. I WENT TO AUSTIN FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS


I attended Juegos Rancheros last week and showed off our game Disorder. Overall there was a great response and the Austin game dev community has really grown over the past year. I'm fortunate to know people like Brandon Boyer and Wiley Wiggins who run Juegos. It really made me want to stay in Austin so I could be a part of the Austin Indie Community, so we'll see where I go next. I also found out that there are some game devs here in Houston and that they meet up every now and then so I'm excited for that. I also met Pendleton Ward THE CREATOR OF ADVENTURE TIME at Juegos Rancheros and he was super nice / jolly.

4. NOW

Job hunting can be really daunting and sad, but I've realized that I'm going to make games no matter what. Even if I have to get a job in retail or something not related to game development, NOTHING IS GOING TO MAKE ME STOP MAKING GAMES! You're going to see more of Disorder and you're going to see more games from me. So wherever I end up whether it's Austin, California, Canada, Antarctica I'm still going to come up with ideas for games and create them. Tomorrow I start working on Disorder again and learning Unity...because I'm a game designer and making games is what I do!

Swag and Disorder

Hey everyone I know it's been a while since my last post. A couple of cool things happened. I got Get Dat Swag into the Telfair Museum of Art! The Telfair has an event called PULSE that happens once a year and features interactive artwork. With the help of a New York game curated group called Babycastles I got Get Dat Swag to be set up in the museum. Babycastles held a workshop for making your own arcade cabinet so a bunch of people that attended got together to make a cabinet for my game! Here are some pictures of the GDS cabinet.

Starting Out...

The Finished Cabinet

There was also a little SWAG button that played a swag audio clip from the game and reset the game. It was really AWESOME to see people get together and make something really cool for a game I made. I can't thanks babycastles enough for an awesome weekend.

Here's a video that makes me super happy every time I watch it: Kids playing Get Dat Swag

In other news, development for Disorder is going pretty well. We finally have all the story elements planned out and I've started working on the final level. I'll just leave this here for now....

Global Game Jam 2013

I participated in Global Game Jam again and I've gotta say I'm glad I made the transition to flixel from Flash. Using flixel definitely made things way easier and faster to implement. The theme this year was the sound of a heart beat. Our game strayed a bit from the theme but we did incorporate it in a way. Our game is called "Can I Take Dis Order?". Basically you play an old man (..starting to see a pattern here from the last GGJ) and you have to quickly make their orders by typing them out. Their order also depends on the way they speak. You can also spit or sabotage the food to relieve stress, but make sure your manager isn't watching. You can check out the game here:

http://saampahlavan.com/GGJ2013.html

Last First Week of School

I just finished my first week of the winter quarter. This quarter I'm taking Detective Narratives, Cognitive Art of Game Design, and Post Production. Most of my posts will probably be about Disorder's development. On a good note Konkey Dong is on the front page of Mochigames.com! It's pretty cool to see it up there and the response from people in other countries.

Anyway, Global Game Jam is coming up and I'm pretty excited about it. Especially since I'll be working with the Disorder team. That's all for now...