A lot of exciting tool related developments have been happening in the indie game space since my last post. Go get lost checking out all The Tool Jam 2 submissions… also my Cool Tools itch.io collection is at its 400th addition as of today! When I started writing about tools, and putting together that curation, I thought I would stop at maybe 30… or 100 if I felt like doing too much work. I only got into paying attention to all this because of the Electric Zine Maker, and I wanted to highlight other exciting work done in this space....
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BlueSuburbia Progress Update (screenshots of what I’m working on)
As you probably know from following me on either Mastodon or Twitter, I’ve been working hard on my next “game” (the appropriate label for it is still undecided)… built in UE5. This post is an excuse to share a bunch of screenshots! There have been points where I wasn’t sure if what I was making would even run on any other computer, but I tested it today on my work laptop… omg it runs! Smoothly too! When I started I didn’t completely understand performance, or settings, or all the fancy things Unreal lets you do with optimization… so it was...
Continue reading...Liminal Fever Dreams & Rejecting the Player (the surrealist, strange, upsetting otherworlds of video games)
I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time, but held off to wait for The Lovely Estate to release a patch that would fix the walking issue. It’s fixed. This game is tremendous and you must give it a chance! Talking about this game here was important to me because it captures everything that I love about atmospheric games. It has a MOOD. – The Lovely Estate “You’re here to get someone. They’re here to breathe until they can’t anymore. Mind the fumes. Explore the secrets within these stained walls and find something before it finds you.” The...
Continue reading...“Everything is going to be OK” is in THE collection in MoMA (also Tetrageddon won the Webby)
I’m finally able to share some incredible news that deserves a blog post all on its own… “Everything is going to be OK” was accepted into the permanent collection in MoMA (New York)!!! I am honored to be able to announce that. It will be part of the Never Alone exhibit this September… Never Alone Video Games and Other Interactive Design Sep 10, 2022–summer 2023 “Everything is going to be OK” is a work that I’m probably most proud of. It has everything from me, poetry, animation, meaning… I’m honored that it has meant so much to so many people,...
Continue reading...Photogammetry, Meshroom, and Blender (some learning resources that helped me)
“Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs. It infers the geometry of a scene from a set of unordered photographs or videos. Photography is the projection of a 3D scene onto a 2D plane, losing depth information. The goal of photogrammetry is to reverse this process.” – Meshroom github I’ve been doing a lot of 3D modeling lately and, because I’m new to it, I have also been experimenting with finding workflows that I might be comfortable in. For example a friend of mine models a lot in VR. She swears by it. Anyone I have asked has...
Continue reading...Use, participation, visibility, and anti-artificial scarcity… How small independent tools help us construct a reality that empowers us (something of a manifesto)
Tool development, as an umbrella term that is used to describe software that is both utilitarian and a toy, has become deeply important to me. I think there is something interesting to observe from that space, especially when it is centered around making interesting visual experiments functional to artists. It invites abundance and generocity. For example, J.Kirchartz’s Glitchy3bitDither has become invalualbe to me. It’s a browser based glitching tool that lets you import an image, and then choose from a series of glitch effects. Yes, I can make my own. Yes, there are so many of these. No, for me,...
Continue reading...Itch.io creators you need to follow & some of their beautiful work
Featured image from “space for black hair zine” by starybri A while ago I noticed that my itch following grew quite a bit (now over 5k followers!), but I don’t nearly follow enough people there. I think it goes without saying that itch.io is a wonderful platform. The way they let you follow creators there, and handle notifying you, has been invaluable to me in terms of finding those hidden gems. I have an unsorted growing curation-monstrosity called “the good stuff” that I mention any chance I get. So… I put out a call for people to share their projects...
Continue reading...“RPG In A Box” is a cool tool! (an alternative game development curation)
– RPG in a Box by Zeromatrix I know I probably say this in every one of my Tool posts, but I’m constantly amazed by the breadth of work that’s out there from developers who are making independent tools. Just when you think you’ve seen it all a new take on “how to be creative on your computer” surfaces, and you fall in love with it all over again. I’ve written these tool roundups so much that I started a “Tools” category, and my Cool Tools itch curation keeps growing. I didn’t think this is something you could keep up...
Continue reading...Exciting news: I’m on Rhizome!! (Artbase and Artist Profile)
So here’s a dream come true for my work, and I’m dedicating an entire blog post to this very cool news… My work is on Rhizome again! Artist Profile: Nathalie Lawhead By Ryan Kuo https://rhizome.org/editorial/2022/feb/01/artist-profile-nathalie-lawhead/ Everything is going to be OK Rhizome Artbase https://artbase.rhizome.org/wiki/Q12199 “Everything is going to be OK” was recently included in the Rhizome Artbase. They put out a call for submissions for their executable poetry project. It seemed perfect. “Everything is going to be OK” very much fits that description because it features so much poetry. Then Ryan Kuo asked if I wanted to collaborate on an...
Continue reading...Revisiting BlueSuburbia in Unreal (an update on what I’ve been up to)
I have been heavily invested in learning Unreal and Blender. I announced that I wanted to make a 3D game, so this is my trajectory for the foreseeable future. I’ve been keeping a development update thread on Twitter. It’s fun to track it! update: i finished modeling a bunch of trees (enough for variety) and finally got the procedural forest running.it's so cool and spooky!! i was right too. the god rays + trees are intense. the light effect is amazing too. i love this.can't wait to get some good fog into this… https://t.co/E6OeK0h3Wz pic.twitter.com/DjqcVh9vcv — Nathalie Lawhead (@alienmelon) January...
