A few weeks ago, Pixelkin stopped by the 8th annual Power of Play, a conference for video game developers hosted by the Washington Interactive Network (WIN). The event was (appropriately) located just two blocks from the Microsoft campus and the headquarters of Valve in Bellevue, Washington.

Power of Play focused on giving small developers a platform to show off their hard work and get feedback on their games from real gamers. It also gave them a chance to network with other local developers. We asked Zach Aikman of 17bit, “Why is the indie game community so important?” and he responded, “Why are friends important?”

Everyone shared the same sentiment. The Seattle indie game community gives developers a chance to share resources and contacts, make friends, and work together.

The Seattle Indie Game Competition, which happened at the Power of Play, had its first Youth Division contest this year. The nominees were all high school students who worked in small teams to make their games. Simone spoke to Eric and Caleb, who made a game called Project Titan. They taught themselves how to use Unreal 4 (a suite of game-making tools) and built a complex movement system for Project Titan. Watch the video about to find out what it was like to pitch their game in front of a panel of judges.


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Simone de Rochefort is a game journalist, writer, podcast host, and video producer who does a prolific amount of Stuff. You can find her on Twitter @doomquasar, and hear her weekly on tech podcast Rocket, as well as Pixelkin's Gaming With the Moms podcast. With Pixelkin she produces video content and devotes herself to Skylanders with terrifying abandon.Courtney is Pixelkin's Associate Managing Editor. While working with the Girl Scouts of Northern California, she mentored young girls in teamwork, leadership, personal responsibility, and safety. Today, she spends her time studying adolescent development and using literary analysis techniques to examine video games.