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Torque appears to satisfy most of what you are looking for. It's the Tribes 2 engine available to indie developers for $100/programmer.

I haven't worked with it personally, but I have looked over the feature set and demos and it appears to be a very capable game development platform.

Just remember, you need a game design, good artwork, and competent coding. There's more to game creation than "wouldn't it be cool if..." (though that's where good games start!)

Good luck!

First of all, you forgot SAVAGE . A reference grade quality, high end Action FPS / Large Multiplayer RTS with state-of-the-art grafics, dripping with eye-candy. And they are the _very__first_ to come out with a client for Linux from the get go whilst officially making that their policy.
So right away, go and buy that game and mail them how much you appriechiate them making a Linux game and how much you love to give them your money for it! They've even got a download purchase, so you can be playing in something like 20 minutes.
Second of all: The transgaming people are heroes, no doubt, but something like 1 out of 30 mentionable games actually run. I won't buy any windowsgames any more, even *if* they are supported by tg and those where the first and last 30 bucks tg got from me. Sorry guys, Master of Orion 2 runs quite ok (the first 15 min.) but that's about it. No, really, it's better we rid this shoddy emulation stuff sooner than later and pay developers for making cool native Linuxgames. Whe can use them to await the time when Linux has conquered the desktop and gaming developement kicks in.
Remember the Amiga days? Would've you thought that PCs would once be a gaming plattform? Me neither.

Bottom line:
Quit whining. And if you're bored help the Boson team finish their promising project.

That's exactly it. The mod community is a hotbed of innovation. Games like Counterstrike or Natural Selection innovated in ways that large, for-profit teams are hesitant to try. Or look at Garage Games[garagegames.com] for an interesting approach to encouraging independent development of games. Or, if you're looking for straight-up bizzare games, check out like Mister Mosqito or Stretch Panic or some other wacky Japanese games that were brought over here as budget titles. You're gonna have to look hard, though, as most publishers are more interested in trend-chasing than innovation.

Bottom line, the large publishers in this business are *extremely* risk-averse - games cost a lot to develop, and the people funding them want to mitigate their risk. It's short-sighted, and keeping games from wide acceptance as an art form, but until the market shows a desire for something richer than the next GTA, it's the way things are.

• Garage Games
• Free Lunch Design
• Black Eye Software (check out Eternal Daughter)
• PopCap Games (Bejeweled)
• Dexterity Software

Oh, who am I kidding? Anything released to the console market without 3D graphics, genuine B-list actors providing the voiceovers, and 16.7 zillion colors is doomed to failure.

DecafJedi

With top of the range games like this one, how can you possibly complain?

But there is plenty available for Linux Game Development.

garagegames.com provides the Torque Engine for only $100 a programmer. A number of quality games already exist for free or (more likely) as shareware at their site.

There are different libraries like PLIB, which as I remember was used for Tux Kart and other games.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be active websites for the community of GNU/Linux game developers. Usually the mailing lists are more active though. The websites look defunct which may make people think that nothing is happening.

As for productivity, yes, it is possible that more Linux-based PDAs will make people want to work on GnuCash and other such projects that are needed for productivity. I think that it might be a catch-22 in that demand for such apps would fuel development but development requires demand...The difference here is that if the hardware developers would hire programmers to actually MAKE the software in the first place, it would solve the problem.

Maybe not the most direct answer, but it is my $.02

There's a couple o' games that fall into the 'something different' for LAN play that are pretty cool. Orbz 2.0 and Think Tanks Both are pretty cool :-)

There's a couple o' games that fall into the 'something different' for LAN play that are pretty cool. Orbz 2.0 and Think Tanks Both are pretty cool :-)

Here

It's not all doom and gloom - don't count us indies out so quickly.

There is a very interesting game I personally enjoy by Chronic Logic called Triptych that is quite innovative in my opinion. Kind of like bubble-popping Tetris, but with physics thrown in. They also have a popular bridge-building game called Pontifex II that you might find interesting. Definitely different than most indie games.

And of course there are the games at GarageGames, including our title Orbz - oh yeah, plugging away ;) . I challenge you to find a game quite like Orbz out there - it is definitely not a knock-off.

It's not all doom and gloom - don't count us indies out so quickly.

There is a very interesting game I personally enjoy by Chronic Logic called Triptych that is quite innovative in my opinion. Kind of like bubble-popping Tetris, but with physics thrown in. They also have a popular bridge-building game called Pontifex II that you might find interesting. Definitely different than most indie games.

