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With regards to MUDs, I can heartily recommend LambdaMOO. It has a very simple object-oriented programming language, and unlike many MUDs, it's all interpreted, so you can program new stuff live with the server running. The server also automatically parses player commands with English-like syntax (direct objects, prepositions, and indirect objects) and passes them to the verbs (functions).

The downside compared to MUDs is that LambdaMOO is designed primarily as an educational/social environment, so any RPG functionality will have to be coded from scratch, although there are some ready-made RPG systems available on the web.

Something else to consider is shareware RPGs that allow user-designed scenarios. Blades of Exile, written by Jeff Vogel and available for Mac and Windows is a classic 2D tile-based RPG with a very simple graphical editor that allows you to create new scenarios. The author is also working on a sequel, which will use a newer isometric engine and feature a C-like scripting language for greater flexibility. Ambrosia Software publishes Escape Velocity, a 2D space trading game with a modular plug-in system that allows users to expand or modify the game universe or build a total conversion from scratch. These games were originally written for the Mac, where plug-ins are made very easily using ResEdit; the third game has recently been ported to Windows, and I'm not sure how plug-ins are made on the PC.

At any rate, this all depends on whether the kid in question is more interested in the technical challenge of programming a game and getting it to work, or in the design of challenging battles, puzzles, or whatever. I imagine someone who wanted to experiment with different level designs, enemies, weapons, and how they balance would get discouraged pretty quickly if they had to first spend days writing and debugging the basic engine behind it, and vice versa.

With regards to MUDs, I can heartily recommend LambdaMOO. It has a very simple object-oriented programming language, and unlike many MUDs, it's all interpreted, so you can program new stuff live with the server running. The server also automatically parses player commands with English-like syntax (direct objects, prepositions, and indirect objects) and passes them to the verbs (functions).

The downside compared to MUDs is that LambdaMOO is designed primarily as an educational/social environment, so any RPG functionality will have to be coded from scratch, although there are some ready-made RPG systems available on the web.

Something else to consider is shareware RPGs that allow user-designed scenarios. Blades of Exile, written by Jeff Vogel and available for Mac and Windows is a classic 2D tile-based RPG with a very simple graphical editor that allows you to create new scenarios. The author is also working on a sequel, which will use a newer isometric engine and feature a C-like scripting language for greater flexibility. Ambrosia Software publishes Escape Velocity, a 2D space trading game with a modular plug-in system that allows users to expand or modify the game universe or build a total conversion from scratch. These games were originally written for the Mac, where plug-ins are made very easily using ResEdit; the third game has recently been ported to Windows, and I'm not sure how plug-ins are made on the PC.

At any rate, this all depends on whether the kid in question is more interested in the technical challenge of programming a game and getting it to work, or in the design of challenging battles, puzzles, or whatever. I imagine someone who wanted to experiment with different level designs, enemies, weapons, and how they balance would get discouraged pretty quickly if they had to first spend days writing and debugging the basic engine behind it, and vice versa.

Seriously, this game came bundled with my iBook, touted as a game with "cutting-edge sound and graphics." Um. It's Xevious. Neat game and all, but I kinda played it before... in 1982!

Check out Ambrosia Software. They've made a lot of great Mac games (Escape Velocity Series), and they are starting to port them to Linux (Maelstrom).

I set up a mac emulator on my Windows box just so I could play some of their games.

Well, it all depends on how you define 'success'.

My own little game has brought in over $1000 in donations and profit from tchotchke sales over the past year. I wrote the game in my free time (I was unemployed for a while, which helped) and I treat it like a full-time hobby. I've made more than it cost me to create the game, so I'm happy about that, and I consider most of the time I took making it time well spent. (I could have done without the weeks of tracking down forehead-slapper bugs, but it comes with the territory.)

I'm lucky in that I have free hosting through a friend, so I don't need to worry about bandwidth costs, which is a big plus. Even if I had to buy my own server space, though, I'm making enough that I could come close to breaking even, or maybe even earn a little bit.

Thing is, I never planned to earn money off this game. I wrote it for two reasons: it sounded like a fun thing to do, and I wanted to get some name recognition. Today, most of my hits are coming directly to the game's home page; even six months ago, I was relying primarily on other peoples' links. This tells me that people have heard of the game and are coming straight to the site to get it--the name is out there, and it's generating it's own buzz.

