Steven Tu / @Tuism Indie Game Maker, Designer, Illustrator

Results for category "videogames"

21 Articles

All Aboard! A MAZE Train Jam 2019 to Playtopia, leaving Dec 1! Book/Apply Soon!

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tuism

Very excited to announce the second A MAZE Train Jam to Playtopia!

Last year we had the first edition of this event, in which we took 30 devs and creatives who come from all over the world as well as from South Africa locally, from Joburg to Cape Town on the Shosholoza Meyl train, and made games during the 30 hours trip. It was a fantastic trip, full of life, energy, connections and just amazing people and inspiration all round.

Iā€™m linking a couple of videos that captured much of the trip at the bottom of the post!

The 2019 Train Jam will depart from Park Station, Johannesburg on Dec 1 at noon, and will arrive in Cape Town the following day in the afternoon, usually with delays so anything from 4:30pm till late. Which just means more time to make your game šŸ™‚

 

To get involved, you have two options:

  1. Sponsored tickets - this is available mostly to students and new creatives who need the financial support. Applications for sponsored seats are limited, and selection will be done as a committee between A MAZE and the Goethe-Institut. You can apply for a sponsored ticket here.
  2. Buy a ticket - a number of tickets are on sale, which guarantees you a spot in the train jam. This is for industry professionals who are keen to support and give back to the gamedev industry in SA. These tickets are sold on a first come, first served basis. You can buy a ticket here.

 

The Train Jam ticket includes:

  • a license to jam at #amazetrainjam
  • snacks, coffee and water
  • a unique t-shirt (art by me!)
  • taking part in the train jam hypertalks and exhibition
  • access to a selfpay half price (300ZAR instead of 600ZAR) festival ticket supported byĀ Playtopia for Playtopia. Link and password to the 50% discount festival pass will be send after registration.

 

See you there?

For now, enjoy some video coverage of last yearā€™s A MAZE Train Jam:

 

 

 

Catch-up in the NYE: 2017

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tuism

Itā€™s January 2018, and I havenā€™t updated here in over a year.

So let me do a quick catchup of the highlights of some stuff Iā€™ve gotten up to in the last year or so:

4 Boardgames Successfully Kickstarted

Working with the experienced game designer CornƩ Van Moorsel of Cwali Games in the Netherlands, we have put out four successfully funded Kickstarters.

Ā  Ā Ā Ā  Ā  Ā Ā 

A Few Rad Game Jams

Thereā€™s always the annual Global Game Jam, and the thrice a year Ludum Dares, and I always do them if I possibly can. Jamming often has taught me a bunch of stuff, and of course given me a couple cool prototypes:

Orbito was made for Ludum Dare 40, and Iā€™m working to release this as it was quite well received and itā€™s also a tiny scope that I can manage by myself.

Battery//Assault was a fun experiment for Ludum Dare 39 from which I learned oodles about animation by physics. It was also well-received, maybe one day Iā€™ll take it to fruition.

Gamejams of note other than Ludum Dares included 2017ā€™s annual Global Game Jam in which I made a skiprope physics sportsball game Wibble:

And I also had a great jam as a part of the Goethe Institute of Johannesburg‘s Game Mixer event, where cool people from all over the world came to Joburg as an exchange of knowledge and experience. I made a pretty little gardening, sun and shadow prototype we called Pumyjeka with Jeff Rusch from Cape Town.

Inktober 2017

I managed to stick to discipline and did the full month of Inktober with one drawing a day! šŸ™‚ You can see them all on my instagram, starting from this guy here:

This guy was my favourite of the lot:

Coming in 2018!

As a summary, this has already gone too long. There are several projects going on right now that should fruit in 2018. Iā€™m really looking forward to those. Enough typing into WordPress. Onwards to more stuff-making!

10 Things About VR - A VR Primer [A MAZE 2016 talk]

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tuism

I did this talk at the 2016 A MAZE International Game and Playful Media Festival in Johannesburg, as a primer for people getting into VR, because I just got into VR, and I got into VR HARD. Absolutely in love with it. (And yes, this is about 2 months late, sorry!)

Download 10 Things About VR slidesĀ in pdf

Unfortunately it wasnā€™t recorded, but here is a very quick and dirty companion to the slides to explain some stuff that wonā€™t be apparent from looking at them:

  1. Origin Story:
    I got into VR because of the Vive. Nothing else was nearly as good. I spent a few weeks jamming games on Free Livesā€™ Vive, and made three quick prototypesĀ (one I havenā€™t put online yet) within my limited time with it.
  2. Things I wish I knew about Vive + VR:
    Itā€™s easier than I thought it would be, it has no Mac support, direct sunlight wrecks the sensors.
  3. Simulation sickness:
    Look up the poison berries theory, try not to get people sick.
  4. Depth:
    Such an important dimension that humans already know but had to unlearn in 2D interfaces. Now we can intuitively access it again!
  5. Presence:
    Different ways of convincing human minds of plausibility of the simulation.
  6. Social VR:
    VR is not anti-social.
  7. Ultimate Display:
    VR is one more step along the continuum of technologies that close the gap between oneā€™s private mind and oneā€™s shared reality.
  8. Storytelling:
    VR brings people back to a less singular vision of stories due to the popularisation of books and filmĀ and other single-point-of-view medium
  9. Audio:
    Audio is key to immersion, much more than visual. Remember that!
  10. VR is important because:
    See the slides! Itā€™s bigger than any single person!

BOOOST! A Retro Escape SHMUP for Ludum Dare #LD34

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tuism

Ludum Dare 34 done! Always a fantastic game jam with the most awesome community.

The theme this time was two-way tie between Growing and Two Buttons, and to make a long story short, I tried at first to do both with an idea that was seriously too much for me for 48 hours, and abandoned it to start another game about 14 hours into the 48.

The result was BOOOST, a two-button game of escaping, shooting, but mostly escaping. While shooting. Youā€™ll see!

The game was favourably reviewed, and was rated 72 overall inĀ the solo compo, so thatā€™s pretty rad! šŸ™‚

Play BOOOSTĀ Enhanced version on itch.io!

 

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rAge 2015: No More Boxes!, Arduino & NagJam

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tuism

Twoplus Games went to rAge 2015, and it was fantastic!

There were 14 local developers at the home_coded section at rAge this year, everyone showing off their awesome talent and games.

We took along three games: No More Boxes, Beat Attack and Invader Crush, because we couldnā€™t decide on one. We made a cool Arduino game selector gadget:

(The Arduino game setup. Thanks to IGN Africa for the photo)

 

Most of the time we spent playing No More Boxes!

 

 

We shared a spaceĀ with Paul, creator of Clutchfighter:

(Steven Tu and Paul Campbell Potgieter, photo courtesy of IGN Africa)

 

NagJam

 

Just before rAge, NAG put out a challenge - create a game in 72 hours (with the theme “Donā€™t Touch That”), and show it off at rAge. We made a game for it - Royal Smash Royale, a four-player arena where players have a hammer and must smash a horde of pesky critters - but watch out - every once in a while King Roy declares one of the species protected, and you mustnā€™t touch them, or youā€™ll incur the ire of the Royal Turrets of Protection Policing!

The game was SO GOOD (but not too good) that it won 4th place where a 4th place wasnā€™t planned initially. NAG created a spot just for this game, and for that we are eternally grateful (and bemused)!

 

Coverage

 

Here are the bits of coverage that weā€™ve seen so far on our appearance at rAge, thanks to the press for playing our games with us šŸ˜€

 

In all, rAge 2015 was a fantastica experience. A great big thanks to NAG for organising, and for everyone in MakegamesSA for pulling together and making it happen as a collective!