And of course there are the games at GarageGames, including our title Orbz - oh yeah, plugging away ;) . I challenge you to find a game quite like Orbz out there - it is definitely not a knock-off.

It apparently runs on just about anything: Mac >=10.1, Windows >=98, and a bunch of x86 Linux distros.

No kidding - I love Marble Blast Gold (however, I got it for free - but had already planned on buying it after playing the demo.)

One of the trends with the games offered at GarageGames is they are CROSS PLATFORM!!! That may not sound real exciting, but, I own Orbz 2.0 and Marble Blast Gold. I own a PC and a Mac (I love my PowerBook. Er... my WIFE'S PowerBook.) If I ever switch over to Mac completely, I don't have to re-buy the game, or give up the game - just download the Mac version. It's hard to get publishers interested in a cross platform game these days - Indies WANT crossplatform, since the Mac market may be smaller, but less cluttered (and same for Linux).

Speaking of independent games, I sucked down the demo of Marble Blast Gold yesterday and have found it a lighthearted and interesting change of pace from my usual fare, the very dark Quake 3. It apparently runs on just about anything: Mac >=10.1, Windows >=98, and a bunch of x86 Linux distros.

The Irony of Indy Games

Outside of the handheld ( PalmOS, PocketPC ) markets, or cell phones... many indy games are either crap... or sales pitches to publishers! Im not saying all... there are probrably dozens of exceptions, but on the whole this remains true. Its funny though, when you look at "past" indy games...

HomeWorld
Doom
FlashPoint

Really... by definition, an indy game is self financed, without a publisher in site. Its funny that that moment you have success in the indy market, you tend to get picked up by a publisher... then your no longer indy! ;) Than again, there are a few companies that are going from commerical projects to more of an indy style. Once you see the amount that publishers take... you start to see the value in online distro's!

For anyone really interested in learning more, check out:
Garage Games Misc resources, plus a licensable engine
FlipCode Great gaming related site
Gamedev.net Like flipcode, but less mature ( you'll see! )
Gamasutra The site for game developers! Must see
CrystalSpace LGPL 3d Engine. Very impressive
WildTangent Cheap game engine (web based), plus online publishing
Auran Jet Affordable 3d engine, flexible licensing
OpenGl The site for OpenGL info. Lots of useful links

From the above list, you should easily be able to find anything else your looking for! ;) Enjoy the world of game development for zero cash!

Go closed source.

Raise some capital.

And pay the devs.

He's ALMOST right on that. Part of what most of the artists who WILL work on you project look at is what the likelyhood that they get some sort of return on thier investment (time = money). I'm not saying that there aren't any artists who will work on a free - just damned few. And most that I do know are doing it to get a leg up in game development - build thier portfolio, etc.

If you've got a project that's up to the point of beta, you'll find it much easier to get artists on board. Also, go make an account at GarageGames, and watch for artists lookin' for a freebie project to work on in thier free time, or people who just quit a project and are lookin' for something else to work on (watch the .plan files.)

There's a couple to choose from, but for free engines, IMHO, your best best is Crystal Space 3D. PlaneyShift made use of it successfully - it's pretty good.

However, my tool of choice is Torque which isn't free - it's $100, and you get the source code for it. Damned flexible, and one hell of a community behind it. Go cruse the forums (same site, under Make Games) and check it out. And take a look at the screenshots. I'm currently using it on Trajectory Zone (Mm.... why bother with the link - still no dev pics up there at the moment, even though it's almost done!) and I'm really impressed with it's power - the best $100 I ever spent for game development.

I can't stop playing Tennis Critters from Garage Games. If I understand correctly, their actual line of business is a 3D game development engine and platform, which they promote by selling/distributing games developed by others USING the engine as demos!

Ingenious!

I can't stop playing Tennis Critters from Garage Games. If I understand correctly, their actual line of business is a 3D game development engine and platform, which they promote by selling/distributing games developed by others USING the engine as demos!

Ingenious!

It appears Garage Games is licensing their Torque Game Engine to anyone for $100.

... The engine that powered Tribes & Tribes 2, the Torque engine, is available for $100.00USD. I believe you can use it royalty-free, 'til you've made half a million (USD). Not too shabby!

Moreover, there's a GarageGames thread about a site which will host assets of "dead" projects, with a very permissive license.

The thread is here. I'm not sure if it's in a public forum or not.

