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游戏开发者和漫画家分享项目合作体会

发布时间:2012-09-16 09:21:08 Tags:,,,

作者:Tim Latshaw

Steve Manale认为自己不是一个标准的“游戏玩家”。他有一台Wii,在什么地方还存了一台老Gamecube(游戏邦注:任天堂推出的一部次世代家用电视游戏机),但是他把颜料溅到那机子上了。他成天与线条打交道,但这些线条是用颜色填充的,与代码无关。

这位多伦多出身的画家也许仍然感到惊讶,在他的职业生涯中,他可以宣称自己是一款电子游戏的合作制作人了。

《We’re No Angels》是由Comics vs. Games项目组制作的五款游戏之一,是Manale和资深游戏开发人Jamie Fristrom的合作游戏。在这一款游戏中,英年早逝的摇滚歌星试图摆脱为上帝进行私人表演的命运,在逃离天堂时与大批天军展开恶战。

Manale不止负责设计猫王、Tupac和其他在屏幕上飞来飞去的角色,他还为游戏本身设计概念。Fristrom则负责动画、加工游戏玩法以及在灵感匮乏时补充新元素和创意等。

说Manale总是记着《We’re No Angels》,想把它作为游戏灵感展示出来——就像Doug TenNapel制作游戏《Earthworm Jim》一样。这在一定程度上是空想。真相是,Manale说自己以前从来没有想到他在杂志上发表的作品风格和构想居然能够以一种更互动的形式表现出来。

Manale坦言:“过去数年,我设计了许多漫画,做了大量连环画和漫画角色。但我从来没有想到,这些角色可能出现在游戏中。”

we're no angels(from gamasutra)

we’re no angels(from gamasutra)

部分是游戏混杂、部分是社交实验,Comics vs. Games让独立游戏开发者和漫画家携手,走出安全地带,一起开发二者结合之后的创意力量。

团队意识

多伦多这座城市不受独立艺术和设计天才眷顾,还聚集了看着他们成长和成功的团体组织。

TIFF Nexus是一个首创的多伦多独立电影节,始于2011年九月,旨在打造一个多媒体的大熔炉,将这个地区的各种游戏、数码、电影和其他艺术群体汇聚一堂,互相交流合作。

Shane Smith是TIFF Nexus的程序总监,他称:“这个节日给安大略湖地区的新一代故事人带来了网络、技术和伙伴,帮助我们在快速发展的数字媒体领域,这个跨媒体的世界,我们所生活的空间取得成功。”

当该团体联系多伦多游戏制作人的联盟The Hand Eye Society的共同创始人Miguel Sternberg,组织活动第一阶段的的项目时,他想到了他三年前在旧金山看到的“artxgame”画廊和画展。他认为,类似的开发者/艺术家合作也发生在大陆的另一端,但在这两个领域之间,形成关联的人太少了。独立游戏人继续独立,而漫画家可能贡献给游戏设计的,除了美术方面的临时工作,其他大部分内容没有派上用场。

Sternberg认为:“在同一座城市里,有两类非常有趣的创意人群,都在各自的领域表现突出,但他们确实缺少交流。”

对于Comics vs. Games,Comics vs. Games找出了五名独立游戏制作人和五名漫画家,他们都居住在多伦多或邻近地区。将十人两两分成五组,给他们制定的规则很简单:在三个月内设计一款游戏;鼓励但不强制设计多人游戏;不限定玩法元素和既定的“艺术价值”。这些队伍所做的都是他们自己的决定,产生了一些有趣的结果。

Michelangelo和Houdini

Comics vs. Games项目的合作,就像要求Michelangelo和Houdini产生一种新幻想。双方显然都很擅长自己的工作,画家在视觉和想象方面的杰出技艺可以广泛地运用于成品。尽管什么想法是可行的取决于Houdini,但仍然有些部分只有他知道行得通的技术技巧。

