"There are no two people in the world who are exactly the same, and no two games will be made exactly the same way. I've found that wherever they are, the way developers make games, and how their work is made, is influenced by the environment and the people around them. ”
In the first and second parts, we followed in the footsteps of author Blake Hester and visited independent developers in the South, Southwest, and West Coasts of the United States. Today, we will continue to follow his journey, all the way north and then east, visiting the developers of the north and east coasts of the United States.
<h3>Beach Interactive: Vikings of the North</h3>
The weather in Fargo, North Dakota, was cold and really cold.
In this cold city, the wind seems to be able to penetrate your lungs, your lips will crack, and your eyes will be foggy. Local Beach Interactive developers told me that the cold weather forced people to stay at home, so indie game developers in Fargo often didn't make games behind closed doors.
"A lot of people want to stay in a comfortable place and make games without thinking, 'I can go out and find a place in the park to bask in the sun and do nothing.'" "Instead, they'll think, 'It's too cold outside and I can't do anything, so I can only stay at home and maybe do something.'" ’”
"I really think that 'melancholy winter' makes people more excited about making games." Kyle Weik, one of the founders of Beach Interactive, added.
Fargo, North Dakota
When I talked to several of the developers I interacted with, what surprised me the most was that, according to them, Beach Interactive's work was affected by cold weather. They use words like "oppressive" to describe the weather in Fargo; during the coldest hours, if a person stays outside for a long time, the body is likely to get frostbitten, but the weather has also become one of the inspirations for Beach interactive games.
"That's part of our daily lives." Gwaltney said, "If you want to tell a story, the best thing to do is to tell a true story. The cold winter that makes it impossible to go out is our real life... It really affected the game because we grew up in this environment and wanted to incorporate it into the game and tell our own story. ”
On My Own is a wilderness-set survival game featuring randomly generated content from Beach Interactive. Several developers told me that the creation of Alone was directly influenced by the weather in Fargo and their camping experience outside. In the game, players face the ever-changing weather, build shelters, find food, and craft various supplies.
"The idea is, 'We can sit here and keep complaining about the weather, or make the most of it.'" "We're really interested in making the most of it." ”
Employees at Beach Interactive
Several developers frequently mentioned the weather in conversation, but they didn't find it difficult or painful. On the contrary, their voices sounded rather proud, as if every year, the cold winter tested whether they loved Fargo or not—and they welcomed the test. In Fargo, many creators, like them, are influenced by the natural environment when creating.
"I feel like we have a sense of pride that we live here, like the Vikings of the north." Gwaltney said. Survival and unity have become an inherent character of the locals in Fargo, and they will unite in the face of difficult situations.
Several developers at Beach Interactive say the local community of indie game developers is "combative." If there are difficulties in creating a game, the creators will find ways to overcome it; they help each other and enjoy other people's work. They were united like the Vikings. In Fargo, many creators draw inspiration from the local natural environment – whenever the weather gets cold, they may stay in their houses and make games.
Howling Moon: Talk less and do more
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, coinciding with a weekly gathering of local indie game developers, we sat down with howling Moon members at the Glam Doll Donuts restaurant. Verdant Skies artist Lizzy Siemers pointed to a nearby table where several independent developers were playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilderness on a Switch.
Unlike them, Howling Moon prefers to make his own game.
Four members of the studio noted that in Minneapolis, indie developers are warm and friendly, and all want to raise awareness of the local developer community. At the same time, however, not many developers are trying to turn their dreams into reality.
"People always seem to talk in general terms." "They couldn't figure it out, 'Why can't anyone make money in Minneapolis?'" Siemers said. That's because they talk too much and do too little. You have to finish your game and sell it; you need to make money. ”
"We want to make a benchmark game." Producer Beth Korth said. She hopes that the studio's new simulation game, Emerald Green Sky, will be a success that will draw attention to the local community of indie game developers.
Howling Moon's employees
Minneapolis has a large community of creators, art academies, and festivals of all kinds, but in the city, the value of investment in video games has yet to be recognized. Siemers says it's difficult to develop indie games locally full-time; in Minneapolis, many indie developers are just hobbyists and can't set aside 40 hours a week to make games.
According to Siemers, she applied for a city grant for the studio, but because Minneapolis didn't have a dedicated grant fund for game development projects, she had to apply under the Arts and Tech program.
