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For technical game development discussion, gdalgorithms is good: info.

sweng-gamedev is also sometimes interesting; as you might guess from the name, it focuses more on the engineering side and less on algorithms: info

I'm fairly sure that they use Perl from friends that have worked as coops/interns at MS. And from emails such as these.

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 :-)

This kinda reminds me of one of my customers. I quite often talk to my game customers via email (Asking how to get past a level, needing a re-download after loosing the game, etc. Not all 'support' stuff really, but, kinda nice to talk to the people who enjoy the games, and find out what they want more of.) Anyway... one of my customers that contacted me had a serious problem. She was in her late 60's, I believe, and loved Tile Panic!, a fairly simple puzzle game that requires some quick thinking on higher levels.

Problem is, her daughter wouldn't let her play anymore. Apparently she had heart problems, and after a while, her blood pressure would go WAY up, and she'd have to quit playing.

Not wanting to be the death of nice little old ladies, I created a separate version for her that takes out the time-based element of the game. She's the only one I know who managed to actually play perfect games on more than one of the game difficulty levels! But the whole thought of someone refusing to give up playing the game dispite the health detrement because they like the game too much is both strange and encouraging ;-)

(Eh - since I'm here, I'll plug one o' my other puzzle games, since that's a bit o' the discussion on this thread - go check out Tile Panic!, as mentioned above, and Boulder Panic! 2 DX. Or don't :-)

This kinda reminds me of one of my customers. I quite often talk to my game customers via email (Asking how to get past a level, needing a re-download after loosing the game, etc. Not all 'support' stuff really, but, kinda nice to talk to the people who enjoy the games, and find out what they want more of.) Anyway... one of my customers that contacted me had a serious problem. She was in her late 60's, I believe, and loved Tile Panic!, a fairly simple puzzle game that requires some quick thinking on higher levels.

Problem is, her daughter wouldn't let her play anymore. Apparently she had heart problems, and after a while, her blood pressure would go WAY up, and she'd have to quit playing.

Not wanting to be the death of nice little old ladies, I created a separate version for her that takes out the time-based element of the game. She's the only one I know who managed to actually play perfect games on more than one of the game difficulty levels! But the whole thought of someone refusing to give up playing the game dispite the health detrement because they like the game too much is both strange and encouraging ;-)

(Eh - since I'm here, I'll plug one o' my other puzzle games, since that's a bit o' the discussion on this thread - go check out Tile Panic!, as mentioned above, and Boulder Panic! 2 DX. Or don't :-)

I think it should be noted that your comment really only applies to the games that make it to the shelves. There are a TON of fun games out there, that happen to have the same gameplay level as some of the old C64, Apple II, etc. games. Go hit VideoGameDownloads.com sometime and take a look around - not every game is done in 3D, and quite a few a good games with solid gameplay (however, separating the wheat from the chaff is a problem sometimes.) Yeah, I know - these aren't games offered on the shelves. But ya know - you can complain all you want about what's on the shelves, but you can't compain there aren't good games out there - there are.

And the situation is only getting better. Brian Hook, IIRC, is now changing his focus on develoment. Instead of trying to make the next multi-player extraviganza in 3D or money munching MMORPG, he's going after the classic games. (Of course, he's also refocusing what platform he's working on - Mac.) MidnightRyder.Com (that would be my company ;-) is resurecting old gameplay in the form of Jumpman: 2049 and Trajectory (think Scorched Earth, but a bit more modern.) Trajectory may see shelves, but, Jumpman: 2049 probably never will, dispite the fact that IMHO it's going to have considerably more depth of play and actual play time than a good 3/4th of the stuff on the shelves these days.

As for the actual substance of modern games - well, I'll avoid the normal flame war that starts with these particular discussions ;-) But - it's definitly a case of to each his own. I don't mind all the glitz - I love UT, for instance. But I also can't set down and enjoy it nearly as much as some of the stuff I did back in the C64 era. That's just me.

I really don't understand why advertisers like myself (MidnightRyder.Com) get such a bad name. I mean, how else am I supposed to tell people about the games I produce without advertising it somewhere? Heck, sometimes it's not even a matter of trying to sell a game, but, instead trying to generate site traffic. So what is we throw money at websites that will link to us for a fee?