所以当你一般是单独工作时,这时却要时刻记着同伴,同时他们的存在又影响你的常规工作方式,这可能令人感到愉快。Christine Love是视觉小说游戏《Digital: A Love Story》和《Analogue: A Hate Story》的制作者,她与漫画家Kyla Vanderklugt搭档制作《The Mysterious Aphroditus》。这是一款维多利亚主题的回合制格斗游戏,简单的石头、剪子、布的设定被另一种机制扭曲了。游戏的风格超脱了Love的想象,她还认为,与同伴合作必须放弃个人对某些职责的独占性以及个人化的工作主式。

Love认为:“单纯地信任Kyla的双手,确实很不可思议,又让我有一点儿害怕。她负责执行,但通常我做的第一件事是设计工作,然后再进行其他工作,所以这种合作对我来说很不同。”

Vanderklugt的画曾出现在《Flight and Spera》选集中,她说自己对合作更熟悉,但还是面临相同的挑战,因为Love的作画太随性了,队伍还没给游戏定案她就完成了。

Vanderklugt谈道:“当我与漫画脚本写手合作时,他们给我完整的脚本,我看了所有东西后就知道要怎么画了,所以我的画接近整个项目的最终阶段的风格。当与Christine合作时,我先画画,然后她深入开发,所以我不能掌控的东西很多。我完全信任她——我想她能做出令人惊艳的游戏,但我不断地问自己,‘她能用这种画吗?能行得通吗?’”

the mysterious aphroditus(from gamasutra)

the mysterious aphroditus(from gamasutra)

手绘的角色,从决斗者到与他们打斗的不男不女的戏剧明星,确实很出色。不幸的是,随着游戏制作截止日期逼近,Love最终不得不牺牲了大约1万条对话。在可以让个性闪光的地方,Love做得很好,额外的文本只会拖累游戏玩法的节奏。她认为,与美术结合得很好的描述使玩家可以在细节中加入自己的想象。添加了一个极为浮华的决斗播报员也起到了作用。

项目的混合属性,特别是三个月的期限,可能是一把双刃剑。几支队伍一开始就太有野心了,奢望在时间结束以前能用更多设定修饰自己的游戏。另一方面,时间表似乎足够长,参与者可以探索他们最有自信的技术之外的领域。

Fristrom是《Schizoid》的制作人及《Spider-Man 2》的主要开发者,把Comics vs. Games项目当作一次机会,即把Unity游戏引擎用于测试《We’re No Angels》。

Fristrom感叹道:“即使我做了这么久的游戏,游戏的视野总是不断改变。5年或10年以前,我敢说,就这么点时间绝对做不出像这样的游戏,但现在的工具已经很先进了,做出相当漂亮的东西并不需要太多时间。按几年前的标准,现在人们用48小时就能做出游戏,是很不可思议的。”

Fristrom能够一边处理《We’re No Angels》,一边探索游戏引擎的极限。这时,他找到了一个bug,可能让玩家的角色(角色Jimi Hendrix和Amy Winehouse也可以玩了)脱离游戏场地。他最初的冲动是修复它,但Fristrom看到了超自然的问题的潜力所在,然后让它以力量药水的形式添加到游戏中。

Manale喜欢这种处理办法,很惊讶这产生于编程的艺术。许多画家把全部信心压在同伴身上,但也认为自己对这部分感到迷惑。

Manale表示:“在我们的最后关头,我关注的是,用Unity易于在游戏添加什么东西或不容易添加什么东西。”

唯一改变的不是开发工具。有些画家还选择放弃自己的签名风格,转向其他方式。漫画家兼插画家John Martz与《ROM CHECK FAIL》的制作人Jarrad “Farbs” Woods合作,制作了游戏《Cumulo Nimblers》。这是一个四人比赛跳云的游戏。Martz明快的漫画风格与Farbs首款游戏的诡异命名配合得很谐调,创造了一种明亮、多彩、狂放的像素式美术风格。

cumulo nimblers(from gamasutra)

cumulo nimblers(from gamasutra)

