Slam Chowdah Studios
Games and Game Assets
Hey there! The name's Phil.
I've been making game designs, prototypes, and art assets over the last couple decades on my own.
I recently started mentoring/tutoring some of my peers who have expressed interest.
Please consider donating to, hiring, or commissioning me, I'm not currently getting paid for this.
The splash/logo was made by my lovely partner, Kel.Thanks for your time and enjoy the tour.
About Me and My Game Development Journey
Era 0: Origins & Inspirations
I've been cooking up game designs since I was old enough to pick up a controller. I would spend my youth chronically addicted to various games and series such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Jak and Daxter, and Crash Team Racing. I would make tilesets on paper and lay them out throughout the house. I would also draw up side-scroller levels and top-down zones alike. I would move to PC gaming in my teenage years, and adopt the whole Source engine ecosphere into my gaming habits, as well as a bit of Minecraft and the little-known Cube 2: Sauerbraten.I encountered my first game engine in 5th grade: RPG Maker. While its limited scope and direction made experimentation tricky, it was cool to see just how the whole system actually worked, and the sorts of worlds, characters, creatures, and items you could make. I would regularly use this alongside my normal gaming habits, it was just a blast.About the time I wrapped up High School, I had a eureka moment. A game idea I couldn't just slap together in RPG Maker. I wanted to make a customizable fighting game with elemental magic and medieval weapons, very obviously inspired by shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Naruto.
Era 1: Ambition & Vision
I would work on figuring out how to bring this idea to life over the next few years. Prototype after prototype has checked off another set of skills needed to pull it off. It's to the point now where I could probably get it up and running, but the time is not yet right.Absolver releases. It's the closest thing to what I'm trying to do that I've ever seen. I rush to the devs to ask them questions. One response will stick with me forever. "You can learn a lot by just messing around and prototyping".So I set off by trying to recreate their systems. This only took about a month, but I saw just how much work I was cutting out for myself. So I started work on a new prototype to further feel out the engine, the FPS perspective and vehicle physics. It would come to be known as Wastelander Sim, and as been recently revived as a full-fledged project, using it as a vehicle to catch my peers up with what I know.
Era 2: Studying & Patience
Once I was satisfied with what Wastelander Sim had taught me, I set off to start another new prototype to learn more, but was instead struck with grief, and a spell of burnout and creative blockage after a string of deaths in the family. Trying to keep the lights on with pizza-making wasn't exactly easing the stress either. I would tackle projects during this time, but they were all re-hashes and re-affirming skills I'd already learned.Making pizza and making games have a few things in common. They both have the potential to make or break someone's day. Putting the effort into either will strengthen results. They both require a sense of knowing what the finished product is supposed to look like. They are both art. But games have a way of sticking with you for a lot longer than even the best pizza, and consist of a fusion of many art and programming disciplines. Even in this period of stagnation, there were lessons learned.Eventually, time went on, as it always does, and I found myself re-invigorated, but still afflicted by writer's block. I figured if I couldn't find the creative juices, I could at least do a little studying. So in 2021, at the peak of the COVID lockdowns, I picked up the practice of speedrunning to get a good peek under the hood of some of my favorite titles. Starting with Crash Team Racing, then the Jak and Daxter trilogy and its spinoff Jak X: Combat Racing. The latter of which would see me collect a world record best lap around the track called Dethdrome in the no-skips category, and third place with skips. I would also pick up the speed-tech for Half-Life 2, Tony Hawk's Underground, and Monster's Inc, Scream Team.
Era 3: Rekindled & Driven
After having learned what it takes to beat these games in an hour or two, seeing and speculating on how certain glitches work, and overcoming a brief-yet-crippling Factorio addiction, I was feeling armed and ready for the next prototype. I would attempt to learn how online multiplayer works by making a quake-like. This would prove to be an intense journey. I made several attempts at getting a client-server relationship flowing, running into issues the whole time. Finally I wound up pulling on some of the right threads and got it working, only to find that I'd set it up backwards. I know what I did wrong and how to correct it for next time. Another lesson learned, another discipline in the bag.After being satisfied by that hunt for knowledge, I set off to explore how procedural world generation worked. I made a caveman with a whole bunch of rocks and sticks, scattered them throughout the world, and found various ways to get the world to generate specific features such as volcanoes and geologically-accurate flintstone formations. Another success.It was around this time that I started receiving messages from my peers asking to work together. Wastelander Sim would be revived, a safe bet. Simple enough to teach, complex enough to be marketable. The project is in great shape, and through it, we have all learned how to collaborate via Github. On the side, I also started working on my own solo project, in which I am attempting to study both 3D foliage assets and the process of actually shipping a title. It's a simple little survival sandbox on a temperate island. Minimal scope, so I can focus on the important things, like artistic cohesion and quality of life.
Conclusion
Which brings us to today. I am fed up with the service industry and would like to make a more permanent name for myself in game development. I would love to bring this skillset and enthusiasm to a more equipped team. Having others invested in the same project does wonders for staying engaged with it. I'll even cook lunch if it's an on-site job.If you've made it this far, thank you for your time. If you're a prospective employer, I look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship and learning from each other's bodies of work.