Schlagwort: girls make games

  • Interfectorem, The First Published Title From Girls Make Games, Out Today

    Interfectorem, The First Published Title From Girls Make Games, Out Today

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    I first met Izzy, Summer, Lucia and Avalon at the inaugural Girls Make Games San Francisco camp in 2015. They were members of the notorious “Team Who Must Not Be Named” (TWMNBN), working on a charming and gruesome murder mystery game entitled “Interfectorem,” which launches at PlayStation Store today. The photo above shows our 2015 Demo Day Finalists, with Izzy, Lucia, and Avalon in the center.

    When TWMNBN made it to the Demo Day competition (no surprise there), their pitch blew the judges and the audience away. In just three weeks this brilliant team of middle schoolers had learned pair programming (none of them knew how to code before camp), co-written a script, and even mastered the art of negotiating which game elements would make it to the final game.

    Today’s launch is a huge deal, not just for TWMNBN, who fulfilled their lifelong dream to publish a console game, but also for Girls Make Games — it’s our first console title! I had the chance to speak with Izzy Penston, co-creator of Interfectorem, about the origins behind this creepy title and where the idea spawned from.

    Interview with Izzy Penston, Co-creator of Interfectorem

    What is Interfectorem?
    Izzy: Interfectorem, which means “killer” in Latin, is a video game that I, along with three other girls, Avalon Brevik, Lucia Plymale, and Summer Benn, made a demo for while at a Girls Make Games summer camp. The demo qualified for “Demo Day” (where a winning game is chosen to be fully developed and released) in 2015, and ended up winning! The game follows Alis, a teenage sheriff-in-training, as she investigates her younger sister’s murder. Huge shoutout to GMG for letting me run with that idea and for supporting a game with a couple of murders, and, of course, allowing a lot of blood and gore.

    Where did Interfectorem come from? Where did you get the idea?
    Izzy: I wish I could say it was due to my love for thrillers/horror, but I didn’t start enjoying that stuff until recently although I suspect I always was weirdly fascinated by it. I think the idea pretty much just came to me more or less fully formed on the second day of camp. Of course, we tweaked it a bit, but for the most part, it’s from that original idea.

    After winning GMG’s “Demo Day,” what has the journey been like to bring your game to life?
    Izzy: Myself and the team effectively became game directors. We wrote scripts for each act and then guided the Girls Make Games development team in order to bring our vision to life. It was an amazingly empowering experience and I’m so grateful to Girls Make Games that I got to create a story like this so young.

    Did the final game evolve from the original pitch and concept?
    Izzy: Yes, definitely. In the original game, the only characters were Alis, Sali, the Nymph, Dr. Medicus, Silana, and Isal. Many other characters were added to fill archetypes. Isaiah was added to be Alis’ loyal best friend in addition to a bit of common sense (that often ends up coming off as neuroticism) along with his lovable animal companion Mochi. Ash is Alis’ love interest in addition to having valuable information. The story also changed a bit, but I don’t want to spoil it.

    What has being a part of something like Girls Make Games meant for you?
    Izzy: When I first heard about the GMG camp I just thought it would be a fun thing to do over the summer but it changed my life in a really awesome way. Before Girls Make Games, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. I had some ideas but none of them really clicked. I knew I liked video games and writing but I didn’t really believe that something so fun can be a real career.

    So going to camp was really cool for multiple reasons. You probably can’t tell, but I am in a wheelchair, and it was really great just to go to camp because I am not able to go to other camps. When you are sitting at a computer it really doesn’t matter if you can walk or not which was very very cool to me.

    My experience with GMG has given me the confidence to pursue other writing and video game projects. I am currently writing a horror podcast as well as working on a novel and a bunch of short video game ideas such as an RPG. I’m also going to community college majoring in film, and I am really excited to see where all of my projects go and what my future holds.

    Everything that Izzy said is why we started Girls Make Games. We want to create a place where girls are given the chance to freely explore the stories they want to tell and to provide them with the tools and the opportunity to do so. With today’s launch of Interfectorem, I’m so proud of Izzy, Summer, Lucia, and Avalon, and can’t wait to see where their paths lead. I hope that more young women, like TWMNBN, realize that they belong and have a home in the gaming world.

    I hope you’ll love playing Interfectorem as much as TWMNBN loved creating it.

