Video game start-ups shine at Enterprise Ireland event

Dublin Castle CC via [Dicky]

Ten Irish games companies were among the 103 businesses showcased by Enterprise Ireland this morning at Dublin Castle. Speaking on Morning Ireland, Enterprise Ireland's Chief Executive Julie Sinnamon said that there was a really high callibre of companies to showcase.

Enterprise Ireland is the government body tasked with developing Irish industries for international markets. The High Potential Start-Up Class of 2013 event is used by Enterprise Ireland to introduce companies that it has supported during the previous year.

Ms Sinnamon told RTE that technology companies were leading the pack over the past year.

"The biggest sector of all was really the technology, software, internet, games area... really dynamic, young companies and very enthusiastic and full of energy."

She said these companies were driven by really big ambitions.

The full report released by Enterprise Ireland divides the companies into two groups - 'High Potential Start-ups' that have sucessfully raised seed capital and 'Competetive Start-ups' or early stage companies. 

The list of games-specific companies includes Simteractive, a developer headed up by Elaine Reynolds, formerly of Lionhead and Sixminute - a team formed from the ashes of PopCap's Dublin office.

Here's a list of the games companies involved:

High Potential Start-ups
Gamesparks
Sixminute

Competitive Start-ups
Beat Your Manager
English Bubble
Hail Studios
Rainbow Rocket Studios
Sighter
Simteractive
Powwow
Thoughtbox

Bioshock developer to close

Studio head, Ken Levine, to start new, smaller company with the same publisher

Irrational Games, the team behind the Bioshock series, is being wound up by its founding member, Ken Levine, with the loss of the majority of jobs there.

In a statement on the company's websie Levine explained his reasons saying that he wants to develop different types of games in future.

"Seventeen years is a long time to do any job, even the best one. And working with the incredible team at Irrational Games is indeed the best job I’ve ever had. While I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before."

Bioshock Infinite launched in March of last year after a protracted and sometimes troubled development process. It went on to sell more than 4 million copies in it's first four months on sale.

The sequal to one of the most highly regarded, and critically aclaimed, games of the last hardware generation, it was well recieved but ultimately divided opinion.

Now Levine, and a fifteen person team, will be moving on to something new with their publisher and studio owner, Take Two. In his post on Irrationalgames.com Levine says that he will focus on narrative driven games that are highly replayable.

"I’ll be starting a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two. That is going to mean parting ways with all but about fifteen members of the Irrational team. There’s no great way to lay people off, and our first concern is to make sure that the people who are leaving have as much support as we can give them during this transition."

It remains unclear whether the decision to wind-down the larger team was Levine's or rested with Take Two.

Twitter has been overwhelmed with offers of new jobs for those affected by other developers since the news broke.

Best of luck to all the folks at Irrational. BTW, we have over 70 open positions! http://t.co/x21zkcploT
— Wes Phillips (@WesPhillips) February 18, 2014

Irish indie devs on twitter

Ireland's independent videogame scene is a fast-growing creative industry, full of interesting people and new ideas. You can follow along with the latest news, or join the conversation, with the new Hackett Out 'IndieIRL' list on twitter.

If you have any questions or want to get added to the list you can get in touch with me @padrg.

I'll be posting a permanent link to the list on the navigation pane on the top-right hand side of this site. For now, here's the latest from Ireland's established and up and coming game developers:


Tweets from https://twitter.com/padrg/indieirl

UPDATE: Outerlands video game culture documentary funded on Kickstarter

Outerlands is a new, high-quality video game culture documentary series made by the team behind Co-op, The 1Up Show and Capcom's 'I Am Street Fighter.'  

The five-person Area 5 team got the $210,000 they were looking for on Kickstarter to produce a six episode documentary series focusing on the people who make video game culture dictinct. The campaign reached its target with over a day to spare and an additional $37,481 was pledged before it closed.

Backers needed to hand over at least $25 to get the digital edition of the documentary, with Area 5 also promising to produce new episodes of their video-podcast series, Co-Op.

Area 5's work is characterised by its quality. Below is an example of the sort of work they're known for. These two short films were published on the Kickstarter page.

Irish Dev Terry Cavanagh on Flappy Bird

Image via: terrycavanaghgames.com

Irish indie developer Terry Cavanagh has made his Flappy Bird tribute, Maverick Bird, available for free on his website.

