This Indie Life: Lessons From the Front

Kris Szafranski - Thoughtshelter Games

Everyone’s going “Indie” these days and there are as many ways to succeed and fail as there are types of people that give it a try. For Kris Szafranski, the journey is its own reward. It’s about growth, learning, and loving the challenge of new horizons.

One year ago Kris founded Thoughtshelter Games, having stepped out of a prominent position at a popular company to work as an independent game developer. Join us to hear about Kris’ experiences and trials, successes and failures.

Expect candid observations and honest reflection on the lessons he’s learned during the development of A Druid’s Duel, Thoughtshelter Games’ upcoming strategy title. You’ll follow the game’s ups and downs through these mini post-mortems:

• Concepting and false starts
• Competitive analysis, technology, and market choices
• Prototyping and gathering feedback
• Motivation and planning for teams of one
• Finding and working with contractors
• Exposure and Kickstarter, a marketing dilemma
• Showing at PAX East 2014

3D Engine

Andy Korth

Andy Korth of Howling Moon Software will present a simple 3D graphics engine he made from scratch using C# (embedded mono). It uses GLFW (a lighterweight framework like SDL) for windowing and input, and OpenGL ES 2.0 for rendering. While OpenGL ES 2.0 is usually associated with mobile, it makes a great choice for a desktop engine due to it’s excellent cross platform support, reduced complexity, and modernity.

• OpenGLES shader language is fun and easy. (and pretty)
• Displaying fancy 3D models from scratch isn’t as hard as you think
• Full screen shader effects are easy too. (Playing with the depth buffer, color correction/adjustment, blurs, etc)