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Introversion On Staying An Independent Games Studio
Dr. Eggman writes "bit-tech.net has up an interview with Introversion Games, creators of Uplink, Darwinia, and Defcon, on the hard work it takes to make games independently. They discuss the challenges and rewards, ranging from developing new technologies for their upcoming game, Subversion, to defining their own style in Darwinia — and nearly bankrupting themselves in the process. 'When we first set out to write video games we knew the damage that publishers could do both to games themselves, and the people writing them, and we were not willing to let that happen to us. In order to ensure our creative freedom, we had to be independent from publishers and license holders, and that independence has become a guiding mantra for us.'"
They're making a game about the life-cycle of code in source control?
Omega Vortex Corporation
Personally i've wanted to be a programmer for a long time and have looked into various career venues within programming. While games tends to be a low-paying market it is also very innovative. I can honestly say that Introversion (me being introduced to Uplink when it came out) perked my interest in games and I now write little things in my spare time. None of which i'm proud enough to release to the general public but it is a fun and rewarding hobby.
If you're old enough to remember "Global Thermonuclear War" from WarGames and thought it looked like it would make for a fun game to play, I suggest you check out Introversion's DEFCON at http://everybody-dies.com/ . "It's Global Thermonuclear War, and nobody wins. But maybe - just maybe - you can lose the least." - from the site.
It's a great mix of Risk style strategy with real-time play and can support up to 6 players simultaneously on-line. Initially you layout your radars, silos, ships, etc, during a setup phase. As the clock ticks you move through the DEFCON stages allowing for ever more hostile play until DEFCON5 when you can launch your nukes. You can make/break alliances and try to get other players to blow each-other up before you unleash hellfire on those left alive.
There's actually a lot of strategy to timing your attacks so that your missiles can fly in from different silos, submarines, bombers, etc, and hit a target all at once. You need a heavy storm of missiles all coming in at once or local defense has an easy time of shooting them all down. But, when attacking, you become vulnerable - so you don't want to set too many resources to attack either.
Anyhow, one of my favorite games for any platform. And you can download a demo or buy it directly from their site for Windows/MacOSX/Linux, bypassing Steam and it's ilk.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Steam is used as the distribution method. The game was already out for a few months before Steam even became an option. It does not make them any less independent, as Valve were not controlling the development.
NeoThermic
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
It works for me on Windows and I can always play Darwinia and defcon were ever I am in the world, which is very good. I've always favoured net installs over physical media, though I wonder what will happen in 10 years from now, will I still be able to play Darwinia through steam?
There really should be a non-steamed version for all the games, so you can run it without steam.
Relatedly, Mark Morris from Introversion recently participated in a free-form Q&A chat over at Xfire, along with a couple of other Indie games people of varying noteriety. He's got some interesting comments about Introversion's rise in there.
;)
You can read the transcript from the Q&A over at Xfire's site. This was part of a two-day event talking about the state of independant development, with the more structured debate (which, alas, Introversion was unable to attend) transcript available here. Jenova Chen (of fl0w fame), Amanda Fitch (Aveyond, etc.), and Josiah Pisciotta (Gish, etc.) were all notable participants; not to say the others weren't notable, too, of course.
Definitely worth looking at if you're into the indie gaming scene at all.
That green slime had it coming.
- getting people to pay attention to you when you don't have a giant machine behind you! :)
See GameTunnel's Indie Game of the Year awards, which slashdot didn't even bother printing this year:
http://gametunnel.com/cat_goty.php
I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
Well, I also use that definition, and yeah, id Software are n the same boat, they simply wrestle out publishing deals on every new title they develop, Activision just always won out so far. And yes, that also makes both Valve and id independent developers, as they are both self-funded. Just because they developed AAA titles doesn't mean they cannot be independent from a big publisher as a money sorce, now can it?
A patch to Darwinia removed the need to use mouse gestures. They always seemed tacked on to me anyway, rather like they'd written what they thought was a neat function, and were looking for something to shoe-horn it into, whether it made sense or not. A nice game though.