Let's JAM!
Hello everyone! CJ here.
Apologies for the delayed August newsletter—there has been a lot going on.
This summer, I’ve focused a lot on obtaining new client work and giving back to the Tokyo community via talks and jams. It’s fun because I get to go on stage and encourage people to make cool games. In pockets of free time, I’ve been reading, jotting down notes, and drawing.
mabbees has been regularly tinkering on new projects—mostly music!
Let’s Jam: PICOJAM!
From my side, on August 9-10th, I organized a weekend game jam for the PICO-8’ers, a group of game devs in Tokyo that love PICO-8 called PICOJAM. It took place in Kichijoji at Pico Pico Café, home of Lexaloffle Games.
What’s PICO-8?
PICO-8 is a fantasy console that is for making, sharing and playing tiny games. Games are in 8-bit 2D and the engine includes a code editor, a sprite maker, a map editor, and a music/SFX maker all in one.
What happened at the PICOJAM?
Magic! Well, no—we made games. That’s a kind of magic, right?
There were 10 people in attendance. It was a very upbeat and chill atmosphere with some people in a dedicated team and some floating around and asking if folks needed music or assets. Usually there was one programmer, but floating around them were various artists and musicians offering cool tunes and cute pixel art.
Overall we made 6 games and 2 free asset packs for PICO-8 (one for art, and one for music) that anyone can use in their non-commercial projects.
I wrote a more in-depth after report about PICOJAM that you can check out on my blog here.
PICOJAM 2025 After Report
PICOJAM 2025 アフターレポート
Beeps and Boops
mabbees has been writing music and poking on PICO-8 projects in his spare time. (That’s what Tomodachi 8in1 is built in.) He made me a very cute PICO-8 birthday cart, which you can play here:
He also was one of the floating musicians during PICOJAM. In his words,
I generally aim for “hummability” when writing songs. I think it makes songs more memorable when there’s some melody or hook that you can hum along to — even if it’s only for part of the song. It also helps me keep track of them more easily.
I had a couple additional songwriting goals in mind for this jam as well. One was to capture the summer festival vibe, another was to develop a unique identity for each one. I’m really happy with the results. Each song sounds like it belongs at a 祭り, and each one sounds distinct.
If you want to see more of his songs, you can find them on itch.io in the PICO-8 jam asset pack as well as here on his Bandcamp.
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What’s happening in September?
💖 Events! 💖 We’ve been busy preparing for some exciting events this month—two are in Tokyo, one is in Fukui, and one is in Montreal, Canada.
If you’re in Tokyo or Montreal, I’d love to say hi.
September 14th at Design Matters Tokyo - “A Hopeful Future”
Launching off from the back of some writing I’ve been doing on sociocracy and Studio Terranova as a cooperative, I’ll be talking at Design Matters about how folks who work in tech can adopt the mindset of collective power—power with, as opposed to power over.
So much of tech talk at the moment is centered around control; who controls your data, your employment, your art. I’m doing this talk to encourage people to think differently about upending traditional power structures in tech.
Livestreaming is 14,000 yen; in-person is 45,000~70,000 yen.
September 15th at DREAMSCAPE_MINI in Fukui - “初めてのゲームづくり”
As of writing, I believe this will be the first public workshop given in Japanese about bitsy. I think it’s a great tool for people who “just want to make something” and during Global Game Jam 2024 I developed some 8x8 paper templates for people to make their own bitsy sprites by drawing them out on graph paper and then inputting them into the tool.
I’ll be showing off that as well as walking people through making their first games in bitsy. No coding required, just a pencil and a web browser!
Monday, September 15th, from 11:00-18:00. Free entry.
About DREAMSCAPE_MINI
September 22nd at Blackbird Eatery in Tokyo - “Rainbow Panda”
Rainbow Panda is an up-and-coming non-profit for connecting LGBTQ+ teens in Asia with artists and other queer mentors. I’ll be presenting some of my work as a video game artist and a glassblower, and working together with the Rainbow Panda folks to raise some money to connect queer kids in Asia with artists.
Sunday, September 22nd, from 1-4PM. No tickets required.
About Rainbow Panda
Details on Instagram (rainbowpanda.asia)
Map pin for venue (Blackbird Eatery)
September 26-28th at Queerness n’ Games (QGCon) in Montreal, Canada
QGCon is an annual event that brings together creators, academics, artists, educators, and activists to explore the intersection of LGBTQ issues and video games. Terrnaova will be exhibiting there, and we’re looking forward to meeting other queer folks. This is truly an amazing opportunity for both of us as most of our work has been very localized to Japan or the US. Both mabbees and I will be there, which is a rare catch!
We are incredibly grateful to have received a travel grant from QGCon to help us cover part of our air travel to Canada. Thank you to the conference donators!
Tickets are pay-what-you-can.
We are still looking for support for localizing Terranova!
We’re not using AI; we’ve paid actual translators to translate Terranova into Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Japanese. There’s one last step in localization; getting all the text imported into the game proper.
We’re at 8% of our goal, and with each donation, we get closer and closer! Many thanks to the current Konbini Coffee Club subscribers.
Donate to our localization fund here!
Wow! That’s a lot. I’m starting to wonder if we need to update more often than once a month - although I don’t want to clog y’all’s inboxes. Maybe we’ll open something to our Konbini Coffee Club members if you want more updates?
I hope you enjoyed the August issue, and look forward to September’s soon!
Your friendly neighborhood devs,
CJ & mabbees