News! Tech! Tools! Talks! Games! And Stuff Worth Sharing!

[jonaz.dk]

Viborg Game Jam is up next weekend! 22-24 April 2022.



More on:
https://www.eventbrite.dk/e/viborg-game ... 1196155077

[jonaz.dk]

Of cause this HAD to happen!

UKRANIAN FARMY
Perhaps not a landmark in game design. But I do support the notion.



Download UKRANIAN FARMY here:
https://ukrainian.itch.io/ukrainian-farmy


And by all means do support Ukraine, the developer etc.

Russian Hitler-Stalins needs to go down in flames for the sake of Ukraine, the world and human decency as fast as humanly possible. End of story, no discussion! And sadly so I might add.. but it's probably the only way Putin will understand...through military defeat.

Donate for the tools they need the most!
https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsion ... oz3V0hVnQs

Come back alive also a very good organistaion to support!
https://www.comebackalive.in.ua/

Donate for humanitarian aid here:
https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsion ... i-agresiyi

[jonaz.dk]

69 Tools We Use To Make Our Game Satisfactory

[jonaz.dk]

Oh man! It's tech art porn time again.

So much is happening in Unreal Engine 5 at the moment. Hard to keep up!
Obviously far from every game can or will benefit from these tech developments. But having the right tools for the right job is important and will certainly boost UE5 as the engine of choice for many new high end productions. Even outcompeting internal game engine teams like CD Project RED's RedEngine 3. Who recently announced they will be shifting to UE5 for the Witcher 4 production.
It also makes sense when hiring new staff that already has experience with an existing widespread engine.

I have dreamed of real time stuff like this for 20+ years running natively real time in game engines and now it's here!
Besides dreaming of all the real time raytracing, global illumination, super nice anti aliasing, post effects and what not. So nice to almost live the dream.. one day I might even get the GPU that can do that latest stuff well enough in concert.
Well well that has to wait for my next laptop upgrade. My 1060 is not really up to the task at the moment. It probably 'can' do it.. but maybe not at super fun framerates. I remember doing a raytracing test on it (the 1060 GPU is not designed for raytracing).. it did work at almost interactive frame rates!.. But it was not fun,
Though the good thing about working on a potato machine is you are forced not go too crazy and think about performance a lot more. And people on better hardware will just experience super smooth frame rates as a result.

Adding: And besides the obvious cool looking fire, explosions and all the expected goodies that will show up in games because easily available tech. I wonder how stories and game design can benefit from these things. It will take some creative minds to figure out. The possibility space has just expanded.

[jonaz.dk]

One of my old colleages (Tor Frick) talks about how they built the world of 'The Ascent' at the Swedish Neon Giant studio.

I recently played the game in coop with the kiddo.. it looks pretty!, a bit buggy and the game itself is 'ok'.
Kiddo was actually playing the game yesterday when I picked him up from his mom's place. Now he has a fully leveled up character.

The process and production of the game is quite remarkable with lots of fancy tools and techniques. Give it a watch!

Tor Frick - Neon Giant - Building the World of 'The Ascent'
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1027800/B ... rld-of-The

[jonaz.dk]

Small indie outfit AZA Game Studio is keeping busy as usual they just released DEFLIE. The game is developed by (DK) Benjamin Azaxor + a smallish team of internationals.

DEFILE Trailer


Get DEFILE here:
https://azaxor.itch.io/defile

[jonaz.dk]

Postal 2 is free on GOG for a limited time
https://www.gog.com/game/postal_2

[jonaz.dk]

LEGO's Copenhagen Digital Studio is gearing up.
Possibly the studio has a hand in some sort of 'metaverse' project in collaboration with Epic?! Just shooting from the hip here! I don't actually known what they are working on. But it's not completely out of the realm of possibilities given the recent investment and annoucement. Obviously they must be connected with a range of digital LEGO projects.

Anyways they are already 100 peeps, aiming to be 400. So that's wild!

https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news ... sformation

[jonaz.dk]

Nice edge generator for Blender. OCD - One Click Destruction.

[jonaz.dk]

Pick your genre..Always good to know!

Another Protip is still to do what you love and not think about genre and not give a shit about analytics and target audiences. Because you might not finish your game in the first place if you never had the true passion as a small indie dev.
It is however a fundamental risk to go up against over saturated genres with low returns. But at least you can make an informed decision. It is still an option (for the very few) to make something absolutely amazing that will just blow the genre away.

Adding: You are very fortunate if your heart is already in sync with what is commercially viable AND have the ability to execute and sell your game.

[jonaz.dk]

A bit late here! But Shotgun King winner of Ludum Dare #50 is quite the a nice little game.

You are playing chess! But only when a shotgun armed king.



A paid version + the free gamejam version is available here. Give the game a buckshot!
https://punkcake.itch.io/shotgun-king

Steam version is also on the way in May 2022.

