Monthly Archives: October 2009

Indie, Part-Time

By Rubes | Published: October 9, 2009

As I was cruising around GDC Austin from one session to the next, I began to gain a greater appreciation of how much of the conference was geared toward the business side of game development. This isn’t surprising, of course, given that game development is an entertainment business, and GDC is all about how developers can do all parts of their jobs better. But whether it’s because of the tough economic times, or the rapid saturation of the iPhone game market, or the wide proliferation of MMOs and social games, or the plummeting price point for online and mobile games, it just seemed like there was a greater emphasis on economics than I experienced last year, unless I’m just forgetting.

There were many sessions at [More...] Read the rest

Posted in game design, indie game business, indie games | 2 Responses

Austin GDC Slides

By Rubes | Published: October 2, 2009

I know a couple of people were interested in seeing the slides I presented at the Austin GDC, so I’ve (finally) made them available for download.

There are two versions available. The slides are available in their native PowerPoint (.ppt) format, as well as in PDF format for those who don’t have access to PowerPoint. The PPT version is preferable, since it contains some of my notes for each slide. I sometimes include slides without much descriptive text on them, so having the notes available will help others to know what I was trying to communicate. For some reason there’s something a little denuding about putting my notes out there with the slides, but so be it.

The PDF file does not contain the notes, [More...] Read the rest

Posted in interactive fiction | 4 Responses

Anticipation II

By Rubes | Published: October 2, 2009

Back in February of this year, I wrote about an indie game that I was really looking forward to: The Path. The game has since been released, of course, and I would say it was well worth the wait. Not necessarily because it was a great game—as with their earlier piece, The Graveyard, it was less a game than an interactive narrative experience—but because it was a well-crafted work that encouraged and successfully produced a good deal of dialogue about its subject matter and about interactive narrative in general.

Another piece that has been on my radar for some time is Amanita Design’s Machinarium. They’ve been making the rounds for some time now with occasional blog pieces, early pre-order specials, [More...] Read the rest

Posted in adventure games, indie games | 1 Response