Is there a site that has the art and game ideas where the people are looking for programmers to make their game?

While they aren't free, GarageGames offers content packs. I'd prefer something ala carte, but the screenshots are enticing.

licenses the torque engine, used in tribes 2 among others (and think tanks, which you should play, is hilarious). might offer a good deal for educational uses?
garage games

Shareware games is where the real creativity is these days.

Shareware games is where the real creativity is these days.

Shareware games is where the real creativity is these days.

Looks like garagegames just released Marble Blast Gold. It adds another 28 expert levels to the original Marble Blast (bringing the total up to 100). Fun stuff...

Related game: Marble Blast. It's quite a lot of fun for only 15 bucks.

... is the fact that the engine for this game (and 4 others) is also available, is cross-platform, and is easy to use.

Check here for details.

I dl'ed and played ThinkTanks (for OSX, yay!) today and found it to be totally fun... not exactly huuuge in terms of investment, but very fun to play. I'm especially happy that there are game companies like GarageGames out there who are willing to do Linux/Win/OSX releases all together, and their Torque Game engine SDK seems fit for this scenario...

I think we could look forward to more interesting, fun games from the Torque engine in the future. Cross-platform too, woohoo!

21-6 Productions is one of the studios developing games with the Torque Game Engine offered by GarageGames. It's a bit of a shameless plug, but today is the launch day for our title Orbz 2.0, which is being released for Linux, Mac, and Windows simultaneously, along with a demo for each platform.

We really believe in developing fun and interesting games for both the Linux and Mac platforms. We don't just believe in doing so just because it's "the right thing", but also because there is money to be made. The article mentions Marble Blast, another TGE-powered title, and the Mac and Linux sales have been substantial. Certainly nothing for a small, independently-financed game studio such as ours to turn our noses up at.

21-6 Productions is one of the studios developing games with the Torque Game Engine offered by GarageGames. It's a bit of a shameless plug, but today is the launch day for our title Orbz 2.0, which is being released for Linux, Mac, and Windows simultaneously, along with a demo for each platform.

We really believe in developing fun and interesting games for both the Linux and Mac platforms. We don't just believe in doing so just because it's "the right thing", but also because there is money to be made. The article mentions Marble Blast, another TGE-powered title, and the Mac and Linux sales have been substantial. Certainly nothing for a small, independently-financed game studio such as ours to turn our noses up at.

Your are right on the money!

Check out Mechina. Its based on Tribes 2 (ala Torque) and its absolutely amazing.

This would be a great place to start. Models, mapping and scripting are already done, which would leave the rewrite and conversion. Its just begging to be its own game.

One of my pet peeves in the Linux community is all the legacy cruft. I'd much rather not see time and energy spent on a game started 17 years ago.

What about adopting a modification already in development? I came across this Tribes 2 modification (called Mechina, pictures here) and it just blew my mind. They already have textures, mappers, scripting and detailed models. Its almost a total conversion already and as I recall Tribes 2 is based on GarageGames Torque Game Engine SDK which is available for Linux, Windows and Macintosh already.

Check out the link at least, believe me its not just another Tribes 2 game modification. Rewrite the base code, replace the Tribes 2 models and textures and you'd have an amazing game.

GarageGames _is_ open to all indie game producers. They don't just publish torque engine games. Two of the games on sale there now (Robot Battle and Chain Reaction) don't use the Torque.

Ever since the engine behind Tribes 2 was released for licensing at $99 per programmer, I've thought the entire concept of Garage Games was a rather good one to work with. An incredibly cheap engine license with built-in options for publication once a game is completed, the Torque Game Engine (TGE) is a great option for new game developers.

Not being a coder myself, I did refer a close friend to the engine when he started to burn out on Half-Life and Quake 3 modding, and he's dove right in with attempts to help TGE development move along. There are quite a few people out there around the Garage Games forums looking to put together one game or another, and some of them actually have proposals for things that aren't just Counter-Strike or Quake clones. Take a look at the games Garage Games sells in the store. All were made with TGE, none are shooters.

I can't say strongly enough just how much I think TGE will help revolutionize game production if people actually take notice. The entry cost of development is pretty low, particularly considering that you can develop on Linux and OS X based equipment in addition to Windows. There's a particularly large amount of room in TGE-based game development for Mac-oriented games, as well as Linux.