This becomes a vicious circle: local developers don't have enough game titles to attract the attention of the city, and therefore they don't get funding. Minneapolis' community of indie game developers seems to be thriving, but it hasn't made any meaningful progress. In talking to howling Moon members, I felt as if they wanted to take responsibility for changing the status quo.
"We need to make a splash quickly." Siemer said, "We can't just talk about it, we have to do the game. I've been working on emerald green skies almost every day for the past year, hoping to finish the game as quickly as possible. ”
"We had to create our own opportunities." Composer Troy Strand added.
Despite frustration with some of the status quo, the four members of Howling Moon love life in Minneapolis. In the relatively conservative state of Minnesota, it is a diverse, free city with a strong artistic atmosphere and a low cost of living. All worries aside, they're more than happy to chat about the local community of indie game developers and call games created by Minneapolis developers "passionate works."
"Here, people make games out of love." Siemers told us. It's a diverse city that welcomes talent from all walks of life, "everyone has a chance." Strand said.
"There are a lot of stories to tell, but they haven't appeared in the world of video games yet." Siemers added. In her opinion, many of Minneapolis' immigrant stories can be used as fodder for making games.
While not entirely satisfied with the status quo, howling Moon's developers are optimistic about the future. Siemers and Strand estimate that in five years' time, Minneapolis' community of indie game developers will grow to the level they expect. At this stage, they want to talk less and do more, bury their heads in making games, and make their dreams a reality.
Adam Saltsman: Quiet living
At his home in Daxi, Michigan, Adam Saltsman, independent game developer and publisher Finji, looks through sliding glass doors into the backyard. He told me that a always tried to get into his painstakingly owl box and messed up the nest inside.
Saltsman loved his yard. He spent a lot of time explaining to me the various different wildlife in the backyard, such as two teams of and five-seeded finches who had some kind of strange rivalry with each other. On mild nights, he would sit in the backyard with a Chinese radio and listen to foreign broadcasts from Cuban and Chinese channel signals. These quiet pastimes seemed to make him happier than the hustle and bustle of life he had once had.
To change the pace of life, Saltsman moved from Austin, Texas to Michigan. He and his wife, Bekah, moved to Austin before the latest wave of tech in the early 2000s, though over time the Saltsmans found that the cost of running a company and family in Austin became too high. Now that they have children, house prices in Austin are soaring, and it's time to make a decision.
So the Slatsmans packed their bags and headed to Big Creek, a midsize city in western Michigan, 1,300 miles north of Austin, to live a lower-cost, quieter, and more stable life, and closer to their parents and extended family.
Adam Saltsman
When we visited Saltsman, he divided his time between two projects: releasing the 2D adventure game Night in the Woods (released on February 21, 2017), and developing Finji's own survival game, Overland, which Saltsman revealed was still in the "early-early-early access" stage. Speaking about the latter game, Saltsman said that living in Grand Stream makes the game's development cycle healthier than in a large city.
"We don't overburden here at all." He said, "It's important. If we can control the rate at which we burn money, that can change the production budget of the project... Although there are many benefits to living in Austin, we always think: 'I want to do a project tonight, but no, we have to fill out this form and try to raise our property tax by no more than 8%.' Gone are those days. ”
Ten years ago, Austin attracted the Saltsmans for their low cost of living, but rising home prices and the cost of running the company caused them to need to make changes. After moving to Grand Creek, he and his wife became more stable and had more spare time.
The Saltsmans' life has also become quieter and more relaxed than in the past. "You see, no car is going to drive around here, and that's especially important for me right now." Saltsman said in an interview. We sat in the dining room of Saltsman's house and talked to him in a secluded setting, with not much to distract us nearby.
"At this stage, I only get distracted when I go to the backyard." Saltsman said, "I feel like it's all I need because it's too painful to play 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." ”
Saltsman believes his company and family have been influenced in many ways by life in Big Creek. Life here is more stable, Saltsman is closer to his family; he has a bird house, and the company is more concerned. Finji has no reputation in Austin — especially compared to local companies like Arkane and Retro Studios, while in Grand Creek, Finji faces far less competition.
"The Chamber of Commerce presented an award called 'Best Company in Big Creek,' and if we look at technology and computer companies, I think this year we're going to be the biggest tech company in Big Creek." Saltsman laughed. He admits his office, along with the "$100 IKEA desk and 2012 iMac" is simply too unremarkable compared to such names.
