Hello Aura Games fans! There are a whopping fifty of you right now, so if you’re reading this then be proud that you’ll be able to say that you were here before we got cool and/or sold out. We’re hoping to update our blog on a monthly basis, but this frequency may be more or less depending on what is going on.
So what have we been up to? It has been a busy first couple of months, ensuring that Aura Games hits the ground running and that we lose no time in setting up production efforts. As a result of this we have been fairly quiet publically, but a lot has been going on in the background.
Our first big bit of news is that we have been fortunate enough to secure a partnership with Microsoft through their BizSpark program. For those of you who aren’t familiar with BizSpark, it’s a scheme Microsoft run which provides newly formed businesses with free Microsoft software. It has been of invaluable assistance to Aura Games so far, and allowed us to construct a server and utilise some much needed software for use throughout our business. As a result of this there really wasn’t anything holding us back from moving on to the first stage of production.
REQUIEM
Those of you who follow us on Facebook and Twitter will know that we kicked off development of our first game, codenamed Requiem, earlier this month. We honestly don’t have a great deal to share with you on that front because it’s extremely early days and development has only just begun.
By way of background, Requiem (meaning mass of the dead, chillingly dramatic right?) is a science fiction based platform game for PC and consoles set in the year 3021 with an interesting and novel gameplay mechanic that we think is rather distinctive. But then of course we would! But as we said, it’s early days. Currently we’re working on fleshing out the storyline into something deep and stimulating to reflect what we hope to achieve with our games whilst also producing level designs and getting concepts together for our music and characters.
That’s really all we have to share with you at this point, but here’s a generic shot of one of our very (and we mean very very) early level designs to keep you hooked?
Nothing entices an audience like a rough sketch in a note book. We’ll keep you updated as much as we can as the game begins to shape form, but
this may not be for a little while unfortunately!
SOUTHERN INDEPENDENT GAMES NETWORK CONFERENCE
The other important thing we did this month was attend the Southern Independent Games Network (SIGN, who can be found here) opening conference at Portsmouth University. SIGN is a non-profit organisation focused on creating a support network for independent game developers through a combination of events, web-based resources and providing connections between members of the network and professionals from the industry.
The Launch of SIGN
This was our first ever conference (an AG milestone) and was a fantastically informative event, even though we didn’t really have anything to show off. In attendance and providing talks were some very seasoned indie game developers. One of our favoured topics was the subject of what exactly “being indie” meant from Ben Gunstone of Stainless Games (the authors of Carmageddon). Whilst the talk went into a bit more detail on the subject, Gunstone summed it up in a simple phrase: “No one really cares. It’s just what you make it.”
The advice provided at the conference was honest and really painted a realistic picture of the indie-game industry. Mike Bithell, who created the sensational Thomas Was Alone, provided the important message that success or failure aside, the main point of being in the industry is that you’re passionate about making games, which is certainly a core value at Aura Games.
SIGN hope to host several networking meetings as well as one “game-jam” a year (teams competing to create an indie-game over the course of a weekend) so you’ll be sure to see us attending these events and providing what we can to the SIGN network. Hopefully at the next conference we’ll be in a position to pitch our first game!
Well that’s all for this month, thank you for taking the time to read our blog and as always if you want to get in touch you can reach us on Facebook, Twitter or at support@auragames.co.uk. And if you’re feeling the Aura Games love please share us with your friends!