OK, all kidding aside - while the SatireWire link did it to the extreme, there are some websites that are really starting to look like that, and I've seen a couple of news articles that looked much more like advertisements based on the way they were linked (see my sarcasam above.) Yeah, I pay for advertising - not much, mainly cause I can't afford it. But, you know, I don't think I *EVER* want to see my product stuck in the middle of an article on CNN.com or News.COm, etc., where it ends up smack-dab in the middle of an article - I figure if that starts being the case, people will start to associate my name and my games with BAD, ANNOYING THINGS! What I can't understand is - why don't other advertisers start seeing it this way? I understand the concept of 'brand recognition', but, if it starts to become negative, what the hell good is it doing?

I really don't understand why advertisers like myself (MidnightRyder.Com) get such a bad name. I mean, how else am I supposed to tell people about the games I produce without advertising it somewhere? Heck, sometimes it's not even a matter of trying to sell a game, but, instead trying to generate site traffic. So what is we throw money at websites that will link to us for a fee?

OK, all kidding aside - while the SatireWire link did it to the extreme, there are some websites that are really starting to look like that, and I've seen a couple of news articles that looked much more like advertisements based on the way they were linked (see my sarcasam above.) Yeah, I pay for advertising - not much, mainly cause I can't afford it. But, you know, I don't think I *EVER* want to see my product stuck in the middle of an article on CNN.com or News.COm, etc., where it ends up smack-dab in the middle of an article - I figure if that starts being the case, people will start to associate my name and my games with BAD, ANNOYING THINGS! What I can't understand is - why don't other advertisers start seeing it this way? I understand the concept of 'brand recognition', but, if it starts to become negative, what the hell good is it doing?

I really don't understand why advertisers like myself (MidnightRyder.Com) get such a bad name. I mean, how else am I supposed to tell people about the games I produce without advertising it somewhere? Heck, sometimes it's not even a matter of trying to sell a game, but, instead trying to generate site traffic. So what is we throw money at websites that will link to us for a fee?

OK, all kidding aside - while the SatireWire link did it to the extreme, there are some websites that are really starting to look like that, and I've seen a couple of news articles that looked much more like advertisements based on the way they were linked (see my sarcasam above.) Yeah, I pay for advertising - not much, mainly cause I can't afford it. But, you know, I don't think I *EVER* want to see my product stuck in the middle of an article on CNN.com or News.COm, etc., where it ends up smack-dab in the middle of an article - I figure if that starts being the case, people will start to associate my name and my games with BAD, ANNOYING THINGS! What I can't understand is - why don't other advertisers start seeing it this way? I understand the concept of 'brand recognition', but, if it starts to become negative, what the hell good is it doing?

I really don't understand why advertisers like myself (MidnightRyder.Com) get such a bad name. I mean, how else am I supposed to tell people about the games I produce without advertising it somewhere? Heck, sometimes it's not even a matter of trying to sell a game, but, instead trying to generate site traffic. So what is we throw money at websites that will link to us for a fee?

OK, all kidding aside - while the SatireWire link did it to the extreme, there are some websites that are really starting to look like that, and I've seen a couple of news articles that looked much more like advertisements based on the way they were linked (see my sarcasam above.) Yeah, I pay for advertising - not much, mainly cause I can't afford it. But, you know, I don't think I *EVER* want to see my product stuck in the middle of an article on CNN.com or News.COm, etc., where it ends up smack-dab in the middle of an article - I figure if that starts being the case, people will start to associate my name and my games with BAD, ANNOYING THINGS! What I can't understand is - why don't other advertisers start seeing it this way? I understand the concept of 'brand recognition', but, if it starts to become negative, what the hell good is it doing?

I really don't understand why advertisers like myself (MidnightRyder.Com) get such a bad name. I mean, how else am I supposed to tell people about the games I produce without advertising it somewhere? Heck, sometimes it's not even a matter of trying to sell a game, but, instead trying to generate site traffic. So what is we throw money at websites that will link to us for a fee?

OK, all kidding aside - while the SatireWire link did it to the extreme, there are some websites that are really starting to look like that, and I've seen a couple of news articles that looked much more like advertisements based on the way they were linked (see my sarcasam above.) Yeah, I pay for advertising - not much, mainly cause I can't afford it. But, you know, I don't think I *EVER* want to see my product stuck in the middle of an article on CNN.com or News.COm, etc., where it ends up smack-dab in the middle of an article - I figure if that starts being the case, people will start to associate my name and my games with BAD, ANNOYING THINGS! What I can't understand is - why don't other advertisers start seeing it this way? I understand the concept of 'brand recognition', but, if it starts to become negative, what the hell good is it doing?

