The first few articles
Chengdu
After going around, I finally want to see the Chengdu that I have in mind.
I sat on a plane to Chengdu and looked down at the rolling hills on the ground, the mountains under the fog left only the shape of the edges, and the invisible rivers became blank in the mountains, exactly like the landscape in the ink paintings. The color of the mountain, I think, should be Danqing, that kind of colorful black. At that moment, I suddenly understood the artistic conception of Chinese painting, the mountains in the painting, and the water in the painting. I was so shocked that I couldn't move.
As soon as I arrived in Chengdu, I was taken by hospitable university classmates to taste the food of Chengdu.
When it comes to Chengdu's cuisine, it is hot pot that cannot be avoided.
There is a wide variety of hot pots here and the factions are strict. Each shop has its own specialty and derives its own sub-categories from the big category of hot pots – although these are also cooking methods of cooking food in a pot.
According to the type of base, it can be divided into hot pot and soup pot, hot pot is the base of spicy butter, and soup pot is based on light ingredient base.
According to the way of eating to classify: direct fishing to eat, is a normal hot pot, with bamboo skewers to string up the ingredients in the pot to cook, called skewers; boiled in advance and fished out and put into the bowl together with the soup, called fake vegetables; with bamboo skewers, and beforehand boiled and then poured seasoning soup, is a cold pot skewer.
According to the type of main ingredients to classify: the main eater fish, is called the consumption fish; the main eating fish head and bullfrog, called the beautiful frog fish head; the main eat crucian carp, it is called crucian carp hot pot.
In this so-called "less into Shu" place, there are unexpectedly a lot of independent gamers gathered.
Their stories, perhaps also influenced by Chengdu, are very pyrotechnic.
(1) Toy Cat Studio
Toy Cat Studio was introduced to me by a friend of mine who said he was a friend I met at a game show.
Their studio happened to be in Chengdu, and I heard that they had held a game jam in Chengdu several times, so while communicating, they also thought that they could meet some chengdu developers again.
K and I met at Starbucks on xx West Road, close to his home, which was their office.
There were only two people in the Toy Cat Studio, K and his girlfriend. K is in charge of the program and planning, and his girlfriend is in charge of the art. Such a fairy configuration is really enviable.
K had spent a long time in several large game companies, and then decided to make his own independent games, so he left and founded the Toy Cat Studio with his girlfriend in Chengdu. His girlfriend is actually not from the game art background, but the professional direction will involve some painting parts, but he still pulled down the water.
In Chengdu, the cost is not very high, they rely on their own savings, or can support a long time.
Before, when they had spare time, they also hosted the Ciga Game Jam and Global Game Jam in Chengdu several times, and they felt that they were really cool.
However, their experience in game development was not all smooth sailing, and after several failed projects, they made Energy Shock. Unfortunately, this game, which was of pretty good quality and quite creative, did not achieve the desired success.
After they no longer host the Game Jam in Chengdu, the Game Jam in Chengdu no longer has a fixed organizer (even absent from the 2022 GGJ).
I shared my thoughts on the Alliance of Indie Game Studios with him, and he had actually tried to connect indie game developers in Chengdu before, but without success. People always seem to cling to their own stuff and are less willing to share. Developers in Chengdu are always hidden in the city, although they know that there are many independent gamers in Chengdu, but they don't know where they are.
That being said, I think it should be done. Then, along with it, I had the idea of hosting Game Jam. Game Jam, which has always been attended by others, has been a prostitute for their box lunches and venues. Now finally found out that there is no so-called free box lunch, everything is just someone to carry the weight for us.
Coming out of Starbucks, K took me wandering the streets of Chengdu.
Walk past the TV Tower, walk through the daytime depressed nightclub streets, and walk far along the river. K says it's a route he often goes out for walks and can walk all the way to the downtown business district if he wants.
Maybe this is also a kind of Chengdu bashi.
Ask about K, plans for the future. He said it could take a long time to work on a new, bigger project, or two people working on it.
Although creating independent games will encounter many difficulties, we must still maintain the original intention of making games, which is the spiritual strength that always supports us.
(2) If you are a threesome, you will have my teacher
X, is my brother added to the Game Jam group in Chengdu, a person who is doing indie games full-time,
"Early Risers", which I met in an independent game group, is a developer who is groping after leaving the game company.
They have free time on the same day, so I simply call the two of them together and let's talk together. Anyway, they are game developers, and there should be nothing to be embarrassed about.
We made an appointment at a coffee shop near the wide narrow alley.
We sat in our seats outside, and the chengdu afternoon, just the right amount of sunlight, shining on the flowers and plants on the street, made them all lazy.
X is a native of Chengdu. For a variety of reasons, he decided a few years ago to go down the path of doing indie games, and then he started his own learning journey.
X has been at home for several years, learning all aspects of indie game development on its own: from drawing and modeling to programming and design. During this time, he developed a phased test on his own, a 3D multiplayer board strategy game. He put the game on Steam and played it for free. He is still continuing his learning journey and is working on new games with friends.
