What
is
CIGS?!
Chicago Indie Game Showcase (C.I.G.S.) is a one-day convention showcasing guest speakers and spotlighting in-development and recently released independent games. Come see the latest and greatest in games from Chicago and the Midwest in a popup gallery setting! Play games, chat with the devs, and get to know the Chicago indie game scene.
Guest Speakers
C. Spike Trotman
Kickstarter Is Easy, Actually, And I'll Prove It
Spike was a Kickstarter early adopter, running her first project the year the site launched. She's gone on successfully run over 50 crowdfunds, to the tune of over 5.5 million dollars. She also loves the sound of her own voice! SO, c'mon down and listen to her talk about how you should structure your crowdfund and why, whether it's your first time planning a KS project, you're looking for advice to rework a failure-to-fund, or you're 100 projects deep and just wanna swap protips.
Megan Carnes
Musically Conveying the Structured Chaos of Tarot Readings
In this talk, game designer and composer Megan Carnes will dive into how she balanced the inherent structure necessary to make good music with the randomness of tarot readings in her upcoming tarot music game Divinuet. The larger points about how to decide how many rules to impose to balance out randomness will be relevant to all disciplines, and no music or audio knowledge is necessary to attend!
Anna Anthropy
Your TTRPG is Too Long
Anna is a game designer with over fifteen years of experience in the industry, whose work spans digital games and tabletop games. She has written over six books on game design and spent nine years teaching game design at the undergraduate level.
Her work centers themes of disability, queer romance, kink, and DIY game development and publishing.
Megan Varde
Bugsnax Biomes: The Official Art Book
Get an in-depth look at the biomes that make up Snaktooth Island (and beyond) with concepts, in-progress work, and commentary from Young Horses Lead Environment Artist Megan Varde.
Tony Vasinda
Chief Alchemist
Plus One Exp
(Good) Marketing Is Fun
You had an idea, you made a game (mostly), and now... you have to tell people about it.
For most game designers, the bane of the creative process is the dreaded word, MARKETING. Join Tony as we dive into why marketing isn't the hurdle we think it is, and how good marketing can elicit joy from all parties involved.
This session is a mix of conversation, storytelling & play.
Bilal Yassine & Robert DiSalle (aka Glass Arcade)
Figuring Out How to Actually Make Something
In our game studio, we're both the Art Guy. And the Code Guy. And the Writer Guy... We started as two friends who just wanted to make a game together with no idea what to make. But after one doodle here, one song there, a whole world started to materialize. We'll talk about stumbling into inspiration, working as a team, and what to do when you don't know what you want or where to go.
