PGM NEWS
Playtest Night's new home, a virtual postmortem you can watch right now,
Game Dev Happy Hour, a potluck on the horizon, and more!
Playtest Night Will Remain at Indy Hall!
Our first bit of exciting news this month is that PGM has signed a 12-month partnership with Indy Hall, including being able to use the amazing space for the Global Game Jam! This is fantastic for our community and we are so grateful for Indy Hall’s continued partnership with PGM.
Here are our dates for the next year (all Thursdays unless otherwise specified):
Dec. 11thJanuary 6th (Tuesday)
February 5th
March 5th
April 2nd
May 7th
June 4th
July 2nd
August 6th
September 3rd
The Global Game Jam will take place from January 30th – February 1st.
Details to follow!
Be sure you’re in the PGM Discord if you want to get stay up to date.
We’d also like to extend another huge thanks to PHL Collective for their support during our transition. We truly couldn’t have done it without them and their generous donation to our community!
If you want to contribute to PGM, you can via our Patreon!
Heather Flowers' Virtual Postmortem
PGM will hosted a Virtual Postmortem by Heather Flowers on her recent releases including Fish Fear Me, the Women Want Me Expansion, and Unfair Flips! Join us tonight for some new insights on launching a game and ask questions you have directly to one of our most seasoned dev.
You can watch the whole talk here!
Game Dev Happy Hour
We hosted a Game Dev Happy hour at Oscar’s Tavern on Wednesday, Nov 12th. Turnout was terrific! There were lots of great convos and maybe even some future project proposals. Keep an eye on our Discord server server to catch more events like this that pop up throughout the month!
November Playtest Night
On Thursday, November 6th, we had another fantastic Playtest Night at Indy Hall in Northern Liberties!
Above: The show-and-tell portion of the evening
But first, a quick update! As far as newsletter formatting goes, we changed things up this month. Instead of me writing a short little overview of the games as I saw them at PTN, I allowed the devs to describe their games themselves and share what information and links they wanted to pass along to our readers. We did this for both the Show and Tell and Demo portions of the evening. We’ll keep it this way going forward. I hope you like the new format and the devs enjoy more control over how their project is shared!
Eric – Type 3 Studios
Game: Vamp Punch
Description: An action game, and … maybe it’s a roguelike?
How to Play: Available to demo at Playtest Night
Cameron D
Game: Oswego Quest for the Golden Pin
Description: An almost complete Game Boy game
How to Play: Available on Itch.io
Dalton H
Game: Paranormies
Description: 2D online co-op action adventure where the players make their own map
How to Play: Available to demo at Playtest Night
Jon Dare
Game: Heretic Red
Description: A trailer for a game he’s composing for
How to Play: Wishlist it on Steam
Jack
Game: Portfolio Time Waster
Description: Experiment with ray marching to create a volumetric shader for a background game on my portfolio site
How to Play: Check out his portfolio
Sara Lansdell
Game: Orbis
Description: Showing off the Kickstarter for Orbis, an art book of 200 countries illustrated by 200 different artists!
How to Play: Check it out on Kickstarter
Tom Sennett
Game: Hugby
Description: A teddy bear football where you draw your own plays
How to Play: Currently an IRL exclusive
Tony Mantoan
Game: Gilded Intrigues
Description: Showing off his short D&D adventure – print and digital
How to Play: Check it out and chat about it at Playtest Night
Above: People enjoying the networking and playtest portion of the evening
Below are the demos folks got to play and playtest during the evening. Many of the Show and Tell games were available to demo as well!
Colin Page
Game: She Had to Let Me Go
Description: A short horror game taking place entirely in a rowboat
How to Play: Available on Itch.io
Brian Palladino
Game: Flymageddon
Description: A fly is born with a mutation, blasting out of its cocoon with a biological firearm. It’s time to fly fish! Dodge hungry fish and consume their bones to continue mutating. Mutate to earn new upgrades or increase their potency!
How to Play: Available on Itch.io (Currently password protected, but I’m sure if you ask nicely, Brian will let you play!)
Lloyd and Ethan Byers
Game: Pasthel
Description: A game about friendship, change, energy drinks and demons!
How to Play: Available on Itch.io
Hunter – Lunar Peace
Game: Chowdown Kitty
Description: It’s Chowdown Kitty!
How to Play: Play the demo on Steam
Christopher
Game: Catastrophic Pinwheel
Description: A super fast top down shooter inspired by geometry wars and snkrx.
How to Play: Available to demo at Playtest Night
Drew Genel – Shoreside Studio
Game: Pelican Post
Description: Pelican Post is a cozy narrative game about building community by delivering mail to a town of charming characters
How to Play: See the Pelican Post Linktree
Upcoming and Newly Released Games from PGM Members
Just Released
Not a game, but a book about games—well, making them, anyway—PGM’s very own Adrian Sandoval has co-written the newest addition to all our bookshelves: Word Design for 2D Action-Adventures!
”Award-winning action-adventure designers Christopher Totten and Adrian Sandoval guide you on a quest to create levels for different styles of 2D action-adventure games, from top-down dungeon-crawler adventures to side-scrolling non-linear “Metroidvania” titles. Blending theory and practical analysis, this book shows how principles of game and level design are applied in some of your favorite 2D action-adventure games.”
