iGame Radio

With all the excitement around E3 and WWDC, PAX news has fallen by the wayside. Despite PAX badges selling out, there are still deadlines looming for those who wish to participate…

If you want to speak at PAX, you still have a chance. PAX Prime speaker submissions deadline at June 14th. Also, if you are a developer and want to speak, your deadline is June 15th. Despite the schedule already being posted, there is still time because it’s a rolling submission process.

Hmm…maybe we should sign up for a speaker gig…

Not satisfied with PAX Prime or PAX East, the organizers behind both have created PAX Dev. Bringing together programmers, designers, producers and artists to explore the craft of creating digital and physical games, PAX Dev will take place two days before PAX Prime.

PAX Dev is designed to be an intimate event where game developers can concentrate solely on the art of game development. To keep that focus, the PAX folks have outlawed marketing buzz, bizdev speed dating events, and PR opportunities with the press. Attendees will be participating in learning, sharing, and debating.

“The idea started with friends in the game dev community asking us to host an event where they could really focus on exchanging ideas without any distractions,” said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. “There are events that are great for signing your next deal or promoting your current project, but that’s not PAX Dev. We’re 100 percent focused on the craft of game development.”

PAX Dev will cover exploration of not just video games, but also pen and paper, tabletop, board, and collectible card games for a complete picture of game development. “…We’ve all seen how ideas in one segment can feed and influence innovation in another part of the game industry,” stated Khoo. “Having representatives from all of the extended game development family can only make PAX Dev stronger.”

PAX Dev takes place Wednesday, August 24 and Thursday, August 25 at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel. Early registration is $249 (at the door pricing is $329) and approximately 750 tickets will be sold at the PAX Dev 2011 site. Individuals interested in presenting at PAX Dev can submit panel applications to the PAX Dev panel site as well.

PAX East has created the Boston Indie Showcase. Similar to the PAX 10 held at PAX Prime, the Boston Indie Showcase will give the most prominent Boston Independent developers a chance to show off their titles at PAX East.

Qualified teams must be an independent developer without a traditional publisher-developer relationship in place (no outside funding), have no more than 15 employees, and be located within the Boston Metro area. All titles must be at least at beta and electronic in nature, and no mods or levels are allowed. In other words, you can’t submit a game that requires the installation of 3rd party software, unless the game uses a 3rd party engine or middleware that you have the rights to, like Torque or Unity.

What you get if you are picked is a kiosk in the PAX East Exhibition Hall for you and your team to demo your game. This year, PAX East enjoyed an inaugural attendance of over 52,000 people, an there will be guaranteed more next year. You will also be included in the announcements on Penny Arcade and PAX East sites about your selection.

The submission deadline is January 15th, 2011. To sign up, or for additional rules and details, go to the PAX East site.

My dear friend Chuck Joiner of MacVoices chatted me up yesterday about my time at PAX 2010. I had a great time, and you can hear the interview on his MacVoices site.

 

At PAX I got an opportunity to play a build of Darkspore and talk with Corey Johnson of Maxis. Darkspore is an online multiplayer hack and slash game (EA titles it an RPG, but the RPG elements are equivalent to Diablo or Torchlight) that uses some of the same technology used in the original Spore game, but with a significantly darker twist to it. We talked about the development of the game, game mechanics, and visuals. I was disturbed to find that the official statement right now is that the only platform the game is coming out on is Windows, despite the fact that when the game was originally announced, it was announced for Windows and Mac.

 

While at PAX I had an awesome opportunity to talk with some folks from Paragon Studios regarding City of Heroes. I spoke with Melissa “Warwitch” Bianco about design elements of the game, how Going Rogue has been received, and what we can expect from the next two issues of CoH. I also spoke with Matt Miller about elements of the Mac version and how keeping the Mac build going works between them and Transgaming.

Part 1  

Part 2  

What’s inside this episode:

• Whoah! We had so much to talk about today that we had to split it into two different podcasts. Part 1 covers Apple’s announcements today regarding App Review guidelines and developer license agreement changes, the Game Center launch, and the Mini Ninjas review. Part 2 covers the interview with Chris Hazard of Hazardous Software and the coverage of PAX 2010.
• Omaha reviews Mini Ninjas by Feral Interactive. A true family adventure game pitting you against the evil samurai warlord. Save all those innocent critters and run your little ninjas around in circles!
  
• Chris Hazard of Hazardous Software returns to chat about his publishing strategy. Shared by an increasing number of Indie game developers (such as Wolfire Games), the pre-release model releases betas of the game to gamers that pre-order. We talk about how such a model works, how much work is involved in development and in communication with users, and how gamers work with the model.

Show Notes:

• Host Omaha Sternberg chats with co-host Corey Tamas of MacGamer about Apple’s announcements this morning, including the release of their App Review guidelines, changes to their developer license that will allow third-party tools for app development, and their promise for more transparency.
• Game Center was launched yesterday…with no games. Within 24 hours over 30 games now populate the Game Center network, but why didn’t those games show up upon launch? Corey and Omaha tease their way through the miasma. And Omaha complains about the horn.
• PAX, that Nirvana of gaming goodness, was last week, and Omaha got to go. No, there was no orgy. Unless you consider an Expo floor full of games, rooms full of tabletop gaming, and floors filled with gaming consoles and PCs with gamers gaming an orgy!

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Rich Carlson featured music from Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.
• Digital Droo featured music from Neon Tango.

 

Every year, PAX hosts an event called the PAX 10, where they bring in 10 Indie games who shine in some way or another with their graphics, game mechanics, or sound. I got a chance to chat with Nimbly Games, which had released Altitude, an aerial arcade game with some very interesting physics and game mechanics. We chatted about how Altitude came to be, what it was like working with Steam, and where Nimbly Games would go from here. Altitude is available for Windows and Mac.

Have a couple of minutes to breath, so thought I’d post a few images from the PAX 2010 floor.

 

Sandwich Games has a booth at Pax and they are showing off their top-down arcade game Hoard. Dragons invade the realm, steal the gold and princesses, and the knights must try to kill them. And guess what? You are the dragon! A game with RTS and simulation elements, I found it great fun to play. Due to come out for the PC and Mac by winter, there just might be an iPad version someday as well.