Paralegal "Indie" Game Designer to Show Off Creation

Portland has indie music, indie art, indie films.

And, now, indie games.

A growing number of local designers have put their spin on the role-playing and fantasy genre, publishing games such as "Beast Hunters" and "Panty Explosion" (which actually offers little in the way of panties or explosions).

Portland has spawned several small game companies and dozens of followers in the GoPlay PDX club. This weekend, the community hosts a convention-within-a-convention at the annual GameStorm in Vancouver. Designers hope "Indie Hurricane!" will expose their inventions to gamers -- and inspire more people to craft games.

Fanatics say the appeal is simple: Indie games are creative. They blend good writing and art. And they tend to focus on characters' relationships, not the blood-and-guts of some mainstream games.

"I was getting sick of 'Dungeons & Dragons.' I wasn't really into being a barbarian and stabbing people," says Jake Richmond, a 30-year-old artist who created "Panty Explosion" with his 33-year-old business partner, Matt Schlotte.

They met when Schlotte was Richmond's boss at a game store in Lloyd Center. After the shop closed, the friends continued playing games and made the leap to publishing, starting Atarashi Games.

They spent a year developing "Panty Explosion," which they describe as "psychic and mundane Japanese schoolgirls battling nightmarish demons, ghosts, government agents and often each other. It's also a game about enduring high school, making friends, besting rivals, achieving goals and having fun in modern Japan."

Like many indie games, "Panty Explosion" comes in book form -- with blocks of writing accompanied by Richmond's lifelike illustrations. Players create characters by choosing names (Aiko or Kiku, for example) and establishing everything from their age to best friends and biggest rivals. From there the book instructs them to navigate teenage life, acting out conflicts and resolutions.

Another local designer, 30-year-old Christian Griffen of Aloha, discovered role-playing games as a teenager in Germany. He recently launched Berengad Games with his wife, Lisa, whom he met through online gaming. Their first creation, "Beast Hunters," casts players as elite warriors in Germanic tribes. (more>>>)

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