Posted by Derek Yu Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:47:00 GMT
I wanted my next post to be about a game, but this is too fun not to share. Petri Purho has put up a gallery of crayon drawings he collected from various other indie developers at GDC this year.
Thanks for the tip, Data... who also happens to be the artist of the above image!
Posted by Derek Yu Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:49:00 GMT
Scott Sharkey wrote a nice little round-up for the all the indie video interviews 1UP did at GDC last month. The feature has links to the developers’ interviews, and their websites, along with a nice photo of each one (which I’ve collected in the image above). Always great to see the beautiful faces behind the games!
Also, check out this great clip from DL.TV, where 1UP’S Garnett Lee expresses his admiration for Crayon Physics Deluxe and Fez (starting around 1:30):
His descriptions of the games are pretty spot-on, in my opinion!
Posted by Derek Yu Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:32:00 GMT
cactus and VilleK have set up a new blog for Lo-Fi Minds. Their inaugural post has screenshots and descriptions for their two current projects, Brain-Dead Toon Underworld (made for our VGNG Compo), and Secret Agent Hotel. Both games look/sound absolutely fantastic, natch.
I also thought this would be a good time to make a request for donations to our friend cactus. I’ve gotten more value and excitement from all his games than your average triple-A mainstream title. His work inspires me every day as a game designer and an artist.
cactus is incredibly creative and talented, but could definitely do more to market himself. But I really wonder if he should have to? Shouldn’t being good at making games be enough to make games for a living? I think so. And I’m dreaming about alternative business models to let people like cactus make great freeware and keep at it.
But until then, let’s give a little back to this supercool dude and support him on his quest to entertain and amaze us! Everyone who met him at GDC fell in love with him (for some coughBrandoncough, it was romantic love). He’s a really nice, genuine guy, who just wants to make games and be happy. It would be awesome for cactus to be able to put all his energy into being himself and not have to get a ho-hum job to make ends meet.
I’m putting in $20 to start, and suggesting $5-$20 donations from those who want to. We can’t easily keep track of how we’re doing, but feel free to post a comment letting us know why and/or how much you donated. I hope you do!
Donate here! (PayPal link at the bottom of the page.)
Posted by Derek Yu Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:30:00 GMT
David Hellman, the fantastic artist behind both A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible and, of course, Braid, has a new blog wherein he discusses his art.
The latest entry, part II of his “Art of Braid” series, shows the progression from Jon Blow’s programmer art (which is quite fun!) to what you see today. I love this kind of thing! There’s some good exposition on his creative/development process, too.
Part I of the series reveals Braid Art’s abstract beginnings.
Posted by Derek Yu Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:09:00 GMT
IndieCade is calling for submissions for their 2008 independent games festival in Seattle. The festival goes from July 10th to the 13th. The group also makes appearances at various gaming events around the globe (like E3 and PAX). Games chosen for IndieCade are also considered for those showcases.
The submission deadline is April 11, 2008, and the fee is $25.
Posted by Derek Yu Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:44:00 GMT
Pixeljam’s Rich Grillotti, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at GDC this year, wrote me to let me know that Part 3 (the final part) of his “Creating Minimal Pixel Art with Photoshop” tutorials for Gamedev.net, is now up. The tutorial is a great introduction to both pixel art and Photoshop, for the non-artist. Plus it’s filled with all manner of fun little examples!
Their latest masterpiece-in-progress, Dino Jam, should be coming out soon.
Posted by Derek Yu Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:39:00 GMT
At a town-hall meeting at Apple HQ in Cupertino, Steve Jobs and company announced the release of a free iPhone SDK for developers, as well as a $99 iPhone Developer’s Program that allows devs to publish their apps (both free and commercial) to iTunes. On top of that, venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is investing $100 million dollars (Dr. Evil voice) to fund development of apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. How that money gets divied up is anyone’s guess, but Apple made sure to point out that it’s 10 times more than what Google has in its coffers for Android devs.
This is all part of an announcement for iPhone 2.0, which is coming to customers in June, and has some nifty new “enterprise features.” But really, the important thing is that now indie game developers with Mac OSX can go apeshit on the iPhone! For details the new SDK, head over here (Gizmodo).
(Thanks, Phil!)
Posted by Derek Yu Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:24:00 GMT
Oh man, first a sweet World of Goo shout-out on their front page, now this.
Gabe and Tycho have announced that, in cooperation with the DigiPen Institute of Technology, this year’s Penny Arcade Expo will feature PAX 10, a showcase of 10 independent games selected by 50 industry experts (including the two main men themselves). The games will sit right on the expo floor, and attendees will be able to vote for one of the games to win an “Audience Choice Award,” to be announced on the website the next week.
You have until May 7th to submit your game here (it’s $50). PAX, in case you didn’t know, is an annual, 3-day orgy in Washington for video game lovers around the globe. This year it starts on August 29th.
TIGSource meet-up at PAX, anyone?
(Thanks, Alec!)
Posted by Derek Yu Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:12:00 GMT
Nick Waanders, of Slick Entertainment, has released the slides for his and mare’s N+ postmortem. Slick did the development for N+ for XBLA.
Kotaku actually has a nice write-up of the game, where they laud, among other things, the excellent multiplayer co-op:
I’m seriously (srsly) sad that I’m nowhere near an Xbox 360 with Live support right now. Good co-op is so rare in games…
Posted by Derek Yu Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:23:00 GMT
The Game Developers Rant has become somewhat notorious over the years, what with Greg Costikyan’s infamous 2005 rant that started him on the rocky road toward Manifesto Games, and Chris Hecker’s inflammatory “the Wii is a piece of shit” comment in 2007. When people go see the rant, they expect blood to be spilled.
But man, leave it to Jon Mak to buck tradition. This year, attendees got a surprise, when Jon, instead of ranting, cranked up some electronica and ran down the aisles, throwing balloons into the air. The balloons, which were covered with cryptic messages, were batted about by the audience. Eventually, Kim Swift (Narbacular Drop / Portal) was ushered to the podium by Mak and was asked to scream as loud as she could (!). Which she did.
Be sure to check out citizenmike’s blog post for a more detailed rundown of Jon’s presentation, and head here (GameCareerGuide.com) for a recap of the Rant as a whole. And Sean “th1s” Chan has provided some video of the balloon orgy in question:
(Source: Tim!, via IndieGames Blog)
