TIGdb Advances

By: Jeff Lindsay

On: January 9th, 2009

Remember that site Derek and I made one night to document and organize our wonderful world of indie games? That’s right, I’m talking about The Indie Game Database. Well we have some news of progress for you…

500+ games! Not long after we entered 2009, Derek added the 500th game to the database. And then some! While it’s still not the most complete database, Derek’s hand-picked indie games make it one of the best collections available online. It’s hard not to run into something good in there, so check it out!

I guess now there’s nowhere to go but for 1,000 games… we’re going to need your help. Derek is a monster, but it’s tough getting all these details in there. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you guys to add and update games. For example, you can now notify us when something needs to be corrected directly from a game page. If a download link doesn’t work or we got a release date wrong, tell us with the “Are we wrong?” link.

Web API This is pretty neat news. We now have a REST API for you to programmatically access TIGdb. What does that mean? Let me give you some examples…

We’ve been talking with the guys at FreeGameDev, an open source game development community. They’re interested in building their own database of open source games. As you might guess, open source games are pretty indie, so we decided to figure out how we might work together. The idea now is that they’re going to build their own portal powered by TIGdb that only shows open source games, which they can do using our powerful filtering functionality thanks to our new API.

What’s cool is that using our super simple API, they were able to throw together a very rough proof-of-concept in only a few minutes. If you want to play with the API yourself, read the documentation and get started!

TIGBox Since the last GDC, Ivan Safrin and I have been toying with the idea a Steam or iTunes Store app for indie games. With the API on TIGdb, Ivan decided throw something together. Tonight he gave me a build that, well, mostly works… but he said to mention that I rushed him. ;)

This is an early alpha that lets you see available games from TIGdb under “Get games”, double-click one to download, it automatically extracts and determines the executable, and then shows up in “Your games” where you can launch with another double-click. There are known and unknown issues, but we wanted to get it out there and see if you guys think the idea is worth exploring more. Anyway, it’s a creative use of our new API!

Other new stuff Besides a handful of simple bug fixes, there’s now a Twitter feed for updates on TIGdb for those of you that are into that. We also support multiple developers on a game, which is especially handy for Compo collaborations. And our new TIGdb contributor, Timothy Fitz, added a feature that rotates through several more screenshots when you mouseover a single game screenshot. Pretty cool! Timothy also added the “Are we wrong?” functionality and has been helping improve the stability of TIGdb and TIGSource.

What’s next? The homepage needs some love. We also want to have more details about developers and let you browse/filter developers just like games. But we want to hear from you! Suggest and vote on ideas on our UserVoice page.

That’s it for now, but you’ll be hearing more from us soon! Oh, did we mention TIGdb was written up on CrunchGear?

Posted in Community

Super Joe

im gay
Klaim

TIGBox wow!

That’s the best idea of the year ever!
http://0xdeadc0de.org/ Eclipse

that was MY idea as you can read from the forums :(

oh well, it’s AWESOME <3 :D
X-Tender

Great Idea!
Will test it later at home.
Sparky

Looks great, guys!

Your efforts are an inspiration to us all!
fuxter

the alpha is freakin awsome!!!
i wanna download em all
GREAT!GREAT!GREAT!
Widget

For someone who’s hopeless at keeping informed about indie games TIGBox is amazing. Would love to see it developed further.
http://www.frogames.com Mathieu

I still don’t understand why our game isn’t on TIGdb. We need love too! :(
KennEH!

Wow. Best update in a while.
Kornel

How about making also a Steam-like platform for selling indie games? I’d love to see that!
Centipeed

Indeed, TigBox IS a fantastic idea. If you guys just let go of this one it’ll be terrible.
Riccardo

ohh my God!!! I spend a great deal of time to keep my videogames in a decent order so that I can find the one I’m looking for every time… something like TigBox would be awesome!!!
http://blazingbean.com/ Bean

I love the fact that this db actually strive for hand-picked quality instead of quantity. The Internet is filled with extremely long lists of free games but almost without exception they contain a huge heap of totally rubbish games.
mjau

TigBox sounds great. If only it was multi-platform.. =)
Business Bear

TigBox sounds AMAZING. Awesome idea.
Gandalf

Open Source is even more indie than most Indie games!
http://www.bananattack.com/ Overkill

I’m impressed the efforts made by TIGdb so far. Keep it up!

