Close a winter of record snowfall with record low prices on games in the App Store!

The indie game community of Boston, fed up with bitter cold, are uniting to welcome Spring. Not by burying college kids in the snow like last year (still sorry). But by putting video games on sale! Boston’s indie game developers, excited at the prospect of putting snow shovels in storage (maybe), are lowering prices on iOS games in the Apple App Store. Wicked low temperatures are no match for wicked low prices! What games are we talking about?

The Counting Kingdom $2.99$0.99 Magical Math Tower Defense. Long winters make the monsters grumpy and they’re on the attack.

Jungle Rumble $3.99$0.99 Rhythm Puzzle Romp. Monkeys and bananas and sunshine AND NO SNOW.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! $3.99$0.99 Base Jumping Action. The game that inspired Bostonians to jump off buildings into piles of snow.

Jack Lumber $3.99$0.99 Log Chopping Swiper. The trees may have killed his granny, but his flannel kept him through the winter.

PWN $2.99$0.99 Cyber Strategy. 80s hacking movies were way better than 80s ski films. 

Agent Higgs $1.99$0.99 Particle Physics Thinker. The Higgs Boson is rarer than a snowball in July. 

Girls Like Robots $2.99$0.99 Seating Arrangement Puzzler. Maximize happiness with etiquette, empathy, and snowballs. 

Go Home Dinosaurs $4.99$1.99 Barbecue Tower Defense. There’s nothing better on a spring day than a dinosaur chop on the grill. 

Monster Loves You $2.99$0.99 Monster Adventure. Eat the three little pigs. 

The IGC showcased some of our projects at Boston FIG this weekend! It was a fun event that got us all a lot of great feedback.

In the Tabletop games section, Michael Carriere showed Pleasant Dreams, a card game by Aerjen Games and Zapdot, Inc. It’s a fast and tactical two-player game, where you prevent your dreams from turning into nightmares! You can check out the game here.

Legends of Beforia was also shown off at the Tabletop games section. This simple storytelling card game was created by Patrick Rodriguez of Patchwork Games, and Carrie Witt of Owlchemy Labs has been working with him to create the illustrations for it! It’s a playful game that has players create their own myths based on templates and cards they draw, replicating the evolution of oral storytelling. You can read more about the game here.

In the Digital games section, Jenna showed off a demo of The Counting Kingdom for the very first time! Jenna crafted all kinds of wizard goodies to hand out, like super awesome wizard wands. Judging from the smiles on everyone’s face, this game really is something special! You can check out the game here.

If you’re in the Boston area, make sure you stop by the Boston Festival of Indie Games at MIT this Saturday!  The festival is a family-friendly event that celebrates independent game development in the New England Area, and includes a Digital Games Showcase, a Tabletop Games Showcase, as well as a number of fun talks and even an awards ceremony!

Stop by the Digital Games Showcase from 10-6 to say hi and play The Counting Kingdom, you can find us at table D04:

Little Worlds Interactive founder Jenna Hoffstein will also be speaking on two panels:

Early Access Panel: Get Involved with this Panel as it Develops

10:00 – 11:00 am, Theater (Stata 123)

A recent trend in game development is the concept of “Early Access,” where developers distribute their games in an early state in order to gather community feedback and bring in some money to help fund development. Some see this model as controversial and an excuse for developers to release their games in an unfinished state; others see it as a chance to get involved in a game’s development and watch it grow into a great product. This panel will follow a Q&A model, but instead of asking questions, the audience will be suggesting features and fixes to improve the panel. We will implement our favorites, which will likely result in silliness, but will also demonstrate, live, how the Early Access model is an iterative process in which both the developers and the community partake in order to make a better product.

