Supporting Developers and Playing Croquet!

Hello friends!

No, unfortunately we did not support game developers by playing croquet, but that would be lovely if we could. Short update this month, as we’re still working on new prototypes and don’t want to share what we’re working on yet.

First off, we’d like to point your attention to this GoFundMe campaign called the Galaxy Fund, a “prototype fund for women, BIPOC, and queer founders of game development studios”. We donated to this fund and we think it’s a great cause, so if you’d like to show your support for marginalized developers, here’s a good place to do that.

Next, the team did a little picnic in the park where we met Alexis in person for the first time! It’s quite strange to meet someone in person after speaking to them every day on video chat since mid-May, but it was great! We can confirm that he is real. So we had a picnic with some food that Kyler picked up, and we played croquet! For many of us, it was our first time. For Kyler, who won twice, it seems it was not his first time.

And of course, after our hard work at playing croquet, we had celebratory ice cream. I think everyone appreciated the outing! Pics below 👇

Lastly, a quick reminder that every Friday we put up new featured levels for you to try out. To keep up to date with our goings-on, follow us on Twitter.

Simply launch the game, go into the underground area, and go to the ‘Featured’ tab in the computer to try them out!

That’s all we’ve got for today folks. Keep in touch!

<3
The Clever Endeavour Crew

Welcoming Alexis, Black Lives Matter Donations and More!

Well helloooooo there!

First off, welcome to our newest employee, Alexis! I think his words put it best—his job is to “fill in the cracks where needed and generally act as a jack-of-all-trades with an emphasis on prototyping.” There were some excellent candidates who applied, but his technical knowledge and experience with tool-building in Unity made him a perfect fit for our search.

As you probably know, we’ve been prototyping new game ideas and it’s been amazing to see how quickly the prototypes can move forward with his help. We’re psyched! It’s also interesting to note that he’s been with the team for three weeks now and we’ve never met in person, and probably won’t for a little while despite us all being in Montreal together.

Here’s one of my favourite things from his portfolio, a foliage tool that lets you plant seeds and procedurally see them flourish in your scene:

Also, our Ultimate Chicken Horse vinyl records are shipping now. If you haven’t gotten one yet (and you like records), here it is!

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Next up, we wanted to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement and our commitment to helping to fight against racism and prejudice in the games industry and beyond. You may have seen our statement on social media right when the protests were starting in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in the U.S. In that statement, we promised that we were dedicating time to thinking about how we can help moving forward, and our plan is drafted and currently being reviewed. We will share it as soon as we can.

First off, we’re making a one-time donation of $40,500 to help support the Black Lives Matter movement through a number of organizations that help support black youth, fight hate groups, give scholarships, and more. We split this donation among the organizations below:

Canadian Race Relations Foundation: The CRRF contributes to the elimination of racism and racial discrimination in Canadian society through research, distribution of information, resources, consultation, training, promotion of policies and programs, and more.

Canadian Anti-Hate Network: Monitors, exposes, and counters hate groups in Canada.

Black Youth Helpline: Multicultural helpline and services for children, youth, families, school boards, and other youth serving organizations.

DESTA Black Youth Network: Supports Black youth aged 18 to 35 in reaching their educational, employability, and entrepreneurial goals.

This shows how massive the Montreal protest in support of Black Lives Matter was. We’re proud! Video by Renzel

Black Business and Professional Association: The BBPA aims to advance Black communities in Canada by delivering programs that support business and professional excellence, education, and economic development.

Marsha P Johnson Institute: The MPJI protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people by organizing, advocating, creating a healing community, and developing transformative leadership.

Center for Research Action on Race Relations: Promotes racial equality and combats racism in Canada through advocacy and legal defense, charter research and litigation, research-action projects, conferences and seminars, consultations and training, and more.

Black Health Alliance: Working to improve the health and well-being of Black Communities in Canada through research, public policy, fundraising, and more.