虽然Martz在像素画方面有些许经验,但以8位形式渲染一组《星际迷航》的角色,决定不用手绘风格有一种战略上的吸引力。

Martz 表示:“我认为限定的美术风格便于处理,因为如果你想做点其他事,如添加效果,Farbs可以自己很快地完成,而不是向我解释,然后等我去做。他自己可以轻松处理像素画,所以我认为这种风格有利于合作。”

自由画家Andy Belanger在一名开发人退出后,与组织者Sternberg成了搭档。他们边喝边讨论游戏概念,Belanger毛遂自荐,提出游戏制作可以根据自己自费出版的新作《Black Church》,这是一部金属幻想恐怖小说,主题是德拉库拉的诞生,以及他的野蛮双亲为了让他免于作为反基督者的化身被牺牲掉而展开斗争。

Sternberg提道:“他向我解释剧情,我问道,‘好吧,中心矛盾是什么,我要添加一些什么有趣的东西才能吸引大量玩家?’”

他们确定下来的是《Black Church Brigandage》,Sternberg将这款游戏形容为”《明星大乱斗》和篮球的混搭”。玩家在一个有能量药水、剑和炸药桶的场地上1对1或2对2打斗,看谁最先拿到新生的反基督者,然后把它扔给自己一边的目标安全区或毁灭掉。这可能是第一款可以将婴儿丢进火湖的游戏。

Black Church Brigandage(from gamasutra)

Black Church Brigandage(from gamasutra)

尽管Belanger制作《Black Church》的方法是建立自己的画风,而不是借鉴数码照片或其他人的作品,他有意选择像素画风,而不是自己那一套繁复细致的画风,希望能尽量体现“游戏”氛围。他说努力把游戏做得太像他的漫画风格,会减少混合的魅力。

Belanger认为:“当你从一种媒体转向另一种,应该有所改变,我认同这种看法。我认为玩法和声音设计中仍然传达了漫画的精神。你玩游戏的方式,我认为与漫画大有关系。漫画元素仍然存在。”

《Brigandage》是五款游戏中唯一一款直接与漫画内容相关的游戏,但最漫画式的游戏可能是《The Yawhg》。受机遇冒险书和独立RPG《Dungeons of Fayte》部分内容的启发,在这款游戏中,1到4名玩家扮演不同的镇民为大恶魔的归来作准备。

除了玩家导向型的进程,Emily Carroll时时不忘的民俗画风、整体描述的某些元素确实让人觉得这像一本交互式漫画书,尽管她的搭档Damian Sommer认为主题与此并没有直接关联。

Carroll认为:“游戏的插入式面板最容易让人联想到漫画,不只如此,还很容易显示接替信息。”

《The Yawhg》是跨加拿大的合作游戏,Carroll(代表作《His Face All Red》)来自温哥华,而Sommer居住在多伦多,但其美术内容并没有进行像《Cumulo Nimblers》那样的操作。除了负责作画,Sommer和Carroll以及其他人都参与完善了剧情。

Sommer过去也从事过美术设计工作,但他并不喜欢。这次合作让他发现自己其实更喜欢当设计师。

Sommer表示:“我从来没有扮演过设计师的角色,我在这个项目中更像个设计师和程序师,借此我知道了我更喜欢扮演这样的角色,我真的喜欢与他人合作;我想做这方面的工作,而不只是美术方面的。”

展示说明

Comics vs. Games活动的五件作品讲述了不同的故事,说明了跨界合作并不一定要遵循一套公式,在不同风格和类型中也能找到成功。这些故事不能说明什么,如果这类游戏找不到受众的话。根据Sternberg,独立游戏开发者和团队必须与场地和组织者以及其他创意人才形成网络。

Sternberg认为:“如果你是音乐家,你必须学会如何举办现场秀,如何组织,如何在地点转换时进入工作状态,而不只是知道如何演奏。所有这些都是音乐家的技能组合。我认为对于独立游戏开发商,不一定只有一条路可走,但如果你真的想发展独立游戏,你必须有类似的技能组合。”