Now that I've gone through it, I've learned that the real trick isn't to make money--at least, not right off the bat. The real trick is to get noticed. Once you get noticed, the Internet practically builds a game's reputation for you. If your game is fun and engaging, it gets forwarded around and shared. You don't need to pay a dime for this.

Look at Ambrosia. They started out with Malestrom, which was and still is one of the best versions of Asteroids out there. The game got noticed, people passed it around, linked to it, and Ambrosia got a name. Today, they run a solvent shareware business; they've developed a solid registration system, they have tons of titles, and (most importantly) tons of people know who they are.

Shareware can make $$, but if that's the first thing you gun for, you'll have trouble. Make your game fun, free as in beer, have non-obtrusive requests for donations, and seed it onto the net. Make a name for yourself. Then start looking into ways to make a business out of it.

Tom

(P.S. A tip: release early in the year, so you don't get passed over on the 'Best of 200X' award lists...)

One game you should definitely check out is Escape Velocity: Nova; I haven't actually tried it yet, but if it's anything like the original, then it's better than 99% of games out there, shareware or not. If only there were an MMO version... :)

No they can't; programs like WireTap easily "defeat" their current DRM. I really don't want them crippling the OS to try to prevent tools like that from working.

You can already use either Ambrosia WireTap or Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack to record the audio stream as it's sent to the sound card (in digital form), at least on MacOS X.

This is really no different that burning to a CD and re-ripping, which people have been able to do all along.

You can also convert m4p (AAC protected) files to AIFF with Toast Titanium or with Apple's own iMovie, then convert the AIFF to whatever form you choose (Ogg, Mp3, non-DRM AAC) using iTunes.

The only few gripes that I have right now are: 1) The aluminum keyboard feels like dragging my nails on a chalkboard if my nails (esp thumb) hit the hey instead of flesh.

Cut your nails ;) I have long nails and so does my girlfriend. We have not had this kind of trouble on our PowerBook 17".

2) The integrated Google search doesn't have buttons that let me search directly to images and/or discussions, and when the search comes up, there aren't buttons of the words that I just searched for allowing me to search within that document.

That _would_ be a cool feature in Safari. Send it to Apple, they listen. Meanwhile Ambrosia has a cool utility called iSeek that does exactly what you want, but puts the search in the menu bar.

3) Many web pages totally break using Safari - I am going to debug one page that I use all of the time and send the fixes (JavaScript) to the person that maintains it since it is sommething I use daily when analyzing stock charts (well, nightly).

As I'm sure you know, it is up to the developer to create webpages that adhere to standards, not Microsoftisms. Dave Hyatt, who is a standards and perfection nut is one of the developers on Safari. He has a web blog discussing Safari here.

4) The resolution on this laptop isn't so great - but the screen does look fantastic.

It could be better, but most users are not used to user elements being tiny. Until resolution-independent interfaces are developed, I think the resolution is just right for the display size (17" and 1440x900 for me). This is all in my humble opinion of course ;)

5) I'm not sure that my backlit keyboard works. It is turned on and no matter what changes I make via F9/F10, I still see no backlighting. Not a huge deal, but still a gripe.

As people have mentioned. It need to be dark for it to kick in. There are two sensors, one below each grill.

6) I have yet to figure out where the graphical FTP client is - so far I am largely just treating this like a Linux laptop and using a lot lof command line stuff.

The FTP is integrated in Finder. Use connect to server (cmd-K) and type and FTP-adress. Upload and passworded servers do not work. This is done for two reasons, one is to not alienate 3rd party developers (I use Fetch myself), and the second is security. Apple is focused on security these days, and sending clear-text passwords isn't very secure :)

8) The trackpad is not responsive - it is almost like accelaration is turned on, but I didn't see anything that would indicate that in any mouse menu.

Acceleration is always on, because that is the Apple Way. Mac Users love it, PC-users shouldn't have a great difficulty adjusting to it since it's makes sense. Set the speed to full if you want it to be closer to Windows' hyper-active mousing ;)

10) I'm still getting used to the kepay layout for shortcuts - fortunately my misstrokes have yet to do anyuthing harmful.