I'm on Garage Games' site as a designer, but haven't really been able to manage anything that went further than basic documentation. Even if I never accomplish anything, I at least feel glad I had a chance to try. Hopefully a few folks reading this post might give Garage Games and TGE a shot.

Keep in mind that CS was a mod of a game, meaning the original game studio (sierra or valve, forget which) gets to decide whether you sell it or not.

But honestly, you can successfully make a good game from scratch if you have the time (it isn't much of a 'money' issue). Graphics are the only thing that you'll need help with. If you want to make a 3d game, Garage Games sells a 1-seat license of their torque engine for $100, which isn't breaking the bank. But the real problem is finding the graphic artists and animators and paying them.

Try GarageGames

Actually, if you use the 'Torque Game Engine', (which was used to develop Tribes2) at $100 a seat, Garage Games will publish the game for you...

Actually, if you use the 'Torque Game Engine', (which was used to develop Tribes2) at $100 a seat, Garage Games will publish the game for you...

Don't go low level unless you really want to. If you want to get a game out either use the torque engine that appears to work and is a whole hundred US. Or for a basic FPS use the Quake engine for nowt.

Dave :)

This is what our studio is attempting to do, and though it's too early to tell how successful we'll be, we believe it's the best route to a self-sufficient indie studio. Successes like Popcap and GameHouse are inspiring, and give one roadmap to being self-sufficient. Another good example is Small Rockets.

In our case we are working very closely with GarageGames as our primary publisher/distributor. Between their help teaching us how to handle PR and marketing, their willingness to give advice on how to be successful, and our own attempts at networking, we think we will be a successful indie in the not-too-distant future. A good example of such cooperation was last week's MacWorld in San Francisco, where we helped run an arcade station for GG showing their title Marble Blast and our title Orbz (small, shameless plug). By joining them in SF for a few days, we were rewarded by making several contacts for future game development work and possible OEM deals.

This is how indies can "compete" with the big publishers.

Dave Myers

21-6 Productions, Inc.

This is what our studio is attempting to do, and though it's too early to tell how successful we'll be, we believe it's the best route to a self-sufficient indie studio. Successes like Popcap and GameHouse are inspiring, and give one roadmap to being self-sufficient. Another good example is Small Rockets.

In our case we are working very closely with GarageGames as our primary publisher/distributor. Between their help teaching us how to handle PR and marketing, their willingness to give advice on how to be successful, and our own attempts at networking, we think we will be a successful indie in the not-too-distant future. A good example of such cooperation was last week's MacWorld in San Francisco, where we helped run an arcade station for GG showing their title Marble Blast and our title Orbz (small, shameless plug). By joining them in SF for a few days, we were rewarded by making several contacts for future game development work and possible OEM deals.

This is how indies can "compete" with the big publishers.

Dave Myers

21-6 Productions, Inc.

This is what our studio is attempting to do, and though it's too early to tell how successful we'll be, we believe it's the best route to a self-sufficient indie studio. Successes like Popcap and GameHouse are inspiring, and give one roadmap to being self-sufficient. Another good example is Small Rockets.

In our case we are working very closely with GarageGames as our primary publisher/distributor. Between their help teaching us how to handle PR and marketing, their willingness to give advice on how to be successful, and our own attempts at networking, we think we will be a successful indie in the not-too-distant future. A good example of such cooperation was last week's MacWorld in San Francisco, where we helped run an arcade station for GG showing their title Marble Blast and our title Orbz (small, shameless plug). By joining them in SF for a few days, we were rewarded by making several contacts for future game development work and possible OEM deals.

This is how indies can "compete" with the big publishers.

Dave Myers

21-6 Productions, Inc.

A lot of independant game developers survive just fine. Depending on the game style you work with, a single person can do all the work - surviving then is a lot easier than a 40 person team. Most of my games have been single player puzzle games *. I have a day job, and do my game programming at night - it's trivial for my game company to 'survive' in that environment.

But when you get into monsters that require a team like Trajectory Zone (under development - have some sample screen shots), then things change a lot. As a single person development team, it's easy to make all the choices, do the job, and not have to worry as much about timelines, depending on someone getting thier job done (or, just as important - you getting your job done on time.) And that's just doing it 'part-time' - IE, keeping a day job, and working on games at night. Try and do it full time, and it gets even more complicated - where's the next infusion of cash come from? Or more importantly, where's lunch come from?

That's not to say it's so complicated that people aren't doing it as Indies - they are. Heck, after Trajectory Zone ships, I'll finally move to full time game development instead of part-part time. (Funny words actually - "part-time" doesn't describe living, breathing, eating, and dreaming game development in all your "spare time.")

