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Indie Games - Fast, Cheap and Everywhere 279

Posted by michael from the all-variants-of-tetris-unfortunately dept.
bios10h writes "MSNBC has an article about indie game developers and their businesses. 'INDEPENDENT COMPUTER GAMING: It's not always pretty, but ask any one in the biz and they'll say that it represents the purest form of game development. And sometimes the cheapest.' Interesting read about the indie games scene... maybe we have indie developers in the Slashdot crowd that would like to comment on this."
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Indie Games - Fast, Cheap and Everywhere More

Indie Games - Fast, Cheap and Everywhere

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  • I am an indie developer (Score:5, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:00PM (#6591139) Journal

    A good Indie MMOG: Rubies Of Eventide [rubiesofeventide.com]. I have only heard good things about Rubies'.

    Personally, I have an Indie game of my own invention. Although it doesn't take much thought, it does demand agility when using both a mouse and a keyboard with one hand at the same time. It's basic premise has to do with three open browser windows, the web site images.google.com, the text strings "angelina jolie" - "salma hayek" - "britney spears", a scroll mouse, and a big wad of tissue.

    My girlfriend is not very fond of the game, and adamantly refuses to play along with me. I even offerred to let her use the joy stick instead of the keyboard.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:00PM (#6591145)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Not to sound too simplistic, but....

      Quit looking on the Internet, no good artist will post his/her work there just so it could be taken by hundred's of people to be claimed as their own.

      Check your local Art School, as an Artist (part-time) I can say chance's are it teaches 3d modeling and compositing so there you will be able to find people who not only have the knowledge of what you are looking for but also are looking for a way to advertise that they have that knowledge. An artist just starting out will

    • MUDs (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Magnifico ( 30966 )

      You can make great, fun, and interesting games without artists! Those games are called MUDs and Interactive Fiction.

      Most MUDs are indie and free. Many are even open source and kept alive and going by one or two developers and a handful of loyal players.

      Over the past decade, the player base for MUDs and IF have been whittled away by first-person shooters, Diablo, and now games like Everquest. But MUDs and IF are still alive and kicking. A lot of them are more creative and groundbreaking than any commerc

      • So is the situation with writers different? Are they as comfortable working for free as programmers are?
    • "Can anyone give any advice on how to get their attention?"

      Um, post on Slashdot and get modded up to +5 Interesting?

      I'll direct my graphic artist friends to your site. Good luck. I hope you don't mind if it ends up looking like something out of Farscape...
    • You might want to find some non-free but really-really cheap artists. The solution is offshore development. If you are willing to pay something, an offshore game development studio in Russia or similar country can be an option, since the labour is much cheaper there...

      related link: http://www.dailytelefrag.com/index.php [dailytelefrag.com] (English version of the web-site, Russian version of which [www.dtf.ru] has a sub-site [www.dtf.ru] for professional developers).
    • "How do other people solve this problem? Can anyone give any advice on how to get their attention? Adwords on Google?"

      It's hard. Money's often a good motivator. But if that's not possible, try appealing to artists that are earlier in their learning process. Give them a chance to shine. I went from this [reflectionsoldiers.com] to this [reflectionsoldiers.com] in about a year. (note: the second image is of a work in progress, that's why he has no arms.)

      Pretty phenomenal leap, dontcha think?

      Ferion hasn't paid me, nor was there any condition to. The
    • Look at mod and mod communities - you see tons of content for UT and UT2k3 adn other games, in the form of plug-ins etc.

      The reason is this: they have freedom. The artists working in those projects are doing what they want. The coder tries to work with the content they've created. Why? Art is not like coding - coding is an interesting challenge no matter what you're implementing. Art is not - if its not something you can do in your personal style, its terminally dull.

      My best suggestion is make a devki

  • Sites? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Hedonist123 ( 681091 )
    So what are the best sites to check out the indie gaming scene on? Gamespot and all those don't quite cut it. Is there an underground game review site that I'm missing? Hed.