I'm sure you will find that the cmd-combination is much easier on your hands as you can reach more keys without straining your wrist. Also most shortcuts are consistent across applications on the mac platform, another bonus.

11) The spell checking thing doesn't let you bring up a quick selection of the word/words that it suggests - innstead you have to open the full spell window and then it wants to continue on - I miss the ability in Windows to right click and the first few words on that menu were the suggested words and you could just choose one and move on.

I don't see how you m

Total Recorder for Windows and Wire Tapfor OS X.

Both intercept and record an audio stream from inside the computer (to put it simply enough for all to 'get' the idea) and save it to the HD or RAM disk AS AN MP3 file.

Import that MP3 file into your "music" folder/library/portible digital player of choice and away you go, unencumbered by DRM.

I beleive that either of these applications mayl also work with WMA files, regadless of how DMR bound they may be.

Both intercept and record an audio stream from inside the computer (to put it simply enough for all to 'get' the idea) and save it to the HD or RAM disk AS AN MP3 file.

Just think of the money you'll save by not having to buy blank CDs if you use one of these products.

If you're only burning in order to re-rip, it's more convenient to transcode with iMovie or WireTap.

By far the most addictive game I've picked up since Rogue, Uplink on OS X (Linux and Windows versions available here)has brought a few things to light for me.

First, the graphics aren't that great, but they are exactly what you require for visual feedback. Everything is where it (so it seems) should be for quick and easy access. The audio feedback on things like the trace tracker is a nice bonus as well.

Ambrosia Software's port to the Mac is very well done, although it would be nice (as I mentioned on the Ambrosia boards) to be able to switch the game to windowed mode for the ability to check what's going on with the rest of your system during the game.

The thing is, most of my regular (read: non-geek) friends wouldn't get much of a thrill out of it. The lack of eye-candy and blood/boobs/bombs would probably turn them off, regardless of the fact that the game is very exciting to me, very immersive, and a lot of fun. They just wouldn't be able to see the "fun" in learning more and better ways to hack and crack..

The point is that it doesn't have to appeal to the mass-market, the ones that love all the Clear Channel crap that's on the radio, buying Windows boxes because "they're cheap" and watching reality shows until their own perception of reality erodes completely.

It's made for you and I. The ones who find this (all this geek stuff) fun. I think games should be more tailor-made to fit a certain group.. even though I hate the idea of market groups and stereotypes. Please don't let the developers dumb down everything to appease the masses.

This game has me really hooked. It's all done in a very immersive style, and presents itself like no other game on the market. Two green thumbs up.

Versions are out for Mac OS 9 and OS X, Linux (not sure what distros) and Windows.

Required Mac specs listed here:

OS 9, or OS X 10.1 or later
300 MHz G3 or higher

OpenGL compliant 3D video card required, OpenGL 1.2 or newer
CarbonLib 1.6 or newer
DrawSprocket 1.7.5 or newer

Going back to play some more.

I read it on Slashdot that no one makes games for Macs, so it must be true. I better let Aspyr, MacPlay, MacSoft, Westlake Interactive, Ambrosia, Freeverse, The Omni Group, Blizzard, GraphSim, and Feral Interactive among many other commercial operations and hundreds of shareware developers that no one at all makes games for the Macintosh and that they should all shut down immediately. Additionally, Inside Mac Games should shut down their operation immediately as they are a waste of server space because they will never have any news to report ever.

I heard it on Slashdot so it must be true.

Since SMP is more pervasive on Mac than on PC, do Mac games take more advantage of SMP? Does GL on the Mac render retained mode data outside of the calling thread or otherwise significantly distribute game-related work in the OS itself?

Most Mac games are not specifically written to take advantage of SMP. However, OS X (which is required for a G5) is pervasively multithreaded, and distributes the load among multiple processors very well. Any thread can run on any processor, as needed.

So, if a game is multithreaded it will use both processors. The graphics system under OS X is multithreaded, so it can use both processors. (And for that matter, the graphics card as well; Quartz Extreme offloads quite a bit of processing that way.) Basically any system call is likely to be done in a separate thread, and two threads should never take running time from each other.