Continue reading...On GameJolt’s new policy: why stigmatizing “sex” in games is harmful to the medium and never works…
Yesterday GameJolt emailed a lot of people saying that their game was removed because the site’s new policy bans any game that “depicts, solicits, promotes, normalizes, or glorifies sexual acts, sexual solicitation, and sexual violence“. I got an email too for F2OGGY (Only one survives!). This seemed like an obvious error to me because this game has 0 depiction of anything sexual. The game Curtain also received this notice… Source: https://twitter.com/ldreamfeel/status/1478065400286007304 Curtain is a brilliant and critically acclaimed work of art that interrogates abuse. It’s far from a porn game. “CURTAIN is an interactive first-person narrative about Kaci & Ally,...
Continue reading...Tiny indiegames and the joy of Very Small Things
~ This post is my epic roundup of recommendations for 202x! ~ When we talk about games, especially the indie game space, most of the games we suggest are ones with lots of critical acclaim, playtime, and that demand plenty of involvement. Playing a game these days feels like as much of a financial investment as it becomes a life investment. I find myself drawn more and more to spelunking itch.io for tiny hidden gems… getting lost while diving into all the developer pages filled with all these odd little works. Browsing itch or GameJolt has become almost as rewarding...
Continue reading...Red Dead Redemption 2 as a commentary on The Game Industry (my love–hate relationship with it)
I’ve been wanting to do another post talking about indie games, analyzing game design, and showcasing good examples from the indie space but… I’m struggling a lot with being afraid of unintentionally platforming an abuser. I know saying that out loud sounds irrational, maybe. It’s been hard finding love for a space that I feel like happily decided people like me are a justifiable loss if it means making snarky Twitter Takes about what they’re going through… or just benefiting from indifference. I don’t know anymore… I don’t want to rant. I want to talk about game design. It’s hard...
Continue reading...Make Tiny Weird Software, Please! (all about desktop pets, old computer eras, and virtual toys)
I recently gave a keynote talk at the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado’s Whaaat!? 2021 Festival. A festival focusing on small and quirky games and experimental interactions. They’re doing wonderful work. I’m honored to have been part of this, talking about something very near and dear to my heart. This post is that keynote turned into a blog post. I’m sharing a lot of links here! Mind the in-line text links too for good resources. I hope this will be useful to people that share this same interest. ~ ~ ~ As most of you know, my work...
Continue reading...Talk Transcript: Your uniqueness is your strength (and why that matters to the indiegame space)
Following is the transcript of a talk I gave to the Interactive Media program at the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. This talk goes over why uniqueness matters in a space like indie games. I discuss early internet and computer history, and why that history is something we can learn from to maintain the health and openness of the current “golden age” of the indie game space. Links in this slide: – alienmelon.com – unicornycopia.com – tetrageddon.com Hi everyone! My name is Nathalie and I go by alienmelon online and in my work. I’m mostly known for games like...
Continue reading...My GDC 2021 Indie SoapBox Talk Transcript (five minutes about making desktop pets & virtual toys)
This last GDC I was invited to participate in the Indie Soapbox. It’s a wonderful set of talks that happens every GDC in which each speaker is given five minutes to talk about anything they want. I talked about desktop pets, desktop toys, and why that entire concept is such a valuable mode of expression. I actually plan on writing a much longer, and more in-depth post about this (it might end up being a longer talk too), as soon as I have time… It’s a topic that has really grown on me because I think it offers so much...
Continue reading...A retrospective on the Electric Zine Maker, making tools, sharing the $ numbers, and more (after launching the really big update…)
Over this weekend I finally launched the really big Electric Zine Maker update that I have been working on for the last few months. This is a notable update featuring a UI overhaul (it’s less intense now!), new templates, and a lot of fixes. I spent a lot of time making the UI friendlier. I couldn’t help myself so pop-up windows are cute pixel art. There’s animation to many elements, but I think it’s much more refined now. The main menu UI was always very “placeholder”, and many decisions in it had been for the sake of compromising for the...
Continue reading...Indiepocalypse x kuš! (The secret collaboration I was working on is out now!!)
Here’s a small but meaningful announcement! Download link >> https://pizzapranks.itch.io/indiepocalypse-x-kus Over the last few months I was secretly working on a collaboration project for the “Indiepocalypse x kuš” mashup. The project teamed up a group of random indie devs (provided by Indiepocalypse) with random comic artists (provided by kuš). The results are stellar! Even thecatamites worked on a game for it. I’m honored to be part of this! The person I was teamed up with is Gvidas Pakarklis, who is an amazing illustrator and artist. You can see more of his work on Instagram. His work is very symbolic and...
Continue reading...The Machine That Eats People
I just finished having a really long conversation with another friend that works in games and it inspired me to write this post. It’s given me a lot to think about. I’m still processing my experiences… As I write this, the game space is under another metoo “moment”. More of these horrible, but all too normal stories, this time coming out of Blizzard. I won’t be linking to any of these because I don’t have the stomach for it. We’ve had these “moments” come and go now for the last few years. Each time reminding this space of the abuse...
Continue reading...If Cosby’s trial were Game Industry Twitter Discourse™…
This post is a rant because, despite all the things my blog has become known for… it is still my personal blog where I talk about how I am doing. Today I’m angry and need to vent. Alternative title: Need to vent. Might delete later. Just days ago my Twitter timeline was blowing up with news of Near’s death. It’s a very difficult and heartbreaking story. I don’t really want to say much about this loss other than it is a tremendous loss. I’ll share the two tweets, but please look up this person’s contributions too. This post is not...
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