Well, I’ve stumbled upon the Saltworks Game Dev Collective.
Josie and myself (for R30:VGD) were showing off our arcade machines, JPO in SLC, and To Space, Comrade, at the Salt Lake City Gaming Con, and I went for a stroll and met a nice person named Greg Bayles. He was manning a large tent full of indie games from right here in Salt Lake City. What caught my attention first was a plywood arcade cabinet that was running a game that was a forced run and jump, like the dinosaur on the chrome “internet out” screen, except that it was two players: player one ran and jumped, while player two set the obstacles in front of them. It was done in a black and white pixel style.
So I got Greg’s number on the back of a small flyer for their next meetup. Apparently, they’ve got weekly meetups, with multiple people attending, every Thursday at 6pm, at the University of Utah library. It took me a couple of weeks to make it to a meeting, and when I finally found the right place, I learned that, since the convention, they had moved locations to the Microsoft store at the City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
But while I was lost in the library, I did happen to meet another couple of people, who were also involved with the Saltworks. One was working on level design and just getting into character scripting. The other, Victor, made weapons. He was a 3D artist who made swords and guns. When I pressed Victor to give me more details, like what the collective was all about, he said, “We really just want exposure. We want the world to know that Salt Lake City has good programmers.”
It was then that I forgot about my quest to meet up with other artists of this amazing medium- the video game– still a locked medium for the layperson– and I remembered that I was a journalist. Soooooo….
Watch for in-depth interview with Greg Bayles of Saltworks COMING SOON!
https://twitter.com/thesaltworksslc
https://www.instagram.com/thesaltworksslc/
-Vourbot