My Big Gay Adventure Making, releasing and selling an indie game made in python.

welcome to dodgyville Luke Miller twitter.com/dodgyville dodgyville@gmail.com

Today (My) game design aims Using pyvida to make a point-and-click Releasing Publicising

Fun gay science fiction adventures

2D point-and-click adventure ala LucasArts and Telltale Day of the Tentacle, Space Quest, Sam and Max, BTTF (3D)

Scifi adventure Star Trek: TNG, Doctor Who, Space:1999

Gay, gay-themed, openly gay, not as gay as Call of Duty Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Melbourne gay bar culture

Released December 2012 as digital download. You play as Captain Tycho Minogue, brought out of retirement to face an invasion fleet led by your ex- boyfriend.

Nonpornographic, serious attempt at a commercial game. It's paying the rent

Why Lack of same-sex love interests in scifi A gay-theme implies a gay story Point-and-click great for narrative, casual 2D "Disney-style" non-threatening, fun, colourful, lends itself to comedy

Before we go any further The sum is greater than the parts Art, tech and interest all work together, baked in How the components fit together and compliment each other is the craft of game developing

What should indie game developers aim for?

Entertainment Game must be enjoyable to play gameplay, the beat, high/low points, rewards, push/pull, controls/interface

Quality Game must be polished bugfree, complete, menus, goodlooking

Interest Game must be interesting to others will want (vs want), delight, intrigue, stories

My Ex-Boyfriend the Space Tyrant Entertaining - PnC, comedy, tips, gameplay Quality - complete package Interesting - compelling for gay men*, press**

Let's make a game https://github.com/dodgyville/pyvida

Write your own adventure Tycho enters the foyer. There is a guard at the door. There is a steady drip from a small crack in the dome. Tycho widens the crack, causing a flood. The guard leaves his post to plug the crack, leaving the door unguarded. Go inside, destroy the machine.

Entertaining, quality, interesting? Bake it in at every level

Basics of pyvida simplicity, feedback, runs anywhere A stage mentality Scenes Actors Items Portals Test driven mentality "The play is written first, then acted". look at [x] interact with [x] use [x] on [y] Actor.says Actor.goto Actor.do

game[1-2].py

pyvida smart layout main.py data/actors/ data/fonts/ data/items/ data/locale/ data/music/ data/portals/ data/scenes/ data/sfx/ saves/ game.smart()

game3.py

Test driven development tail -f saves/pyvida.log python game3.py -a -s end -x

tests, walkthroughs, help but ... python game3.py -s end -H -x -w and a mea culpa

So the preferred pyvida workflow Write, step-by-step directions, build sets, get actors, write game scripts

Accessibility People don't have accessibility issues, software has accessibility issues vision, hearing, mobility, cognitive

Game accessibility guidelines http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/

Commercial benefits of including source selling point, accessibility, longer life, bug fixes, promotes open ecosystem

Game code is only a small part

The tools google docs/drive python 2.7 / pygame (pyglet?) / pyvida github.org trello.com game scripts packaging py2exe&py2app&bash aws bmtmicro

Packaging game2exe.py + innoset py2app + create_dmg source archive + zenity install.sh 1 config file, 3 build scripts

Updating Auto-update would be ideal but checking for updates is OK too (you'll never launch 100% perfect)

Website + Trailer Your website is your game's values in miniature - the first act of your game Entertaining, quality, interesting

Digital download stores bmtmicro, humble store, indie bundles, desura, gog, steam the long tail, sales started picking up six months after release

The death of the author You have no control over how people receive your game feedback, journalists, review copies, reviews, hero swag, play this, community politics, tangential media, third party advocacy

*Feedback Thank you for a wonderful game playing experience, and the fact that it was a 'gay game' made it ever so much more enjoyable for this gay player. - John I'd like to compliment you on the game, My Ex-boyfriend the Space Tyrant. I enjoyed the artwork, the tongue-in- cheekiness, and the sense of a campy space-adventure. It's nice to have a gay-centric game, especially since most games are heavily influenced to appeal to the straight guy- gamer. - Jason It's a whole lot of fun, as a gay guy this is the game I've wanted to play all my life! - Brian

Negative feedback I have friends that are gay and work daily to fight the type of prejudice that things like this create. Down voting just for being a cancer to their own cause. Every game I saw on Greenlight, I gave it a yes, but I can't give a yes to this shit, sorry but the game shouldn't be on steam, I really hate it ! Umm... Well thats one way to scar a small child for life. This game makes me want to projectile vommet... If it did not, then I would be gay, but I am not gay.

**Press Gay (a few) eg towleroad.com Local Gay (a few) samesame.com.au Local (hardly any) eg theage.com.au Local Gamer (a few) eg blackpanel.com.au Gay Gamer (a lot) eg gaygamer.net Pop culture (a lot) eg polygon.com theverge.com cinemablend.com and many more Gamer (a few) eg kotaku.com Social Networks (a lot) twitter, facebook, youtube, google+

Lessons learned the hard way 3 fast ones

Only gamers are interested in games and the gaming press is straight (not a criticism)

$10 price point for indie games

Great ideas become good ideas become boring ideas

Kickstarter a lot of work, have a community, gameplay footage, kickstarter network (inc. swaps), realistic tiers, viable stretch goals

Applying the lessons second game second version of pyvida sharing some of advanced ideas

More entertaining shorter sections, bigger ideas, and ... gayer gameplay

Higher quality More tests, more testers, mature engine, co- writer, same artists

More interesting: Code as art presentation, content, value adding [main.py]

def setup_queue(game, x, y, num_of_actors=6): “”” Create the NPCs for the aqueue set-piece “”” for i in range(0, num_of_actors): spaceperson = create_spaceman(game, name="cosmonaut%i"%i) game.add(spaceperson) point = (x, y + random.randint(-15, 15)) rocketpilot = spaceperson rocketpilot.relocate("aqueue", point) rocketpilot.ai = False x += random.randint(120, 180)

So I hope this presentation has given you some ideas on taking your own game idea from dream to reality pycon-au Brisbane August 2014

Thanks for listening!