与TIFF Nexus的合作提供了大量资源和关系的基础,Sternberg说他觉得自己很幸运能得到这种基础。

“确保我们有一个预定的场地和良好的设备如显示器等,我没有意识到这其中牵涉到多少工作。因为确实需要钱,我们才能得到一些给力的显示器,不像许多独立游戏制作人,只能将漂亮的东西放在蒙灰的破笔记本上,因为大家一直用的就是那样的机子。”

春季展在多伦多Magic Pony时代画廊内和多伦多漫画节上举办。九月,游戏将以相同的形式在多伦多独立电影节上展示——有可能与其他项目的作品和去年由Nexus举办的创意交流村一起。展示秀的参观者包括旧金山开发团队Double Fine的成员、一些涉猎漫画的人和来自澳大利亚的艺术家群体。

不幸的是,并非所有地区都能接触到与独立人才有密切联系的组织,即使有,也很难得到支持。由政府支助的TIFF Nexus通过像Comics vs. Games这种初期项目在第一年得到帮助,但它的下一期预算已经中止了。尽管如此,该组织仍然计划继续下一阶段的项目,Smith很乐观,认为Comics vs. Games和其他合作活动的结果会证明它作为人才培养基地的长期价值。

Smith表示:“就是这样,但我们正在寻找各种各样的机会,我认为Nexus对我们的意义是,让我们可以大胆地说,‘看吧,看看什么叫作一切皆有可能——当这些不同的领域、不同的行业、不同的人才汇聚在一起的时候。

看看我们能够做什么,看看长远意义是什么。我们认为那可以帮助我们从不同的渠道获取支援。”

the yawhg(from gamasutra)

the yawhg(from gamasutra)

同时,个人努力也在进一步拓展游戏和合作的概念。《The Yawhg》和《Black Church Brigandage》都获准参展IndieCade(游戏邦注:独立电子游戏的国际性展示活动),后者还参展了德州的Fantastic活动。另外,Sommer带着玩票的想法,打算将他用于《The Yawhg》的引擎换成更容易创造剧情的引擎,因为其他人有过成功的经历。其他游戏的计划尚在考虑中。

那么野心勃勃的Belanger呢?他正在运营《Brigandage》。他说自己想在集会上展示游戏,还将在英国的Thought Bubble漫画节期间,主持一场《Black Church》之夜和《Brigandage》联赛。他还在与活动节的组织方协商于2013年举办他们自己的Comics vs. Games交流会。

当然Belanger喜欢游戏,但推动他前进的其他原因来自一名投资者,这是像Nexus这类活动创始方渴望听到的消息。“从发行/营销的情况看,当你创作出跨媒体的东西时,确实是一件非常非常了不起的事。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Comics vs. Games: Thinking Outside the Panel

by Tim Latshaw

Steve Manale admits he is not much of a “game guy.” He owns a Wii, and somewhere he might still have an old Gamecube he managed to spill paint on. He works with lines all day, but they’re filled with colors, not code.

The Toronto-based artist might still be surprised as anyone that he can now claim co-creatorship of a video game among the accomplishments of his career.

We’re No Angels, one of five games made through the Comics vs. Games project, is a collaboration between Manale and veteran game developer Jamie Fristrom. A twin stick shooter with notes of Gauntlet, it pits died-too-young rock stars against Heaven’s armies as they try to flee an eternity of private performances for God.

Not only is Manale responsible for the stylized figures of Elvis, Tupac, and other characters that flit about the screen, he came up with the concept for the game itself. Fristrom took the idea and pieces provided and made them move, shaping the gameplay and adding new elements and perspectives as inspiration struck.

It would be somewhat romantic to suggest Manale always had We’re No Angels in the back of his mind and wanted to present it as inspiration for a game — a Doug TenNapel with Earthworm Jim kind of story. The truth is that Manale says he never previously recognized how the style and ideas that inhabit his work in magazines and editorial cartoons could cross over into a more interactive medium.

“I design a lot of comics and have done a lot of comic strips and comic characters over the years,” Manale said. “It has never once occurred to me, ‘Hey, these characters might translate well into game form.’”

We’re No Angels

Part game jam, part social experiment, Comics vs. Games joined independent game developers with comic artists to explore what potential lies in their combined creative powers — and beyond their comfort zones.

