Casos de exito: 10000000

Una noticia algo viejuna (03-Ago-2012) pero igual un caso interesante que me hace tener esperanza respecto a la industria de los video-juegos independeintes, donde pareciera ser posible que aún un título pueda triunfar simplemente porque es un buen juego, nada de marketing, estrategias de PR o cosas por el estilo, simple y llanamente un buen juego.

El caso de exito en este link de Penny Arcade Report. Por cierto, me vine a enterar de esto leyendo este otro artículo en el blog de desarrollo #AltDevBlogADay.

NOTA: La verdad no he jugado el juego aún, pero pienso solucionar ese inconveniente pronto, y si me parece, seguramente tendra su lugar entre los juegos iPad que merecen ser revisados.

(Visto en #AltDevBlogADay)

Gamestorm: museo de bocetos de diseño de video-juegos

Me pareció interesante este proyecto (GAMESTORM) de Chevy Ray Jonhstone en Tumblr que pretende hacer un museo donde se puedan preservar todas esas notas y bocetos que se elaboran durante la concepción y el de desarrollo de video-juegos, que generalmente se pierden o nunca llegan a ser vistas por muchos.

(Visto en TIGSource Tumblr)

Postmortems en Gamasutra

Uno de los tipos de artículos que me encanta leer son los postmortems publicados en Gamasutra. Básicamente son un recuento, narrado por los propios protagonistas, de las experiencias vividas durante el desarrollo de un video-juego. Hace algunos meses que no revisaba las publicaciones en Gamasutra, pero hoy pude leer el postmortem de The binding of Isaac por Edmund McMillen y me pareció una lectura muy interesante e inspiradora.

Postmortem: McMillen and Himsl's The Binding of Isaac [by Edmund McMillen]

P.S. Aún no he podido escribir la entrada del primer juego de iPad, pero ya está planeado que sea QatQi.

PxTone

Maybe these are pretty old news (Christmas 2010), but yesterday I have downloaded the PxTone manual by Gryzor87. I found it some months ago while reading about Locomalito's games (Gryzor87 has collaborated with him in some of his games), and until yesterday I haven't looked at it.

PxTone as stated by the wikipedia is "both a freeware music editing program and the specialized music format (.pxtone) that it uses". It was created by Daisuke Amaya (Pixel) as a successor of the Organya format used in his awesome game Cave Story (by the way I haven't beat the final boss of Cave Story yet... maybe I'll write about it later). The PxTone Collage suite is a collection of programs that include an arranger/tracker program, a voice builder program, a WAV based voice editor program, a format player, an some instruments and resources to work with. I my self am a declared music lover and find this tool extremely interesting. In the other hand a library that enable the use of PxTone in Game Maker have been developed, so I hope that I can integrate it in my projects.

The manual itself is an incredibly detailed (96 pages) resource for music in games. I will be reading it trough my spare time, and I'll post any interesting thing that I found.

Talking about my really insignificant spare time, I am reading some Game Makers tutorials too, and I plan to write something about them as soon as I complete them.

OK, that's all, only a final word to thank the wonderful people that make the PxTone manual possible.

Locomalito

Today I want to write about both, a game, and a game developer that caught my attention recently. Locomalito is an Spanish indie developer that has been around for a long time, his games have been featured in IndieGames blog and TIGSource many times, and is well known among indie developers. When you visit his website you will find that his background as graphic designer is pleasantly evident, and after you dive around for a while you will probably notice his remarkable retro-game-love philosophy too. But above his outstanding graphic art and his philosophy (with which I couldn't agree more), there are his games: in every single game that Locomalito has develop you will find those retro-arcade-game-lover principles that he has named has his philosophy.

I found Locomalito while doing a little research about Game Maker (a 2D game development framework). I was looking for games created with the engine to see what it was capable of and decide if it was really and option for me (that was before I found that Derek Yu did Spelunky with it!). The first game I was attracted to was L'Abbaye des Morts, and I fall in love with those ZX Spectrum graphics. Next I tried the rest of the games, and while doing it, I get more and more excited about the possibilities of Game Maker, and what an indie developer could make with his spare time.

(Wow, now that I look again at the game, is just  amazing that there are only 16 colors)

The games, as I said before are retro-inspired, and that means that sometimes difficult is pretty hard, but hard in the good way, the fun way (yea, by fun maybe I mean a little masochism...). On the other hand I think that retro style games makes game design work at the edge, because with limited resources you can not easily hide a flawed design, and that makes playability a super-important aspect that you can not put behind state-of-the-art graphics, as in many AAA games.

What else can I say... maybe just that I want so badly to be the game developer that Locomalito is, and make the games that he does. Thanks for the inspiration!

JAIGB (Just Another Indie Game Blog) ...

So, I begin another blog, like if there are not enough of those this days... but anyway, I give a damn, I need a place for practicing my english (so if by some kind of implausible chance you end losing your time reading this, feel free to correct my miserable english), and at the same time I need a kind of archive for my internet roamings (specifically on indie games and game development).

Ok, let's get to the point:

• Currently I'm reading XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example by Kurt Jaegers (at XNA Resources). So far it's been pretty good, and I will recommend it for anyone wanting to initiate in XNA game development (disclaimer: I'm a programmer myself with some experience in C#, and this is my first "serious" attempt on game dev). I'm best at learning by doing, and I like the cool game projects and the neat graphics for them (something I haven't found in other books). I'll try to write more about my experience with the book in future blogs.
• The other thing I want to post about is this http://www.indiegamethemovie.com/. The overall polish of the published clips is just awesome. So, if you read this, and like indie games, go and watch them right now. (yes, Edmund McMillen talks about Super Meat Boy!!... and there's Spelunky, Canabalt and more!!)

Games I enjoyed this weekend:

• Canabalt (no, I haven't played it before...)
• Desktop dungeon (with all the buzz I have to see it for myself)
• House of dead ninjas (wow!)
• One Button Arthur (short, and definitely a must play)
• Cat Astro Phi (ahhh, those Gameboy days...)

And finally something that I can't just let pass: Indie Games Blog is posting a series on Top 10 independent and freeware games of 2010 by genre. So far: 

• Top Browser Platformers 2010
• Top Freeware Arcade Games 2010
• Top Browser Arcade Games 2010
• Top Freeware Adventure Games 2010
• Top Freeware Puzzle Games 2010
• Top Freeware Role-Playing Games 2010
• Top Freeware Shoot 'em Ups 2010
• Top Freeware Experimental Games 2010

OK, I think that's all. I hope I keep posting, and not just let this blog die a shameful dead...