This blog has been going for well over 2 years now. Its purpose is to chronicle my game development efforts and hopefully to share some insights with you. 2009 and 2010 were both productive years. Now, with 2011 officially over, its time to take a look at what I achieved in 2011 and what I plan to achieve in 2012. keep reading…
I first heard about Composition No. 1 through another book, Twisty Little Passages, which examines the history and impact of Interactive Fiction (Including the humble text adventure).
Owing to it’s rarity I never expected to actually own a copy, but here it is – beautifully re-imagined, for a new audience, by Visual Editions.
The first thing that hits you upon opening the box, containing the 150 pages that comprise this piece of work, is bemusement. Composition No. 1 flies in the face of our conventional understanding of how to consume a piece of literature. The most obvious way that this manifests itself is through its unbound pages.
The idea is that you shuffle the pages to create your own story – a quick factorial calculation (150!) reveals 3.8089226376305687e+260 unique combinations (that’s a lot) or, as its more elegantly framed in the introduction, 150 different beginnings with 149 possible endings. keep reading…
I find it incredibly difficult to settle on the “right” project management tool for my independent development – I’m forever changing my mind and can’t seem to settle on one for very long. You may already know that I’m in the process of building my own PM tool but the problem I have is that I don’t have enough time to progress it as fast I’d like. Until I have a little more time, I need a stopgap solution (flying in the face of the “Eat your own dog food” school of thought).
I decided to post my question on Twitter and as usual got a brilliant and varied response. In the interests of sharing, I’m going to post the suggestions here.
(Note: These are tools that indie developers are actually using, as apposed to tools they’ve tried and discarded)
Thats a lot of tools to try. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments and I’ll add them to the list.
Trying to get visibility on the App store is a constant struggle. In most cases it requires ongoing effort to publicise your game, finding a way to get it in front of the people who it will appeal to.
Astro Noughts is my latest iPad game. It’s an arcade number crunching game with, what I consider to be, a fairly unique concept. You can read a postmortem here (it was also featured on Gamasutra). I released Astro Noughts on 14th December 2010 – incredibly bad timing since there were a large number of high profile, kick-ass games released at exactly the same time (and EA decided to play hard ball). Despite the bad timing Astro Noughts sold 16 copies on its first day – you might consider this terribly low but I consider it a success. Sales bounced around for a while but by the end of January this year they had petered out to precisely 0 sales every day. That’s where it has remained, receiving 0 sales for the past 2 months. keep reading…
I attended an Indie games conference last week and one of the things that really resonated with me was the value of working with others. Whilst I’ve always tried to avoid this, partly because I enjoy being in control, and partly because I enjoy the variety in the various disciplines, most of the people I spoke to had only positive things to say about working in a team.
This past week I’ve spent time thinking about this and looking at what I’ve achieved with Bytesize Adventures, as a single person operation. When I look at my ambitions for this year and beyond, its clear to me that I’ve hit a ceiling in what I can personally achieve alone. Game development is still very much my hobby (although I’d like it to be more) and splitting my spare time between development, graphics, sound, marketing, etc means that game production is very slow. keep reading…
Yesterday I attended World of Love, a UK conference for independent game developers. The event, despite being in its infancy (this was the second), was fantastic.
There were some great speakers, with the likes of Honeyslug, Alice Taylor, Sophie Houlden, Tak Fung, Mode 7 Games, and Charlie Knight (to name a few). keep reading…
Just wanted to write a quick note for the sake of posterity. My Astro Noughts postmortem was featured on Gamasutra today.
I’ve read Gamasutra for longer than I can remember so having their editorial team feature one of my blogs has really made my day. I know its a little thing but, as they say, its the little things in life.
Here’s a screenshot I snagged with the feature shown bottom right…
Today is officially the first day of 2011, so Happy New Year!
Today also marks my return to iDevBlogADay – a great way to start the new year. I was fortunate to participate in iDevBlogADay from day 1 but gave up my slot to focus on completing Astro Noughts this year. If you’d like, you can read my previous iDevBlogADay entries here.
You’ll have to excuse me if this is slightly self-indulgent but for this post I want to review 2010 and set some goals for 2011. keep reading…
Astro Noughts is currently “In Review” and with any luck should be in the App store next week. Whilst I’m impatiently waiting, I though it would be interesting to write up all of the hardware and software I used to create the game.
Each game you create is going to require different tools and it’s highly unlikely you’ll find a single piece of software to cover all of your needs. In fact, you’ll likely need multiple pieces of software to cover each of the disciplines. I’d encourage you to explore and be creative. Find tools you like, stretch them to their limits, and find alternative uses for them. Sometimes you can achieve the effect you’re looking for in really unlikely places. Its not the software that matters but the effect you can produce with it.
I’ve tried to make this list as comprehensive as possible and it therefore does include some obvious things (such as a desk) as well as some luxury items. I’ve included my reasoning behind each so I’ll leave it up to you to decide how necessary they are. I’ve split this list into sections to make it easier to refer to. keep reading…
So I’ve been thinking recently about legacy. You know, that thing we all supposedly strive for. Creating something that has an impact on those around us long after we leave this mortal coil.
Plenty of creative outlets accommodate this. Books do. We all know who shakespeare is right? Films do. Kubrick is well know and his films have had an impact. Even TV. Honestly I bet they’re still playing re-runs of Friends long after you and I are no longer around.
Narrowing the field a bit, what about games? Have any games left a significant legacy? Board games have – Chess is as relevant today as it was centuries ago. What about video games? Sure they’re relatively new but we have a few that have a legacy, albeit one with slightly less impact – pong for instance.
What about the digital space? I mean downloadable games. Any stand out for you? Any that you think will leave a lasting legacy? Nothing springs to my mind (I can tell you that it isn’t Angry Birds or even Doodle Jump). More importantly, how will these games be consumed in future? These downloadable games by their very nature are throwaway. They exist on platforms that will soon become defunct. How will they be passed down? Whos responsibility is it? Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc have the master copies of these potential legacies. How long will they keep them and at what point will they decide that they are no longer relevant?
Are downloadable games even capable of creating a lasting legacy? Surely someone will create a work that transcends its creative shackles and speaks to a wider audience across generations. I’d like to think that I could create such a thing. A game that gets people thinking. Something that has an impact. I haven’t considered it before but shouldn’t we strive to create something that leaves a lasting impression? something other than crappy clones of existing games with forgettable game mechanics (Of course I include my own games in that sentiment).
One day, someone will look back at what you did. They’ll look at your games (if they can find a way to access them) and say “something”. What will they say?…