Steel Penny Games

It looks like my good friend Brad Clark finally roped me into talking in front of an audience of graphics professionals.  Consequently, I've spent too many hours working on a slide presentation about my thoughts on running an independent game studio, how my goals and expectations have changed over the years, and what lessons I've learned in the process of both succeeding and failing at the job.

 I'm not certain at this point whether I'll present this again in a different forum (GDC? Siggraph?  Indie Games Conference?), or if I just post the slides as a PDF or Flash file.  I guess that depends on the reaction I get from the crowd.  A band of hungry artists can be cruel, I'm told, if the queso and salsa is slow to the table.

At any rate, I'll be at El Mercado on 17th and Lavaca from 6:30pm until whenever they hiss me off the podium.

Click here for more on the 3D Austin Users Group.   It's a link on the left side of the page.

It's been a hard but exciting development season.  This whole year, we've been working with RedFly Studio to bring their Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked title to life by providing the majority of progamming for the game.   Meanwhile, we also did a complete port from PC to Wii retail for North America (EU coming soon, we hope) of Dr. Fizzwizzle's Animal Rescue, for Replay Games (correction).

Right now, Jeff and I also are wrapping up the final build for a November 3rd release on Cook or Be Cooked and hoping it goes smoothly.  Tonight, after the build, we sat down at the big screen TV (yes--it supports 16:9 widescreen mode, which we put considerable time into getting just right) and we played for about an hour.  It's a hoot!  I was fairly suspicious that a versus mode in a cooking game would be a terrible idea, but how wrong I was.  The game has shaped up well and I think when the target audience connects with CoBC, there will be a lot of enjoyment (and tasty meals in RL) as a result.

Very soon, we'll be onto other projects and looking for more work.  Our next game design is firming up and I look forward to prototyping it.  No, it's not a game with animals or kitchen implements, but I'm confident it'll turn out just fine.

If you're looking for a developer with a lot of wide-ranging experience, drop me a line.  Also, if you're an accomplished production artist looking to be a part of an independent development house, we're ready to grow a little.

See you all in Austin for AGDC,
JH

It's been a little while since the last blog post.  Quite a few things have been happening around here, so I guess it's time to put up some news, in no particular order.

• Andrew Gilmour has moved on to greener pastures.  We wish him well at Frozen Codebase.  So, we're looking for an Art Director again.
  
• Steel Penny has agreed to help our friends at Red Fly Studio wrap up a couple of titles that needed some additional man power.  This is a great opportunity for us, and if all goes well, will help raise publisher awareness of our team.
• Jeff Everett has joined up with Steel Penny Games!  His vast experience in busines, production, and programming will help us find the secret bonus level containing coins.  We like coins.
• We're busy prototyping a few new game concepts that I hope will be ready to show by summer.  It's hard to work in prototyping between all the other jobs, seriously.  But I do have high hopes that one will really stand out.
• SPG is starting some fun 2D work for a Wii retail title.  It's a port, not an original title, but it's paid work.  Hopefully we will get to reveal more at a future time.
• Finally, I recently appeared on the monolithic Cryptocast #25, plugging the game and generally discussing development and the business of making indie games for the Wii.  Forewarning... sensitive listeners might prefer to skip the first half, as there's some adult humor in the first part that is not rated E for Everybody.  I can't be held responsible for any suffering or enjoyment that may cause you.