Indie Marketing 101

nullSo you’re working on your game and you want to get the word out to more than the half dozen friends and family you know. How can you do this amongst the rising glut of titles announced, developed and released nearly daily? Indie Game Mag has a 5 page article to get you started on making you stick out a little more amongst the crowd (although having a snazzy game would greatly assist in that).

The article goes over the basic elements of interacting with the public; getting a proper website up, blogging, trailers, contacting the press, leveraging social media and more. You don’t have to be working on a big game to use this advice, people enjoy reading about and rooting for the little guy, the more they feel connected to you the better chance you’ll have a good turnout.

If you enjoyed this article then check out: Why isn’t anyone buying my app?, Postmortems: stories from the front lines and Tiger Style’s Lifetime Sales Numbers for more advice about getting yourself more noticeable and learning from others experiences.

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Speed Coder Challenge 15!

Tyraziel just posted up the new Speed Coder Challenge with the theme: Warmth/Warm Up and Speed.

Your game has should have either a WIN/LOSE(like Super Mario) or a SCORE/LOSE(PacMan) system and should have a significant challenge to be (subjectively)enjoyable. Your game can be anything from text mode to 3d, with the goal of doing it in 2hrs.

All entries must be submitted by:
11:59PM EST Thursday, May 31st, 2012

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How to Make Insane, Procedural Platformer Levels

Building a platformer and are thinking of procedural generated levels? Gamasutra has an interesting 3 page article up by Cloudberry Kingdom developer Jordan Fisher talks about precisely how he created the algorithmic level design system for his procedurally generated platformer.

Thinking of building a platformer and mulling over editor/engine choices? CDN member Hanclinto has a great platformer application; Platformer Starter Kit, using the PushButton Engine it allows you to easily create your own flash based platformers with XML based levels, advanced physics, full documentation/source and starting artwork so you can get crackin right away.

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Epic teases Unreal Engine 4

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Wired has an article up teasing Epics upcoming E3 reveal of the ever popular Unreal Engine 4. While much of the article is gibberish journalist talk it gives a bit of a look of some of the elements of future mainstream graphics technologies.

Honestly the presentation doesn’t impress me as much as other advancements over the past several years. Much of the features toted are common to lesser known engines and have been available to the interested developer for years (dynamic lighting, physics based particles, etc.). It brings up an interesting discussion regarding graphical enhancements, other than a few milestones (mainly sparse voxel octrees and ray tracing) the technological leaps have been averaging out. Engine development companies have been turning much of their focus towards the easy of use of their toolsets and it’s become clear in the last few years that the easier the toolset is the killer feature. What do you think the next advancements will be in? Animation? AI?

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Five Tips for Better Game Design

nullIn our recent discussions; What makes a game ‘Christian’? and Are Christian Games Dead? We’ve been discussing, well, Christian games and their future. One subject that always comes up is that Christian games need to forge a new way to express themselves through new gameplay elements.

Keith Burgun has an interesting article up about ‘designing games for the future‘, ignoring genres, pushing aside thematic thinking and focusing on the small pickup elements. Hopefully it’ll stir the creative juices and inspire developers, we do have an upcoming SpeedGame coming in June(!) which would be a great way to test your theories.

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Understanding the Legal Impact of Publishing Your Game

nullSo you got a beta version of your game done and through a little grass roots marketing you’ve caught the eye of a publisher looking to take you under their wing. Jovan Johnson, a California attorney and partner at Johnson & Moo, examines the important legal issues that may arise when you sign your mobile game up with a publisher for distribution, and explains how you can take steps to insulate yourself from negative outcomes.

The 3 page article is a good basics read on dealing with publishers, I’d recommend reading the comments as well and, if you’re finding yourself in such a situation, devour as many articles and interviews you can about developers working with publishers.

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Christian games: What are they and should they be called Christian?

Christian music, Christian movies, Christian books, Christian mints(?), when it comes to Christianity in forms other than the religious ideology we seem to love to define what it is. So when it came to games developed by Christians with a Christian message then it should be called a ‘Christian game’…right?

Over the years at CDN we’ve debated about what makes a game Christian? Can games even be called Christian? Is defining it as such counteractive to outreaching to others? Is including Christianity into a product that’s sold for profit the same as turning the Lords house into a marketplace? Are we assisting in the commercialization of Christianity? Should we be ‘shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves‘ and hide our true identities and intentions? Where should the line be drawn in representing Christianity in games? Should there even be a line? Can Christian games be used as an outreach tool? Should they be?

If you enjoyed this thread then maybe you’ll enjoy our other current discussion going on: Are Christian games dead?

Publications by Valve Software

nullValve Software engineers and artists regularly contribute to industry and academic conferences, covering topics from the high level goals of our cabal development process to the inner workings of cutting-edge rendering algorithms. While many of these articles are several years old they still apply to todays workflow and in many cases are still unrivaled in the industry today.

Here’s the main directory of articles and a few select favorites of mine:

Connecting Visuals to Gameplay

Stylization With a Purpose: The Illustrative World of Team Fortress 2

The AI Systems of Left 4 Dead

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