• Level Up Your Game: A Panel Discussion about Indie Game Development | Tech Week 2023 Recap

    Thursday, December 7th 2023

  • Learn about indie game development from local New York indie game makers and studios, featuring Computer Lunch, Babycastles, NYU, and Common Opera!

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The usual spaciousness of the Pariah Interactive studio in Bushwick is gone. It’s replaced by people grabbing snacks, meeting one another, and sitting in the U-shaped formation of chairs. This is not a normal work day at the Pariah studio; it is the day of Pariah’s first-ever hosted panel "Level Up Your Game: A Panel Discussion about Indie Game Development.”

For NY Tech Week 2023, Pariah Interactive brought together local New York indie game makers to share their unique journeys and advise aspiring game developers. The panel, moderated by Prashast Thapan of Pariah Interactive, featured five speakers of diverse backgrounds and experiences:

  • Andrew Garrahan and Kati Nawrocki of Computer Lunch: Andrew and Kati co-founded Computer Lunch together which focuses on free-to-play mobile games, most notably Cell to Singularity. Andrew comes from a game development background while Kati comes from the world of advertising and fine arts.
  • Lawra Suits Clark of New York University (NYU) Game Center & Babycastles: Lawra is an educator, solo game maker, and co-founder of Babycastles, a video games gallery.
  • Lillyan Ling of Common Opera: Lillyan works as a game and sound designer in the games collective Common Opera.
  • Luna Yixi Wu of Pariah Interactive: Luna recently graduated from NYU Game Center, and now works as a game and XR developer at Pariah Interactive.

The differences in the speakers creates an exciting energy in the panel. While everyone is drawn to making games, they each kickstarted their game-making journeys differently before converging together at this panel to share their perspective on indie game development.

To watch the whole panel and hear everyone’s unique experiences and advice, watch the recording here:


Timestamps of the video for reference:

  • 00:00: Welcome and introductions
  • 04:15: What drew you to making games?
  • 13:12: When did game-making go from a casual hobby to a serious purpose or profession for you?
  • 30:12: What is the business model for the game Cells to Singularity and how did Computer Lunch scale up to become an indie game studio?
  • 33:44: How do you make money as a game designer/developer?
  • 40:05: How does what you do to make money (ex: teaching or day jobs) inform your practice as a solo game maker?
  • 47:50: If you could meet a younger version of yourself that had not started making games yet, what advice would your current self give to your younger self?
  • 58:46: [Audience Question] While you have other life responsibilities, how do you have the discipline and focus to work on making games?
  • 01:01:10: [Audience Question] Since games take a long time to make, trends change over the course of the development process. How do you manage to hit the market with the right time and right trends?
  • 01:06:26: Closing

Thank you for everyone’s interest in the event! We had over 230 registrants to the event which is more than we could have imagined for the first panel we ever hosted. Since we couldn’t accommodate everyone in our studio space, we also live-streamed the event on our Twitch which peaked at 23 viewers. We can’t wait to engage with the NYC gaming community more, so follow Pariah Interactive on social media to learn when is our next event:

Support Pariah Interactive by wishlisting our first in-house video game, 1000 Deaths, on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141260/1000_Deaths/

Also special thank you’s to Andrew, Kati, Lawra, Lillyan, Luna, and Prash for being part of the panel, Tech Week for letting us be part of their amazing lineup of events, Dashi for being our overflow and party space, Jonathan Martinez for being our unofficial bouncer, Alisha Goel for the photos, and Faith Zeng for organizing this panel.