Indie Game Lunch Hour

Different indie game studios do different things well! Not all companies make all games types the same. So how do you pick the specialization of your indie game studio?This week we were joined by Oswald Weber, the founder of Secret Item Games and a successful game developer. He gave us perspective on what it's like to run a game studio, how to port games, and more. Learn more about Oswald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oswald-weber-887623a4/Get your game ported: https://www.secret-item-games.com/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7Learn more about us: https://indiegameacademy.com/

What does a Narrative Designer do? How does somebody get a Narrative Design job? These and so many more questions get answered this week by our own Geoffrey Golden. An experienced Narrative Designer and Games Writer with many interesting projects under his belt, Geoffrey is totally a hoot to chat with! Listen to Adventure Snack: https://adventuresnack.substack.com/More about Geoffrey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreygolden/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7Learn more about us: https://indiegameacademy.com/

Indie Games are incredible at delivering emotional impact on their users. Our own childhood games often shape us into who we are. But crafting that emotional deliverable can be hard! In this episode of the IGA Lunch Hour, we talk with Chris Bourassa, Creative Director on Darkest Dungeon, about creating an emotional theme for your games.About Chris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-bourassa-2a422126/Darkest Dungeon 2: https://www.darkestdungeon.com/darkest-dungeon-2/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7Learn more about us: https://indiegameacademy.com/

What job title is right for you? What do you do to prepare for the interview? How do you build up your portfolio? How do you write a solid resume? These questions and more get answered on this episode of the IGA Lunch Hour. Our guest this week is Eli Delventhal, an Engineering Manager at Facebook where he works on the future of games. More about Eli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elidelventhal/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7Learn more about us: https://indiegameacademy.com/

In our first "Community" episode of the IGA Lunch Hour we focus on community member thoughts and opinions rather than the perceptive of experts in the industry. Today we chose to talk about what we call the "Ten Commandments of Indie Studios." Basically, what are the holy rules we can all agree on that will make what we do professionally a more joyous, equitable experience. Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7Learn more about us: https://indiegameacademy.com/

Analytics and tech are a powerful part of making games, and designing them for players. This week on the IGA Lunch Hour we are joined by Fernando Aires, a Product Engineering Manager at Arkadium. We talk about engineering management, technical templates, and Analytics in game design.Fernando Aires: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aires/Arkadium: https://www.arkadium.com/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7Learn more about us: https://indiegameacademy.com/

Procedural Generation, also called ProcGen, gets tossed around as this magic word in video games. It's a thing that cool indie developers use. But what does it even mean? In this episode Adrian Herbez, a Senior Software Engineer at Together Labs, teaches you what procedural generation in video games is.Go to the Roguelike Celebration: https://www.roguelike.club/Check out Adrian: http://www.adrianherbez.net/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7Learn more about us: https://indiegameacademy.com/

Creating a unique aesthetic for your game often takes indie titles to the next level... but it's hard! How does one go about designing an exciting visual visual theme for their video game? Today we were joined by Brendan Milos, a long time Game Artist and visual master, to talk it out!Learn about Brendan: http://www.brendanmilosart.com/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7

This week at the Indie Game Academy we talked to Andrew Lowen and Sean Bradford, two of the masterminds behind Next Level Web. NLW markets crowdfunding campaigns, and provides marketing for games in general. The duo answered our questions on how to market your video game and provided many amazing marketing insights. Check out their Podcast: https://crowdfundingnerds.com/Hire them: https://nextlevelweb.com/Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7

The term "Technical Artist" is such a mysterious one. These people use the power of code to create beautiful solutions to visual problems. And it is *complicated.* This week we were joined by Alan Jones, a Technical Artist at Microsoft working on the Hololens project. We talked through what a Technical Artist does, how to get started in the space, and more.Come to the next IGA Lunch Hour live every Wednesday at 12pm EST on our Discord channel to be a part of the fun and to be recorded in the next episode: https://discord.gg/gFGAG54WK7