PGM NEWS
Play It Forward Month, the Philly Asset Jam, our second Coffee Meetup, May 2025 Playtest night, and more!
May is PGM Play It Forward Month
This month, we’re raising money for PGM’s Patreon. Your donations go towards our event programming and sponsorships such as:
Social meetups: Our flagship event, Playtest Night, holds our community together. Our coffee meetup in March was well loved, and we’re looking forward to a sequel this May. We also hope to make our December potluck an annual tradition. Community events are at the heart of PGM, and we need funding to pay for event space.
Game jams: We think game jams are vital to our community–just ask anyone who participated in the Global Game Jam in January. What an opportunity for people to sharpen their skills, new games to emerge, and the spark of an idea to turn into the next great Philadelphian studio!
Conferences: PGM’s visibility is essential to Philly’s growth as a gaming city. We advocate for you at conferences, connect with new members, form partnerships with other orgs, and convince out-of-town industry folks that Philly is the place to be. We hope the partnerships we form will help local studios launch their games and help local talent find work.
We’ve got a goal of maintaining $400 in donations, and you can help for as little as $3 a month! Sign up for our Patreon here.
The Philly Asset Jam: Soft Pretzel Pack!
Above: PGM’s Executive Director, Zach Fried, going over details of the Asset Jam during Playtest night.
We’re working together to create the Soft Pretzel Pack, a Philly-themed asset pack that everyone can use in their creations. It’s a time capsule, an ode to Philly, and a representation of the creative power of PGM!
The Asset Jam is a low-stakes, fun opportunity for you to add a little piece of your creative magic to PGM. Here’s how it works:
You design, write, draw, model, animate, rig, compose, engineer (you get it) something Philly-themed, we all upload our creations for use, and bam! We’ve created the Soft Pretzel Pack, a bundle of Philly assets.
Don’t think you can contribute? Think again! You might be a writer–write voice lines you might overhear walking through the city. You might be a sound engineer–record/edit/create Septa noises. You might be a voice actor–record a few takes of a cheesesteak order. The sky’s the limit! (artists, I didn’t bother including you in these examples–I think you know what to do).
This jam is meant to have a low barrier to entry. You can work by yourself or with others to build something in your discipline at any point during the month of May. We’re making it easy to participate because we want as much representation as possible! It could take as little as an hour to leave your mark on the jam!
“Philly-themed” is very much open to interpretation, so be creative!
We’ve got a special channel set up for this jam in our Discord server, so head over there to get more details and participate in the festivities. The jam ends May 31st at midnight!
May Playtest Night
On Thursday, May 8th, we had a very special Playtest Night this month as part of Philly Tech Week!
Above: The show-and-tell portion of the evening
Playtest Nights are usually first Thursdays, but this time we held our monthly meetup during Philly Tech Week, which ran from May 5th-10th. This very special Playtest Night was held in a different venue from our usual spot, and we’d like to extend a special thank you to Bernie Clark for donating the cost of the space, as well as give a big thanks to Jim Graham and his team for hosting the event at Power Plant Productions. As always, we had some amazing presentations, lots of great games to playtest, and tons of great networking opportunities!
Eric, co-founder of Type 3 Studios, showed off his new work in progress, a vampire-slaying roguelike with the working title of V Town Beatdown.
Tom Sennett, fresh from his recent release of One Million Stars, shared his new online browser trivia game, Gimme 10, which is still under development but available to play now!
Jon Dare shared a couple of his fantastic musical contributions to the game Heretic Red, an upcoming investigative puzzle game. (Be sure to wishlist!)
Finally, Rahul shared information about some of the immersive art experiences being developed by Collidascope, an art and technology collective creating virtual reality exhibits inspired by the likes of MeowWolf and teamLab.
Above: People enjoying the networking and playtest portion of the evening
The playtest portion of the night kicked off after show and tell ended. There were many great games for folks to play and give feedback on, as well as snacks, drinks, and lots of networking to be had!
As always, a special thanks to Majux for continuing to partner with PGM.
Upcoming and Newly Released Games from PGM Members
Just Released
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!
“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
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
May is PGM Play It Forward Month
The month of May is a special one! Help PGM power up by participating in fundraising efforts so we can offer more to our amazing community! We have relaunched our Patreon with new perks and exciting opportunities for members, so be sure you’re in the PGM Discord serverto get all the details!
PGM will have a booth at Too Many Games!
PGM will have a table at the Too Many Games conference showcasing our members’ projects! You can sign up to have your game or demo featured with the dev sign-up sheet here! The sheet also includes all the information you need regarding prep for the event and what the booth layout will be like.
Tell us where you live and how you like to work
We’d love to know where you live—I promise we won’t make it weird! We’re running a survey to find out where PGM members are located (just your neighborhood is all we need) so that we can coordinate events that are accessible to as many of our members as possible. Please spare a (literal) minute of your time to take the (very short!) PGM Neighborhood Survey. It’ll help us continue to curate the best experience for our members.
Additionally, as we mentioned in the previous newsletter, PGM is trying to create a coworking program with our partners at Indy Hall, and you can help! And benefit from our partnership! There’s a form we’d be really grateful for you to fill out so we can use the data to make the most of our shared interests. Please take the PGM-Indy Hall Coworking Survey
Upcoming Events
Coffee Meetup at Good Karma
We will be having our second PGM coffee meetup at Good Karma Cafe on Broad St on Saturday, May 31st. The last one was a big hit and we’re excited to be able to host another! More details to come in the Discord server.
PGM Game Job Hunting Advice Sessions
Monthly job hunt advice sessions are hosted in the PGM Discord server. The next will be Saturday, May 17th 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.
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, June 2nd at 7pm.
Playtest Night
The next playtest night will be Thursday, June 5th at 7pm at our usual spot, Majux Hub (230 N 2nd St).
Too Many Games
The Too Many Games conference is from June 27-29th at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, PA. Many PGM members participate in the Indie Game Showcase and/or sell their art or crafts at a vendor booth. This year’s accepted games have been announced, and you can see them all here!
Narrascope
PGM will be at Narrascope! This celebration of narrative games is being held at Drexel University this year June 20th-22nd, and PGM will be in attendance. Come check us out and enjoy the conference!