Before getting up early, he came to Chengdu because of his work. He has just left his job as a game planner and is still staying in Chengdu. He was in a more confused state and left because he was not satisfied with the nature of his job at the game company (similar to my personal experience). Although he had some ideas about indie games, he did not find a partner to cooperate with and a suitable way to start, and there was still a lot to explore and learn about his own game creation. At present, he is self-taught programs and is also doing some demo creation attempts.
That afternoon, we had a great conversation. Since everyone was very idle, we went to eat hot pot together in the evening.
In the evening, we walked down the street at night and found a coffee shop to discuss some things about game development. Later, when it came to how to solve the problem of art, I pulled out my computer and the number board (I had been working on the game recently, so I had been carrying them on my back) to Talk to Brother X about the art of the game, and he also instructed me on the scale problem when drawing human figures.
We talked in the coffee shop until the coffee shop closed and started to catch up – it was just after 9 o'clock. Chengdu's leisure that even coffee shops leave work on time is really emotional.
After bidding farewell to the two, I took a walk back to where I lived.
Although most of the shops are closed, the streets are still crowded and the snack street is brightly lit. Chengdu seems to have switched to the mode of night, which only belongs to Chengdu, the night of Bashi.
(3) A section of development notes in Chengdu
Because I was preparing to participate in CGJ in July 2021, I decided to stay in Chengdu until July. In other words, I have to stay in Chengdu for more than a month. Aside from meeting some indie game developers and hanging out to dinner with friends, the rest of the time, except for sleeping, is developing your own games.
During this time, because I wanted to better experience life in Chengdu, I have also been changing places where I live. I have stayed in hotels, homestays, friends' homes, hostels, and in the process, I am constantly looking for a balance between price and comfort. However, only the more expensive homestays have enough space for office. But being alone, living alone in an unfamiliar place to develop games, does make it difficult to get into a state of work.
Later, I began to learn the development habits of the developer I met in Hangzhou - using Starbucks as an office.
I usually get up at noon, carry everything out to eat, and then find a Starbucks to stay until dinner time, and then go back after dinner. Basically, I've visited Starbucks near the place where I've lived. However, it is a pity that Starbucks in Chengdu is different from Hangzhou, and it is overcrowded every day. It is difficult to find a suitable, vacant seat with sockets. And they all leave work early and close before 9 a.m. I could only sigh on the street with my computer on my back, not even a place for night owls to sit down and develop games.
During that time, I was working on two projects at about the same time, one was a remake of a game I had previously made called The Ragged Crowd, and the other was a demo attempt at an action game about two hooks flying. My original plan was to complete the development of these two games within the year as my own output target for the gap period. Of course, there were a lot of unexpected changes and changes to the plan, and that was after that.
These days lasted until I moved into a hostel.
There's no special reason to go there, mainly because it's really cheap, and I also want to experience so-called youth hostels that share rooms with strangers.
Hostel guests are very reticent, and even if they live in the same room, there is almost no communication. The only one who has intersected is a self-familiar big brother from the northeast. I really didn't dare to reveal the fact that I was also a northeasterner, for fear that the next second I would be pulled over by my big brother to drink a bottle of wine. It is better to pretend to be a quiet southerner.
Although there is no experience of gathering together to make friends in the story, it is good to end up with a clean. When I got up, the room was basically empty, and when I came back, they all went to sleep with the lights off. The feeling of the five people seems to be no worse than living alone.
Downstairs is a lobby with lots of casual tables and chairs, fast internet, and almost no one at night, perfect for developing games and never closing. So it became my secret base for developing games at night.
Outside the hostel is a creative park with a lot of coffee shops, probably because of the low season of tourism, the coffee shop is deserted, but the environment is very good, and the coffee is delicious and not expensive.
Order a cup of coffee, sit in it and develop a game, so that the development process has become more literary. That kind of atmosphere that's different from Starbucks.
So during that time, my daily life was more of an evening of development time. Buy a cup of milk tea before closing at the milk tea shop, stay at the secret base until the early hours of the morning, and then go back to sleep. It is a pleasure to have free time to develop or entertain in a public space on a summer night.
So I stayed here until I left Chengdu.
During that time, the development of the hook action game Demo gradually improved, completing the first playable version. This demo is the predecessor of Minimalist Dungeon.
The remake of "The Ragtag" is still stranded, but I think it should not be too far away from its completion.
I feel that Chengdu is exactly the place where it resonates with my soul. In more than a month, I have gradually integrated into the daily life of Chengdu. It would be a blessing to be able to develop an indie game here.
(End of Previous Part)
ps.
In the future, the "Game Travelogue" will be updated from time to time. At present, "Game Travel" has completed travel to four cities (Xiamen, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chengdu) and visited nearly 20 independent gamers or studios. Although the trip is over, I have benefited greatly from what I saw and felt along the way. There are also enough interesting things and stories worth writing down and sharing with everyone who is on the road to game making. I don't think "Travelogue" should end like this, it should be like learning in the field of games, throughout my entire creative career. "Journey" will be a journey with no end, together with countless people who have learned the scriptures, looking for the direction of the future.
Two new cities were added to the DLC: Chongqing and Shanghai. I participated in the CGJ held in Chongqing Pacia and the 48-hour GJ in Shanghai. In these two cities, new indie players have been met and new stories to tell. The pace does not stop, and the "game" does not stop.