  • r they worth playing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:05PM (#6591181)
    that is the real question

    • I own both "Strange Adventures In Infinite Space", by Cheapass Games, and "Moonbase Commander", by Humongous Entertainment/Infogrames.

      SAIS is a great, addictive game with short play times- a regular game doesn't last more than ten minutes, but then you just fire up another one immediately. It looks like a little like Star Control 2, with about the same graphic level, but it's different in both implementation and intent. There's a free demo here [digital-eel.com] that will give you a good idea of the game.

      Moonbase Comma

  • Where do I start? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:05PM (#6591183)
    I would really like to be an indie game developer. It's there like a 3D engine for free for noobs like me?

    • Re:Where do I start? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jat850 ( 589750 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:11PM (#6591230)
      There's plenty of free game engines out there, some are open source. An example is Genesis3D [genesis3d.com], an engine I've dabbled with. Lots of the 3D engines are in various stages of development, and some of the ones I've tried do not seem quite powerful or flexible enough for the game concepts I'm trying to implement, but depending on what you're looking for, there are plenty of resources avaiable.

      Don't forget to check out useful websites like NeHe's OpenGL page (here [gamedev.net]) or GameDev.net. There are literally tons of resources out there for someone looking to get into indie game development.

      • Re:Where do I start? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@@@tru7h...org> on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:21PM (#6591317) Homepage
        Genesis3D is definetly pretty, but it's windows-centric, which is a black mark in my book.

        For those looking for more cross platorm options, there are these:

        • OGRE [sourceforge.net] - Seems to be an engine "done right". Learning curve is high, but it is pretty. Not dorked around with it much to comment on usefulness.
        • Crystal Space [sourceforge.net] - The "linux" of 3d engines. Does damn near everything but it's documented horribly and structure seems nonexistant at times. Will run on almost anything with a CPU though.
        • Nebula Device [radonlabs.de] - Very very pretty, easy to get started in (not sure how easy to complete a project though), skimpy on docs as well but what does exist will have you pushing polygons quickly.


        I don't really have a favorite of these, they all have some really attractive features.

        It still seems picking up an opengl book and doing it yourself is the best way to go in the long run. Other options are taking older games with released source (Doom, Marathon, Quake 1 and 2) and using that engine. Again, learning curve will be high though.
        • Thanks very much for bringing up the Windows focus of Genesis3D. As an independent game developer, my biggest focus lately has been on bringing games to multiple platforms, and teaching others how to do so. I should not have been so neglect in my recommendations to the top-level poster!!

          I think indie game developers have the best potential to expand gaming to cross-platform markets ... the indie game developers are not so focused on deadlines, marketing, and profit, and can instead afford to focus on wi

        • Oh, that depends... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Midnight Ryder ( 116189 ) <midryder@@@midnightryder...com> on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:31PM (#6591415) Homepage

          It still seems picking up an opengl book and doing it yourself is the best way to go in the long run.

          Oh that depends on if you want to concentrate on game development part time for the next 18 months, or on engine develpment part time for the next 12 months, THEN start game development. Engine development and game development are two different beasts really - the overlap in some areas, but, game development concentrates on issues like gameplay, content, etc., while engine development concentrates on things like speed, graphical optimisation, etc.

          My opinion to ANYONE who's looking at starting into the Indie field, get a free engine or buy an engine (see a couple o' edorsements for my favorite elsewhere in these threads) and use it. Indie Game Development is rarely someone's fulltime job, so why spend the time re-inventing the wheel? Spend the time developing games.

          (On the flip side of that, there's always the issue that you know the engine like the back of your hand if you developed it yourself. I purchased the Torque engine, and it's something like 250K lines of code. I'm surprised how well I know certain parts of the engine, because I decided I just wanted to make a 'quick tweak' on something, like adding particle system LoD, and ended up pretty much knowing it by heart now. So this is kind of a non-issue - get to know the parts of the code you WANT or NEED to know about, and ignore the other stuff. Just be sure to start with a fairly stable and secure engine before thinking this way ;-)

          • MR,

            How do you find the torque engine in terms of flexibility, speed, and ease of use? I'd really like to try it out but I'm not sure if I want to spend a $100/developer licensing fee at this time ... (I have 3 developers, and not $300, haha). But if it's powerful, and will save some time on the development of our in-house engine that we're working on, I might drop a hundred bucks for myself.