I'm using PHPSlash for my Developer's Diaries section of MidnightRyder.Com. Actually, it runs the entire site :-) Anyway - it makes life simple to do something like a quick entry - just type it up in plain text or HTML, and hit submit - and your page is updated. I like it, you might want to check it out.

There are, however, some downsides - requires PHP4 (no big deal) and a MySQL database to power it (which might be a bigger deal for ya, depending on your ISP / Host). And it's probably a little over powered for just running an online-diary. But it sure saves you tons of time on updating pages!

And, of course, there are tons of other alternatives to that - /.'s engine can be used for the same thing (PHPSlash is a somewhat direvitive of the Slashcode - not much anymore, but, still the same idea). Look around a little bit at those two sites, and if they just look like too much effort, search for 'Blog' or 'Online Diary' in google or yahoo, and find all the rest of the cool little scripts for doing this out there!

That game was so awesome. I still have dreams about that damn room where you had to put the tones in the right order(i'm half tone deaf). By the way, the best C64 game of all time... Jumpman!

Ok, I hate to do this, but, the capitolist dog in my just can't help it at the mention of Jumpman...

There are two new Jumpman games under development. Randy Glover (the original author of Jumpman) is working on Jumpman II, and MidnightRyder.Com (my company) is working on Jumpman: 2049 (authorized by Randy Glover - yep, two separate Jumpman titles being developed at the same time, going different directions - fairly cool!) Drop by MidnightRyder.Com and check in on development of Jumpman: 2049, and look at Randy Glover's entries on the Developer's Diaries section for what he's up to with Jumpman II

The other person I talk to from time to time is working on something called The Jumpman Project - basically, he took the original version from IBM for the PC (no, not Jumpman Lives! produced much later - IBM actually ported a version of Jumpman way, way back during the CGA gfx era) which was some serious abandonware, and has began hacking it into shape. It now runs under Windows (and I'm sure WINE would run it, but, haven't tried yet), has a brand new partial working level editor, etc. He didn't just pirate it, like most of the abandonware stuff - he took it, and is somewhat modernizing it. Very cool. Check out Jeff's work at Jumpman Project. One really cool part - Randy knows it exists, and has no problem with his work on it :-)

My goals are pretty wide open. My biggest thing isn't to learn a particular area, or to become a guru on a very specific field - instead, my goal is to become a jack of all trades, which I pretty much am now.

For example, I study compression techniques, OS development (Alliance OS, for instance), language development (XBasic, GnomeBasic - yes, I'm STILL a fan of Basic :-), video game development (which is what I do on the side now Look for Boulder Panic! 2 soon! ), MMI development (Jaguar MMI is an Open Source MMI being developed by me), new realtime sound generation systems, etc., etc., etc.

The problem for me is really boredom factor - I really don't want to spend the rest of my life doing any one programming task. Instead, I'd much rather learn to be adaptable, and work on anything that catches my interests. Right now, it's primarily video game development (based on the older game development style, where gameplay was the most important, and flashy graphics were added after you knew the game was going to play great!), but in two years? Who knows.

Hehhehe - Ooops! I messed up on this one too - I took it at face value, and passed the same info on to my fiance. After all the times I've told people to check the facts before forwarding information, I end up doing it myself. *SIGH* Oh well...

But, even if it isn't the brighest moon, it's still kinda cool that it's an event that won't occur again for a while (the entire set of events occuring in a 10 hour span) and hasn't occured in quite a while. Just happens to be there's nothing interesting to really watch...

It kinda reminds me of an event that took place one day at my house - a debugging party. I was showing off a game I had written, and was getting close to releasing a new version. A couple of my friends hadn't seen it, so, I set down and showed it off to them. I let one of the guys play it, and noticed an area where it slowed down a bit too much...

We spent hours all of us staring at the screen, finding places that the code could have been a little more efficent, etc.

It worked out great, really. I don't think I would want to program like that all the time, but, it's a great way to discuss the code all at once, what the function of a piece of code is, etc. and come up with ways to re-optimize things. I figure before my next release I'll go down to the liquor store and buy some Zima and some beer, and have another debug party :-)