independent games summit

February 18 & 19 - 2008
(Monday & Tuesday)

The Independent Games Summit features lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators around, including many former and current Independent Games Festival finalists. The 2008 Independent Games Summit seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from indie game distribution methods through game design topics, guerrilla marketing concepts, student indie game discussions, and much more.

[See Independent Games Summit sessions]

Independent Games Summit Advisors

Steve Swink
Game Designer
Flashbang Studios

Steve Swink: often abridged 'Swink'; occasionally extrapolated to 'Swunken Treasure,' 'A Swinkle in Time', or 'Mr. Swink.'

Steve is an independent game designer, artist, programmer, and mountain unicyclist currently residing in Tempe, Arizona. He's an industry drone for Tremor Entertainment, Neversoft; a teacher of game and level design at the Art Institute of Phoenix; a cheesecake connoisseur.

Matthew Wegner
Founder & CEO
Flashbang Studios

Matthew Wegner is currently CEO and co-founder of Flashbang Studios, an independent development studio. Matthew acted as producer and programmer for Flashbang’s two Independent Games Festival-nominated titles, BEESLY’S BUZZWORDS and GLOW WORM, and has worked on five titles for Flashbang ranging from a downloadable title for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim to a serious training game for Cisco Systems. Matthew is also the editor of Fun-Motion, a review site dedicated to covering physics-based games. Fun-Motion includes reviews for over 60 physics games, interviews with physics game developers, and articles on physics-based game design. The site has been covered by The Wall Street Journal, the front page of Digg, and countless blogs. In his spare time Matthew enjoys hardcore mountain unicycling.

Independent Games Summit Sessions

Evolving AQUARIA
Speaker(s): Alec Holowka & Derek Yu (Bit Blot)
Session description: Indie game creators Alec Holowka and Derek Yu discuss their journey developing the IGF grand prize winning game AQUARIA. From first prototype to final release, team Bit Blot share old builds and prototypes, mistakes and successes, design decisions and lessons learned demonstrating how AQUARIA was grown, not planned.

A Tale of Two Kyles
Speaker(s): Kyle Gabler (2D Boy) & Kyle Gray (Electronic Arts)
Session description: Ever wanted to quit your corporate gig and make your own game? What about pitch your game to the head of the company and have it made? Two alumni from the Experimental Gameplay Project compare their experiences in the indie and corporate scene. Kyle Gabler left EA in May 2006 to start his own company (currently creating WORLD OF GOO), while Kyle Gray stayed behind to pitch his own title. Both made their own game. It’s unlimited resources vs. unlimited freedom in this, 'A Tale of Two Kyles.'

Postmortem: PixelJunk Series
Speaker(s): Dylan Cuthbert (Q Games)
Session description: Kyoto's Q Games was founded in 2001 by Dylan Cuthbert, a veteran developer who worked with Nintendo on the original version of STARFOX. The company is now self-funding and creating PlayStation 3 titles in the PIXELJUNK series, with PIXELJUNK RACERS completed and PIXELJUNK MONSTERS due out soon. Cuthbert will discuss the process and reality of creating this 'small game' series, inspired by classic '80s Commodore 64 and Spectrum games."

The Indies of Tomorrow
Speaker(s): Tracy Fullerton (USC Interactive Media)
Session description: Game studies programs are rapidly becoming hotbeds of indie game development, a place for both students and researchers to innovate and take risks in low budget, high impact projects that explore strange new worlds of game design. The director of the USC Game Innovation Lab, the research unit behind projects like CLOUD, FLOW and THE NIGHT JOURNEY, talks about how to create a culture of rampant experimentation and innovation, and make the games you can’t make anywhere else.

Spreading Your Message As An Indie Developer
Speaker(s): Thomas Arundel, Mark Morris, Chris Delay (Introversion)
Session Description: UK-based Introversion, the creators of Defcon and the multiple IGF award-winning Darwinia, are notable in their use of effective branding and positioning to become one of the few indie developers making inroads towards entering mainstream gamer consciousness. But how? Explanations will ensue!

Innovating In The Casual Market
Speaker(s): Arthur Humphrey (Last Day Of Work)
Session Description: To some independent developers, "casual" can be a bad word - connoting gameplay roteness, perhaps. But why does financial success, being on a certain portal, or the arbitrarily assigned label "casual" make you a sellout? Humphrey (Virtual Villagers) has created sophisticated independently-developed titles that are hits in the casual market, and explains his views on the surprisingly large indie/casual intersection.