            • How do you find the torque engine in terms of flexibility, speed, and ease of use? I'd really like to try it out but I'm not sure if I want to spend a $100/developer licensing fee at this time ... (I have 3 developers, and not $300, haha). But if it's powerful, and will save some time on the development of our in-house engine that we're working on, I might drop a hundred bucks for myself.

              Well... I fucking LOVE it. Seriously. The built in scripting language (TorqueScript) is pretty powerful for stuff th

    • There's a couple to choose from, but for free engines, IMHO, your best best is Crystal Space 3D [sourceforge.net]. PlaneyShift made use of it successfully - it's pretty good.

      However, my tool of choice is Torque [garagegames.com] which isn't free - it's $100, and you get the source code for it. Damned flexible, and one hell of a community behind it. Go cruse the forums (same site, under Make Games) and check it out. And take a look at the screenshots. I'm currently using it on Trajectory Zone [trajectoryzone.com] (Mm.... why bother with the link - still no d

    • Re:Where do I start? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @04:42PM (#6592040) Journal
      Why do you need a 3d engine to make a game? Most of the best games ever written are 2d or text, from back in the day when gameplay counted more than FPS.

      • Someone oughta' mod that guy up! 3D != great game, 2D != crap game. There's a lot that can still be done with 2D. All of my crappy little puzzle games (that I make money off of) are 2D games. People are still making good 2D games to this day - IMHO, one of the best games out there is MetalSlug X, a 2D platform / shooter. Cool part about 2D games is they run on much lesser hardware requirements (most of the time) and don't require nearly the effort to create a game engine ('specially something cross pla

  • Purest form? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Terrorists ( 619137 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:06PM (#6591188)
    Who says one form is purer than another? Does creating games for profit make them impure? I certainly hope to profit from my creative work, and it is quite pure - in fact, it is religious music. Where do these standards come from? Look more closely for assumptions in articles, and at least explain them in the write-up, editors.
    • I suspect that you're supposed to infer that 'pure' indicates that indie games are driven by a desire to produce a product from individual inspiration, whereas commercial games are more likely to be based on marketing stats.

    • Re:Purest form? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by CaptIronfist ( 457257 )
      Not pure as in making money out of something or not, but more pure as in no dead lines, no ridiculous marketing requirements and no wacko specifications made by total tech ignorants. 'Pure' as in the players are playing the work of the developpers and not some digested products from an all-star publishing team.

      That's how i understood the remark.
    • I consider "pure" to mean no marketing or publisher idiots have been all over the game.
    • In short, pure means that gameplay is not sacrificed for profit.

  • Great Stuff. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by j_kenpo ( 571930 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:10PM (#6591219)
    Like it said in the article, this kind fo stuff brings you back to the gaming scene int eh late 80's and early 90's, where some of the best gaming titles came from. Some of the gaming companies that made games in those times grew to become bigger franchises, such as ID with their cheasier games like Commander Keen. I still remember games like Epic Pinball, Raptor, and such, that I still play in Dosemu all the time. I remember a quote once, I think it was from the guys from ID, that basically said the next big gameing change isnt going to be done by the big guys, but by a couple of guys in their garage (if anyone remembers who said that, feel free to enlighten me, I cant remember and it would be nice to give credit). Ill spend a few hours checking out some of these games, they ought to somewhat entertaining, even if they are simple few minute diversions...
  • It's called "Slashdot Effect." And MSNBC just lost.

  • They're Great (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ryan Stortz ( 598060 ) <ryan0rz@gLISPmail.com minus language> on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:12PM (#6591236)
    Indie games are great. I love them because their communities are so small and tight-knit. One of my favorite Indie games would have to be Wulfram 2 [wulfram.com]. The game is completely volenter driven. There are more than a few people who have stuck with the developer for as long as five years.

