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There are lots of nethack servers running right now. There's the alt.org nethack server, and I also run a nethack server (telnet to nethack.kraln.com) Also, my entry to the Ludumdare 48 competition was a nethack/roguelike thingy, so I am getting a kick out of this post: http://ludumdare.com/compo/lud...

tl;dr: Accessibility has always been a concern and, there is more innovation happening today than 30 years ago.

I also miss the (video game) days of my youth; learning about games from friends, or by going to an arcade and seeing what new machine was front and center...later making ANSII ads for BBS's so I could obtain a high enough credentials to get access to their warez section and learn about the latest games.

That said, I chock my emotions of those days as nostalgia and recognize an indie in the 80's/90's had a much more limited set of options than today. From middle school to college my options went from Applesoft Basic with the Beagle Bros compiler to Turbo Pascal/C++ with the XMODE library. That's it. Innovation in game design, and mechanics was regulated to a task that could be accomplished only after you figured out how to get a framebuffer up, sounds playing, and all the other nit picky things required to build a game.

Don't mistake accessibility with complexity. I make games for a living and some of my co-workers have been doing this for 30+ years; accessibility has always been at the front of the games developers build. When 4k of memory was a lot, the best games could do was have paddles, a ball, and text written on an arcade cabinet to describe how to play. Later on we introduced demo mode and how-to-play screens, which worked particularly well with most games as they didn't scroll and limited play modes and/or mechanics to demonstrate.

And when games became more complex (powerups, scrolling screens, etc...), the games people played were the ones that continued to innovate on how they were accessible. A great example that codifies this early push for accessibility by design is in "Sequelitis - Mega Man Classic vs. Mega Man X" https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If games haven't always found a way to be accessible, demos, tutorials, etc... they wouldn't be played because only a handful of us die-hard geeks are willing to read through the manual. So as awesome as it was making games in 320x240 with 256 colors with my own game engine, I know what I was able to produce then pales in comparison to what an eager indie can create today.

To see this innovation just poke around Newgrounds or go to any global game jam site or just look at the entries from one of the quarterly Ludam Dare's ( http://ludumdare.com/ ). At the Game Developer's Conference this year there was a whole section of alternative input games ( http://www.gdconf.com/news/gdc... ). And there are plenty of other sources showing innovation game play mechanics, some fun, some not, but plenty of experimentation.

I think all the download links for this are still active:

darwin_award, a 48 Hour Compo Entry for Ludum Dare 24.
Save humanity from Darwin Award winners.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=1864

You mean like this? http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=29184

I've been in the industry nearly 15 years now. I think not having a degree has only come up maybe one or two times. Sure didn't stop me from getting recruited by Microsoft.

What I would focus on is a couple of things:

1. Expand your horizon - learn the basics (See Michael Feathers Self-Education and the Craftsman talk from SCNA 2009). Then learn things like Functional Programming, Dynamic Typing and other languages.
2. Do other things - Make programming a hobby and a career. Start an open source project. Contribute to others. Scratch itches that bug you, but do them with software
3. Play Both Ends - Learn back end development. Learn front end development (CSS/Javascript). Do some hardware development (SparkFun's Arduino kit is fun, as well as the Roomba robot kits).
4. Read, Read, Read - Find books on software engineering. Reverse Engineering of Viruses. Design Patterns. Project Management. And go outside - books on Business topics are especially good, because you get to understand the tradeoff that often gets made.
5. Practice, Practice, Practice - Do Katas. Create projects. Explore ideas. Do things like Ludum Dare and hackathons. Build an iPhone app, then build an Android version.

I'm not trying to knock a college education - if you want it for the education. If you want it just for the advancement, the things above are going to have a much bigger impact on your career and your ability to find employment in many cases.

A month? The Ludum Dare does them in 48 hours.

Ludum Dare has been doing this for years now. Every competition has a more or less vague theme or motto, and people are invited to come up with a game of any genre and implement it in a 48 hours time frame. Check out http://ludumdare.com/ for more info.

You'd be surprised how much can get done in 48 hours.
Some of the games from the last Ludum Dare were pretty stunning. I really enjoyed this one, even if the gameplay elements are pretty light.

It's a real game

There's another game-making competition coming up next weekend: Ludum Dare 17

Well there is Gametrove which is a fairly good place for the shareware titles.

If you want to see some more radical or experimental ideas, try Ludum Dare which is for the 48 hour game development competition. The site isn't 100% at the moment, but the competitions have turned out some great ideas. The Games are not totally polished and some aren't very finished, but there are some gems to be had.

My own past LudumDare Games: ( Not the best ones out there, I've yet to win a LudumDare)

A lemmings style game only the critters are even smaller, and they are Ninja!
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/Cruft/TTN.zip

This one was actually a 12 hour game written a week before the LD48 as a warmup
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/Cruft/LDWarmup. zip

Same as above only for linux.
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/Cruft/TailV.tar .gz

Urm.. Not sure how to describe this one.
http://screamingduck.fileburst.com/darkvslightinst aller.exe

All free. I do shareware games too but I'll plug those another time :-)

This is how it's done.

http://www.ludumdare.com/

Creativity, cunning, coding and caffine.

When I first began writing shareware games for Palm OS, I created a number of small puzzle games, among other things, and found that it was pretty difficult to come up with an interesting concept every week or so. So, I can't begrudge BestGameEver if some of their new games build on their previous efforts. Besides, sometimes the most enjoyable games come about as refinements of previous (and possibly less-commercially-successful) ones.

