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Graham Davis, now at Kixeye, came to talk to us about the procedural level generation system he created in Unity for TinyMob Games‘ M.E.R.C. His talk went over why procedural level generation was used in M.E.R.C., how it was implemented, the design and technical problems that were overcome, and how it turned out (spoiler: pretty cool!). For me the most surprising part of the talk was learning just how much custom art and modelling there is in a generated level – it would be great if you could tell the computer what to do and call it a day, but sadly that’s not how it actually works. An enormous amount of work goes into creating building blocks for your levels that your level generation code can assemble for you so that all the pieces look good together.

Graham was kind enough to share his slides, if you missed his talk you don’t have to miss out! If you’d like more detail than is in the slides, Graham also wrote a two part blog about it on Gamasutra: part 1, part 2.

Thanks again to Graham for telling us all about procedural level generation!

Thanks so much to Noah Warder, People Operations Manager at Sendwithus, for coming out to tell us all about Battlesnake and how it grew from a tiny hackathon at UVic to the 350 participant behemoth it was last year. Noah was kind enough to share his slides so those of you who couldn’t make it to his talk because of Snowpocalypse ’17 can still read about Battlesnake.

Be sure to check out the docs if you’re interested in coming to Battlesnake this year, there’s a lot of great info there including code for starter snakes in a wide variety of languages and even the code for last year’s winning snake, Traitor Snake!

Thanks again to Noah for coming out to talk to us, and we hope to see you all at Battlesnake 2017!

IGDA Victoria is the latest organization to join the Indie Prize Scholarship Program as a Nomination Partner for the International Indie Prize Showcase.

Victoria, BC, Canada is a growing presence in Canada’s rich topography of game developers and studios. With over 20 game studios in Victoria employing over 250 developers full time, IGDA Victoria is honoured to have the opportunity to collaborate with Indie Prize to expose this talent on the global stage.

IGDA Victoria’s first Nomination Event, “Demo-Cember Night” took place Monday December 5^th 2016 at Swan’s Brewpub, and was a true holiday celebration of a year of hard work for the Victoria community.

“Crowds Gather for Holiday Demo Night”

Among those in the running to win the Indie Prize USA nomination was Wonderful Lasers, the studio behind the early access release of Super Impossible Road, a racing game that defies physics. Hololabs exhibited their soon to be released mobile title Floor Kids, a gorgeously animated break-dancing game. Red Nexus Games’, whom were nominated for a Canadian Video Game Award, showcased Friday Night Bullet Arena, a chaotic local multiplayer shoot-a-thon.

With full capacity and a flurry of votes the games were in close running, but ultimately Wizard Games with their Steam VR release Cowbots and Aliens took home the Indie Prize USA nomination package, including full access to Casual Connect USA, and spot in the Indie Prize showcase.

Matthew Paxman (left), CEO of Wizard Games & Chapter Leader of IGDA Victoria Chris Lefebvre

Victoria’s gaming community is exceptionally proud to send one of their own to the leading international independent game developers event, and could not have done so without the dedication of its sponsors, including Viatec, Codename Entertainment, DoubleJump Games, Metalhead Software, Eastside Games, KanoApps and more.