After a decade in Austin, Grand Creek became a new chapter in the Life of the Saltsmans. Saltsman said they plan to live in Grand Creek for 10 years. "It's a good phase for us and it's not terrible to stay here." He said.
"As for what will happen in 10 years, I don't know. We might give up everything and move on a sailboat or somewhere else. ”
Michael Block: The other side of the track
When I interviewed Michael Block, the last interviewee on the trip, and asked him to talk about his city of Chicago, Illinois, I was exhausted and worried that there was nothing new in the conversation. Chicago's indie developer community and game genre aren't much different from other big cities we visit, but Block's take on Chicago's social problems intrigued me.
"Unfortunately," it wasn't Chicago's glorious history that influenced me [when I was writing the game]." Block said, "I think politically, a lot of interesting things are happening in this city. "He was referring to massive protests that broke out in Chicago during the visit of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump to solicit votes." People are outraged about Trump, but at the same time, we're not addressing many of the issues on a more personal level, right? ”
Chicago ignores many of its own issues, such as racial segregation, racism, and "very terrible, hurtful local policies." Block continued, "I'm interested in these topics and want to talk about them in the game. ”
Michael Block
In the United States, Chicago is one of the most racially segregated cities. Block, who lives just north of Chicago, is easy to overlook, according to him, the high crime rates in the south and west of the city, "things that are close to them and should have been observed, seen or thought about."
Block's new book, We Are Chicago, is a Chicago-themed game that talks about violence, poverty, unemployment and education in Chicago. Block said his studio Culture Shock Studios made We Chicagoans to launch the game to people and make people "have to talk about it."
During the development of the game, Block never looked at the city's impoverished neighborhoods from a distance. He told us that the studio recruited local developers to produce "We Are Chicagoans" and interviewed residents of neighborhoods plagued by poverty and violence for first-hand information. Block didn't want to learn the facts from the newspapers, but instead went deep into those neighborhoods and listened to people tell their stories.
"You may be able to gather statistics from the media about shootings, thefts, and violent incidents, but you'll never hear the true story of a person being forced into a gang with a gun at the finger just because they live in a neighborhood." "During an in-depth interview we did for 'We Are Chicagoers,' one interviewee said that his friends could not live with their parents because, under certain housing program policies, the housing allowance they received would be reduced if the whole family lived together, he said... They feel like their husbands can get jobs, so they don't need much assistance. So in essence, those policies have shifted to encouraging husbands to stop living with their families. ”
"The reason I decided to make a game like this, these stories have had a big impact on me." Block said.
Through the game, Block hopes to encourage people to discuss Chicago's problems, rather than just reducing them to abstract statistics. In We Are Chicagoans, the player plays as a Chicago teenager who has to face all the real-world problems of Chicago's west and south. Block wants people to stop ignoring life on the other side of the track.
"Obviously, I can't solve these problems alone, or even change anyone's mind. But if I can spread the word and help other people share stories from their lives, I think that's going in the right direction. ”
<h3>Part V: The East Coast of the United States</h3>
Francesca Carletto: Breaking the rules
In the subways of New York City, people don't make eye contact. It doesn't matter what other people do, don't be nosy. That's the rule.
Francesca Carletto took me on the New York Subway for the first time to the NYU Game Center in Brooklyn, where she studied. I wondered where the others were going, so I looked at the woman sitting in the opposite seat. She had short blond hair and a black coat; she rested her umbrella under her legs, and the rain slowly seeped into the floor.
I made eye contact with the woman.
I quickly looked away and started chatting with Carletto. I'm sorry for breaking the basic rules of the New York subway.
Carletto had only recently arrived in New York, so she was still learning the city's rules and going through a difficult transition period. Carletto, who lived and worked in Massachusetts for many years and went to New York University for a graduate degree, admits she's not used to the New York subway yet.
"I like to observe other people, but even if someone is noisy or doing something slightly strange after getting on the subway, you can't look them in the eye. I found this to be a feature of the New York subway. She said.
Francesca Carletto
In a sense, New York City is like a contradiction. The city is densely populated, and all of them live in small areas but do not care about each other. If you're coming to New York for the first time, you might find this place very cold. When I was queuing up at a hotel, the people behind me seemed impatient to wait, so they walked straight up to me and cut in line, as if I didn't exist. In New York, which has a population of more than 8.5 million, no one cares what you're doing.