As a real-word example EV Nova (one of my favorite games, so I'm plugging them.) runs much faster on my dual 867MHz MDD Mac than my uncle's 1GHz iMac, without being 'designed for' SMP. (I wish I had a real benchmark for you though.) The OS takes care of that.

How is this comment interesting? There are a large number of games for Apple if you even bother to pull your head out and look around:

MacSoft
Ambrosia Software

Just to name a few. Try looking around instead of spreading this crap. There are more games for the PC than Apple but that does NOT mean there are no games for OSX at all. Some of the best games are available on Apple (Unreal Tournament 2k3, Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights, Masters of Orion, etc.)

Of course in my opinion, if you want video games, buy a playstation, but that is just me.

Does anybody remember Avara? If I remember correctly, the README for Avara initially (and brazenly) touted itself as "The game that would soon supplant Bolo as the defacto standard for gaming on campus and corporate networks. " Then after a little while, the newer README began touting itself as the game that DID replace Bolo as the standard for gaming on corporate and campus networks.

That was certainly the case as far as my very good newly departed friend and I were concerned. After slaving away at Microwarehouse Tech all day, we'd race home to our beach apartments and battle it out via our little LAN. After playing Avara over 14.4 dial-up you reeeeaaaalllly appreaciated the convenience of having ethernet dangling out your window to your neighbor's apartment! (not long before., we were using phone-net!)

My upstairs neighbor (at that same beach apartment) created a pretty brilliant plug-in for Escape Velocity, turning all of the ships into Star Wars ships (painstakingly rendered in Infini-D!!!). EV was a great game too, I've personally killed many hours (and brain cells!!!) playing my friend Mark's SW plug-in!

b) no EV-Edit/.rsrc types for the Nova pilots! After playing the game a few times, it became repetitive; I got most of my play time out of the game by modifying it... making my own ships, planets, weapons, and outfits. the customizability of EV was endless and made the game fun for a long time... The ported versions save Nova-type pilot files which have to editing tools yet.

Are you complaining about lack of editting tools for the data files, or for the pilots? Nova is just as customisable as EV Classic, if not more so. Just use ResEdit, MissionComputer, etc if you want to change ships, planets, outfits etc. Check the addons page on the Ambrosia site in fact for editors and plugins.

This trick (I assume you're talking about this one for window buffer compression) does indeed help, but I believe it's only useful in 10.1. I don't think that feature existed in 10.1, and I've been told that it's enabled by default in 10.2. The single biggest thing that helped was getting more RAM. I can't recommend enough that people always have at least 256MB, preferably even 384MB or more, if they're going to use OS X. It just gets faster the more memory you throw at it. The next biggest improvement I had after that, other than getting a new computer, was getting a faster HD, but that was a smaller improvement. A few other things like disabling the UI drop shadows help a little bit, but that tends to make things look funny, and it's less useful than just spending a few dollars on more memory.

-Nalgas D. Lemur

consider the fact that AS now compresses images in memory - something no other desktop environment could do

Then again, I would not be surprised if NextStep had this feature before...

I think you need to play Harry the Hansome Executive.

Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but back on my Mac II, I relied exclusively on Indie shareware titles to keep myself amused (at least until they ported Civ over).

Great sites like Ambrosia released excellent games, like the Escape Velocity series, which still has great gameplay (and was recently released for Windows), and a fairly cheap price.

Indie gaming isn't new, but it seems like the people that grew up on Indie games are now getting into it themselves, creating a real boom as far as number and quality are concerned. Heck, if you look at Mods as a type of Indie game, Indie games are threatening the "Real" game industry!

skye

There's also pom-pom who have written two games (supports PC, Mac and Linux) with some of the best 3D graphics in the indie scene.

And of course, Ambrosia who have been in the Mac shareware business for ages, and have ported a few of their most successful titles to Windows already.

Better yet, import the AACs into iMovie and export them as AIFF, or capture the audio using Wiretap. (Unless you actually want a CD). I've done that for all my songs from iTMS, and if Apple ever prevents that I'll stop buying.

Like a lot of Mac games--this game has add-ons. Mac players don't get that many games to begin with, so the ones that they like get a lot of effort put into them by the fanbase. Currently, EV Nova has 11 pages of plug-ins, ranging in size from 1K annoyance patches to 12MB overhauls. 12MB is pretty substantial when the game itself is 70MB. The previous versions had -huge- plug-ins that converted all the ships and missions to Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm sure these are in the works. Seriously worth checking out.

