WARNING! Great advices below. Nadbor, the creator of the web game called Turing has learned a lot by creating his game and wants to share his experience with us. Keep reading!

Tell us something about yourself

I’m a failed physicist – grad school dropout – turned programmer. I currently work in an ad agency developing bidding algorithms for real time bidding. In my free time I run programming workshops for schoolchildren, make games and study for quant interviews. I love math, physics, video games and problem solving of any kind.

What is your game about?

Turing is a robo-flavored puzzle game about programming. It consists of some easy and some not so easy algorithmic problems expressed in a way understandable by both a 10-year old and his grandma. As such it can be used as a resource for teaching programming to children, but even experienced developers find some of the levels challenging (I am told).

Where did the game idea come from?

http://pleasingfungus.com/Manufactoria/

What can you tell us about the development of the game?

It was all me, it took me most of the evenings and weekends from January to June 2013.

What is the most important thing you learned when making this game?

Deliberating over the best possible choice of technology/style/architecture/whatever actually takes more time than just going with any choice and getting to work right away. And that’s even if it means sometimes wasting time on dead end ideas. Actually no time you spend working is wasted – you will be that much smarter for it.

What advice would you tell people who are beginning with game development?

• Don’t wait for a better time. Start working now. Don’t try to learn everything before you start. You will learn as you go.
• Prototype everything. In code, on paper – whatever. It will let you find flaws in your game at a stage when they are still easy to fix (or change direction altogether). It will also allow you to easily communicate your idea to others maybe even ignite some interest
• Don’t go bragging about your game until you have actually something to show – you will be more motivated to work this way. You would think that having friends waiting for the creation that you announced would be motivating but it’s not. It makes you spend all your action points on talking and not working. It’s much better to set yourself a goal like: I will post on fb that I’m making a game no sooner than when I have the first level ready. 
• Don’t take game advice from non-gamers. They have no clue and are in general awful human beings 
• Use an IDE. I know notepad++ is awesome, but after a couple hundred lines of code things start to get messy 
• Pretty much regardless of you own skill level you are going to meet more experienced programmers. Some of them are going to trash-talk the technology you are using and all of your design choices. If they offer very concrete, achievable alternatives – then maybe listen to them. Otherwise – avoid at all cost. If everyone spent time trying to satisfy standards of elitist grumps, nothing would ever get done. First make a game that works, perfection will come later.

Thanks for all of your advices! Your effort is shown on your game and we wish you the best.

[button link=”http://turing-game.pl/” target=”_blank” style=”none, small, large, biglarge” title=”PLAY Turing here”][/button]

Ralph Croly is the creator of this fun game called Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan. He talked to us with a very funny tone. If you want to learn and laugh at the same time, read on at this funny character.

Can you tell us something about yourself and bitSmith games?

We’re a bunch of ne’er-do-wells from Dublin, Ireland who have been slogging away making games in various grotty lairs since 20-dickinty-11. Our main goal is to have fun, and force other people to too. Whether they like it or not.

Describe us your game

Forged from an ancient tale of Celtic mythology. An action-adventure set in a future Ireland devastated by technomagical war and economic collapse, humanity clings on by using the remnants of technology that survive. When their ancient spring of life begins to fail, an unwanted orphan child must leave the safety of his villages’ mountaintop refuge. With only an ancient sword and a mysterious metal glove, he ventures into lands unexplored and twisted by strange ancient powers.

– Celtic-punk – a fusion of Celtic and steampunk aesthetics
– A rich and intriguing world, brought to life by beautiful hand-drawn sketches, lovingly painted and animated in high resolution
– A lush world populated with strange creatures and vicious enemies, born in the cauldron of war
– Fast-paced combat and epic boss encounters
– Critically acclaimed original soundtrack – Music from Irelands premier independent electronic artists
– Play in Irish – a full Irish translation of the game.

Where did the game idea come from?