But Carletto is different. She wanted to get to know everyone in the subway, where they were going and what they were doing. According to Carletto, an important reason why she decided to study at New York University was that here, she had the opportunity to try out various types of games.
"I love making games that make people smile, confused, or cry." In Carletto's apartment room, she sat drinking coffee while the puppy Olive lay at her feet. Charletto also likes to make people-themed games, or "personal experiences"; in a city devoid of humanity, she wants to tell stories about personal experiences.
It may sound ironic at first, but in fact of all the stories about New York, the best works tend to touch people's hearts. Tito Montille's film A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints tells the story of what it was like to grow up in Queens, New York, in the 1980s, and Kids, a documentary-like story about New York skateboarding culture during the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s.
Many creators like Carletto flocked to New York to get to know the people here and learn about their stories.
"Even in the subway, all kinds of people are immersed in their own small world, but their lives are completely different from yours, and you can never experience it yourself." I think about these questions a lot when designing games. "I was inspired by the New York subway. ”
She's making a game about hugging. When you hug other people, you not only share the same space, but you also share warmth — the opposite of new Yorker life. In one of the most impersonal cities in the United States, Carletto wanted to make people feel a personalized experience through games.
We were on the subway all day. Carletto took us from Brooklyn to The Manhattan area and back again. We visited the school where she was studying, walked around the Nintendo store, ate tacos, and visited Times Square. I feel like by the end of the day, I've become more adept at being in my own little world and living like a New Yorker.
I found that Carletto often looked at other people. I don't know if anyone else is watching us too. How do they see us? Want to know where we're going? I didn't look around, so I didn't know if anyone was watching me.
Carletto is still learning how to be a New Yorker. She loves to tell stories and take inspiration from people who aren't willing to share them with her... In this city, people from many different countries live in different places and live their own lives. They may not know, but Carletto is observing and trying to understand them.
"In New York, you'll find any culture or weird subculture you can think of." Carletto said, "I've always wanted to live in a place like this because it looks pretty interesting. I'm still exploring. ”
Shawn Pierre: Alone
At a co-working space in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we met and talked with Shawn Pierre. I asked him, "How do you describe the game developer community here?" ”
"Aggressive." Pierre thought for a moment and then said, "Everyone is doing everything they can to make the game. ”
Pierre said that compared to other big cities such as Austin and San Francisco, the current state of indie game development in Philadelphia is not the same. The city has neither AAA studios nor any companies to advise or outsource for developers.
Pierre, who traveled to Philadelphia from NorthwestErn New Jersey to look for a job, previously worked for an email company and had no intention of becoming a game developer. Pierre initially only wanted to make a mod, and when he wanted to make his own game, trying to understand philadelphia's indie game developer community, he didn't have much information to find.
Shawn Pierre
Today, pierre thinks Philadelphia's indie game developer community is starting to take shape, organizing monthly parties or game jams. As we talked about the subject, Pierre's tone exuded a sense of pride. In Philadelphia, according to him, indie developers are like neighbors in the town, knowing each other and willing to help each other.
But Philadelphia's indie game development vibe remains inadequate.
"Unlike a lot of other places, I think in Philadelphia there are far more amateurs than there are professional developers." Pierre said. There aren't many people in the city who do games full-time like him or outsource like indie developers in other cities.
Pierre said he wants to change the situation and give back to the Philadelphia indie developer community. Pierre, who runs a charity called Philly Game Mechanics, is currently applying to the city for grants that will be distributed to independent developers in Philadelphia to help them complete their game projects.
"My mission is: How can we make everyone better at what they're good at? How can we get every developer to focus entirely on creating? Pierre told me, "A lot of people still have full-time or part-time jobs, so they can't spend all their time making games." But if we put in the effort, maybe one day we can get to that point. ”
You might be able to feel this attitude in Pierre's multi-human body game Henka Twist Caper— a game where "players have to twist and turn the handle until they find the right direction." It requires players to play together and work together, and in a sense, Pierre's dedication to game development is a model.
Philadelphia is a big city, but philadelphia lags behind many other cities in terms of the size and overall level of development of the indie game developer community, and there is still a long way to go. In Philadelphia, developers who were frustrated by this are now proud.
