Category Archives: indie games

Being Indie, Being Resourceful

By Rubes | Published: May 30, 2008

Being indie can definitely be tough sometimes. I’ve often said that indie game projects are kind of like fish eggs: thousands are laid but few manage to survive to adulthood. Content for a 2D or 3D game, whether it’s artwork, music, voicework, or animation, can be a real problem for a small team on a shoestring budget. It’s no secret that content, specifically character animation, has been the biggest challenge for Vespers.

Sometimes, it takes a little creative thinking to figure out ways to stretch those limited resources.

A while back, when I was looking for help with voiceover work, one idea I had was to try tapping into some good but inexpensive local talent — theater students at the University of Utah, where I [More...] Read the rest

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Foggy Times at Pastel Games

By Rubes | Published: April 28, 2008

A new flash game called “The Fog Fall” was recently released by Mateusz Skutnik of Pastel Games. Skutnik, as some of you know, is the incredibly prolific creator of numerous flash-based point-and-click adventure-style games, such as the Covert Front series that earned the #2 spot on indiegames.com’s Best Freeware Adventure Games of 2007. The Fog Fall would appear to represent the start of a new series, although other series (including Covert Front and DaymareTown) are still being produced.

The game has the same haunting look and feel as the Covert Front series, although The Fog Fall takes place later in time, in an alternate post-nuclear history around the Cuban Missile Crisis. The overall series objective is not entirely clear, but the graphics style [More...] Read the rest

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Better Than Free (or Pirated?)

By Rubes | Published: March 27, 2008

I read a couple of interesting blogs recently, and began to wonder how they might be related to the indie game scene.

The original piece was written by Kevin Kelly who, among many other notable things, helped co-found Wired magazine. On his “semi-blog” The Technium, where he posts thoughts on his next book, he authored a piece called “Better Than Free” back on January 31st — and it triggered an avalanche of discussion, all of which I naturally missed since I have no sense of these things.

In the piece, he discusses how to approach the creation of product value in a digital world, where free copies proliferate in the “super-distribution system” of the internet:

Yet the previous round of wealth in this

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IGF Ramblings and XYZZY Awards

By Rubes | Published: February 16, 2008

Just a couple of thoughts as I daydream about what it would be like to have a game nominated as a finalist for IGF…

I really wanted to try to go to GDC this year, finally, to get a glimpse of what it’s like. Alas, it was not to be. Another work trip this week made it too complicated to try and do both, especially with a busy week ahead of me and the in-laws coming for a visit this next weekend. Ah well. Next year, I think.

Speaking of which, thanks to TRC and Scorpia for posting and linking to the finalists for this year’s IGF. I’m a little disappointed that we don’t have any real adventure games in the list this year — [More...] Read the rest

Also posted in interactive fiction | Leave a comment