In Progress Games by Members Mentioned:

• Furnace – StarCraft 2 Mod
• Lem’s Wall
• Reactor
• Tooth Decay (part of Candy Jam)
• One Card Hero (being ported to Android)
• EvilQuest (on Steam “really soon now”)

Software Mentioned:

• Box2D – 2D Physics Library
• Audacity – Audio Recorder and Editor
• Reaper – Digital Audio Workstation
• Conversations Network Levelator – Podcast Audio Processor
• Sfxr / Bfxr– Sound Effects Generator
• PxTone – Music Sequencer
• GarageBand – Music Creation
• FL Studio – Music Creation
• Open Broadcaster Software – Video Recording and Steaming
• nVidia ShadowPlay – Video Recording and Streaming

Audio / Video Gear Shown or Mentioned:

• Black Magic Design / Intensity Pro
• Cannon Vixia Line
• Hauppauge HD PVR / Gaming Edition 2
• Composite to HDMI Scan Converter
• OREI HDMI 4×1 Splitter
• Blue Snowflake / Yeti
• Sterling Audio ST51
• Audix OM2
• Audio-Technica PRO 70 Lavalier
• Shure SM57
• M-Audio Audio Buddy / ProFire 610

Other Stuff Mentioned:

• FLOSS Weekly Podcast with Audacity creator
• SoundCloud – Music Sharing Site
• Bandcamp – Indie Music Marketplace
• Digital Juice – Royalty Free Music
• Knoxville Guitar Center Events and Classes
• Unity Training Videos
• Beginning 3D Game Development with Unity 4
• CodeStock – Knoxville Developer’s Conference

Be sure to stop by your favorite coffee shop this week and grab the January 23rd, 2014 issue of the Knoxville Metropulse, with cover story featuring the Knoxville Game Design meetup and the game jam.  If you can’t wait, you can also read the story online or download a PDF version that includes photos.  (In case these link no longer work in the future we’ve made an archive copy of the story here).  A big thanks to Mike Gibson (author) and David Luttrell (photographer) for their work covering the group and our participation in the game jam.

Our next meetup is February 9th and the topic is tentatively “music”.  I’ve reached out to local musician Zack Parrish and he will be coming to the group for a indie game music Q&A but his schedule is packed so it won’t be for a few months.  If anyone has a topic they would like to share for February let me know, if not we’ll go forward with “music” in a round table discussion style.

Show and Tell Links:

• John Lane video Portfolio
• ShoeBox – Open source texture packer
• GraphicsGale – Sprite animation editor
• Tile Studio – Tile map and sprite sheet editor
• Lookdown Media – Local Indie Developers
• AndEngine – Open source android game engine
• Video: Zelda (LoZ, AoL, and ALttP) Complete Playthroughs Time-Lapse

Unity 2D Links:

• Tiled – Tile map editor
• UTiled – Unity TMX map reader
• Video: Live Training 16 Dec 2013 – 2D Character Controllers
• Video: Unity 4.3 – 2D Game Development Walkthrough

(Quick reminder, our normal meetup has been moved to next weekend and is in a special format for the game jam).

Some big things happening for local indie developers this month!

First, Levi D. Smith has released ANSI_GFX_ADVNTR on the Xbox 360.  You can find the game under the Xbox Live Indie Games section on the Xbox 360, or send it to your console directly from the xbox.xom website.  Here is a bit on the game from the press release:

Knoxville, TN – November 2013 – Levi D. Smith presents TTY GFX ADVNTR, his second game published on the XBox Live Indie Game marketplace.  TTY GFX ADVNTR puts the player in the role of a hero who must defeat the dragon to save the princess.

The idea for the game was originally conceived through the game jam competition, where the theme was to create a game using a low level programming language in 48 hours.  The game was inspired by BBS DOOR games of the mid-90’s, and it uses a graphical style of games that were played through a computer terminal (TTY).  After receiving positive feedback from the Indie developer community, Levi decided to port the original game to the Xbox Live Indie Game platform so that it could be enjoyed by a wider audience.

As the hero, the player must battle monsters across five different lands to gain the experience needed to conquer the dragon.  Long time RPG fans will find the battle system and mechanics very familiar.  While on the adventure, the player will meet various allies who will assist the player in progressing through the story.   Weapons and armor crafted by the blacksmith will give the player the needed power to complete the adventure.

Second, Chaosoft Games will be bringing EvilQuest to Steam! As part of the December 4th batch, EvilQuest was greenlit to be on Steam, the largest digital distribution site for games (it’s estimated that 75% of all digital games purchased for the PC are through Steam).  I hear that Josh Ferguson has already commissioned a gold plated version of G1 Megatron appropriate to his new status in society.

KGD member Levi D. Smith took part in a game jam.  The theme was a “Low-Level Jam” and contestants to create a game using a programming language or tool that does compile into a machine language.  Using C, Levi created ANSI_GFX_ADVNTR a game inspired by  BBS DOOR games of the mid-90’s.  Check out the video below of the game with developer commentary:

The Knoxville Raspberry Pi Users Group (knoxpi) fist meeting will be Sunday September 15th, 2013 @ 3 PM.

Forrest brought and demonstrated his Ouya, if anyone is interested in more information on the Ouya check out their website.

Two members entered last month in the game jam:

• Sixths by Dylan
• Bomb Squad by Levi

Getting Started with Game Design list:

• Scratch
• CraftStudio
• Construct 2
• Unity
• Python and Pygame

Sculptris and Modeling Tools:

• Sculptris
• xNormal
• MeshLab

Here are the links and slides from the July meetup:

• BFXR
• Unity
• Unity 4.0 – Mecanim Animation Tutorial
• GameJolt – (Levi’s profile)
• Game Jam Competition
  • Levi’s Profile
  • Mike’s Profile
• Game Jam Tools List
• Blender
• 2D Toolkit
• Dylan’s 2D Toolkit Slides
• Dylan’s Demo Game
• BMFont
• 2D platformer tutorial

Here are the links from the May Meetup:

• http://craftstud.io/
• http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=19362
• http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=19778
• http://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/unity-standard/simple-2d-shooter

Next month’s meeting is on Mother’s day and we’ll be sure to end on time for anyone that has evening plans.  Topic will be open discussion around Kickstarter and crowd funded game development.

Opening Notes:

• East Coast Game Conference
• Southern Interactive Entertainment & Game Expo
• Game Jam Competition
• Sunburn 2.1 Early Access
• Unity 2D Toolkit
• Unity StandardSimple 2D Shooter
  (registration required)

Game Programming in 3D with the HTML 5 Canvas:

• Bug Planet X
• (Arcade) Battlezone
• Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C (2nd Edition)
• GameDev.net 3D Clipping to an arbitrary FOV with 3×3 or 4×4 Matrices
• 3d rotations around the local axis of an object
• 3d Vector Mathematics
• 3D Clipping
• SJBaker Wikiid: 3D Math – Support Functions
• Flipcode: 3D Geometry Primer: Chapter 1
• Phatcode: 3D Series Chapter 5: Lookat
• First Person Camera Control with LWJGL
• Camera in Direct3D
• Cubic.org Camera Tutorial
• Canvas 3d JS Library
• three.js

Below are the slides from Levi’s talk this past Sunday, and you can download them in PDF form here.