"People used to say, 'Philadelphia is the only city without AAA studios,' it feels bad. Pierre said, "But now I think a lot of us think it's a good thing." "With no impact from AAA Studios, independent developers in Philadelphia can explore their own path. Pierre believes that over time, peers in many other cities around the world can learn from some of the practices of philadelphia independent developers.
"In a few months or years, our story will affect the indie game developer community in the United States or other cities around the world, and developers in those places may think, 'There's no big company here, we can't do anything.'" "But the fact is that even if you don't have as many resources as developers in Los Angeles, Portland or New York, you have a chance of success." Those cities are great, of course, but our success will be even more inspiring. ”
Jo Fu and Conrad Kreyling: Documenting the changes in a city
In Washington, D.C., we stood in front of the U.S. Capitol, near the bottom of the stairs. Heavily armed guards stood in front of us, and Jo Fu and Conrad Kreyling were hand-to-hand at the building. They had just had a few drinks.
They were angry: Donald Trump was two miles away, and Mr. President was the reason for their anger.
An hour ago, we sat at the Gordon Biersch Bar in the former Warehouse District of Washington, D.C. I thought the bar was good, but Fu told me that 15 years ago, when she came to the city in the "gothic" stage of her life, the place was still dangerous. There were no high-rise buildings here, and you couldn't park your car on certain streets; if you misplaced the car, the hub cover of the car would definitely be removed.
But more importantly, it has its own culture. According to Fu, as a place where ethnic minorities live, there are no buildings more than two stories high.
Conrad Kreyling和Jo Fu
In 2008, the Washington area built a $600 million baseball stadium here as home for the Washington Nationals. Since then, everything has changed. "Now the neighborhood is full of new buildings, and all the neighborhood leaders have gone, as if they had never lived here before." Fu said.
Fu and Kreyling are battling these changes — just as they are battling the political changes currently taking place in the United States. They founded Pillow Fight Games in 2016, when Obama was in office, but then Trump became the new president of the United States. They consider some of Trump's political ideas to be so hateful that they are the complete opposite of the values advocated by Pillow Fight.
"We want to represent transgender women, people of color, and women who aren't designers but are interested in art and want to make games." "We actively look for freelancers who have traditionally been marginalized, or developers who can't get into AAA companies or larger independent studios," Fu said. ”
Fu and Kreyling are a couple who have been living in Washington, D.C., while Keryling has traveled extensively through New York State. After starting the company in Washington, D.C., where rent was relatively cheap, the two ended their long-term separation. But Washington, D.C., has changed since Trump took office. "People are getting angrier." Fu said, "The struggle is getting more and more intense... Living in this neighborhood is terrible. ”
Pillow Fight makes games themed around ethnic minorities and ever-changing neighborhoods, but the studio faces many dilemmas. According to Fu, they were unable to send their dues to a freelance translator and editor living in Puerto Rico because 1 million Puerto Rican residents, including the part-timer, did not have access to electricity after Hurricane Emma in August;
"We had a Jordanian-American editor and background artist, and because of him, we had to postpone the release of the game. He feared his family would be deported because of the travel ban. "All the people in the core art team, including me, are second-generation immigrants." So we all thought, 'What will the family go through?' ’”
"We feel more at risk." Kreyling added, "I think we've also taken a lot of inspiration from our personal lives. ”
As a recent game for Pillow Fight, Ghosts of Miami is set in the 80s of the last century and expresses the studio's frustration with change by telling the story of a changing city. During the game's production, Fu and Kreyling went on field trips to Miami, but they could see changes in Washington city every day when they looked out the window.
"We wanted to make a visual novel that would make people talk about the sadness of seeing those communities disappear." Fu said, "I really feel sad because people can no longer see what Washington, D.C. was like in the seventies and eighties of the last century." It was as if I was watching a place disappear. ”
We ended this interview by standing in front of the Capitol. Fu and Kreyling were angry, but they were laughing too. They need to put in a lot of effort to fight, but they won't back down.
"In terms of creativity, we were able to find the talent we always wanted because they were willing to speak out." "They're using games and artwork as a medium to express their attitude towards confrontation with a government that seems to hate them," Fu said. ”
(End of full text)
This article has been compiled from: polygon.com
原文标题：《A month on the road: My indie developer road trip》
Originally written by Blake Hester
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