Category Archives: Other

25 Indie Games to Keep an Eye On

Kyle Orland and Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica wrote up an article about recently released or up-and-coming games, and both Drop that Beat Like an Ugly Baby and PWN were mentioned!

“The first thing that strikes you about this game is its extreme similarities to A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, which isn’t that surprising since both titles are from developer Dejobaan Games. Drop The Beat Like an Ugly Baby improves the concept of that first-person base jumping simulator in a number of ways. For one, the levels are now generated from MP3 files, Audiosurf-style, so the pillars and platforms you’re dodging fly by in time with the beat of the music you’re listening to. For another, the interface has been improved to show you just how close you are to the nearby objects that give you points.

The game is currently controlled with a mouse, which provides a much finer experience than the WASD controls. But the developers tell Ars that more control options may be in the final version. As long as I can plug in Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ super-ironically, the controls can work however they want.”

—Kyle Orland

“Developer Erik Asmussen isn’t shy about his elevator pitch: to make a game that plays just like the cheesy hacking sequences from ’90s cyberpunk films. PWN drips with the style you’d expect from films like Hackers and Sneakers, from neon backgrounds and phony-looking “cyberspace” settings to big-beat techno and doofy-looking avatar art.

PWN sets two hackers against each other to capture every connected node, and its levels range from simple 2D grids of boxes to intense, criss-crossing arrays that must be spun around in 3D. Tap to control a node, then use a variety of “hacks”—like firewalls, trojan horses, and viruses—to corrupt your opponent’s progress and take over. What could easily devolve into a simple tap-fest does well with a nice balance of superpowers and grid-placement strategy, not to mention a pretty decent campaign full of cheesy ’90s-film writing. It earns its $2 price on the App Store and then some.”

—Sam Machkovech

Read the full article here.

 

Planned in Boston: Games are Better When We Do Them Together

IMG_3224It’s not unusual to hear stories of big successes on the part of small development teams. Two-person teams will sell millions of units of a quirky title, as was the case for Super Meat Boy and World of Goo. But those are the success stories; other independent developers struggle with the challenges of being small. Those who set up shop in the Boston area, though, can become part of a supportive community that will help get them over the hurdles and into success stories of their own.

Read more at Boston.com/State of Play.

Friday Lunches

Aside of picking each other’s brain as we’re chipping away at the development of our various games, we wasted no time in setting up a weekly meeting, on Friday, at lunch. Tentatively, this is called Friday Lunch, since we seem to have spent all of our creative juices elsewhere.

So, what happens at a typical Friday Lunch? Someone comes in with an idea, a game, or a specific question, and we spend an hour and a half doing a brain dump on it. One of the benefits of the collective is our varied backgrounds, which can provide an incredible amount of viewpoints on marketing, strategies for various platforms, and at the very least, entertainment, as we disagree with each other in front of our guest.

Visitors have included students, indies just getting their feet wet, and other developers such as ourselves, all who want access to a huge number of opinions and advice in a short amount of time. Our feedback is always honest, no matter how brutal, but always in the interest of making everyone more successful because of it.

Our meetings usually get booked anywhere from 6-8 weeks out, so if you’re interested, get in touch!

Email: Should Travel for Games

Ichiro just recently passed this suggestion over to the Boston Indies list. I felt it was worth posting:

A colleague recently e-mailed me to ask if she should go to GDC. If you’re just starting out as an indie (she wasn’t, but that’s another story), and are on the fence: if you can go to GDC and not starve, go to GDC. Here’s a slew of thoughts on why/how, especially on a budget:

GDC Pass
Holy crap, it’s like $1500, and that’s the discounted rate. You could buy a new computer for that. But the IGS pass and the Expo pass aren’t bad at $325 and $195, respectively. I typically snag the IGS pass. And if I had no pass ($0), it’d still be worth my time to go because of the people I’ve met outside the con. Read on.

Your Built-in Network
You already know a bunch of people going to GDC, which is a great start. These people are grand, and they also know other people who are grand. You’re probably zero degrees of separation from the woman who runs the Indie Megabooth. She’s important (in part) because she brings together enough indies so the likes of Apple, Google, Valve, and Sony come by to visit everyone. As a result, she knows everyone. She’s also a punk. Whatever. My point is that you’re currently part of a friendly, awesome network of folks you don’t know yet.

Networking
When you’re out there, connect with everyone you know, and find out what they’re up to. We’ve been setting up a GDC-Devs mailing list to coordinate events. We call out for food (“Who’s up for Shalimar?”), beer (“How big can the indie Katamari get?”), random hallway rants (“I started my own session on how much Intellivision still rocks.”) and chat sessions (“We love F2P P2P IAP“ or “Strategies on getting your games noticed by the press“). Caroline doesn’t like to brag, but it’s there that she hunted down John Graham and gave him a noogie (but only after securing $1M in funding).

Big Parties
They’re fun, and you feel all special going to them, but I find the smaller ones more useful. YMMV.

Room
There are a number of hotels nearby, but you can also rent out entire apartments via AirBNB. Places go quickly, but we’ve found comfortable, close-to-Moscone-Center ones for about $50/person/night. You could stuff more people into them (to an extent) if you like sardines.

Your Stuff
Business cards, an elevator pitch about your studio, and a build of your game (“Give it a try?”) are all great ways to start conversations. At a recent conference, Raph Koster strapped Eitan into a chair and placed before him a game he’d written on the plane ride over. That was the beginning of a conversation on game design; and implicit to it was the new knowledge that Raph was an approachable dude. Similarly, why not bring your handcuffs? Do it. And once the con’s over, don’t forget to follow up with these people via e-mail, LinkedIn, or Facebook.

That’s all I have to say about that. Indie life’s getting harder; the sky’s falling; go meet everyone before it’s too late; yadda yadda.

Ichiro Speaks at GDC China: First steps and avoiding pitfalls

Dejobaan’s Ichiro Lambe spoke at GDC China in Shanghai this past month. The focus was on starting an independent studio, and the talk touched on 9 common pitfalls that plague all new small game dev businesses. Gamasutra posted a writeup of the talk:

Ichiro Lambe has learned a lot of hard lessons since he founded independent studio Dejobaan (AaaAAAAAaaaaA: A Reckless Disregard For Gravity) over twelve years ago. At a talk at the Indie Game Summit this week at GDC China, Lambe whittled these down to the nine common pitfalls that most indie studios are in danger of facing.

Spoiler: Don’t do a 3-person MMORPG as your first title.