This post is being published on my personal blog and the Geekwagon blog.

I’ve made many games for my own amusement, but now I want to build games you enjoy.

Video games are what got me into computers back in the 386/486 days. It’s the dream to make games for others. I’m not greedy, it doesn’t have to be Undertale or Stardew Valley. Just something that brings a little joy to a few people and–hopefully–puts food in my fridge.

Geekwagon

Geekwagon is an organization that makes games. I hope others will join me, but for right now it’s just James in the Geekwagon–or james@geekwagon. I don’t know I’m still working it out.

So far, Geekwagon hasn’t made any games worth selling. I’ve participated in a few game jams, and everything went better than I expected. I still feel that I have a lot to learn, and that’s okay. I like learning.

I don’t know why I’ve had the geekwagon domains for decades and never thought of it as an organization name until a few months ago, but Geekwagon Games sounds fun. It even has gg as shorthand! I picked up the .games top-level domain and now it’s official https://geekwagon.games. The other top-level Geekwagon domains redirect to it (although email is still on geekwagon.net).

I’m also working out the culture and vision, but here is a draft.

As an organization:

  • Value people - Everyone brings something to the table, different perspectives make better games
  • Stay small - The goal is to make good games, not grow a giant studio
  • Collaborate then commit - Explore ideas as a team, but once a direction is chosen, a lead keeps the project moving

For the games:

  • Trust the player - Let the player find meaning, don’t explain everything
  • Reward curiosity - For the players willing to dig deeper, there is something interesting to find
  • Games that fit the idea - There is no mold, do what makes sense for the game

Of course there is a blog.geekwagon.games, so I have two blogs to neglect! I signed up for all the social medias I could with geekwagon or geekwagon.games. I vibe coded a little program to post to them all–it works most of the time. It also determined which ones I will post to.

Everyone else was impossible, made it complicated, or wanted money.

Speaking of social media, I have decided Geekwagon is federated first. I don’t think I’ll make a dent in moving the crowds to those services, but it’s what I can do to stand against the man!

Geekwagon is on PeerTube and Streamplace. Geekwagon is also on YouTube and Twitch, because you have to meet people where they are.

Geekwagon will use open formats. I’m not sure how artists with will like that, but it’s a plan. Even internal authoring assets must be in an open format. I’ve been bitten by closed formats too many times. I’ll never tell people what tools to use, but I’ll always encourage open source tools.

On a personal note, if I’m learning a new tool it will be the open source version. Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t understand doing it the other way.

Gimp has been fine for images so far. I have yet to cross the music bridge.

Deplicator

Of course I know him, he’s me! My name is James, and my gamer handle has been Deplicator for a long time.

Now that the Geekwagon domains belong to the game making effort, jamespryor.net, is my personal space on the web.

The origin story of my gamer handle (why wouldn’t you want to know if you read this far?):

Deplicate - to render unsolvable.

A friend of mine made this word up after letting me play with his Rubik’s cube unsupervised.

Deplicator - one who deplicates.

I used it at a LAN party after the Rubik’s cube incident, and it stuck.