My only complaint is that the submission form should be made simpler, and that acceptance of games should be made more lenient.

I agree there are flawed or somewhat derivative-feeling indie games out there, but I would still like to see them in the database so long as they’re made by independent developers.

Controversial but: Unfinished games and contest games are another thing that I think that should appear, as a section of its own perhaps, but allow us to see games that are short playthroughs or are up-and-coming. Much like other game sites announce games being developed in the future, which have screenshots to generate hype.
luilak

Looking forward to that TIGbox app. Seems really useful, especially to keep track of where my games are (I have this bad habit of installing games just about everywhere).
I can also imagine the tool being quite beneficial to TIGdb concerning ratings and other things, once the tool is extended a bit. Quite curious how this will turn out!
askyfinger

sexy!!

i shall have to be more active in adding obscure indie games to the db.

great idea with tigbox. it’ll be easier to find cactus games without relying on a flaky willhostforfood d/l
http://www.sophiehoulden.com GirlFlash

TIGbox sounds like massive win to me, and I second Kornel’s suggestion about using it as a way of selling games too :aww:
toastie

TigBox will be very much developed in the future! I’m going to open a thread about it later today for bug reports, etc. The current version is very much unstable and is more of a proof of concept, but I’ll work to polish it up. One thing I’m going to add as soon as possible is an auto-updater, so you can get the new versions of it automatically. Anyway, I’m glad you guys are enjoying it :)
yougiedeggs

TigBox!? HELL YES! That said, tigbox.exe crashes as soon as I open it. :(
headcrab.

This is one great leap for mankind.
Vadim P.

curl, zlib, 7z – all open-source and cross-platform stuff. Any chance on a Linux version? :)
Colin

I second yougiedeggs, crash on startup.
I’m running Vista if that has anything to do with it.

Great idea either way, hope it turns out well!
Skf

Why jst mk t fr nd gms? Th ln btwn “nd” nd “crprt” gms hs bn blrrng -lt- ltly. t’d b lss cnfsng nd mr sfl t lst bth hrdcr nd nd thr gms lngsd ch thr, kn t Grt Gms xprmnt, prhps wth mr fcs n mr ndpndnt ttls, s th ndpndnt gmng cmmnty cn frthr blr th ln btwn crprt nd ndpndnt nd gn mr ttntn.
moi

YO DAWG
I heard you liked indie apps, so we put indie programs in your indie program, so you can launch indie apps while you launch your indie app.
Jeff Lindsay

Hahah, Skf… I totally agree actually. But the way I look at it is that if we can build up a lot of infrastructure and channel a lot of the passion and love in the indie community into just indie for now, when we further integrate with the rest of games, it will be a very powerful positive force.

But, I’m all for blurring the line, but I want that blurring to be a significant and important thing for all games.
oo

Oa.

a oe eii o io iei ae o o i ou oi?
Jeff Lindsay

Oh, what? I didn’t do that. I thought you were being retarded. But it’s not gibberish, since I still read it!
[email protected]

Disemvowelling is a good way of handling trolls – it gets their post out of the way without completely removing it, so people can still read it if they really want to, but most won’t.

I don’t see why it’s happened here, though. Perhaps Mr Ttntn knows.
none

TigBOX could succeed as just an app for downloading and playing Indie Games. I really don’t think there should be another DD service.

(see: PA’s Greenhouse)
Stalker

TIGBox sounds very similar to this project: Djl.

Screenshots:
http://www.djl-linux.org/index_en.php?Pics .
UnrealClock

@Overkill

If they made everything more simple the quality of games listed, and the database itself would surely plummet.