Fortunately, Ambrosia Software is porting Escape Velocity Nova to Windows so a wider audience can enjoy it as well. I look forward to being able to play it on my computer at home instead of having to find someone with a Mac.

Fortunately, Ambrosia Software is porting Escape Velocity Nova to Windows so a wider audience can enjoy it as well. I look forward to being able to play it on my computer at home instead of having to find someone with a Mac.

EV:Nova was tons of fun. It's cool that all the plugins will work with the Windows version.

Looks like you guys are also getting pop-pop. It's a really simple game, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to play with friends.

Ambrosia Software has been doing this on the Mac for ages. Their games are always fun, reasonably priced shareware.

I've bought more than a handful of their titles, and have had more fun with them than most commercial releases provide.

But there is one in Harry the Handsome Executive. It throws gold staples if I remember correctly.

Shareware games is where the real creativity is these days.

Then again, it's really a rehash of Escape Velocity in a new genre; but it's a game that will sell, even if it doesn't sell big. If you look, the little guys are still out there pumping out innovative titles; they just aren't marketing them like the bigger players -- and with reason -- they have a smaller target market.

There are plenty of original games out there. Most of them simply don't do well, and those which do are copied and cliched into oblivion. Take for example:

Uplink: Every Slashdotter's dream game. Very innovative idea, properly executed, as well.
Escape Velocity Series: While the series is not exactly new, it is still an excellent idea. Completely open-ended, and quite fun. Windows port coming soon.
Wulfram II: Multiplayer only. Free. Interesting combination of strategy and FPS. The graphics are a bit dated, although community-funded development work has begun on a new graphics engine. Addicting as hell.
Black and White: Never played, but very innovative from what I've heard.
The Longest Journey: While it's very similar to the LucasArts adventure games, this game plays like a novel. That being said, if all novels copied each other, we would have stopped writing them thousands of years ago. Recycled concept, AMAZING plot.
Planescape: Torment: At first glance, this appears to be nothing more than a hackneyed D&D game/Diablo clone. Upon playing it, you begin to unravel a superb plot. Very little hack and slash.
Dance Dance Revolution: Never played it, but it's popular as hell (you don't get much more original than THIS)
Morrowind and GTA were both somewhat revolutionary in that they were completely open-ended, and created two of the most original games in two of the most hackneyed generes.
Frozen Bubble/Snood/etc. More proof that such simplistic games can still become wildly popular. Revitalized a dying genere.

Anyone played uplink? It's just been ported to the mac by the good old guys at Ambrosia Software. You're an elite hacker, paid by the job to break into computer networks around the world. I can't really describe what the interface is like, but it's definitely refreshing in the world of fist person shooters.

Triv

Anyone played uplink? It's just been ported to the mac by the good old guys at Ambrosia Software. You're an elite hacker, paid by the job to break into computer networks around the world. I can't really describe what the interface is like, but it's definitely refreshing in the world of fist person shooters.

Triv

Yes:
Green Machine
Coldstone Game Engine

Or, if you are a programmer, check out these libraries:
Cocoa Sprite Kit (Cocoa, Obj-C, C++)
Sprite World (Carbon and Classic, C, C++, Pascal)
Sprite Animation Toolkit (Classic and Carbon, Pascal, C++)

For instance Ambrosia has had versions of classic games with excellent graphics and game play. I'm sure that were I to look I could find many more examples.

Just because most of the games down at CompUSA most games are fairly complex and driven by "gee whiz" graphics and long play time doesn't mean all are.

"Crippleware" works, "traditional" shareware doesn't. One shareware author documented a 5-to-1 difference in the matter.

You can read more about Ambrosia's take on the matter here.

Yeah, I'm a board regular there, and it's rather unfortunate. Still a great game, though. :)

Drop on by anyway... interesting discussions even though there are a bunch of jackasses on the Nova board.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/webboard/

gavin.starkiller

...this largely mirrors something I posted on an earlier thread (re: the "Hollywoodization" of the games industry and risk aversion). Still, I was hardly the first to point this out.

