December 2021 Update
Merry Almost-Christmas!
It’s the festive time of the year again! Hope you’re all full of turkeys/tofurkeys and gravy! Before we wrap up the year, we still have some fun things coming up, such as….
Executive Director Update
Hard to believe that 2021 is almost over but it has been another fun and eventful year for Seattle Indies! January saw us host a Global Game Jam site for the sixth year in a row and our first fully virtual site as GGJ was fully online in 2021 due to the ongoing global Pandemic. Over 250 jammers joined us to make 60 games around the theme of Lost and Found, both records for our site!
In April we teamed up with IndieCade again to bring the fourth annual Games For Our Future Climate Jam. 219 Jammers from all over the world joined us to make 29 games to help raise awareness for Clean Energy Solutions.
July brought warm summer weather and bright hopes with vaccines being widely available and distributed so for the first time in 15 months we gathered in person at Optimism Brewing for the Seattle Indies Social. It was one of our biggest turnouts in the history of the event with smiles and hugs and warm welcomes from friends long separated by circumstances outside of our control.
Breakthrough cases and the Delta variant brought those high hopes back down to Earth a bit but we took a month off, regrouped and then resumed in person gatherings with more stringent checking of vaccination records and mask mandates in place. We co-hosted a great PAX picnic with our SIX participants and the Games Industry Gathering and hopefully will continue that as an annual tradition and open it up to the community at large.
August saw the return of HYPE JAM where jammers are challenged to make a trailer for a game that doesn’t exist. Check out all 14 entries https://itch.io/jam/hype-jam-2021/entries. We also passed the 2,000 member mark on our Discord and celebrated by playing Jackbox together.
In September we presented Seattle Indies Expo (SIX) 2021 in an online format for the second year in a row featuring 24 of the best locally made indie games and saw record viewership peaking at over 8,000 viewers thanks to our front page feature on Twitch. Once again we teamed with SOBA for production and hosting help and they did a spectacular job. Relive all of SIX 2021 on our YouTube playlist.
In October we revived Feedback Circle as its own bi-monthly event where we encourage game creators to bring their WIP games, share them on our Discord and ask participants from the community to give critical feedback on any part of the game that needs it.
November was a busy month with the inaugural Puddle Jump Games and Play Festival where we teamed up with Playtest NW and the Fremont Abbey Arts Center to celebrate and play locally made digital and tabletop games and listen to some excellent presentations on the intersection of art and play. We also hosted the fifth annual and second virtual Seattle Indies Slow Jam with 107 jammers making 27 games around this year’s theme Cozy, you can read more about the jam in the recap below.
Our regular events like Game Club and Indie Support Group/Coffee Break continue to roll along and be popular for our Discord community to participate in. The main Coffee Break event happens every Saturday starting at 1pm but now you are likely to find people hanging out in that channel most nights, working on their games, chatting and having a good time.
Hope you have a great Holiday Season and we’ll see you in 2022!
Upcoming Events and Recap
The Seattle Indies Holiday Party is returning to Factory Luxe (the old Rainier Brewery) on Sunday
December 12 2021! Get your tickets here, if you haven’t already. Board games, the photo booth, holiday cocktails, all of your favorites will be back for the most anticipated party of the year.
Coffee crawl around Cap Hill with DC+ and IGDA Seattle takes place on December 4th! Check out all the info right here.
The Seattle Indies Slow Jam has wrapped up virtually with COZY as the theme! Check out all the entries right here here and let us know what you think on our Discord!
Monthly Events
Indie Coffee Break Once a week, take a Coffee Break with our Discord community, and chat with your local game devs! Meet new folks. Talk about games. Share your work. Ask for help / feedback. Commiserate over problems. Collaborate on solutions. Give high-fives. We’re a weekly social work group for game devs of all levels and disciplines. Join us on Discord every Saturday from 1pm to 7pm! Drop by anytime; folks usually drop in and out throughout the day.
The Seattle Indies Discord Social will take place Tuesday, December 6th from 7pm – 10pm. Can’t make it to the in-person socials? Or, want to come hang out? Come join us every first Tuesday of every month for the online Discord socia
The In-person Social will take place Tuesday, December 21, 2021, 7pm – 10pm at Optimism as usual Join us in Capitol Hill for some well-deserved mingling, drinks, and socialization! Make some new friends, catch up with old ones, and find out what the community’s up to.
We are bringing back Feedback Circle as a standalone event on December 8, 2021 @ 7PM for you to get critical feedback on your game from our community of developers.
Indie Support Coworking Group (ISG) will be resuming in person at AIE starting December 4th, 2021 at 1pm. The coworking session will now be held every other Saturday. Masks will be enforced and vax cards will be checked at the door. Seattle Center wifi will be available for use. Please bring everything you need to be productive. The online Coffee Break session will still be available to anyone who isn’t ready for in person events yet or doesn’t have the ability to attend the in person event. We will be starting with a shorter session than usual to get people back into the swing of things and ramp up from there.
Local Dev News
Shazy-chan just launched a Kickstarter page for “Fall for You” a Rhythm-based Roguelike Gameshow in Hell. Go check it out!
Prickly Pear Games published Cold-Iitzler, a real time strategy game inspired by Dune 2000. All the info here in this tweet for you!
Tau Ceti Studio released Void Eclipse, turn-based strategy in an immersive sci-fi world, blending card battle tactics with 4X grand strategy. If that sounds like your jamp, check out the Steam Page.
Jakub is releasing the DLC for Rain on Your Parade on December 15th. You play as a cute cloud and ruin everyone’s day – now with more levels and features!
Harassment Policy, AAPI, Black Lives Matter, and Resources
Seattle Indies stands with the AAPI community. We are here for our members who have been affected by the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes both locally and nationally. For further resources to educate yourself on the issue and how to take action, here is a useful link: https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/
Seattle Indies hopes to start having in person meetups again soon. To that effect we need everyone to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus as soon as you are able. The Washington State Department of Health has this website for information on where you can get vaccinated in your area.
Seattle Indies believes the stories of the victims of sexual harassment and assault in the games industry that have been shared this past week and before. We strongly condemn the actions by people in power preying on the dreams of vulnerable people trying to make their way in the industry and strive to build an inclusive community that welcomes all minorities to provide a safe environment and a better vision for the game industry.
While our code of conduct states a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind we are especially sensitive to the daily challenges faced by womxn due to the ingrained sexism that has existed in the structure of the games industry for far too long. We are actively working to build a better community of game developers and we all need to do better.
Additionally Board Member August Belhumeur has offered to be a personal resource for anyone who needs help, someone to talk to or some guidance on next steps if you have experienced harassment in the industry either at our events or elsewhere. She can be reached at august@seattleindies.org.
Our friends at Take This Org have compiled valuable resources for anyone in immediate need of professional help for their situation.
Lastly, Seattle Indies and Diversity Collective+ support Black Lives Matter. Here are some resources compiled by Diversity Collective+ for how you can offer support, whether this is financial, contributing to petitions, preparing for protests, or getting informed. If you have additional resources, comment below and we will add them.
As always, keep an eye on our Discord for any last-minute news and discussion, and let us know about any projects you’re working on that you’d like shared on our Steam or Itch collections or tweeted about from @SeattleIndies!
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