Contracting Vs. Indie: The Showdown
Speaker(s): Brent Fox, Steve Taylor (Ninjabee/Wahoo)
Brent 'Indie Core' Fox and Steve 'We Need Money to Eat' Taylor square off in a battle of wits and whimsy over a question facing many indies: to contract or not to contract? If your company can’t survive, you can’t the games you want. If you can’t make the games you want, why make games at all? Find out how Wahoo/Ninja Bee strike a balance between Outpost Kaloki, Band Of Bugs, and Disney's Trivia Time in this battle of ‘Contracting vs. Indie.’

Ninja Ways: An N+ Postmortem
Speaker(s): Mare Sheppard, Raigan Burns (Metanet Software)
Following the success of addictive ninja-themed platform action title IGF Audience Award-winner N, which is debuting both on Xbox Live Arcade and on the Nintendo DS/Sony PSP as N+, the creators of the original title explain how they moved their property onto consoles, with details on financials, technical issues and solutions, and a plethora of other specifics for indies aspiring to console/handheld.

Making Better Games: An Independent Game Manifesto
Speaker(s): Kellee Santiago (ThatGameCompany), Jon Mak (Queasy Games), TBD
If a game is fun, it’s considered a good game leading players and reviewers to laud its “gorgeous graphics”, “awesome music”, or “intuitive controls”. Unfortunately, none of this is useful in understanding how to create better games. Come see the creators of indie hits Everyday Shooter, fl0w, and more obsess over games in ways only a game designer would - as they delve deep into an illuminating critical analysis of games they find exciting, inspiring, and influential.

An Indie Reality Check
Speaker(s) N'Gai Croal (Newsweek), Stephen Totilo (MTV News)
How does the world at large really sees indies? Prominent game critics Stephen Totilo of MTV and N’Gai Croal of Newsweek take an objective look at the current state of indie games from the perspective of news, media, and entertainment in general. How are independent games doing in terms of mindshare relative to games as a whole, how could we be doing better, and what can we do today to make indie games more prominent? N’Gai and Stephen debate the answers.

The Web Game Renaissance
Speaker(s): Chris Pasley (Kongregate), TBA
Small web games have become a viable creative form and business model, with sites like Kongregate, Newgrounds, Instant Action, and Arcadetown pulling down huge monthly incomes and attracting millions of visitors per year. Including representatives from the major players in this emerging game space, this panel will candidly discuss the eye-popping financials behind today’s most successful web games. From Desktop Tower Defense to a host of others, see how tiny in-browser games can be innovative, lucrative, and indie.

A Jonathan Blow Lecture
Speaker(s): Jonathan Blow (Number-None)
Session Description: The former Game Developer magazine columnist and creator of the IGF award-winning Braid, due out soon for Xbox Live Arcade, delivered one of the highlights of the 2007 Independent Games Summit, and has since keynoted the Montreal Game Summit. He's promised to deliver something special for IGS this year - more details soon.

Juggling Licensed, Original Indie Game Development
Speaker(s): John Beck, Matt Bozon (WayForward Technologies)
Session Description: How do you make the game great, especially when working on a licensed game, while also keeping the lights on? What are the realities of working as a long-time independent developer? WayForward (Contra 4, Shantae) has weathered the storm for longer than many, making acclaimed licensed and original games alike, and the business and creative minds behind the cult favorite company explain how to juggle priorities smartly.

Postmortem: Torpex's Schizoid
Speaker(s): Bill Dugan (Torpex)
As the first XBLA game to use Microsoft's XNA framework, and the first title from independent start-up Torpex, Schizoid is interesting from a multitude of perspectives. But what went right and wrong during the console downloadable title's development? Torpex's Dugan presents plenty of practical tips and specifics on the creation of the title.

Unique Knobs For Indie Games
Speaker(s): Raigan Burns (Metanet Software)
Session Description: With so many options for middleware and freeware, isn’t writing your own physics or graphics engine just technological masturbation? Raigin Burns of Metanet Software makes the case that creating your own unique technologies from scratch allows freedom of expression impossible with middleware and canned solutions. If Metanet’s hit game N is “just a regular platformer with novel collision detection”, could creating unique technology lead to innovation?

The Indie Lifestyle
Speaker(s): Noel Llopis (Power Of Two Games), Jacob Van Wingen (Gastronaut Studios), TBA
Hear from full-time indies. How do they manage their time, their projects, and their lives? This in-depth panel presents practical tips on working from home, with teams of friends, remote teams, motivation, and everything else indies typically have to face.