Standing Committee for the Support of Demonstrators: The SCSD aims at supporting individuals facing repression in the context of demonstrations and street protests.

Clinique Juridique de Saint-Michel: The CJSM promotes access to justice though legal consultation services, conferences and workshops.

Protégeons Montréal-Nord Ensemble: A Hoodstock initiative to distribute protective equipment and sanitation kits to one of Canada's poorest and most densely populated neighborhoods, which has been hit extremely hard by COVID-19.

But we recognize that a one-time donation, while helpful, isn’t a long-term solution to racism or a long-term commitment to anti-racism. For that reason, we’ve formalized our commitment to help all groups that are underrepresented in the games industry in a number of ways. It starts with learning, and continues with varying levels of financial commitment including long-term sponsorships of important organizations in the industry, donations, funding for investments into teams led by members of marginalized communities, and more. We’re still finalizing that page and will share it on our social media as soon as it’s ready. It will also be included in next month’s blog post.

None of these donations would be possible without the amazing community around Ultimate Chicken Horse, so we have you to thank most of all for the opportunity to help fight this cause. It’s amazing to me that through a cartoony party game, we can potentially help people in a significant way and try to fight for lasting change in our industry. Thank you again!

<3
The Clever Endeavour Team

Indie G Zine, Hiring, New Shirts and Fun Links!

Good afternoon Clever friends! 

Indie G Zine

We’re in the Indie G Zine Volume 3! We just backed the Kickstarter to get our copy, and I suggest you do the same. 

What is the Indie G Zine? It’s “an illustration anthology dedicated to some of the best indie games released or upcoming. It's our way to celebrate both cool art and cool indie games.” We’re really proud to be included in this. Thanks to Julian for doing this!

Hiring and Prototyping

Last month we mentioned that there were some staff changes at Clever Endeavour Games. Well, this week I’m happy to announce that we’ve hired another team member, who will be starting next week. He’s a jack-of-all-trades who you might consider a technical artist, but he’s a swiss army knife of skills and we’re looking forward to introducing you properly to him next month. 

This new hire will help us with our prototyping process, which has been going strong for a few months since just before the A·cobra·tic Update launched. We’ve been playing with a different idea every 2-3 weeks, and creating a playable prototype that we test internally. We’ve got a bunch of different ideas brewing, and we’re looking for the next idea that will blow your socks off. The process is changing and evolving, and every time we work a new idea we tweak things and discuss the results as a team—we can’t talk about these projects as we’re not sure which one we’ll actually turn into a full game, but it’s been a fun process and we’re confident we’ll find the next great idea.

Swag Additions

In Ultimate Chicken Horse news, we’ve got new shirts for Snake and all of the re-skins of the animals up on our SpreadShirt store! You can also get these designs on mugs, hats, baby onesies, and more.

To celebrate that - and honestly just because she could - Gen made some “official” Ultimate Chicken Horse swag in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

You can follow this link to find the download code for each of them, as well as some fan-made original designs!

Links from the Team

We’ve also got some links to share with you from some members of the team, to lift your spirits during these somewhat crazy times. The first, keeping with the Animal Crossing thread, Fabio is sharing this ridiculously detailed re-creation of an AC village made of clay… on a toilet paper roll.

Next is an important video shared by Kyler—this CGP Grey video is about how to improve your mental health during COVID time. There are a million of these videos and articles out there, but this had a slightly different approach which I enjoyed.

Next up, we’ve got Gen sharing this lovely little puzzle game called Sizeable, which you can play on itch.io here.

The next is a Reply All podcast episode shared by me (Rich), about a pop hit that went missing. A listener calls trying to track down the name of this song, and it’s a deep story with lots of surprises.

Lastly, there’s this video from Alex. I’m not sure either.

Thanks for reading! Follow our Twitter or come hang with us on Discord to keep up to date on all the goings-on!

<3
The Clever Endeavour Team