How Poly Bridge's GIF Generator Turned an Indie Game Into a Reddit Sensation 40
An anonymous reader writes: The creator of bridge physics phenomenon Poly Bridge discusses the rise of the bridge physics phenomenon in a new interview this week. Patrick Corrieri of New Zealand's Dry Cactus studio reveals the Reddit hit has sold at least 48,000 copies so far, but that its smartest feature, a GIF generator to capture all your successful crosses and crashes, only came about by accident: "Ultimately it was another independent developer, Zach Barth from Zachotronics, who pushed me to integrate the feature. Not only that, but he also gave me the source code to his GIF encoding routine so I could hit the ground running. That's what is so awesome about the indie dev community: a willingness to share and learn from each other, as growing together is much better than competing with one another."
link plz (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot, I know it'd violate your lovely tradition and all, but is it too much trouble to check your links before they go live?
http://www.redbull.com/us/en/g... [redbull.com]
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Re:link plz (Score:4, Informative)
Hi, hello. I'm not sure what the difference between the links are, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
And/or monster truck. [imgur.com]
Correct link (Score:1)
Here is the working link:
http://www.redbull.com/en/games/stories/1331742704256/poly-bridge-interview-constructing-a-viral-hit
*mumbles something about editors and welcome to Slashdot*
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The buzz was slowing down so the developer paid dice to try and give it another injection of publicity.
Zach Braff is at it again (Score:4, Interesting)
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Because Reddit is going to buy Slashdot... Why the hell do you think there are so many Reddit stories over the last few months?
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Not all news items will be of interest to you. That's fine. I'd encourage you to ignore them and look at the next one.
This time in 3D! (Score:5, Insightful)
>rise of the bridge physics phenomenon
Too young to remember Bridge Builder?
Re:This time in 3D! (Score:4, Informative)
Came here to say this. Bridge builder was amazing.
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>rise of the bridge physics phenomenon
Too young to remember Bridge Builder?
And what about the multi platform game Bridge Constructor which has been out for years now.
Necessary gif: (Score:1)
The only GIF you need to see from this game. [imgur.com]
Videos fail (Score:2, Interesting)
The success of animated gifs, despite their horrible inefficiency as a video format, reflects the utter failure of websites, standards bodies, etc., to provide a simple, reliable way to deliver video to a browser. When I visit a website with a video, there's a substantial chance that it won't work - and it's almost certain not to work unless I enable Javascript and run whatever possibly-malicious code the website serves up.
Animated gifs are simple, reliable, and - as far as I know - completely secure. I'm
Growing together is much better than competing (Score:2)
I couldn't agree more, however...
Competition is also necessary. Just because one person (corporation, club, etc) does something well, does not mean that someone else cannot do it better. And the human tendency and corporate -mandate- for NIH means that good ideas tend to be enshrined.
The beauty of open source development is that someone with a better idea can take an approach that has been elevated to axiom and improve it. If the original developers aren't interested in the improvements, well no problem.
Misspelled Publisher Name? (Score:1)
Stop using GIf (Score:2)
Stop using GIF. GIF sucks. There are better options. [gfycat.com]
On that note, why didn't browsers ever decide to support MNG or M-JPEG?
before its time (Score:2)
Just to be clear, this was NOT the first, not by a long shot.
Pontifex is still probably the 'purest' version of this, and IMO still the best in some ways. IIRC it's available on your phone now.
But when Pontifex came out, there was no kickstarter/indie "community" nor a Steam to act as a marketing/delivery agent. The ecosystem really has matured, for sure.
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https://www.chroniclogic.com/p... [chroniclogic.com] - seems like they are still atround too and have released a bunch of follow up games. Hmmm, may need to buy some of these.
Pontifex has more content than poly bridge and is only 1Mb!
Browsing without GIF is the best (Score:2)