Community Awareness

Toronto is a city blessed not only as a hub for independent art and design talent, but also with organizations vested in seeing them grow and succeed.

TIFF Nexus, an initiative of the Toronto Independent Film Festival, started up in September 2011 as a sort of molecular gastronomy lab for multimedia, seeking to identify the elements that make the region’s game, digital, film and other artistic communities great and blend them into tasty new concoctions.

“It’s designed to equip a new generation of Ontario’s storytellers with the network, skills and partners to help us succeed in sort of the rapidly evolving digital media landscape — this trans-media universe — that we are living in,” said Shane Smith, director of programs for TIFF Nexus.

When the organization approached Miguel Sternberg, co-founder of the Toronto game makers’ coalition The Hand Eye Society, to organize a project for its first phase of events, he thought back to the “artxgame” gallery and exhibition he had witnessed in San Francisco three years earlier. Similar developer/artist collaborations could also be made on the opposite side of the continent, he believed, but there appeared to be too few people forming links between the scenes. The indies were being, well, rather independent, and what possible content comic artists could contribute to game design aside from occasional requests for art was going largely untapped.

“Here are these two really interesting creative communities in the same city that are both doing their thing really well,” Sternberg said, “but they’re not really talking to each other when they could be.”

For Comics vs. Games, Sternberg sought out five independent game developers and five comic artists who either lived in or had ties to the Toronto area. Paired into five teams, they were given simple rules: design a game in three months. Multiplayer games were largely encouraged for showcase purposes, but not mandatory. No quotas for gameplay elements or “artistic merit” were established. Whatever teams made were the culmination of their own decisions, leading to some interestingly varied results.

Michelangelo and Houdini

A Comics vs. Games team-up could be compared to asking Houdini and Michelangelo (no, not the turtle) to produce a new illusion. Both sides are obviously great at their individual work and the artist’s boundless skills for visualization and imagination can have numerous applications toward the final goal. It’s up to Houdini, though, to decide what ideas may actually be possible, and there are still going to be parts where only he knows the technical tricks that make everything work.

So when you normally work alone, keeping the considerations of a partner in mind while their presence simultaneously changes up your routine can be a bit rattling. Christine Love, creator of the visual novel games Digital: A Love Story and Analogue: A Hate Story, teamed up with comic artist Kyla Vanderklugt to create The Mysterious Aphroditus, a Victorian-themed turn-based fighting game whose simple rock, paper, scissors setup is twisted by a bluffing mechanic. Not only is the game style a departure from what Love is known for, but she said working with a partner required relinquishing sole ownership of certain responsibilities and her specific way of doing things.

“It was really weird and a little bit scary just trusting that to Kyla’s hands,” Love said. “She absolutely delivered, but usually the first thing I do is start with the design work and move from there, so it was just a totally different experience for me.”

Vanderklugt, whose art has appeared in anthologies Flight and Spera, said she is more familiar with collaborative work, but also faced similar challenges as Love in creating the art assets more spontaneously, before the team had finalized its game.

“[W]hen I work with script writers on comics, they give me the entire script and I have everything in front of me and I know what to work on, and then my art is kind of like the final stage of the whole project,” Vanderklugt said. “When working with Christine, you do the art first, and then she goes into development, and so it was like a big loss of control. I trusted her entirely — I figured she was going to make an amazing game — but I was asking myself, ‘Is she going to be able to use this art? Is it going to work out?’”

The Mysterious Aphroditus

The hand-drawn characters, from the fighters to the androgynous theater star they are battling for, did come out beautifully. Unfortunately, as the game deadline neared, Love ultimately had to sacrifice roughly 10,000 words of dialog she had written to flesh them out. Where egos could have flared, Love remained cool, deciding the extra text was ultimately detracting from the pace of the gameplay. What descriptions remained combined well with the art, she said, enabling players to fill in the details with their imaginations. The addition of an unabashedly foppish fight announcer also helped.

