Boston 2024

Handmade folks,

Handmade Boston kicks off this Friday, August 9th! Here’s the rundown:

Tickets

It’s been a tough year for too many people, so we’re offering a last-minute 20% discount on both physical and online tickets:

Note that if you bought a combined ticket for both Boston and Seattle, a 20% discount was already baked-in.

If you bought a single Boston ticket at the standard price and feel annoyed, check the FAQ at the end of the newsletter.

Our Speakers

Despite some challenges, we’re thrilled to have six incredible speakers joining us, three for each track:

Physical Track

• Allen Webster: Founder of Mr. 4th Lab and creator of 4coder, the editor used in the Handmade Hero series. Allen has worked for Casey Muratori (Molly Rocket) and RAD Game Tools (now Epic) and has done significant research on how to reinvent day-to-day programming.

  

  At this conference, he’ll openly critique my uh, contentious terminal emulator, Terminal Click 🙂

  You get to be a fly on the wall as Allen questions my codebase, gaining insights to improve your own software. You can also scrutinize my choices during the Q&A session… I think it’s important to embrace collaboration and criticism to advance our Handmade projects and ship faster.

  Join us for this scary masterclass (threatening for me haha): “Terminal Click Under Scrutiny.”

• Zac Nowicki: Tech lead for the increasingly popular Kagi Search.

  

  Web development gets a bad rap in the Handmade community for embracing too much complexity or ignoring the lower layers of abstraction. Is every single criticism justified? Is there any hope for the web anymore? I want Zac to help us sort this out once and for all.

  Together, we’ll diagram how I wrote my own Ticketmaster replacement for the conferences and compare it to how Kagi itself is architected (to my own surprise, there are similarities!) Since Kagi handles traffic several orders of magnitude larger than Handmade Cities, we get to consider how a web application can remain small and performant as it scales larger and larger.

  Welcome to Kagi’s spicy masterclass: “Can the Web become Handmade?”

• Graham Pentheny: Senior Engineer at Spry Fox games who led the Cozy Grove engineering team.

  

  Graham is also one of the most prominent organizers of indie meetups in Boston: he famously disbanded the largest Unity Gamedev Group in the world.

  After two heavy technical masterclasses, it’s time for a more relaxed session. Graham and I will discuss how to build successful communities and how to thrive in them, touching on opportunities for new careers, mentorship, friendships, and collaboration. We’ll also take audience questions and workshop solutions to your social challenges in the programming world.

  Let’s break down this phenomenon: “The Social Fabric of Technical Communities.”

Online Track

• Billy Basso: Creator of Animal Well. When I reached out to Billy he reminded me that he attended the first Handmade Seattle during Animal Well’s early development and we chatted for a while. I let out a gasp when I searched the ticket sales records from that year. Core memory unlocked!

  

  In this exclusive interview, Billy reveals many of the programming strategies he used to create his game from scratch. He’ll also give us a sneak peek at his next project and explain why he isn’t reusing his game engine. Finally, Billy will offer advice on the skills needed to ship a game, beyond just programming.

  We’re also planning to fly Billy to Handmade Seattle this fall, as a guest of honor, to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Handmade movement.

  Interview Title: “Shipping personal software – How you enter the mainstream while staying true to your values.”

• Nuno Leiria: Former Optimization Lead of Unreal Engine 5. Nuno joined us when Handmade Seattle was forced to go online in 2020: his succinct presentation on modern CPU optimizations remains as relevant as ever.

  

  Nuno has since founded a brand new company with employees, and we’re excited to reveal juicy details at Handmade Boston. (Given his background with Epic Games and video games, you might guess what’s coming… !) I’ll investigate the technical choices behind his new vision, the ethics of his business model, and the bold moves I think he’s making for the future of game development.

  Keep an eye on Nuno’s work even after Handmade Boston… he might be joining us for a certain job fair 😉

  Interview Title: “Nuno Leiria: A New Vision for Making Games”

• Kaze Emanuar: The legendary N64 game modder, also known as Nintendo’s worst nightmare, returns for an in-depth discussion about his most popular demo on drastically improving Super Mario 64’s performance. In this interview, we’ll expand and seek clarification on topics he couldn’t cover in his video.

  

  Finally, we’ll hear Kaze’s takes on the future of N64 modding and what his next moves are now that static recompilation has come into play 👀

  Interview Title: “Kaze: Breaking Traditional Modding Boundaries”

Conference Schedule

The conference starts at 9:00 a.m. Boston Time for both tracks.

If you need any assistance you should email me at abner@handmadecities.com or join the Handmade Cities Discord.

Physical Track

We’re all meeting at the JFK Presidential Library. Huge building, can’t miss it:

Ticket scanning begins at 8:30 AM: search your Inbox for a General Admission ticket and find the QR code!

Friday will feature all the masterclasses, and Saturday will be for official hangouts, including a special reservation at Kings Dining and Entertainment with the speakers (conference ticket required.)

We will have a 90-minute lunch break each day.

P.S. Within the next day or two I’ll publish an interactive timeline on the Boston page: detailing the speaker time slots, lunch hours, and all the official meetup spots outside the venue. It’s all taking place around the seaport.

Online Track

The online track will be streamed on my Twitch channel with the help of Loris Cro, VP of Community for Zig. Follow below for notifications!

Our exclusive interviews will be streamed in their entirety for free. These are very recent, pre-recorded conversations that have never been seen before. The speakers will be on Twitch chat and the entire event will last around 4 hours. The VOD will remain up for multiple weeks.

When you buy a ticket for the online track, you’re doing it to support my indie conferences and to unlock the in-person recordings once they’re available! (These will remain private to ticket holders until 2025.)

New Formula 🧪

Last year, we tried a college-style approach with masterclasses, complete with homework. It didn’t quite work out as planned—most of you weren’t keen on the assignments. The feedback was clear: you come to these conferences to gain insights, get inspired, and network, not to do work.

So we’re changing things up.

This year, our masterclasses will be conversations with me. Think of it like a pianist’s masterclass—a teaching moment with an audience of peers in order to level-up. Instead of correcting my piano playing, the speakers will scrutinize my engineering or broaden my expertise while I act as a vessel for ticket holders. After “talking shop,” you can ask questions to scratch your own itch during Q&A.

And yes, no more homework.

Expected Attendance

In-person attendance for HMB is shaping up to be similar to last time. Unlike Seattle, you should think of dozens instead of hundreds. Here’s a snapshot from August 2023:

This makes sense—our popularity is on the rise with our second East Coast event, yet the tech industry’s horrible year has affected how many can join us, canceling out the gains. I like to call HMB the sister conference, with HMS in the fall being our flagship. The upside is that we get to recapture the intimate atmosphere the original Handmade conferences were known for.

Will Boston grow in the future? Absolutely. But for now, let’s enjoy the relaxed vibes and good times.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why offer discounts so late? I bought at standard price. A: Reply to this email to discuss partial refund. 2024 is wacky; I’m trying to help ticket holders while also boost sales.
2. The conference is smaller than I expected. A: We slimmed things down in order to stay solvent. Trust me, the official hangouts and after parties are still worth it. Otherwise, reply to discuss remedies: I want all ticket holders to be happy.
3. I’m financially disadvantaged. Can you help? A: Yes! I can offer greater discounts or even some free seats if you explain your circumstances to me.

Your indie organizer,
Abner