But there are independent software labels. Take a look at:

Delta Tao
Ambrosia
Beenox

Of course, some of them live hand-to-mouth (i.e. on incomes of less than $100,000 a year) but, so do independent film makers and recording artists.

The fact is that like Hollywood, the games industry is dominated by risk-averse money people who spurn originality in favor of the sure thing. But like Hollywood, the games industry is always willing to leap onto independent innovators (the "My Big Fat Greek Weddings" of games), such as id.

Don't be surprised when yesterday's bold innovators become part of today's problem, that's part of the creative life cycle (just as great innovative scientists become curmudgeons in their old age).

For the longest time that was the only choices we had! We couldn't get even crappy mainstream games. In an odd way I think of it as a blessing. We were exposed to great little garage design houses like Ambrosia, the maker of the Escape Velocity, Aperion and Pop-pop! They sell only through the web. They can't afford shelf space. But that hasn't caused them any big problems.

I believe that Linux folks know all about garage crews as well so that part is covered. Now you just have to teach them to pay for their games. ;p

You Windows users. Look around and explore! There are tresures out there waiting to be found. Package glitz isn't everything! For every game (good ones) that you buy creativity survives for that much longer!

1. I can't replicate your results. My Mac laptop is just as fast as the company laptop from HP, but with better battery life.

2. Also not replicable. I see comperable prices for comparable laptops.

3. Businesses often fall into "single supplieer syndrome". That's a given, and unfortunate. Still, Apple has no problems moving laptops. I don't quite get your point, unless you're telling me I ought to say "baa".

4. Well, I guess you can thank Apple for making FireWire a standard, eh? ;)

5. The G3 PowerBooks had this function, but Apple abandoned it. They decided that the benefits it provided weren't enough to enter the new case design. Considering that these expansion slots aren't uniform between laptop manufacturers, I can accept this. Third-party hardware for these things is expensive nowadays, even on the PC side.

6. "First and foremost"? Adobe's cash cows are still the MacOS programs. Illustrator is fighting an uphill battle against CorelDraw, but enjoys equal footing with Macromedia Freehand on the Mac side. And both are easier to use on the Mac than the PC due to little factors like PostScript printer integration and Apple's Navigation Services.

7. Your comment about grephics cards is probably the most mystifying. Ever since the bad old days of System 7.5 (and probably even earlier), Apple has supported multiple monitors, usually one monitor per graphics card. One of the reasons I'm buying the 12" PowerBook instead of the iBook is the independant external monitor support.

Oh, and I don't think I've purchased any of your games, unless you work for Ambrosia.

You lads also have Ambrosia Software, Spiderweb Software (which now usually does Windows versions as well). I have wonderful memories of both those companies from Mac OS Classic days.

Plus, a lot of the ports are better than the Windows original. Few reach the level of the Warcraft II port (where the Mac version had 3d sound and TCP/IP networking added by the porting company), but frequently people buying the Mac version get expansions for free and get all the bugfixes that Windows gamers have to find themselves and wait for the company to fix.

The Mac can run Fallout, Close Combat, and the Angband clones. That's enough to keep me happy on just about any system. I wish Linux could do that (to my great disappointment, WINE does not yet handle Close Combat, but with any luck, it will soon -- I've noticed that both the winex and wine trees have in the last few months had clipping code added to DirectX...)

Harry the Handsome Executive, soldier for hire.

I would hardly call the OS X market virgin anymore. If you look at the games most played on GameRanger (by far the biggest online gaming service for Macs), all of them besides Rogue Spear have OS X native versions. While there aren't as many games from big publishers on OS X, there is still a very hefty number. The games on that list are all ports of games made by big companies. Very few small companies have been able to put out fun, exciting, original titles. One notable exception is Ambrosia who puts out, among other things, the classic Escape Velocity series. Other Mac games from small, independent developers that I can think of that gained moderate notoriety are Airburst and Netfungus.

The common theme of these games is that they focus on the gameplay while using relatively simple looking graphics. It's unrealistic to expect a small company to put out a modern FPS given the complexity that such a project requires. However, a game with simple and fun gameplay can do well even if it doesn't have all the latest bells and whistles to wow the user superficially.

