ReginaGameDev Newsletter – February 2021

Howdy Gamedevs,

We’re a little early with this newsletter because it’s time for Global Game Jam! Time to break the silence of winter and come together to make games, have fun and learn together.

1. Global Game Jam Regina – This year with the game jam going virtual we’re consolidating Global Game Jam sites for Saskatchewan, so folks from all over the province can participate and join together for 48 hours of fun and creativity. We’ll be doing some virtual meeting rooms for folks to meet and chat about the theme after it’s announced, we’ll have the RGD discord for conversations and help, and we’ll broadcast the presentations via twitch. More details to come, but to participate you need to sign up at www.globalgamejamregina.ca

2. Paid Opportunity – The MacKenzie Art Gallery and curated by Sarah Friend, Cat Bluemke, and Jonathan Carroll, are running a video game artist residency this year. Four residencies will be appointed with the artist creating a Minecraft-based exhibit over two months being paid $1600 and getting mentorship from the curators. Their exhibit will be hosted by the MAG for two months. The Deadline to submit is January 31st so get your applications in now! https://ender.gallery/ for more details and to apply.

3. Launch – OneShot Golf! a new golf mobile game from 54e Dev Studios Inc in Regina launched recently. It’s a brave new gaming concept having real world robots that user inputs control for minigolf-inspired play. You can watch a piece by the CBC on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3p4R0GX_u8&feature=youtu.be, or check it out yourself on the Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/oneshot-golf/id1487700917 or Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fiftyfour.e.oneshotgolf

4. Press Coverage – Bitwad’s Xero Hour got more press coverage. Mark Melnychuk of the Leader Post did an article following up Justin’s release (he was a part of the huge community profile piece Mark did last year: https://leaderpost.com/news/local-news/digital-dreams-meet-reginas-independent-video-game-developers) You can check out the new piece here: https://leaderpost.com/news/local-news/moose-jaw-man-releases-first-video-game-xero-hour. He also got some coverage from Discover Moose Jaw with this piece: https://discovermoosejaw.com/local/local-music-producer-creates-releases-mobile-game

5. Unreal Results – Thanks to Evan Geissler of Virtus Studios for running our Intro to Unreal workshop, it was great. Evan wanted to recommend some links for those looking to learn more about Unreal:
Virtus’ Video Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/c/VirtusEdu/playlists
Good for free animations: https://www.mixamo.com/#/
Good for c++ and local multiplayer: https://www.youtube.com/c/DevEnabled/playlists
Good for a lot of one off videos and specific things: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOVfF7PfLbRdVEm0hONTrNQ
Unreal Engine itself: https://www.youtube.com/user/UnrealDevelopmentKit
It’s a great engine to work with for high end 3D projects. One of our local devs even just got remote hired by a AAA studio. It’s great to see results like this, people getting paid jobs in the industry, opportunities to learn and show off their skills, contribute to great games, connect with industry, but also still able to stay in Sask and pursue their own projects. It’s a great reminder that if you do have the tenacity to polish those skills the opportunities are out there!

5. Meetup – Our next Virtual Meetup will be Monday February 1st at 7pm in the Community meetings channel on the ReginaGameDev Discord. If you haven’t joined the Discord yet, you can join here: [REDACTED – Sign up for our newsletter to get an invite to the Discord!]

6. 5 Questions – A quick five question survey to keep ReginaGameDev in the loop about what’s going on in our community. Every month there’s new questions. It only takes a minute or two, but your input helps inform what we do and how we can help you:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXs4IK6TLE5arjWt2JW3giDi8r7GryIjWOlLwupkboMM7hnA/viewform?usp=sf_link

7. 1 Action – Here’s one quick and easy thing you can do to build the game scene here in Sask:
Join in the Global Game Jam Regina site to connect with other game devs, learn and share your knowledge to make things happen. Sign up here: www.globalgamejamregina.ca

So some great news and successes to the start of our year. We’re always here to help you with advice, resources and connections with whatever projects you’re working on. Reach out to us anytime with questions, comments or news you want to pass along to the community.

Sincerely,
Kai Hutchence
@ReginaGameDev

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