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Road to SXSW : Bringing Breaker Blocks to SXSW 2016

I’m Jake, I run a solo studio called Spriteborne, and with the help of a laser I design, manufacture, and distribute original tabletop games from start to finish under one roof. This year one of my games, Breaker Blocks, was nominated in the 2016 SXSW Gaming Awards. Earlier this month I made the drive from the Philadelphia suburbs to Austin, TX, showing off my game at the show and vying for a community choice award. This is a postmortem breakdown of my experience, including what went right, what went wrong, and what I think could be improved upon in the future. My first game, Yomi's Gate, was nominated in last year's SXSW Gaming Awards. If you want to read about...

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Road to SXSW - Postmortem

In the weeks leading up to SXSW, and the impending launch of Yomi's Gate, I wrote a blog series called "Road to SXSW" in which I talked about the origins of the game and some of the challenges I've worked through to make it happen.  Now the dust is settling, SXSW is over, and I have thoughts to share on the experience. A full, stream of consciousness post on the experience would be incredibly long and difficult to follow, so I'm going to do what many game developers do and write a postmortem about it. I'll catalogue what went right, what went wrong, and then summarize with what I think should happen in the future.  Note from Future Jake: Now...

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Road to SXSW - On Ideas and Creativity

This year, Yomi's Gate was nominated in the South by Southwest Gaming Awards. I'll be showcasing the game at the festival from March 13th through March 15th 2015. Between now and then, I'll be writing a series of articles discussing the game, where it came from, how it was made, and the kinds of challenges I've encountered along the way. This is one of those articles. Week One: Why Yomi's Gate? - An article about why I'm making this game and not something else.  Week Two: The Shape of Things - Insights into how I go about creating pieces for Yomi's Gate.  Week Three: Making the Map - Words about how I made the map and the prototile, modular board for Yomi's...

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Road to SXSW - Making the Map

This year, Yomi's Gate was nominated in the South by Southwest Gaming Awards. I'll be showcasing the game at the festival from March 13th through March 15th 2015. Between now and then, I'll be writing a series of articles discussing the game, where it came from, how it was made, and the kinds of challenges I've encountered along the way. This is one of those articles. Week One: Why Yomi's Gate? - An article about why I'm making this game and not something else.  Week Two: The Shape of Things - Insights into how I go about creating pieces for Yomi's Gate.  This week I'm going to talk about the map in Yomi's Gate and how I went about creating the modular boards. ...

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Road to SXSW - The Shape of Things

This year, Yomi's Gate was nominated in the South by Southwest Gaming Awards. I'll be showcasing the game at the festival from March 13th through March 15th 2015. Between now and then, I'll be writing a series of articles discussing the game, where it came from, how it was made, and the kinds of challenges I've encountered along the way. This is one of those articles. Last week I talked about why I'm making Yomi's Gate. This week I'll dig into more technical details about how the game is made.  One of the most common questions I get about Yomi's Gate is, "How did you make the pieces?"  The first important part of that is that I come from an art background...

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