Publishers currently handle the printing of the manuals, the stuffing of retail boxes, distribution, advertising, and money. According to the article on Garage Games, the Independents would still be outsourcing printing and stuffing. They gloss over the problem of distribution, but imply that the independent would be well served by their services. Advertising they claim is a pittiance, though that could be simply because it is executed so badly by the major distributers. And finally MONEY... The article implies that every independent can become an Ambrosia if they just aim at an underrepresented market, but this, quite frankly, is unrealistic. Despite what the article says, you cannot hire real artists, sound personnel, video editors, coders, and testers for six months for 5,000 dollars. That budget should be more like 200,000... and that would be a lean and mean 4 person crew. If you can convince everyone to work pro-bono and can find a spare pair of rooms in someone's house, that will offset most of the costs but will put the talent into an even worse position than they started out in.

The dream of relaiming IP from the publisher, as well as creative control, is an alluring one. But the fact is the publisher serves several vital roles in this industry, most of which are underappreciated by veterans who have had several great ideas and a lot of bad projects canned by the major houses. What climate has changed? What power shifted to the independents? Doesn't the lowered entry barriers into game development, as mentioned in the article, make publishers a relatively rarer and therefore more powerful entity?

-C

I have been considering rewriting and re-releasing the product under another name, updated for Mac OSX.

Whoa. I was looking for you some time ago when I was attempting to morph retinal images for a presentation I made. I finally managed to locate an old boxed copy of Morph for Classic MacOS and accomplished the task that way. Perhaps someone like Ambrosia software would be interested in distributing it for you? How can I get in contact with you as I would love to talk to you further about this?

Well worth a read, IMHO.

Slightly offtopic, my favorite quote is this one:

Western society is BASED on private ownership of products and property - which makes Microsoft, with their foul licensing schemes, VERY anti-American, despite what they say about Linux. With Microsoft, you never really own or have any control over what you've paid for.

BlackBolt

Many in this community are dog people, but is it my imagination that a higher percentage of geeks are cat people? It's either a startling coincidence or my life represents a real Nielsen-style rating as to the percentage of computer volken who like the furry little beasts...

This observation began for me when once I lived in an apartment complex with an exclusive population of nerds. It was the mid 90s at that time. Before I got there it was just a couple of Mac II-Ci's with phone-net (!!!) flowing out of the windows. I'm pretty sure we had the first network in the little beach-town of Seaside Park, NJ.

Eventually, there were 7 units each with Ethernet dangling from window-sill to window-sill. And only 500 feet from the beach! With a tremendous view of the Ocean from a kickin' deck upon which we would regularly grill mahi-mahi and the like whilst imbibing on food-breaks from endless network gaming and hacken (and more imbibing). It was bloody Nirvana!...but I digress.

All were tiny little cracker box apartments (we were beginning our tech careers at that point) that at the peak of geek occupancy housed a motley collection of Macintoshen, NT boxen, 1 NeXT machine (mine, a slab serving a 400dpi laser printer and also playing the part of a shuh-WEET NIS server), a couple of Linux box0rz and an Amiga 2000. PowerBooks galore. All nic'd and sharing the the love.

Nearly every apartment was populated with at least one cat, and in one case at least a bloody-stinkin' (emphasis on the "stinkin'" pheeeyew!) cat colony! I, resident mac-geek with a love of code and 3-d, had two...Lumpy and Jake. Neighbor James, who was an NT tech with a penchant for work-related travels to Kazakhstan on occasion, had two as well...Simba (a 22 pound orange basketball with legs and a tail) and Mim (tiny little fucker, even as a full-grown feline).

My friend Ian had a cat named Mr. Beau... Mr. Beau's special talent was vomiting on technology. Yup. If the thing flipped bits in some manner, and it was in Ian's apartment, that shit was getting vomited on. No negotiations. Also, beer was likely to have been spilled on said equipment at some point, but that I believe was (mostly)the fault of the humans about the place.

My friend Mark who also lived there was a 300lb pro wrestler who could lift full grown men over his head in addition to his impressive geek abilities. Adding to those formidable(and imposing)wrestling talents was a steady gig as Mac/NT/Network tech. The guy was also a 3-d rendering guru who made valuable additions to the old Ambrosia game Escape Velocity. He and his (then pre-) wife housed the afore mentioned (sHt1nKeN!) colony of kitties who (despite their numbers...and lovely odor!) managed to not vomit on the tech nearly so often. All the other guys had cats too. Not nearly as smelly.