I always like readin' about games like Imperial Wars - nice to see someone doing' it. When I spoke at Indie Games Con 2002 my co-speaker was a full time Indie developer. Really cool to spend some time talkin' to someone who was doin' it full time, and find out how they managed to pull of what they have done so far. David Michael wasn't the only person there doing it full time, of course - there were others too, and talkin' to them ended up giving me a lot of insight. If you are really seriously interested in Indie game development, hit the next Indie Game Con - there's a lot to be learned there.

Oh, and for those interested - here's a transcript of the speach. It's got a lot of interesting stuff in it - oddly enough, the title of the speach is "Can I Make Money As An Indie Game Developer?" - very appropriate to this particular /. thread :-)

Another place to go look around at when it comes to Indie Game Development - Garage Games lots of people there working towards Indie game releases at the moment, and some people who have already completed thier current projects and moving to the next game. Look in the business section and the general sections for some really good discussion on the subject (note - just like anywhere else, gotta sift a bit to find the good stuff from the crud.)

(*Yes, some shameless self-promotion there. Sorry, it's totally nessisary :-)

A lot of independant game developers survive just fine. Depending on the game style you work with, a single person can do all the work - surviving then is a lot easier than a 40 person team. Most of my games have been single player puzzle games *. I have a day job, and do my game programming at night - it's trivial for my game company to 'survive' in that environment.

But when you get into monsters that require a team like Trajectory Zone (under development - have some sample screen shots), then things change a lot. As a single person development team, it's easy to make all the choices, do the job, and not have to worry as much about timelines, depending on someone getting thier job done (or, just as important - you getting your job done on time.) And that's just doing it 'part-time' - IE, keeping a day job, and working on games at night. Try and do it full time, and it gets even more complicated - where's the next infusion of cash come from? Or more importantly, where's lunch come from?

That's not to say it's so complicated that people aren't doing it as Indies - they are. Heck, after Trajectory Zone ships, I'll finally move to full time game development instead of part-part time. (Funny words actually - "part-time" doesn't describe living, breathing, eating, and dreaming game development in all your "spare time.")

I always like readin' about games like Imperial Wars - nice to see someone doing' it. When I spoke at Indie Games Con 2002 my co-speaker was a full time Indie developer. Really cool to spend some time talkin' to someone who was doin' it full time, and find out how they managed to pull of what they have done so far. David Michael wasn't the only person there doing it full time, of course - there were others too, and talkin' to them ended up giving me a lot of insight. If you are really seriously interested in Indie game development, hit the next Indie Game Con - there's a lot to be learned there.

Oh, and for those interested - here's a transcript of the speach. It's got a lot of interesting stuff in it - oddly enough, the title of the speach is "Can I Make Money As An Indie Game Developer?" - very appropriate to this particular /. thread :-)

Another place to go look around at when it comes to Indie Game Development - Garage Games lots of people there working towards Indie game releases at the moment, and some people who have already completed thier current projects and moving to the next game. Look in the business section and the general sections for some really good discussion on the subject (note - just like anywhere else, gotta sift a bit to find the good stuff from the crud.)

(*Yes, some shameless self-promotion there. Sorry, it's totally nessisary :-)

A lot of independant game developers survive just fine. Depending on the game style you work with, a single person can do all the work - surviving then is a lot easier than a 40 person team. Most of my games have been single player puzzle games *. I have a day job, and do my game programming at night - it's trivial for my game company to 'survive' in that environment.

But when you get into monsters that require a team like Trajectory Zone (under development - have some sample screen shots), then things change a lot. As a single person development team, it's easy to make all the choices, do the job, and not have to worry as much about timelines, depending on someone getting thier job done (or, just as important - you getting your job done on time.) And that's just doing it 'part-time' - IE, keeping a day job, and working on games at night. Try and do it full time, and it gets even more complicated - where's the next infusion of cash come from? Or more importantly, where's lunch come from?

That's not to say it's so complicated that people aren't doing it as Indies - they are. Heck, after Trajectory Zone ships, I'll finally move to full time game development instead of part-part time. (Funny words actually - "part-time" doesn't describe living, breathing, eating, and dreaming game development in all your "spare time.")

