A Wee Bab in the City: An Autobiography by Brittany Shively

Post date: Mar 21, 2016 6:51:47 PM

Day 1:

The first thing I did was explore around the indie game setups. I watched Lizzie and Leslie playtest a VR biking game that looked pretty cool. It was basically a bike machine like what you would see in a gym, but with buttons on the handle bars. They played a series of games like dog's racing cars, a flying Pegasus game, and an army tank game. To move your character you had to pedal, and the faster you pedaled the faster your character moved. It looked like it was a lot of fun, but the practicality of it didn't seem too thought out. It would be very difficult to have the whole setup for the system in your house. A lot of the VR demos I saw were trying to be "at home" products, but seemed like they would work better in an arcade environment due to the sheer size of the system.

I also watched a VR film titled "Invasion!" by Baobab Studios. It was about two little bunnies (one of which was yourself), and how they managed to avoid being abducted by aliens. When you looked down you could see your little bunny body, and if you looked around you could look around the environment just like you were playing a VR game. The whole film was made in real-time using UE4. I reallyl oved the experience, but the only negative thing I would have to say about it is when I go to see a film, I usually go with my family or friends. It would be weird for me to go watch a movie, but put on a headset and be isolated from my group. Below is a link to a sneak peek of their film that I found on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75BVfbBsx4s

Day 2:

The main even I participated in was a talk by Twitch about how to grow your games audience by using Twitch as a marketing tool. Their first piece of advice was to watch Twitch streamers, and see what the highest level players / best players of your game are doing, and to capitalize on those parts of the game. Their reasoning behind that was because these are the people who enjoy your game the most, and are willing to put a lot of time into playing your game. 

Their next piece of advice was that if you develop DLC for your game, try to find ways to make it something people on Twitch would want to stream. Their example could be something as big as having group raids like in WoW where streamers could play with their subscribers or something as small as as the streamer letting their followers name their farm animals in Stardew Valley. You'll be more likely to have people stream your game on Twitch if the streamer can find a way to interact with their fans while playing the game. 

The next piece of advice involved making debut announcements on Twitch about your game. Their key points were to make sure you interact with your audience. Rather than just talking to them about the game, try answering questions they have in the chat, or have polls they can participate in etc.

Their final piece of advice was for people who want to start streaming themselves on Twitch. They said to go out to Home Depot and just buy a couple cheap lights and try to create a decent atmosphere for your stream. 

They also suggested using OBS broadcasting software as it's free and pretty simple to use. Last, they said to just keep pushing to get past the initial hump of starting a broadcast. They said it starts really slow, but usually peoples stream will start picking up speed within a month or two of their initial broadcasting date as long as they have a consistent schedule.

Day 3:

This day I went to Insomniac Games talk about the history of their company. The presentation was given by their CEO, Ted Price, and he gave some key points of advice for anyone starting out in the gaming industry.

He started out by introducing himself and saying that he and the other founder Al Hastings were both graduates of Princeton University.

His first lesson was "Don't let the bastards get you down."

In this section he talked about all the companies that turned him down and how for the majority of his start in the gaming industry he was almost broke with only enough money to eat canned tuna for every meal.

His second lesson was "Check your ego at the door."

Here he talked a lot about how in the beginning of his career he had a lot of trouble accepting critique. At one point he actually told the company he would make the changes "over his dead body." 

His third lesson was "Try it... you'll like it."

This part went along with his previous lesson. This was about when he stopped taking the critique personally, and finally realized that the critique actually made his work better.

His final lesson was "Grab the magic and don't let it go."

Here he discussed how to make a game you have to find "the magic" in the idea. This could be something as simple as the main reason you are so passionate about the game. He said to look for this "magic" in every project you work on, and don't forget about the reason you want to make games.

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