The nice people from Cartrdge asked me to do an interview for their blog. As I really like their site and the things they do for the indie scene, it was a no-brainer for me to agree right away.

Happy New Year everyone! With 2017 now upon us, we’re incredibly proud and excited to announce the launch of one of our most important features ever: the new user search tool and the Hire Me button.

Our goal with Cartrdge from the very beginning has been to connect the video game industry, get people collaborating and hired, and through all that to help more games get made! As a small team it’s taken us time to build the infrastructure and feature set necessary, but we’re now ready and so excited to be releasing these tools to you.

Heading to the Devs page on the site, you’ll immediately notice two things: the brand new user search box - and redesigned user thumbnails! The new thumbs contain a lot more information, and up to six of your posts:

With the new user search tool, we’re giving anyone the functionality to search for people on Cartrdge across multiple parameters.

Industry Roll

Geographic location

Multiple skill tags

The tool is a breeze to use; each of these fields can be used on their own, or all three at the same time. You can enter multiple Industry Roles as well as Skills at the same time, to really refine your search. 

Whether you’re looking to collaborate, hire or maybe just find new people to follow - it’s never been easier. Let’s say you’re a Los Angeles native who can program and create her own art, but you really need help with your game trailer. Or maybe you’re an artist looking for a programmer who has experience with Unity. With user search it’s a breeze to find these folks and then reach out to them.

Speaking of reaching out, you’ll also notice a new feature on your profile pages: the Hire Me button!

This feature allows folks to reach out to you directly through Cartrdge. Clicking the button opens up a small messaging overlay, with each message going directly to your email inbox. From there it’s up to you to follow up if you’re interested. The Hire Me button is purely optional of course; if you don’t want it to appear on your profile, just go into your settings and uncheck the box.

We’re very excited to bring you these new features and hope this helps more of you find work, collaborate, and make the games you want to make.

Until next time,

With Halloween behind us, it’s time for the November Challenge! For this months theme we’ve chosen ‘Animated Voxels.’ The inspiration for the theme came from two sources:

The awesome folks at MagicaVoxel, and the new animation capability they just added to the software. 

The impending launch of our new gif player, which you’ll be hearing more about very soon!

So for this contest, your task will be to design a scene using voxel art, and then animate it. You are more than free to use any software you’d like for the art as well as the animation; Qubicle, Hexels, Maya, C4D - it’s your choice! For those of you just getting started, MV does provide a nice option for beginners to jump in and start voxel arting (and now animating as well). 

We can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Prizes

For monthly challenges, judging is determined via community vote

1st Place

Entry featured on our home page banner for the whole month of November

Gold Cartrdge t-shirt (one for each teammate)

1 year Cartrdge Pro (for each teammate)

Cartrdge stickers

Winners badge on your profile

2nd Place

Silver Cartrdge t-shirt

6 months Cartrdge Pro

Cartrdge stickers

Second place badge on your profile

3rd Place

Bronze Cartrdge t-shirt

3 months Cartrdge Pro

Cartrdge stickers

Third place badge on your profile

Rules

Dates: November 2nd to November 28th at 11:59pm EST

Are teams allowed? Yes, feel free to team up with as many people as you’d like

Each submission must be original work by you/your team, and we ask that it be made specifically for the contest

Submission Guidelines

Final entries will be via a gif or a Sketchfab embed, showing your animated voxel scene. The contest will be community judged, so we imagine the most important criteria will be coolness ;)

We ask that you post your final entree on either Facebook or Twitter using our new gif player once it’s released (we’re still a plucky little company, so this helps us spread the word!). If you’re using Sketchfab to post your final, go ahead and use that - their player works on both of these platforms as well!

You’ll need to submit two WIP posts, and a final entry. If you’re on a team of two or more, each member will need to post only one WIP. All posts from you or your team will need to be collected in a project page.

You can name your entry/project page whatever you’d like

Tag your final entry: AnimatedVoxelsFinal

Tag all WIP posts: AnimatedVoxelsWIP

Tag the project page: AnimatedVoxelsProject

Resources

We created a channel in the Cartrdge Slack where participants can get together and chat. Request an invite to the room here if you’re not already a member!

