This evening was an IGDA-organized “Meet The Press” event at Google campus in Mountain View, which I attended with a few friends. It was an interesting experience because it showed a completely different side of game development, something I only get a glimpse of every so often. This is the side of game development about market share, numbers, percentages, billions, social, mobile, mid-core. For the most part I’m exposed to the indie, creative, artist, nerdy, emo, poverty-stricken side of game development. It’s good to get things from both sides, but I definitely feel more at home with the indies.
Tag: marketing
New Theme
Welcome to MagicalTimeBean featuring the Standard Theme. I had never really been happy with any of the free WordPress themes, so every so often I go on a hunt for a premium theme. About two weeks ago I was on such a search, digging through the WP theme marketplace online, when my wife Mary pointed out that the theme wasn’t the problem, it was that I never update my site. She put it in a much more diplomatic way of course, and I launched a personal challenge to post once per day for 15 consecutive days. Then I would earn my precious new theme. Well, last night was the last one, and I have to say I’m proud that I’ve been able to keep it going. And so far I’m enjoying the Standard. It’s still kind of bare bones around here, but I’ll get the graphics back as soon as I can.
This morning I managed to clean up the Soulcaster and Soulcaster II pages. They have much more comprehensive links to reviews and other related stuff online, a new bio, and some other general tweaks.
There is also a Summer Uprising
First, just watch the video.
Yes, these are all XBLIG games coming out this summer. Pretty sick stuff in there, and though I’m not on the list, I have to take this opportunity to give them a shout-out, for many reasons.
First, the amount of effort put forth by Armless Octopus Dave is mindboggling. I’ve seen the XNA forum thread on this event, and it’s gotta be the biggest on the site. Lots of people interested in the event, wanting to join in, with ideas on how to run it, and he’s managed to wrangle it all. I’m seriously impressed. I don’t know how they divide the labor but I have to assume Kris is picking up a good bit of slack as well. I mean, for the IGWU I somehow managed to get credit for helping kick it off without the hassle of doing any real organization (Robert handled that), so I don’t have firsthand knowledge of how much goes into it–but it’s gotta be huge, and we all gotta give props, final cut or no.
Second, I’d still like to see XBLIG grow as a platform. It’s taken a beating this year with the ratings shenanigans (which slaughtered SC2’s profitability–SC1 still outsells it 4:1) so it’d be great to see it get more traction. Maybe there’s a critical point at which Microsoft decides it’s time to add Achievements and an improved top list system, so if we can get closer to that point, I’m all for it.
Why is Escape Goat not on the list? I don’t have a great reason for not entering it, but my somewhat passable reason is that I didn’t have something quite finished enough to nominate. There’s a chance it’ll be done in time for the event, but not a certainty, and with 50+ nominees I figured it’s best to sit this one out. When I get into hardcore game development mode, it’s hard for me to think about anything else. My involvement in the community is sporadic to say the least. (Look at the date stamps on this blog for instance.)
So for now, I’m just looking forward to some of these games. Good luck to everyone and congratulations to the devs who made the first round of cuts.
Indie Games Winter Uprising trailer & first releases!
The trailer went online a few days ago, so I’m a bit late in posting this, but check it out if you haven’t already.
Indie Games Winter Uprising from Nakatomi HMC on Vimeo.
In related news, you can already pick up the first three titles: Epic Dungeon, Break Limit, and Hypership Out of Control. I playtested these and can vouch for their awesomeness. Epic Dungeon in particular sucked me in for over an hour before I knew what was going on.
Soulcaster II is coming very soon! Stay tuned!