The jam nature of the project, and specifically its three month limit, may have served as a double-edged sword. Several teams noted they may have been initially overambitious and wished they could have embellished their games with more features before time ran out. On the other hand, the timeframe seemed just long enough to encourage many participants to explore outside their most trusted skill sets.

Fristrom, creator of Schizoid and lead developer on Spider-Man 2, used Comics vs. Games as an opportunity to take the Unity game engine for a test drive while developing We’re No Angels.

“Even though I have been making games for so long, the landscape is always constantly changing,” Fristrom said. “Five or 10 years ago I would’ve said you could never make a game like this in this amount of time, but now tools have gotten to the point where you can make fairly amazing stuff in not very much time at all. Things people are able to produce in 48-hour game jams these days are incredible by standards of a few years back.”

Fristrom was able to tackle We’re No Angels while simultaneously exploring the limits of the game engine. At one point, a bug was found that would make the player’s character (Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse are also playable, by the way), literally rise above the playfield. His initial impulse was to fix it, but Fristrom saw the potential benefits of the transcendental hiccup and added it to the game in the form of a drug-based power-up.

Manale loved the addition, awarding a point to the surprises that can arise in the art of programming. Many of the artists said they were mystified by this part of the process, having to place full faith in their partners.

“It was interesting to me, in our final hours, which things were easy to add in Unity and which things were difficult to add to the game,” Manale said.

Development tools were not the only change-ups. Some artists also chose to forego their signature styles in favor of alternate routes. Cartoonist and illustrator John Martz worked with developer Jarrad “Farbs” Woods, creator of ROM CHECK FAIL, to create Cumulo Nimblers, a four-player competitive cloud-jumping game. Martz’s quirky comic style translates well into the quirkily named Farbs’ initial game idea, creating a landscape that is bright, colorful, frenetic, but also pixelated.

Cumulo Nimblers

While Martz has some experience in pixel art, once rendering a cavalcade of Star Trek characters in 8-bit form, the decision to not go with hand-drawn art had a tactical draw.

“I think that limited art style benefited the process because if you wanted to do something — create an effect or try something out — [Farbs] could just do it really quickly himself instead of explain what he wanted from me and wait for me to do it,” Martz said. “He could sort of easily do it himself with the pixels, so I think it worked out well with the collaboration.”

Freelance artist Andy Belanger teamed with organizer Sternberg after one developer dropped out. Discussing concepts over drinks, Belanger was not shy in pushing to make a game based on his new, self-published IP, Black Church, a metal-infused fantasy horror tale revolving around the birth of Dracula and his barbarian parents’ fight to keep him from being sacrificed as the embodiment of the Antichrist.

“He explained the storyline to me and I was like, ‘Okay, what are the central conflicts here and how can I do something fun that’s going to be achievable, that will work with a big audience?’” Sternberg said.

The idea they settled upon was Black Church Brigandage, a game Sternberg describes as a “mashup between Super Smash Bros. and basketball.” Players fight 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 on a field of power-ups, swords and explosive barrels, trying to be the first to grab the newborn Antichrist and throw it to their side’s goal of safety or destruction. It may well be the first game where you can lay up a baby into a lake of fire.

Black Church Brigandage

Although Belanger created Black Church as a means of establishing his own identity outside of drawing characters for DC and other publishers, he deliberately chose pixel art for Brigandage over his own intricate, illustrative style, wanting to as much of a “game” atmosphere as possible. He said trying to make the game too much like his comic in ways would detract from the crossover appeal.

“I like the idea that when you go from one medium to the other it’s going to change quite a bit,” Belanger said, “and I think it still has the same spirit of the comic with the gameplay and the sound design. The way you play the game, I think the whole thing has a lot to do with the comic book. It’s still there.”

Brigandage is the only game of the five to be directly linked to a comic property, but the most comic-like game is probably The Yawhg. Inspired by choice adventure books and portions of the indie RPG Dungeons of Fayte, one to four players take on roles of different townspeople preparing for the return of a great evil.

With player-driven progression and Emily Carroll’s hauntingly folklorist still art, some elements of the overall presentation do harken to an interactive comic book, although Carroll and partner Damian Sommer said the motif was not directly intended.

