Stage of Development: Indie City (series)
They are young and hopeful, but also polished and poised. Oddly practical. Totally Midwestern. Building an indie community the Chicago Way, by making new shit.
We spent a month with Chicago’s indies. This series is about their passions, their drive, and their lives. Why making games is the only thing they can imagine doing, even in the face of failure.
Featuring Young Horses (Octodad), The Men Who Wear Many Hats (Organ Trail), William Chyr (Manifold Garden), Trinket Studios (Battle Chef Brigade, Culture Shock Games (We Are Chicago), Chris Wade (Sausage Sports Club), Greg Wohlwend (Tumbleseed), Josh Tsui (Robomodo), DePaul University, Bit Bash, and more.
Produced and directed by Russ Pitts, creator of polygon.com's "Human Angle" and the author of "How Video Games Are Made"; "Eagle Semen"; and "Sex, Drugs & Cartoon Violence".
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15m — 1 text trackEp3 | Indie City
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From Chicago's DePaul university, to the now-forgotten Chicago triple-A studios, the city once held a lot of promise for would-be game developers. This is the story of that promise reborn.
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9m 16s — 1 text trackEp4 | We Are Chicago
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Chicago's South Side is a place where few children grow up to be game developers. Writer Tony Thornton raised a family there, and teamed up with Culture Shock Games to tell a story about what living there is really like.
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9m 39s — 1 text trackEp2 | The Hermit of Hyde Park
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William Chyr is a physicist, game developer, balloon artists and juggler, and the creator of "Manifold Garden." William describes it as a physics-based puzzle game about architecture and the first 100 years of physics. "As if M.C. Escher made a video game."
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9m 51s — 1 text trackEp5 | Idiots Doing a Dumb Thing
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Bit Bash is Chicago's homegrown indie game festival, started by a group of friends who had no idea what they were doing until they did it. Run by Chicagoans, for Chicagoans; it's a game festival done "the Chicago Way": a little goofy, a little rough around the edges, and imminently practical.
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14m — 1 text trackEp1 | Here we Are, Having a Company
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Young Horses is a group of students forged into a team at Chicago's DePaul University, and graduated into a company through the monster success of Octodad. This is the story of what happens next.