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Chicago Indie Video Game Developers and Games That You Should Check Out
 
I love Chicago and I love indie games so I want a place to talk about them. I plan to use this as an ongoing thread to talk about various projects people that I may or may not know are involved in that are either upcoming or already released. Also, you can check out Indie City Games and IGDA Chicago for more information on the Chicago indie video game development scene.

Obviously one game everyone should know about by now is our very own Dapper Dave's Boot Hill Heroes, which you can go help Greenlight on Steam. A single player / local co-op Western (as in, taking place in the wild wild West) RPG with an SNES-flair and a Jake Kaufman soundtrack, of course it is going to be excellent.

Releasing on PC and Vita erm... soon?



URL to share (right click and copy)
01/30/14, 01:16    Edited: 04/23/14, 05:16
 
   
 
To be honest I'm not sure if they are indie or not, they seem to be one of the bigger studios around here, but Phosphor Games just released a trailer for their next game. Seems to be some kind of space / exploration / horror thingy.

07/31/15, 06:47   
Piloteer is Apple's free game of the week!

It's like QWOP with a rocket pack! Get it now, for the price of free!
01/28/16, 23:48   
Edited: 01/28/16, 23:48
@Zero

Because a rocket pack was just what that game needed
01/28/16, 23:51   
It's actually pretty fun though. As much as I hype up Chicago games a lot, I rarely sit down and put real time into them. This one I got pretty far into.

And then it got impossible.
01/29/16, 00:04   
I began trying to start a gamedev community for my own area a couple weeks ago. Right now it's just a Facebook group with fifteen members, about six of which are actually active... I think Global Game Jam this weekend will be a good kicking off point for getting us all to start making stuff. It's really surprising how much motivated I am to make stuff when I have friends also making stuff of their own.
01/29/16, 01:32   
A buddy of mine just released his first retail game for iOS, Abzorb. You have to absorb the blue orbs while avoiding the time-stealing red orbs. It's pretty neat.

Get it!

02/11/16, 19:55   
Thinking of getting some friends together and starting a little gamedev club that might one day grow into a Chicago-style community. Any tips on how to do that, or is it basically just getting people together every couple weeks at a bar to talk about what we've been working on? ...what if no one is working on anything?
02/17/16, 04:00   
@Secret_Tunnel

Then you drink up.
02/17/16, 04:06   
@Secret_Tunnel Well I didn't start any of this but I've experienced enough of it so I guess I can comment.

Our bar get-togethers don't always involve talking about what we're working on. Well, maybe sometimes. But really, I think a lot of developer don't WANT to talk about what they're working on all the time, especially if they haven't been making a whole lot of progress since the last get-together. Plus a lot of people just like coming to hang out and aren't openly working on anything at the moment. Really it's mostly just game dev people hanging at a bar, drinking, talking about whatever. What else do you need?!

We also have a more formal meet-up once every two months, usually held at a local university, that loosely follows the format of...

Phase 1. Developer talk (about an hour.) Sometimes we get some fairly big names for this, like when we had the Shovel Knight programmer come talk, or the Kentucky Route Zero team, or the Octodad team, etc. Other times smaller local names.
Phase 2. "Open mic". Basically anyone who wants can sign up to get 5 minutes to get up in front of the crowd and show off their game on the big screen. We usually get around 6-10 people / teams showing stuff off.
Phase 3. Open play / mingling. Anyone who wants can set their game up for open play / playtesting. This is also the point where people just hang out and talk. In fact sometimes there is a lot more talking than playing, but I still usually get a handful of people to try out my game when I decide to show it.

We have a lot more meet-ups, like a Unity specific meet-up where people show off specific Unity techniques and people can ask questions about how to do things in Unity. IGDA meet-ups. Game jams. Etc. Sometimes random stuff, like one dude just had a "work on your currently neglected game... jam" thingy at his house the other day and like 13 or 15 people or so showed up (mine wasn't currently neglected but I went anyway.) And obviously some big stuff like Bit Bash.

But yeah just getting people to hang out at a bar or whatever regularly would be a good start. And then if you have the community desire / space I'd try the dev talk / open mic / playtesting thing eventually, as being able to experience each other's games helps build a more community feel and personally, seeing all of this cool stuff people are doing keeps me motivated to keep at my own stuff.
02/17/16, 04:32   
Edited: 02/17/16, 04:33
It's been awhile since I posted in here but...

Kickstarter for Sausage Sports Club

Greenlight for Sausage Sports Club

It's a pretty wacky couch competitive sports game being made by a guy from Chicago. I think just for PC right now but could end up elsewhere eventually?

08/22/16, 01:35   
Edited: 08/22/16, 01:38
Dog Sled Saga has a release date!

On September 22nd, 2016, we’re releasing the 1.0 version of Dog Sled Saga on Steam, Google Play, and the Apple App Store!


Get it for all of your dog sled racing needs!

08/31/16, 22:07   
And now Dog Sled Saga is actually out. Go get it on Steam, Google Play or iOS!

I don't know exactly how the Steam review system works but it seems to be getting a lot of very positive reviews so far.
09/23/16, 16:11   
Edited: 09/23/16, 16:12
Buddy of mine released his 4th game today (3rd since I met him a few years ago.) Meanwhile I'm still working on my 1st game. WHAT.

Anyway I don't know much about it but it is free to try I guess so... try it out?

Remedy Rush on the App Store

01/05/17, 22:09   
Edited: 01/05/17, 22:10
05/01/17, 23:08   
Tumbleseed, out on Switch now!

It's described as a "rolly roguelike".

It's getting pretty decent reviews so far too!


CHECK IT OUT?
05/03/17, 04:20   
Edited: 05/03/17, 04:23
A 15 minute episode about Chicago's indie game dev scene that is part of a bigger series also about Chicago's indie game dev scene.

You can sort of see me from 2:12-2:14 if you look closely...

08/24/17, 08:14   
Nintendo just published trailers for two Chicago games!



08/30/17, 22:35   
Edited: 08/30/17, 22:36
The guy who's making Sausage Sports Club showed me Tumbleseed at GDC! Cool people.
08/31/17, 05:24   
Our very own Dapper Dave has announced Boot Hill Bounties, the SNES-style RPG follow-up to Boot Hill Heroes, is coming to Steam this December. Looking good!






09/23/17, 15:54   
Edited: 09/23/17, 15:54
Thanks! These three images look good together.
09/24/17, 02:19   
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