“The inset panels were the things most reminiscent of comics, and it just happened that not only was it reminiscent of comics, but it also just was easy to make and easy to relay information very simply,” Carroll said.

The Yawhg was a cross-Canada collaboration, with Carroll (whose works include His Face All Red) in Vancouver and Sommer in Toronto, but the art did not face as much manipulation as with Cumulo Nimblers. Sommer, who also contributed to the story with Carroll and a few other contributors, was able to place the art as it arrived in Dropbox.

Sommer has also worked as an artist for a game in the past, but he didn’t enjoy it. The jam gave him a chance to discover he’s much happier as a designer.

“I’ve never played the designer role, he said. “I was more the designer in this project and the programmer, and I learned through doing this that I’m a lot more comfortable in this role and I actually do like working with people; I just need to be doing this side of it, and not the art side.”

Show and Tell

The five works of Comics vs. Games tell five different stories of how cross-collaboration doesn’t have to follow a set formula and can find success among more styles and genres than one might think. Those stories don’t count for much, though, if the games don’t find an audience. According to Sternberg, indie game developers and groups must build networks with venues and organizers as much as with other creative talent.

“If you’re a musician, you need to learn how to put on live shows,” he said. “And that’s not just how to perform it; it’s also how to organize, how to get the gear from place to place. All of that stuff is what a musician’s skill set is, and I think for indie game developers, it’s not necessarily the only way to go, but if you really want to evangelize indie games as part of what you do, it’s a necessary skill set.”

The association with TIFF Nexus provided a foundation of substantial resources and connections, something Sternberg said he felt very lucky to receive.

“I did not realize how much work was involved in the background stuff of making sure that we had a venue booked, that we made sure it was well set up for displaying stuff like monitors and such,” he said. “Because there was actually some money behind it, we were able to get some really nice monitors, unlike a lot of indie game stuff, where we’re showing all this amazing content, but it’s being shown on shitty laptops covered in dust, because they’re the same machines people work on all the time.”

Springtime showings were held at the Magic Pony contemporary gallery in Toronto and the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. In September, the games are expected to be showcased in some form at the Toronto Independent Film Festival itself — likely alongside works from other projects and creative jams held by the Nexus within the past year. Visitors to the showings have included members of San Francisco developer Double Fine, some of whom do their own dabbling in comics, and a group of artists from Australia.

Unfortunately, not every region has access to an organization so engaged with independent talent, and even then it can be a struggle for them to provide support. The governmental funding TIFF Nexus received to help operate through its first year and initialize projects like Comics vs. Games has been cut out of the next budget. The organization still plans to go forward however it can with the next phase of projects, though, and Smith is optimistic that the results of Comics vs. Games and other jams will provide evidence of its long-term value as an incubator.

“That is what it is,” Smith said, “but we are looking for various other opportunities and I think what Nexus has provided us going out is to say, ‘Look what happens. Look what’s possible when these different sectors — industry sectors, different creatives — come together. Look what we can do and what the potential long-term effects can be.’ And we think that’s going to help us generate funding from different sources.”

The Yawhg

In the meantime, individual efforts are further spreading the games and collaborative concept. The Yawhg and Black Church Brigandage were both submitted to IndieCade, with the latter also entered into the Austin, Texas-based Fantastic Fest. Additionally, Sommer is toying with the idea of turning his engine for The Yawhg into an easy-access story creation engine, given the success others had creating some content for the game. Plans for the other games are still under consideration.

And the ever-ambitious Belanger? He’s taking Brigandage and running. He says he’d like to show the game off at conventions and will be hosting a Black Church night with Brigandage tournament during the Thought Bubble comic arts festival in Leeds, England. He has also been in discussion with festival organizers about organizing their own Comics vs. Games-style jam in 2013.

Belanger loves the game, of course, but the other reason for his push is one investors in initiatives like Nexus might want to hear. “From a publishing/marketing situation,” he said, “when you have something cross-medium, it’s actually really, really awesome.”(source:gamasutra)


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