    Website: LINK

  • Girls Make Games: Demo Day 2019 Winner, Event Recap

    Girls Make Games: Demo Day 2019 Winner, Event Recap

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    “Girls don’t like playing video games.” It’s time to get rid of this age-old myth.

    Numbers don’t lie and if you look at the stats, about 46% of the U.S. gamer population is female. There are lots of reasons this misconception exists, but thankfully, there has been a shift in recent years, where more and more women have begun finding their voice and flourishing to prove this myth wrong. And it all starts at a young age. That’s where Girls Make Games steps in.

    My name is Laila Shabir and I am the founder of Girls Make Games. Five years ago I started out on a mission to show young women around the world that there’s a place for them in gaming.

    In 2014, we launched , a summer camp for teaching young women game development and offering them a home to express their shared love of playing and creating video games. I’m reminded of a time when I spoke to a mother after camp and she told me that her daughter came home after the first day and enthusiastically cheered, “Mom, I found my people!” We continue to hear the same years later.

    Now, five years later, we just wrapped up our biggest summer camp season to date and it all culminated at the end with “Demo Day.” This was the chance for the top five teams from around the nation to come together at PlayStation’s headquarters in San Mateo, California, and present their demos to a panel of industry leaders: Shawn Layden, Chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios; Siobhan Reddy, Co-Founder and Studio Director, Media Molecule; Helen Chiang, Head of Minecraft Franchise; Reiko Ninomiya, Director, Product Localization, Nintendo; and Deepthi Menon, SVP, Words with Friends at Zynga.

    “What I enjoyed most was having fun at the camp and everyone being so nice,” said Team Banana, one of this year’s five finalist teams. “We really liked making new friends and playing video games.”

    Team Atlantis even found ways around summer vacation time and made it a point to balance their work with fun, “When people started going on vacation that was hard to communicate but we had a shared google doc so we could keep track of our game and work that needed to get done. But all 4 of us were, I think, very focused on getting what we need to get done and then taking pause and then finding time to goof off.”

    But through the fun and games, these GMG campers knew that they had work to do and overcome unexpected obstacles along the way. “I think the hardest thing was making the planting tree mechanic because I worked on that so I stayed in on break and just focused on that…and not goofing around,” team GG told me.

    Team Short Stack had loading errors when trying to complete their demo. “I think the hardest thing for me was my computer and Stencyl (game engine) bugging out and having to restart my computer a lot. I really owe it to my team for just keeping at it, not stressing about it, not trying to think about it, and just trying to get it done.”

    While at Demo Day each of these team presented their projects and competed for the Grand Prize – having their game developed professionally Kickstarted and published!

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBO1O9pjkAw&w=1032&h=581]

    This year’s Grand Prize winning team? Team Atlantis with their original game, What They Don’t Sea. In WTDS you play as a marine researcher with the Rachel Carson Research Organization, RCRO, who has been sent to collect samples of a special kelp for an alternative energy project.

    When asked about the inspiration for the game, the team said they were inspired by their collective fears of deep oceans and the mysterious creatures that live there, and their love for beautiful art. Team members Twyla, Catie, Claire and Riley contributed to the game’s development, including art, animation, and programming. They even made their own sound effects — the sound of air bubbles, for example, came from playing around with a faucet in the sink at camp!

    Demo Day was a massive success for all of this year’s contestants. After the celebration and fanfare died down, I asked Team Atlantis if they could share a piece of advice for aspiring game makers out there. “PLAN!” they responded. “Start out knowing approximately what you’re doing before you start on anything. Get the mechanics of what you want down and figure out what you are willing to cut off.

    “Work as a team,” they continued, “because you can’t really make a game by yourself. You can’t come up with all the ideas. There might be some really good ideas your team members have, so don’t shut people down, just listen to them. The more the merrier — if you incorporate other voices into your game it’s cooler and it’s just a more unique idea.”

    Every year, I’m blown away by the creativity and originality of the games created, and simultaneously filled with hope for the future of the industry.

    Registration for 2020 summer camps will open in November, and we offer up to 100% need-based financial assistance thanks to GMG’s generous sponsors. If you’re unable to join us at one of our 10 locations, you can still get your feet wet with game dev tutorials (Unity and Stencyl) available on the .

    Website: LINK