I'd be happy to donate some copies of Venture Africa and Venture Arctic to your cause (kid-friendly games about building ecosystems of animals). Feel free to contact me through the contact-us form on the Pocketwatch Games website (www.pocketwatchgames.com/contact-us).
Just to set the record straight - GameTunnel does not sell games. They only link to them. GameTunnel makes no money off of sales of games that originate from their website. That's why there's no GameTunnel store.
I wrote that post summing up the entries. Two big ones I missed:
Castle Crashers -- An Xbox Live Arcade 4-player beat-em-up by perenial IGF winners, Behemoth, makers of Alien Hominid and DadnMe
Bugs of War -- Another XBLA game, tactics this time, by NinjaBee, the team that made Outpost Kaloki (which happens to be the game that pushed me over the edge to going indie).
Wives tend to like my game, Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa... it's a unique ecosystem building game (don't be put off by the word Tycoon, it's just a sales ploy!). You can download it at www.wildlifetycoon.com.
For a more casual audience, I also really like Professor Fizzwizzle.
Ha -- I mean the market research showed that this was an open niche -- but animal behaviors and ecosystems like this are also a passion of mine, which is why the game works.
Indie game development is far less interesting than animals, believe me:)
Hi guys, this is Andy Schatz, the guy in the first sentence of the article. Just wanted to post here in the off chance that someone would be interested in my work or my perspective on indie games...
The risk averse publishers in the big console-driven world are leaving many niches open for us indie types. Look at Wildlife Tycoon (www.wildlifetycoon.com). It's been a long time since someone came out with a compelling Tycoon game (unless you count Outpost Kaloki, which was great). I was able to design, engineer, and do the business for a game that will compete in a large market niche for minimal cost. The game was developed in 10 months (with 4 contract artists, 1 contract sound designer, and 1 contract writer, all part time) for 6000 dollars. This is partly because large corporations haven't upped the ante in this niche by innovating because they are scared to be spending big money on studios when they don't know the designs are going to be good. The DOWNLOADABLE tycoon market is almost entirely devoid of competition. My research has showed that the market buying retail Tycoon games is a very similar market to those buying casual downloadable games, but this area of the market hasn't been tapped yet.
Oh, and the game is FREAKING COOL. Josiah Pisciotta, creater of Gish, has been hooked on it for the past 3 days, not getting his work done. That's my strategy, of course, to make games cool enough to make my competition stop working. Hey, it worked for World of Warcraft...
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I'd be happy to donate some copies of Venture Africa and Venture Arctic to your cause (kid-friendly games about building ecosystems of animals). Feel free to contact me through the contact-us form on the Pocketwatch Games website (www.pocketwatchgames.com/contact-us).
Ha, yeah, I think I was just to stupid to login when I posted that.
Just to set the record straight - GameTunnel does not sell games. They only link to them. GameTunnel makes no money off of sales of games that originate from their website. That's why there's no GameTunnel store.
I wrote that post summing up the entries. Two big ones I missed: Castle Crashers -- An Xbox Live Arcade 4-player beat-em-up by perenial IGF winners, Behemoth, makers of Alien Hominid and DadnMe Bugs of War -- Another XBLA game, tactics this time, by NinjaBee, the team that made Outpost Kaloki (which happens to be the game that pushed me over the edge to going indie).
Wives tend to like my game, Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa... it's a unique ecosystem building game (don't be put off by the word Tycoon, it's just a sales ploy!). You can download it at www.wildlifetycoon.com. For a more casual audience, I also really like Professor Fizzwizzle.
Ha -- I mean the market research showed that this was an open niche -- but animal behaviors and ecosystems like this are also a passion of mine, which is why the game works.
:)
Indie game development is far less interesting than animals, believe me
Hi guys, this is Andy Schatz, the guy in the first sentence of the article. Just wanted to post here in the off chance that someone would be interested in my work or my perspective on indie games... The risk averse publishers in the big console-driven world are leaving many niches open for us indie types. Look at Wildlife Tycoon (www.wildlifetycoon.com). It's been a long time since someone came out with a compelling Tycoon game (unless you count Outpost Kaloki, which was great). I was able to design, engineer, and do the business for a game that will compete in a large market niche for minimal cost. The game was developed in 10 months (with 4 contract artists, 1 contract sound designer, and 1 contract writer, all part time) for 6000 dollars. This is partly because large corporations haven't upped the ante in this niche by innovating because they are scared to be spending big money on studios when they don't know the designs are going to be good. The DOWNLOADABLE tycoon market is almost entirely devoid of competition. My research has showed that the market buying retail Tycoon games is a very similar market to those buying casual downloadable games, but this area of the market hasn't been tapped yet. Oh, and the game is FREAKING COOL. Josiah Pisciotta, creater of Gish, has been hooked on it for the past 3 days, not getting his work done. That's my strategy, of course, to make games cool enough to make my competition stop working. Hey, it worked for World of Warcraft...