Since those days, I've worked with a fair number of techs and the sampling of overlap between the cat-ownership and tech communities seemed to grow larger with the more tech-geeks I've met as time passed.

If I might posit a guess, I'd say it had something to do with the independant nature of both beasties. Here I speak of techie cr3tins (myself included) the race of kitt33z. Both seem to have a strongly independant sense of self. The solitary nature of bit-dribbling andromorphs is evinced most strongly by the the noticeable high percentage of said who also play musical instruments. When you think about it, in order to develop ability in either (music or tech), you have to spend a lot of time with yourself thinking, playing, experimenting. Cats, while not much on the thinking or tip seem to be quite competent at being on their own. Far more than dogs anyway in that respect...

Many in this community are dog people, but is it my imagination that a higher percentage of geeks are cat people? It's either a startling coincidence or my life represents a real Nielsen-style rating as to the percentage of computer volken who like the furry little beasts...

This observation began for me when once I lived in an apartment complex with an exclusive population of nerds. It was the mid 90s at that time. Before I got there it was just a couple of Mac II-Ci's with phone-net (!!!) flowing out of the windows. I'm pretty sure we had the first network in the little beach-town of Seaside Park, NJ.

Eventually, there were 7 units each with Ethernet dangling from window-sill to window-sill. And only 500 feet from the beach! With a tremendous view of the Ocean from a kickin' deck upon which we would regularly grill mahi-mahi and the like whilst imbibing on food-breaks from endless network gaming and hacken (and more imbibing). It was bloody Nirvana!...but I digress.

All were tiny little cracker box apartments (we were beginning our tech careers at that point) that at the peak of geek occupancy housed a motley collection of Macintoshen, NT boxen, 1 NeXT machine (mine, a slab serving a 400dpi laser printer and also playing the part of a shuh-WEET NIS server), a couple of Linux box0rz and an Amiga 2000. PowerBooks galore. All nic'd and sharing the the love.

Nearly every apartment was populated with at least one cat, and in one case at least a bloody-stinkin' (emphasis on the "stinkin'" pheeeyew!) cat colony! I, resident mac-geek with a love of code and 3-d, had two...Lumpy and Jake. Neighbor James, who was an NT tech with a penchant for work-related travels to Kazakhstan on occasion, had two as well...Simba (a 22 pound orange basketball with legs and a tail) and Mim (tiny little fucker, even as a full-grown feline).

My friend Ian had a cat named Mr. Beau... Mr. Beau's special talent was vomiting on technology. Yup. If the thing flipped bits in some manner, and it was in Ian's apartment, that shit was getting vomited on. No negotiations. Also, beer was likely to have been spilled on said equipment at some point, but that I believe was (mostly)the fault of the humans about the place.

My friend Mark who also lived there was a 300lb pro wrestler who could lift full grown men over his head in addition to his impressive geek abilities. Adding to those formidable(and imposing)wrestling talents was a steady gig as Mac/NT/Network tech. The guy was also a 3-d rendering guru who made valuable additions to the old Ambrosia game Escape Velocity. He and his (then pre-) wife housed the afore mentioned (sHt1nKeN!) colony of kitties who (despite their numbers...and lovely odor!) managed to not vomit on the tech nearly so often. All the other guys had cats too. Not nearly as smelly.

Since those days, I've worked with a fair number of techs and the sampling of overlap between the cat-ownership and tech communities seemed to grow larger with the more tech-geeks I've met as time passed.

If I might posit a guess, I'd say it had something to do with the independant nature of both beasties. Here I speak of techie cr3tins (myself included) the race of kitt33z. Both seem to have a strongly independant sense of self. The solitary nature of bit-dribbling andromorphs is evinced most strongly by the the noticeable high percentage of said who also play musical instruments. When you think about it, in order to develop ability in either (music or tech), you have to spend a lot of time with yourself thinking, playing, experimenting. Cats, while not much on the thinking or tip seem to be quite competent at being on their own. Far more than dogs anyway in that respect...