Category Archives: indie games

Anticipation III

By Rubes | Published: January 24, 2010

I don’t play as many games as I’d like to anymore, but I do try to sneak in as many as I can. For the most part, I don’t spend much time with the big ticket AAA games, in part because I don’t have a console, and in part because my desktop is getting a bit long in the tooth (is 7 years too old?). So while I figure out if I’m ever going to rectify that one way or the other, I keep my focus largely on the indie scene. And so, every now and then, I catch wind of a new indie game under development that stirs my interest, and I follow along in anticipation of its eventual release.

Such was the case [More...] Read the rest

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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

Also posted in game design, indie game business | 2 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

Also posted in adventure games | 1 Response

The One Thing He Forgot To Mention

By Rubes | Published: May 21, 2009

It’s blog post number 100, so time to catch my breath. Crazy string of weeks there from April through mid-May, trying to make deadlines, having those deadlines pushed back, trying to make the deadlines again, and so forth. Some successes, some failures, but you can’t argue with the fact that deadlines are great for getting shit done, even if you don’t get it all done.

It’s a little weird because my day job is filled with deadlines. Basically, it’s like a slow march from one deadline to the next, and every so often I get caught up in it and spend massive amounts of time working like crazy to finish under the wire. But that’s work. This was a deadline for a hobby. None [More...] Read the rest

Also posted in game design, Vespers | 3 Responses

Indie Gaming on NPR

By Rubes | Published: April 17, 2009

NPR’s On The Media is running a story this weekend on the independent computer gaming scene called, “DIY Gaming”. It’s free to listen to or download on NPR’s site, if you’re interested.

Pretty standard stuff, although it concentrates mostly on the console scene, with a particular discussion of Microsoft and XNA. There was a nice portion at the end on Chen’s “Flow” and “Flower”, but in general it was not a very deep discussion, and it really didn’t go into the PC indie scene at all — except for a mention of how designing games just for computers, rather than consoles, is too limiting and not “the big leagues”, based on the size of the user base. There was some mention of the creativity [More...] Read the rest

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