I always like readin' about games like Imperial Wars - nice to see someone doing' it. When I spoke at Indie Games Con 2002 my co-speaker was a full time Indie developer. Really cool to spend some time talkin' to someone who was doin' it full time, and find out how they managed to pull of what they have done so far. David Michael wasn't the only person there doing it full time, of course - there were others too, and talkin' to them ended up giving me a lot of insight. If you are really seriously interested in Indie game development, hit the next Indie Game Con - there's a lot to be learned there.

Oh, and for those interested - here's a transcript of the speach. It's got a lot of interesting stuff in it - oddly enough, the title of the speach is "Can I Make Money As An Indie Game Developer?" - very appropriate to this particular /. thread :-)

Another place to go look around at when it comes to Indie Game Development - Garage Games lots of people there working towards Indie game releases at the moment, and some people who have already completed thier current projects and moving to the next game. Look in the business section and the general sections for some really good discussion on the subject (note - just like anywhere else, gotta sift a bit to find the good stuff from the crud.)

(*Yes, some shameless self-promotion there. Sorry, it's totally nessisary :-)

A lot of independant game developers survive just fine. Depending on the game style you work with, a single person can do all the work - surviving then is a lot easier than a 40 person team. Most of my games have been single player puzzle games *. I have a day job, and do my game programming at night - it's trivial for my game company to 'survive' in that environment.

But when you get into monsters that require a team like Trajectory Zone (under development - have some sample screen shots), then things change a lot. As a single person development team, it's easy to make all the choices, do the job, and not have to worry as much about timelines, depending on someone getting thier job done (or, just as important - you getting your job done on time.) And that's just doing it 'part-time' - IE, keeping a day job, and working on games at night. Try and do it full time, and it gets even more complicated - where's the next infusion of cash come from? Or more importantly, where's lunch come from?

That's not to say it's so complicated that people aren't doing it as Indies - they are. Heck, after Trajectory Zone ships, I'll finally move to full time game development instead of part-part time. (Funny words actually - "part-time" doesn't describe living, breathing, eating, and dreaming game development in all your "spare time.")

I always like readin' about games like Imperial Wars - nice to see someone doing' it. When I spoke at Indie Games Con 2002 my co-speaker was a full time Indie developer. Really cool to spend some time talkin' to someone who was doin' it full time, and find out how they managed to pull of what they have done so far. David Michael wasn't the only person there doing it full time, of course - there were others too, and talkin' to them ended up giving me a lot of insight. If you are really seriously interested in Indie game development, hit the next Indie Game Con - there's a lot to be learned there.

Oh, and for those interested - here's a transcript of the speach. It's got a lot of interesting stuff in it - oddly enough, the title of the speach is "Can I Make Money As An Indie Game Developer?" - very appropriate to this particular /. thread :-)

Another place to go look around at when it comes to Indie Game Development - Garage Games lots of people there working towards Indie game releases at the moment, and some people who have already completed thier current projects and moving to the next game. Look in the business section and the general sections for some really good discussion on the subject (note - just like anywhere else, gotta sift a bit to find the good stuff from the crud.)

(*Yes, some shameless self-promotion there. Sorry, it's totally nessisary :-)

There is a very large gap between the little Flash games that exist everywhere online and the titles that are being produced at the large publishers, and this gap can be filled with the smaller-scoped, but no-less-interesting games that many people want. I too want to see a bunch of interesting titles like we had on the old Atari or C64 computers. I'm tired of the same rehashed junk we are forcefed.

We have spoken at length with Jeff Tunnell and the GarageGames crew, so we understand where they are coming from possibly better than the writer of this article. They do not believe you can crank out a AAA title for $5000. More importantly, they do not believe that you should even attempt such a thing - you CAN NOT compete with the big publishers. However, you don't have to. You can get together a group of like-minded people and crank out smaller-scoped games with a reasonable level of quality and make a few bucks if you work at it. You are most likely not going to sell 10's of thousands of copies of any given game, so don't plan on making a mint. Set your lifestyle right so that you can afford to work on your games and in time you just might succeed as an indie.

We are doing just that and (shameless plug) we have released our first game Orbz. It is a fun multi-player game that uses the Torque engine. We had one full-time programmer, two part-time programmers, one full-time level designer/artist, and one part-time sound engineer, and the entire development time from conception to delivery was 14 weeks. We are finishing up the Linux and Mac builds as we speak and they should be released sometime in January. Not too bad for a little indie, and how many AAA titles do you know that get almost simultaneous Linux, Mac, and Windows releases?

Dave Myers