Heather Flowers’ game about flipping a coin that hates you, Unfair Flips, is out now!
“Unfair Flips is a short incremental clicker about flipping the world’s worst coin over and over until you get ten heads in a row. The game practices true randomness; it is possible that the first ten times you flip the coin will be all heads. However, it’s exceedingly unlikely; with a 20% chance of flipping heads each time, your odds of getting ten in a row are one in 9,765,625. As you play, you can push the odds to be more in your favor, chaining heads together to upgrade your coin. However, getting ten heads in a row will never be guaranteed.”
PHL Collective just released Goosebumps: Terror in Little Creek. Watch the trailer here!
“Step into the shoes of Sloane Spencer, a young teen caught in a town of nightmares, as you unravel eerie mysteries, confront sinister monsters, and navigate haunted locations inspired by R.L. Stine’s legendary book series. Solve puzzles, evade creatures, and uncover the dark secrets lurking in the shadows—all while experiencing the Goosebumps signature blend of spooky adventure and playful twists that has captivated millions of fans both young and young at heart.”
Below the Stone’s Kingdom o’ Quests update is now live!
“The dwarven realms have grown richer and rowdier! This patch brings a trove of new content to explore, fight, and drink your way through.”
Gimme 10 by Tom Sennett is now in beta!
Play this trivia game right in your browser and share your results with friends!
One Million Stars by Tom Sennett Games was featured in our last newsletter, but now its Steam page is officially live!
“Get stars, avoid monsters. The rules are simple, but the goal massive. Pilot 4 different ships, choose stackable upgrades, and grab wild powerups in an endless, dynamically generated roguelite arcade space adventure. Take each run as far as you can, banking progress on the road to ONE MILLION!”
Fish Fear Me by Heather Flowers is out now— Including the Women Want Me expansion!
“A top-down action roguelite about catching fish, fighting them, selling their bones, and catching more fish. Upgrade your boat and weapons, hunt down sea monster bounties, delve into eldritch mysteries, and try to pay off cosmic debt millennia in the making.”
The first paid episode of of the Devil by nth Circle Studios has just been released!
“Immerse yourself in neon, smoke, and high-stakes legal gambles as a Defense Attorney with uniquely Killer insights in this diabolically stylish visual novel adventure game.”
You can also checkout the free prologue if you’d like to give the series a try.
Coming Soon
Pizza Kidd is in development by Kidd Games, LLC. The project is coming soon, but there is currently a playable demo!
”A high-impact 2D action beat ’em up set in a gritty sci-fi fantasy world. Battle grotesque monsters, uncover ancient secrets, and unleash martial arts fury in this pixel art brawler inspired by 90’s anime, noir comics, and arcade classics like Street Fighter II, Streets of Rage, and Ninja Warriors.”
Boast Guards has just been announced by Starworks Studios.
“In this casual multiplayer Co-Op game, play as a squad of vainglorious lifeguards and work together to keep your chaotic beach safe, clean, and most importantly famous! Experiment with game-changing Gear & many passive-effects to create the highest fame-generating strategies with friends!”
Don’t forget to wishlist!
Special Announcements
Playtest Night Satisfaction Survey
If you have attended a recent Playtest Night, we want to hear from you! Help us level up the experience with your feedback on this short survey. It would really help us out!
Upcoming Events
PGM Potluck
We’re planning to hold another Potluck on December 5th from 6-9pm at the Drexel ExCITe Center (located at 3401 Market St #100, Philadelphia). We’re looking for volunteers to bring dishes or board games to share! Please let us know if you’re coming and what you’re thinking of bringing (if anything) by filling out this survey. Bringing something to share is encouraged but not required! We’d love to see you there either way!
PHL Gaming Conference
The PHL Gaming Conference is an all-day event aimed at educating, entering, and, most importantly, engaging with the Philadelphia gaming community! The conference at LocalHost (401 N Broad St.) on Saturday, December 20th from 10am-3pm. The event will include, among other things, a game developer showcase where attendees can play games created by local Philly-area studios. Computers are provided by LocalHost. If you’re interested in showcasing your game, you can sign up to do so here!
PGM Game Job Hunting Advice Sessions
Monthly job hunt advice sessions are hosted in the PGM Discord server. The next will be Saturday, November 15th at 11am, so be sure to join in for advice on interview tips, resume and portfolio reviews, and general job hunting advice! These sessions are led by RJ Reyes, and you can sign up here.
Playtest Night
The next Playtest Night will be Thursday, December 11th at 7pm at Indy Hall in Northern Liberties (709 N 2nd St., 3rd Floor).
PGM Planning Session
The PGM Planning Session is a recurring meeting to help organize events for PGM. These events are open to everyone who would like to attend and are hosted in the Discord server the first Monday of each month. The next one is Monday, December 1st at 7pm.
Unannounced
We may have a few plans up our sleeves for the month that aren’t yet announced yet. Stay tuned in the Discord server to be the first to know!