A list of voxel editors

Screenshots from top left: Campo Santo, Trudi Castle, Orsi Spanyol, Gurmukh Bhasin

As the leaves change color and the air becomes crisp, as you don your favorite cardigan while sipping a pumpkin spiced lat…alright alright, we’re done with the fall clichés. But it’s true that this incredibly festive season has arrived, and with it the Cartrdge October challenge!** **

This is the beginning of monthly challenges on the site, and we wanted to kick things off by celebrating this awesome time of year. And so we present you with this autumnal theme: Space in the Fall!

As the name suggests, you’ll be imagining what fall might be like in space, and using that to design a part of a level. Let your imaginations run wild on this one; it could mean designing “fall-looking” spaceships, thinking about what the season would be like on another planet, or what the void itself might be like if it experienced seasons. Feel free to use whatever art style you’d like, and to team up with as many people as you want.

A quick note; moving forward, the first place winner of each monthly contest will have their entry featured on our home-page banner!

Prizes

For monthly challenges, judging will be determined via community vote

1st Place

Entry featured on our home page banner for the whole month of November

Gold Cartrdge t-shirt (one for each teammate)

1 year Cartrdge Pro (for each teammate)

Cartrdge stickers

Winners badge on your profile

2nd Place

Silver Cartrdge t-shirt

6 months Cartrdge Pro

Cartrdge stickers

Second place badge on your profile

3rd Place

Bronze Cartrdge t-shirt

3 months Cartrdge Pro

Cartrdge stickers

Third place badge on your profile

Rules

Dates: October 4th to October 26th at 11:59pm EST

Are teams allowed? Yes, feel free to team up with as many people as you’d like

Each submission must be original work by you/your team, and we ask that it be made specifically for the contest

Submission Guidelines

Final entries will be via an image post, showing your interpretation of a level in a video game while incorporating this months theme. We know that a level can be anything, so just use your imagination and come up with something cool; a shot of a sidescroller, an isometric or over-the-shoulder view if you’re using a more three-dimensional style, top down - it’s totally up to you. The contest will be community judged, so we imagine the most important criteria will be coolness ;)

You’ll need to submit two WIP posts, and a final entry. If you’re on a team of two or more, each member will need to post only one WIP. All posts from you or your team will need to be collected in a project page.

Tag your final entry: SpaceintheFallFinal

Tag all WIP posts: SpaceintheFallWIP

Tag the project page: SpaceintheFallProject

Resources

We created a channel in the Cartrdge Slack where participants can get together and chat. Request an invite to the room here if you’re not already a member!

Social media hashtag: #SpaceintheFall

In anticipation of some major feature releases over the next few months, we’ve just made a really cool improvement with the addition of autocomplete tags. Check out the video below:

As you can see, the autocomplete triggers after you’ve typed in two letters. It will suggest up to the five most used terms based on those letters, in descending order of most-to-least used. Autocomplete has been built into post, project and user-profile skill tags. 

The Art and Animation contest was our first ever event, and a fantastic way to kick things off! There were a wide variety of entries, each celebrating in their own way the important roles that both art and animation play in video games. You can check out all the awesome entries here!

The submissions were judged by our fantastic and diverse panel; Orsi Spanyol, Glauber Kotaki, James Benson and Jobye-Kyle Karmaker. We also want to say a big thanks to our sponsors, SideFX, Allegorithmic and Sketchfab.

Alrighty, it’s time to meet our winners!

3rd Place: Climb by Sarah Doyle and Callum Harwood

Climb, an entry by teammates Sarah Doyle and Callum Harwood, was fueled by their love for classic RPG's, adventure games and platformers, 2D Zelda and Final Fantasy meets 16-bit Mario and Sonic!

2nd Place: Eggbot! by Trudi Castle and Cristian Villalobos

The adorable Eggbot is the product of teammates Trudi Castle and Cristian Villalobos. Trudi started things off with the art, with Cristian then taking over to animate it!

1st Place: Kira by Katherine Diaz

A solo effort from Kathy Diaz, this concept character named Kira is shown in an awesome "fighter” idling position, ready to strike. Congrats Kathy!