The Next Generation: Making Games for Kids and Families

11:45 – 12:45 am, Classroom 1 (Stata 124)

Millennials who grew up playing games are now making games and having kids. Lets talk about games for kids: what there is, what there should be, and what there can be – with a little help from you! We are looking for developers and as many kids and parents as possible. Let’s talk game genre, educational basis, character types, diversity, and cost. If you’re a kid or parent who knows what games kids like, or a developer looking to crack the code on one of the biggest markets and make the gaming world better for the next generation, come join us!

Hope to see you there!

We’re just a few days away from PAX Prime 2014! Nearly 10 years after the event was founded as a celebration of gaming culture, the event has grown to host over 70,000 gamers every year. As a proud member of the PAX 10 our bags are packed and we’re flying out tomorrow to exhibit The Counting Kingdom.

Stop by our table to play the game and speak with developer Jenna Hoffstein. We’ll also have a special deal for Steam keys of The Counting Kingdom – pay what you want! Help support the team by swinging by to say hi and pick up a copy, and as a special bonus you’ll get a hand-painted monster block. We have a limited number of these available, so make sure you pick yours up early.

We’ll be on the 6th floor of the Expo hall at booth 6203. See you there!

Owlchemy recently hosted an event in Boston called the Boston VR Bender — a week-long series of 3 events starting off with a weekend VR game jam, and ending with a VR drinking night at the Mead Hall in Cambridge. Unity did a post on their blog all about the event, so instead of paraphrasing, I thought I’d quote some of Pete Moss’ words, who was a huge help at the event!

From: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/07/02/vr-game-jam-in-boston/

Date: July 2nd, 2014

Over the last days of May and into early June, over 50 people from in and around the Boston game community gathered together for a VR game jam. The event was organized by Alex Schwartz and Devin Reimer of Owlchemy Labs in conjunction with devs who saw VR demos back at Steam Dev Days and wanted to do a VR Jam. So Valve and Unity went out to help. The purpose of the jam was to expose developers to positional tracking and low persistence.

To enable this, Valve brought along some prototype headsets with positional tracking using desktop IR cameras. A couple of us from Unity went along to provide support and witness the creativity of the community first hand. The event gave us all a chance to test the excellent new SteamVR Unity plugin being developed at Valve.

The participants split up into teams, some with just a couple of folks, others with full teams comprising programmers, artists and designers. There was only one rule – teams had to hit 95 frames per second (the refresh rate of the Valve prototype hardware).

Here’s a video of one of the VR games created during the jam! Carrie teamed up with Robot Loves Kitty to create this wacky game where you act as a pilot of a toy robot destroying / building a toy city.

Thanks again to Unity, Valve, and everyone who participated! It was a KILLER event!

Disco Dodgeball was shown at this year’s PAX East in the Indie Megabooth. Thanks to sponsors Intel and Alienware, I was able to create an amazing LAN setup with four computer stations battling each other while broadcasting a roving spectator camera on a widescreen TV facing the conference crowds. I got to meet a bunch of streamers and YouTubers in person that I had previously only met online, and watch a ton of people enjoy the game. One high note in particular was seeing parents and their kids playing together, and often the kids would return for multiple rounds later in the day. I also got to have a chat with Markiplier, one of the largest YouTubers / streamers who has covered the game. The whole event was exhausting but very rewarding.

Carrie Witt of Owlchemy Labs and Eric Asmussen of 82 Apps just participated in the Supershow Collective Marathon! As quoted from the official page, “The Supershow Collective Marathon is a 48+ hour event that showcases over 60 indie games and their developers. Tons of gameplay, special guests, Q&A’s, giveaways, sneak peaks, cake, and more!”

Eric participated in Greenlit Gaming’s “Indie Showcase”, and showed off Disco Dodgeball to the masses.

Carrie participated in Robot Loves Kitty’s “Indie Dev Supershow”, and did a live-drawing and a Q&A session about Dyscourse!

The Marathon was a great event, and gave us a chance to interact and have fun with fans and new friends alike from all over the internet.

You can read more about the event here: http://robotloveskitty.com/supershow/