A community-focused game development and publishing co-op that empowers creatives through open collaboration to foster positive, incremental change.

Yes, that Pong™.

Inchworm challenges all new members to build their own version of this classic game. That’s pretty much it. If you’re interested at all in this, we ask that you read on—apologies in advance for all the text. One of our differentiators is our transparency.

If you’re already not interested, no hard feelings. You can finish folding laundry or whatever else you have been putting off and were only exploring this site to put off further.

Shame, shame.

As mentioned, after joining us, you will be tasked to use your noodle to put your spin on hitting an object between two other objects. Or just recreate something completely like but not exactly the Pong™ of old—we’ll leave that choice up to you! The sky's the limit. Pretty much the only thing you can’t do is call it Pong™ as it’s trademarked and we like not being crushed by slick-haired, Lexus-driving lawyers.

Whether you’re completely new to this game dev thing, a seasoned game dev, or not even a game dev at all we believe there is value in getting hands on the game making process…especially if you want to be in the industry! We expect frustration and swearing for a lot of people. You will not be judged—except on your creativity at slinging the filth (bonus points for including rare and elusive animals).

Is it required for all members? Not explicitly, but we heavily, heavily, heavily suggest it. We’re starting members with this challenge because they will almost certainly learn something, but will also have something to show for their learning efforts in the end.

Cards on the table. There is one more reason, and it’s a doozy.

Projects, née businesses, don’t happen without significant effort or, unfortunately, money. So in our quest to bootstrap and be different, we’re going to experiment with a bunch of different business models to build Inchworm into a successful gaming business. One of those is a humble-bundle like package of all of our not-Pongs, with others coming down the road (oh yes, more challenges coming). To that end, we ask that all challengers allow us to include their version of the challenge in the Not-Pong Megapack. We also ask that all code is provided to all other members. Is this required? Again, not explicitly, but we heavily, heavily, heavily suggest it. Don’t forget that our success is your success. Remember that we’re on this journey together—and helping out others is just as important than helping oneself.

Game dev is work. However!...

If the above information already has you feeling an insurmountable weight on your shoulders because things are hard, let us lift some of that load!

All you have to do is join. Our community has your back!

The gleam of Inchworm first twinkled in our eyes while exploring a few different projects during our free time between jobs, families, videogames, hiking, napping, cooking, hand-building pottery, playing very high intensity games of Jenga, *ahem*...you get it.

Basically, our mantra became “an inch a week.” As long as a project moves forward, even just an inch, that is a huge success.

That’s not a question.

But yes…yes you can! Never underestimate the value of incremental change. That’s a main pillar of how we want people to better themselves in this community.

That’s a great question! We’re still developing the recipe from which to make the sausage. The “see how the sausage is made” idiom is not our favorite, but it is the easiest way to explain our current stage.

In order to make this thing work, we’re casting a wide net. Wide, but doable. Even though the game industry is a tumultuous time for many, for us it’s an exciting one! There is a lot of great talent looking for the next thing! We can be that thing. That thing that doesn’t cast its most valuable asset aside when it’s convenient for the money grubbing meat trolls at the top (...because of the sausage thing…apologies—we’ll stop).

We are focused on people over all else. Not even speaking to the larger business community and the problems therein, but the videogame industry is BROKEN. Layoffs during record profit years, crunch, lack of upward mobility…we could go on. We’re here to try to solve some of these problems while also having a hand in meeting cool people and making cool shit.

We’re going to attempt to evolve, upskill and just generally improve all members, while staying positive and transparent throughout.

Again, not a question. But yeah, you probably could. However, we’re heavily community focused, with an aim to have game creators of all skill levels helping other game creators. One area we’d like to compete in is the very overpriced, under-promised game dev bootcamp area by lightly crowdsourcing this piece. Basically, we want our members to be constantly giving feedback so the sources and materials that work stay and the ones that don’t are thrown into the sun like the missile in Superman IV: The One No One Saw.

We also plan to have “official” Inchworm projects that we are beyond excited about.

We’re targeting very early 2024.

Lots! Most of it will go towards various services (web hosting, email) and content development.

Ideally some of us eventually would like to be paid for our efforts, but we’re probably not going to get there for a while.

That’s the dream, my friend! It’s possible, but we hope you won’t sign up purely for that reason.

We’re still exploring the legalities of such an arrangement. We would love for all of our paying (or previously-have-paid) members to get a piece of the success, should it knock on our door like a very lively door-to-door salesperson. The current thought is that 50% of all profits would go towards our “employees” (which we don’t technically have yet) and the rest would be divided up using a very complicated equation amongst those that have paid-in based on percentage of total amount paid by all users.

We need to stress that this is all hypothetical, and figuring this out is part of our long list of things to do to make Inchworm—and any associated projects—a success.

Ah yes, the Pong Challenge. Read more about it here.

One of our thoughts is to help people push up and out of Inchworm via a dev pipeline. You might start as someone simply helping to format a game design doc and end up as the head of your own studio someday. In the perfect world we’d be an overnight success and then eventually have no more members because you’ve all outgrown us like a baby bird leaving the nest.

We opted for the baby bird metaphor over a birthing metaphor. Trust us, this one is way better and way less messy. However, like someone who was born and then raised, we would love it if you’d come back and wipe our butts someday…uhh, we mean contribute to Inchworm. Be it financially or temporally—donate to the cause, record a webinar, provide some code, etc.

We’d like to make most, if not all of these, available for our members to learn from. There are some legalities and whatnot here, but we’re exploring this.

Yes! Please do! We only ask that any Inchworm projects started in the Inchworm community stay within the Inchworm community to help others. We know this probably won’t always happen, but we can only control ourselves. No hard feelings, just remember where you started and pay it forward. If you decide you do want to take your ball and leave, at least throw us a demo with some code so we can add it to our database of successes.

Just ask! There are a few different avenues here, whether by managing a project in a few different ways (publishing, PMing, etc) or even taking over the entire reins if you just want to create.

We’ve heard around the dark web that if you go into a dark bathroom and chant “Inchworm” three times into the mirror one of us will automatically be transplanted to where you are. It’s probably easier just to email, though. Flights back would get expensive.