[jonaz.dk]

Remember to deliver the goods for the Royal Danish Library!

More info here:
http://www5.kb.dk/da/nb/samling/ds/FAQ_ ... rspil.html

Apple has apparently accelerated their purging plans.. more than usual. Apple being Apple!

[jonaz.dk]

Why I'm Using Wave Function Collapse for Procedural Terrain | Unity Devlog


How Townscaper Works: A Story Four Games in the Making | AI and Games

[jonaz.dk]

Nordic Game Jam Pre-Party this Thursday!

A ticket for the game jam is NOT required to pre-party as far as I understand. But there will be no free drinks and stuff for people without a ticket to the jam.

At the time of writing there are no location announced just yet.. but soon right?!

I'll guess I drop by if time permits! See you maybe! (business meeting came up won't make it)
Welll apparantly I did anyways after meeting

Location updated to: Nannasgade 28, Kbh N

[jonaz.dk]

GMTK: How Video Game Economies are Designed

[jonaz.dk]

Recently the 2022 showreel was released form Gamehub Denmark featuring some of the projects with relation to the games incubator.

More on:
https://gamehubdenmark.com/
(it's mostly a Jutland thing)

[jonaz.dk]

The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why.

[jonaz.dk]

IndieGoGo for:

First Person Shooter: The Definitive FPS Doc
Join us as we revisit the greatest ever FPS games, guided by the developers who created them

DK Frederik Schreiber is part of the line up.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/firs ... wC3aXhSI#/

[jonaz.dk]

Rubber Bandits developed by Flashbulb Games is part of the Visual Delight Humble Bundle.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/visu ... ght-bundle

Also Deep Rock Galactic Season 2 launched yesterday! And they well deserved won 'best livegame' at Spilprisen 2022.

[jonaz.dk]

Dania Games Expo 25. Maj

[jonaz.dk]

Did I ever mention this?!

www.spildesign.dk
Is an excellent Trello board guide in Danish on designing and bringing board games to market.

On a personal note designing board games is SUPER easy and a cosy hobby thing compared to digital games. You can prototype a fully working game down to a few hours. Of course, it depends on complexity. I like designing simple beautiful games accessible to everyone.
I spent some time on the side, mostly in 2020. Nothing released, pitched or even shown to the world But I had fun and had some great times play testing with friends and family!
I guess I should post them at some point!

Direct Trello spildesign link
https://trello.com/b/N5gPnGpy/spildesign

[jonaz.dk]

Nordic Game Jam 2022 submission are online!

Any pointers as to what stuff if worth checking out? To my understanding there were no real official winners this year. So it will be a bit of a work load to go though everything to find the best entries.

Didn't have time drop by the jam this year. Only to drink pre-jam beers and hang out a bit. Which was nice!

Nordic Game Jam 2022 entries went here:
https://itch.io/jam/nordic-game-jam-2022/entries

Update 1:
Played all the web games for a bit! No time for all the download fuzz.
(Couldn't get the Elon Musk Twitter game to work with controls and Superstitious was not uploaded. Chess+: Battlegrounds needed online opponents)

My two favorites of the web games was!

Lightbringer - Move in the dark with limited flashes of light.
https://itch.io/jam/nordic-game-jam-2022/rate/1510486

Big Dug - A bit like Sokoban but with a cool twist. Really cool actually!
https://itch.io/jam/nordic-game-jam-2022/rate/1510569

[jonaz.dk]

Nordic Game is hosting a game jam. It's not Nordic Game Jam. But it is Nordic and it is a game jam.

14th-15th of May 2022
Theme is: Proximity, Nearness in time, space, relationships.

Nordic Game For All Jam
https://itch.io/jam/nordic-game-for-all ... vPXCCIjbOY


I guess they could just have just called it Naughty Game Jam?? to avoid confusion.. maybe!? I don't know!

[jonaz.dk]

EPISODE 21: Forretningsudvikling på GDC og andre spilmesser med gæst Christian Rasmussen fra VizLab Studios
https://www.idsu.dk/podcast/episode-21

[jonaz.dk]

Concept art event in Viborg by Vizlab Studios (Jydemood unofficially) the 10th of June.



CAVE – Concept Art & Visual Exploration Masterclass

Join us for an afternoon of celebration of concept art. Featuring three speakers from three different sides of the Games industry.

At the industry talk the concept design studio Vizlab Studios will dive into all the great things of working with concept art and visual exploration, with their amazing collaborators Benjamin Penrose from Sharkmob, Aurélien Fournier from New3dge, and Antonio Stappaerts from SQETCH Studio. It’s going to be a great afternoon!

More on:
https://www.visiondenmark.dk/events/cav ... pKBuig2Q7Y

Their work
https://vizlabstudios.com/
https://www.artstation.com/vizlabstudios