But along those lines, Ludum Dare hosts 24- and 48-hour competitions to investigate innovative gameplay; folks who are interested in BGE's offerings for that reason might like to check them out.

• one person (programming AND graphics)
  
• you get 48 hours, starting from scratch
  
• you can use most any game library you want
  

Does Mr Adams want all the technology people to be given twinkies and be locked in a cave?

Using technology, be it a pencil, a brush, a new algorithm to make beutiful art work is well established. For example when the printing press came around, many more people were able to write things others could read. Resulting in many good books. Without computers masses of art work would not exist. The list is massive.

I think instead of seperating the 'art' people from the 'music' people and the 'game designers' from the 'programmers' games houses should be integrating them. Come together!

Allowing people to work on multiple aspects of the game gives them a much better overall view of the game.

Technology can and often does drive game play. Sometimes for the better. Mr Adams says in free reg required """It represents exactly the sort of thinking that the our medium needs more of, thinking that begins "What if..." rather than "How much money..." """.

Btw, check out the competitions on ludumdare. The general idea in the past is you make a game mostly from scratch, doing everything yourself. You have 48 hours, and as the competition goes on you compare ideas with about one hundred other game makers. Then you submit your game, and all the game makers vote and comment on each others games. Some very experiment, fun, different games result from it. Some people concentrate on technology, others game play, some music, sound. Some people manage to do well in all areas(bastards!). The idea is to get something finished in the short time period. You submit your executable(for as many platforms as you like) and your source code. Source code is there so other people can learn "how did he do that!", and so people can tell if they used some existing code. It is amazing how many games get made in so short a time. If your game sucks, you have only wasted a weekend(and a monday morning ;) If it is good some people enhance and polish the game further. If you are into making games, or want to learn I highly recommend entering. You'll learn more about actually making a game quickly than spending years coding your great big idea. Mr. Adams, if you are reading this, it would be awesome if you entered this comp! A chance to play with some game design ideas :)



I think a major problem with games these days is that games are too big, not polished enough, and are made by a mass of people. Ie they have no soul. Flashy graphics sell, so that is what is concertrated on. Also a lot of people getting into games think their first games need to be as good as some of the big titles. However even John Carmac wrote 2d platform games. People need to learn with small games first. Get all the new people making games and some which have been trying for years making some small games. They'll get an idea about different parts of game design, and what people find fun in games. Without spending two years working on one game which never really gets finished, and which doesn't turn out very good in the end anyway.

Small groups, less than ten people, still make some of the better games around. How many games from 'the industry' can claim to run on more than 50% of computers out there? There are people which strive to fill this niche. Using older technology, sometimes pusing it very far, to make thier games. Some of these games made by one or two people have sold hundreds of thousands, or millions of copies. Others have had their demos played by similar amounts.

Success means different things to different people. Some people are happy to have finished a game by themselves, as an expression of themselves. Even if lots of people do not like the game. For others success is about money. For others it is about making a game some people will enjoy. Or maybe it is seeking geeky fame. Then there are lots

LudumDare just finished up another of their 48 hour game programming contests. These contests require the author to create all the original game code, graphics, and sound by themselves in a 48 hour time period.

This time there were over 40 final entries in the theme of "Construction/Destruction" and "Sheep". The entries are open source, but a majority of them are written for Windows. About a quarter of the entries are written in languages like python and java, and will run on linux and mac.

After flipping through the screenshots for several of the udevgames entries, i'd say the results are comparable with the better LudumDare entries. Although i assume in the gameplay department, the udevgames have a little more going for them?

Voting is currently taking place, after which the projects will be revealed to the public. You can get a sneak preview of the titles by looking at the developers Timelogs and Screenshots. Anyways, Ludumdare offers no tangible prizes, other than the respect of your peers. 48 hours is so little time to create a game, it's a weekend of nerves and development. Highly recommended!

LudumDare just finished up another of their 48 hour game programming contests. These contests require the author to create all the original game code, graphics, and sound by themselves in a 48 hour time period.

This time there were over 40 final entries in the theme of "Construction/Destruction" and "Sheep". The entries are open source, but a majority of them are written for Windows. About a quarter of the entries are written in languages like python and java, and will run on linux and mac.

After flipping through the screenshots for several of the udevgames entries, i'd say the results are comparable with the better LudumDare entries. Although i assume in the gameplay department, the udevgames have a little more going for them?

Voting is currently taking place, after which the projects will be revealed to the public. You can get a sneak preview of the titles by looking at the developers Timelogs and Screenshots. Anyways, Ludumdare offers no tangible prizes, other than the respect of your peers. 48 hours is so little time to create a game, it's a weekend of nerves and development. Highly recommended!

LudumDare just finished up another of their 48 hour game programming contests. These contests require the author to create all the original game code, graphics, and sound by themselves in a 48 hour time period.

This time there were over 40 final entries in the theme of "Construction/Destruction" and "Sheep". The entries are open source, but a majority of them are written for Windows. About a quarter of the entries are written in languages like python and java, and will run on linux and mac.

After flipping through the screenshots for several of the udevgames entries, i'd say the results are comparable with the better LudumDare entries. Although i assume in the gameplay department, the udevgames have a little more going for them?

Voting is currently taking place, after which the projects will be revealed to the public. You can get a sneak preview of the titles by looking at the developers Timelogs and Screenshots. Anyways, Ludumdare offers no tangible prizes, other than the respect of your peers. 48 hours is so little time to create a game, it's a weekend of nerves and development. Highly recommended!