CK Status Report, November

Hey there! It's about time we update you all on what we've been up to over the last couple of months.

AIE Post-Incubator Development Grant

In June, after a multi-stage selection process and a lot of paperwork, we were fortunate enough to receive grant money from the Academy of Interactive Entertainment's Post-Incubator Development Grant program. In the months since this has enabled our team to dedicate even more time and energy to making games, with less stress and worry surrounding both personal and company financials. We'd like to thank the AIE for the opportunity and for selecting us. You can read more about it on Kotaku: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/06/aie-launches-brand-new-games-development-grant/

Incorporation

Since we last blogged Cardboard Keep PTY LTD has been incorporated as a real company! We have a business number and everything. This is a big step to take and means both less legal hurdles in the future and hopefully a greater chance that we'll be around well into the future.

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PAX Australia Post-mortem

At the end of October Cardboard Keep bunkered down in Melbourne for a week of conferences and expos, starting with the inaugural Unite Australia and GCAP 2014 developer conferences, and ending the week with PAX Australia. The response we got at PAX Aus was phenomenal. Well over 2,000 people played Warden across the three days, including many of Penny Arcade's staff and other industry heavyweights. Through this we also met new friends and took a sizable swing at our Greenlight campaign, speaking of which...

Warden Greenlit

If you haven't heard, Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth has successfully made it through Greenlight and is approved for sale on Steam! We'll be launching in 2015 on Steam among other platforms, stay tuned for more news on that front.

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iFest Canberra

Just yesterday CK attended local indie games festival iFest here in the nation's capital, and not only did we get a great response to people playing Warden, but Warden was selected as the iFest Canberra 2014 Indie Games Showcase winner! I also gave a talk to iFest attendees titled "How To Start Making Games Right Now". It should be online in the next few weeks so if you're someone who wants to get into making games but doesn't know where to start, keep an eye out for that.

Friends of Cardboard Keep Shoutouts

Finally here's just a few of the things our friends in game development have been up to. Echidna Studios launched their hex strategy game Merchants & Mercenaries onto Greenlight along side PAX Aus. I'm personally really looking forward to this one, you can check out their Greenlight page and give them some love here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/comments/330534057Whale Hammer Games have premiered a new trailer for their upcoming game Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire. The art and animations in Tahira are incredible, give it a watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nq0LFoe6Ps

That's it for now! Stay tuned for more announcements as Warden creeps closer and closer to release. Until next time, Calum

CK Status Report, May

Hey readers!It's been a busy month for Cardboard Keep, but we're finally in a position to knuckle down and spend our time working on our game again for a good long while. What's been happening this month?

New Website

If you're reading this you're already on it! We've finally gone live with our new website and we're very happy with it. It should read well on mobile devices and is much simpler to navigate than the old site, feel free to take a look around!

Gamma.con Attended

Last weekend CK attended Gamma.con, a pop culture expo right here in Canberra, and we were blown away by the attendance numbers and the overwhelmingly positive response we got from people who tried Warden. If you were there and tried our game, thanks! We estimate we had almost 200 people play Warden, and the feedback was extremely useful. We spent all of Monday discussing it and making our next plans based off these experiences.

Our latest work on the art and texturing style in Warden.

Kotaku Mention

One play we got at Gamma.con was gaming journalist Junglist, who gave us a mention on Kotaku, thanks Junglist! You can read his article here: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/05/the-games-of-gamma-con/

Warden is currently in closed pre-alpha with early access planned in the coming months.

Newsletter

Finally, we've started taking subscriptions for a monthly-or-so e-mail newsletter. If you'd like to have our delicious updates fed straight to your inbox, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/US01n

That's all for now, until next time! Calum 

CK Status Report, April

Happy Easter readers, Cardboard Keep has been hard at work on our large project, Warden, and dabbling in smaller experiments as well. We are getting really close to publicly announcing Warden, but in the mean time...

Interview

We did preview Warden in an interview with Final Round Gaming! Read more about Warden and our studio in our discussion with them: http://www.finalroundgaming.com/aus-indie-dev/interview-with-cardboard-keep.aspx

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Marketing Materials

CK has taken delivery of our biggest marketing order so far, including brand new business cards and... t-shirts! Keep an eye out for our shiny new logo at conventions and expos, including...

Gamma.con

Cardboard Keep can confirm we'll be attending Gamma.con, a pop culture expo right here in Canberra on the 24th of May. This will likely be the first time Warden is out in the wild for you to play, so if you're in the area come along and say hi! You can find out more about Gamma.con and grab tickets on their website here: http://gammacon.org/

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Pizza and Pixels, Canberra Game Dev Meetup

CK devs attended the first Pizza and Pixels meet up for local game devs on Wednesday. We met lots of great people including 2K Australia devs working on the just announced Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and saw lots of interesting local projects. If you're a game developer in or near Canberra keep an eye out for the next meet up and come along to network! More info here: http://www.meetup.com/Canberra-Gamedevs/events/175300642/

That's it for this update.  Stay tuned for more news on Warden real soon. Until next time, Calum

CK Status Report, January

Happy new year readers! It's already been a massive year for Cardboard Keep, here's just some of the things we've been up to.

New Office

Cardboard Keep has moved! We now have more space (and unfortunately in this weather, less air conditioning), and we are bunking with our buds Wildgrass Games. We're now almost entirely settled in which will finally give us a chance to put all of our energy back into making games.

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Global Game Jam 2014

We participated in this years GGJ last weekend and it was a blast! We made a micro-RTS called Triton. It's already out in the wild if you're overly curious, but we're going to wait a little bit longer to publicize it here so we can get a tutorial in - the number one feedback was that it was confusing to first time players.

CardboardKeep_Triton01_blog

Indie Jamcast

Our aforementioned friends Wildgrass have spearheaded a new podcast featuring Canberra-based game developers. There are two episodes out so far and a Cardboard Keep developer has been on each of them! Check out the Indie Jamcast here.

We're always getting closer to when we can reveal our current project, and we can't wait to share it with you! Until next time,

Calum

CK Status Report, December

Hey all, Cardboard Keep is going through some crazy times at the moment, not least because the end of the year is approaching. I'd like to share with you a few of the plates we're currently spinning.

Location, Location

Cardboard Keep is moving offices at the end of January, with preparations causing more bumps in our work on games than we'd like, but it'll be worth it to secure us another year of shelter from the cold, dark outdoors.

Graduation, Graduation

On the bright side of the end of year, our three principal developers yesterday graduated from their business course (AIE's Incubator) and will go forward from here with greater skills and more time for development.

Game Development

We're now into Week 6 of our first big project, which we hope to reveal in January or February. But what we can announce now is that we have a whopping 11 people contributing to it's development, including dedicated musicians, writers and concept artists! We're very excited to have this opportunity, and can't wait to share it with you.

Website

Finally, tomorrow we begin work on a long overdue redesign of this website. We'll be starting again from scratch, but if you have any feedback on what you do or don't like about our current site, feel free to send it through to us via Facebook or email!

Until next time, from everyone at Cardboard Keep, have a happy new year!

Calum