We wanted to make a game based on Irish Mythology for a change, so we based it on The Táin, the ancient Irish epic that features our greatest hero: Cúchulainn

What can you tell us about the development of the game?

The original members of bitSmith Games started making Ku as our final project in our Digital Media/Games design Masters in DIT Aungier st in 2011. After we left college we kept on going, forming bitSmith soon after, and taking on two more members. We luckily got into an accelerator course in the NDRC in Dublin, which helped us pay the bills, and gave us some much needed business savvy. Enterprise Ireland also helped to fund us, and we released Ku on iOS in January of this year, with Android, PC and Mac following a couple of months later. We also have plans to release a Linux version soon.

 What is the most important thing you learned when making this game?

Patience is a virtue, and iteration is king :-P

What advice would you tell people who are beginning with game development?

Jump in! The tools are cheaper ( free! ) and easier to get to grips with than ever, so if you want to do it, just do it! Don’t be afraid to fail, you will learn a lot and be three times as strong the next time. Also – show your game to people as early as possible – it will save you a million headaches in the long run.

Anything else you would like to share with the audience?

I like turtles.

Thank you Ralph for this fun interview.

[button link=”http://bitsmithgames.com/Games/ku-shroud-of-the-morrigan” target=”_blank” style=”none, small, large, biglarge” title=”Download Ku: Shroud of the Morrigan for iOS, Android, PC, Mac & Linux”][/button]

Splatter is not the classic shooting game. It is inspired by them, but with a light/shadow gameplay. Confused? Read what its creator has to say.

Tell us something about yourself

Me: I’m Thomas Schulze, 34 years old now, programming for nearly 30 years now. I started on a GDR computer called the Z1013 and grew from there over KC85/4, Robotron computers, the Amiga 500 to the PC. So I also had my share of games over the years, some of them are still shown at my team’s website http://www.dreamworlds.de My “company” Dreamworld: is me and an old friend of mine, Michael. I’m doing all the organisation, coding, PR, game design and story writing. Michael does all the graphics and visual design and all web-related stuff such as the web shop. There are a lot more people hoping that we succeed so they can join us to bring our sparetime projects to a new level :)

What can you tell us about Splatter?

Splatter is an Oldschool Topdown shooter with a unique light/shadow gameplay and gorgeous light/shadow graphics effects to accompany. The game offers a film-noir-styled storyline to play, upgradeable weapons, boss battles, dialogue and side missions, and secrets. When you’re done with the story, you can start another run at the new difficulty level, or you can jump into the Arcade game mode to fight for ranks in online leaderboards. You’ll get to keep all your upgrades. Or you gather a few friends in front of your computer. Splatter can be played in local multiplayer modes by up to 4 players. You either frag each other in Deathmatch or you stand together against ever-growing hordes of enemies in Survival. More game modes will follow via free updates.

Where did the game idea come from?

I loved Crimson Land for the shooting, but I came up with the light/shadow stuff because shooting gets old after a while.

What can you tell us about the development of the game?

Splatter was made by two people: me and Michael. It took us roughly 2 years, with occasional help from other Dreamworlds friends to bridge some gaps. Sound and music was contracted to Sven Gerlach who did a really good job for a more-than-friendly price. I still owe you one, Sven! I’m using C++, always switching to the most recent version of Visual Studio as soon as it’s available. I’m especially in love with C++11, even though Microsoft left the C++ side behind quite a bit in the recent years.

What is the most important thing you learned when making this game?

Organizing myself. This was my first project as a fulltime indie dev.

What advice would you tell people who are beginning with game development?

Stick to it, be curious, have fun. And leave it a hobby.

Anything else you would like to share with the audience?

Buy my game. I really think it’s way better than most of the other topdown shooters around. Especially after playing Gatling Gears.

Thanks Thomas! Awesome job with Splatter!

[button link=”http://www.splattergame.net/” target=”_blank” style=”none, small, large, biglarge” title=”Download Splatter for PC”][/button]