Panel: From Player to Developer

Tags: posts, conferences, panels, game design, other people's games, links, perth games festival, from tumblr,

I got asked to be on a panel about how I got into games for the Perth Games Festival, here's the notes I plan to work from.

Summary:

I'm a hobbyist visual novel and puzzle game maker. I have health problems that mean I can't work  an actual job, I make games very slowly and don't have the energy to promote them much so the income they bring in is always going to be limited. I treat it like a hobby and make my games "pay what you want", so that as many people can play them as possible. Luckily my husband earns enough to support us both.

I've been making little games every now and then since I first got access to a computer as a child. But until a few years ago being in the games industry seemed both impossible and unappealing. I can program, but my talents and interests tend more to abstract ideas than the kind of fiddly technical problems that seemed to be 90% of games programming. And  while I've always liked art and writing I never felt I was good enough to do them professionally.

The two things that propelled me into games making were (1) becoming so sick I had to quit working and needed a hobby (2) encountering the visual novel framework Ren’py, which takes care of most of the fiddly technical stuff I don't care about but still lets me code in complex extra features if I want them.

I've since put out the original scifi visual novel SOON, the Unity based puzzle game Perpixeled, and the demo for a dating sim based on Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey. All of which can be seen on my itchio account.

Over time I've connected more with other game developers, and while I can feel self conscious as a hobbyist they've been very welcoming, and it's been fantastic  for encountering new ideas and talking to people with similar interests.

Since game making is a hobby for me I use cheap or free tools, and avoid hiring other people. I have zero creative skill or motivation when it comes to music, until now I've relied on free resources but will probably end up hiring a composer to score a game one day.

If you have any questions please ask, and I will do my best to answer! [[MORE]]

Tools and resources I have used:

Fairly easy to use:

A bit of a learning curve:

Other resources:

More of my backstory:

I did a Phd in computational mathematics, then worked as a science communicator and data analyst. I liked the idea of being more creative but lacked the motivation and self confidence to do more than the odd little sketch. And my attempted programming projects tended to stop working for no apparent reason. So I stuck to my strength: maths.

I developed serious chronic fatigue syndrome nine years ago. I had to quit my job, and could no longer do high level maths. I desperately needed a new source of purpose and accomplishment. So I got into making fanfic and fanart, where the bar for making other people happy turned out to be low enough for me to pass pretty easily.

About 6 years ago I encountered a fan game made in the visual novel engine Renpy. The game was clearly thrown together without much effort yet ran perfectly. Sure enough, the engine was easy to use and reliable.

I made a few silly parody games which was super fun. I liked the idea of making something original but wasn't sure what.

Someone I know in the online femslash community reblogged a post on tumblr talking about how cool it would be to make a lesbian vampire dating sim but noone would be interested. A bunch of people, myself included, said YES I WOULD, and to everyone's surprise we actually started making the game, now called Copper Rose.

It was a great experience, we all shared ideas and played to our respective strengths. At that point I'd only been identifying as a bi woman for a short time, and it was cool making queer fiction with a group of other queer women (which we all identified as at that time) After a while most of the team lost interest and wandered off to do other things, leaving me and one other person, Ash, who I have become close friends with. As it happened we both realised we're non binary and bi, so it's a bi non binary vampire dating sim now :)

And the two of us are still at it! Visible progress on the specific game Copper Rose has been very slow for various reasons, and the game doesn't resemble the original much any more, but it's still been a really amazing creative partnership. We've learned a lot about ourselves and about game making, and we have helped each other a lot with our respective side projects.

At the beginning of the Copper Rose project I was just the background artist because I lacked the self confidence to volunteer for anything else, but over time I ended up becoming one of the writers, and taking over the programming.

I now make original games by myself. I'm still not as good at any of writing, coding, or art as I would like, but I can do them all well enough, and have learned a lot and am learning still.