The two-button, PC-only game is built using the same tools as Cavanagh's 2012 hit - Super Hexagon. It expands on Flappy Bird's simplistic game play by allowing players to fly down as well as up to avoid obstacles.

Flappy Bird was a mobile game on iOS and Android developed by Vietmanese developer Dong Nguyen. The game was releasde last summer but rose to prominance in recent weeks. The developer has since pulled the game from the App Store and Google Play saying that its success, and the backlash from gamers, was negatively impacting on his life.

I can call 'Flappy Bird' is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014

Terry Cavanagh, on his twitter account, said that his game is intended as a tribute and not a clone. He is resisting calls to release the game for mobile devices.

Getting asked this lots, so here's an answer: I'm sorry, I'm not porting Maverick Bird to iOS or making a Super version. It's a fan game!
— Terry (@terrycavanagh) February 13, 2014

I'm glad people like it, but understand why I made it. I didn't want the only response to Flappy Bird to be anger and jealousy.
— Terry (@terrycavanagh) February 13, 2014

For a while, in my feed at least, that was the only voice I was hearing. I wanted to express something else. I wanted to celebrate it.
— Terry (@terrycavanagh) February 13, 2014

Outerlands video game documentary enters final days on Kickstarter

Outerlands is a new, high-quality video game culture documentary series made by the team behind Co-op, The 1Up Show and Capcom's 'I Am Street Fighter.'

The five-person Area 5 team are asking for $210,000 on Kickstarter to produce a six episode documentary series focusing on the people who make video game culture dictinct. This morning, while the team are broadcasting a 24-hour livestream on Twitch.tv, the total pledged is approaching $200,000.

You'll need to hand over at least $25 to get the digital edition of the documentary, with Area 5 also promising to produce a new six episode series of their video-podcast series, Co-Op, if they meet their target during the live stream.

Watch it - Steam Dev Days

Valve, the US developer and owner of the Steam digital-distribution marketplace, has published a series of talks and panels from its Steam Dev Days event. The developer focused event was held over two days in Seattle this January.

The 28 videos and accompanying presentations have been published on http://steamdevdays.com/. The series includes both general information and highly technical talks.

There are talks on music in Valve games, on the company's push into virtual reality and the lauch of 'Steam Boxes' - Valve's new Linux-based hardware platform.

There are discussions on economics, Steam Early Access, developing for Linux and using OpenGL.

Below is a video looking at the development of the new Steam controller by Eric Hope and John McCaskey of Valve.

 

Watch it - Steph Thirion on Eliss Infinity

Eliss Infinity released today on iOS. The iPad/iPhone puzzler was inspired by the simplicity of Tetris according to one-man developer Steph Thirion (@stephbysteph).

You can watch an excerpt from the Indie Game The Movie special edition below about Thirion, his inspiration and his struggle to get the game finished.

Eliss was an early iOS game, using multi-touch in innovative ways. Now it's back - the full original game with a new endless mode and various tweeks. It's hard to explain but difficult to put down - watch the video and if you like what you see you can pick it up in the app store for €2.69.


ELISS - IGTM Special Edition from IndieGame: The Movie on Vimeo.

Via: @renaudbedard on twitter

Watch it - Tom Francis on Heat Signiture

Rohrer's Passage - 'play' it!

There was a time when it seemed Jason Rohrer was the only interesting name in indie gaming. Just the fact that he existed was interesting - living off the kindness of strangers and making games that were actually about something.

That time was only about five years ago actually. Now we're openly criticising his work, and Roher is just one of many indie luminaries. Some are loved, some loathed, some don't kick up too much of a fuss.

One interesting voice is that of Tom Francis. That's the man behind last year's excellent stealth-action game Gunpoint. More interestingly he has a long history in games journalism and as a result he knows how to communicate his passion. He could be just what indie gaming needs.

Gunpoint by Tom Francis

Tom Francis used to write for PC Gamer magazine. During development of Gunpoint he blogged about the process. Now he's working on the follow-up, Heat Signiture and he's doing more of the same, although Heat Signiture is still in the very early stages of development.

I heard about Francis when Gunpoint came out. Since then he's quit his job and gone into development full time. You can listen to a great intereview with him on Tone Control.

But Francis's Youtube channel is even more interesting. There you can see early footage of the game up and running. What's really got me excited though is his ability to talk. In the video below Tom Francis talks about his ideas and the prosess of turning those ideas into something real, without prompt or pause, for twenty minutes.

And all 20 of those minutes are interesting.