    There are some problems with Indie games however, the biggest would have to be support. Alot of these games are struggling to stay alive, and to do so they need to either be pay to play, have a large number of donations, or just simply have a ton of advertisements.

  • Indie = Freedom (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ShwAsasin ( 120187 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:12PM (#6591237) Journal
    I run my own indie game company and let me tell you, there's nothing better than having the freedom to do whatever you like in the development process. Many game companies, especially the big ones, make you work one position and your input isn't appreciated on other topics. With Indie game companies you'll have anywhere from 1-15 people working at the company making something that truly (in most cases) want to play themselves.

    The ideas portrayed in many indie games, although not blockbusters, are normally fun to play, small in size and are fairly inexpensive. With my company I have the freedom to code in whatever OS's I want, so my companies next game will be released for Linux/Windows at the same time, absolutely no code changes, literally. Most companies don't give that sort of freedom, where indie projects do!
  • "...They don't want to be reminded that they're idiots or lack hand-eye coordination..."

    I mean seriously, that certainly sounds like a MAJOR INSULT to me, luckily he (Nixon), was not talking about me.

  • No soul to indie games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:14PM (#6591249)
    I love the concept of indie game development. I dearly do. But look at indie development forums, look at indie game companies, and what do I see: endless reworkings of stale puzzle games, endless reworkings of a certain group, 8-bit games (Boulder Dash, Asteroids, Breakout), clones of Commodore/Atari/Apple favorites that now run on your desktop, and so on. There's also a certain high-end crowd that creates engines that look like Quake II, but without any games on top of them.

    Imagine if the independent music scene were like this. All indie bands would be scrambling to record cover versions of small set songs from bands from the early 1980s. And they'd be defending that practice by claiming that there are only a handful of good songs out there, so why write a new one?
  • I guess you could call me an indie game developer who doesn't have the guts to quit his day job.

    Then again, given how many indie games make the big time, maybe I'm just smart. :)

    In any case, my web game, Carnage Blender [carnageblender.com] has a small (I've made enough back to cover hardware costs and the odd pizza) but loyal following. It's primarily a clickfest but, I think, an entertaining one. There's far more depth to the strategic choices than is initially obvious, particularly when you start to get to the high-level spells.

    We probably have one of the highest overall IQs of gaming communities that you'll find, because the admins actively discourage idiots. (As opposed to newbies, who are welcome.) Unfortunately, a lot of idiots have credit cards. Guess you can't have everything... :-)

  • Wheww... (Score:5, Funny)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <vasqzr@nosPAM.netscape.net> on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:16PM (#6591269)


    For a minute there, I thought we were outsourcing game programming to India.

  • Let's not forget... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by krital ( 4789 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:17PM (#6591280)
    ... the most important indie games of the internet's history - MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs and the like. They incorporate written and linguistic creativity, roleplaying, imagination, don't require any special software other than generic telnet, can be played on the oldest of links and, most importantly, are often free :)
    Try a good one at hypercube.org:9000 [hypercube.org], or many others at www.mudconnector.com [mudconnector.com].

  • Moonpod games (Score:3, Interesting)

    by scot4875 ( 542869 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:25PM (#6591366) Homepage
    I just stumbled onto Starscape [moonpod.com] by Moonpod, an indie developer, and am extremely impressed by it. It's only the 2nd piece of software that I've ever bought online (the first being Kali).

    It's sort of an evolution of Raptor by Apogee -- have ship, buy upgrades -- but adds research for better upgrades and a lot of exploration. And the game just oozes style and polish. Highly recommended.

    --Jeremy

  • My Two Cents... Blockwars.com (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Myriad ( 89793 ) <myriad@th[ ]od.com ['ebs' in gap]> on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:27PM (#6591377) Homepage
    Well, may as well throw mine into the fray...

    I find it is a lot of fun to write something just for the sake of doing it and letting people play. It's quite rewarding to get E-Mails from people who enjoy playing what you've done.

    For those of you who liked Tetris I've got a multiplayer competitive version up and running at Blockwars [blockwars.com]. No ads or popups or any of that nonsense...

    Blockwars isn't my end goal though... it's a testbed for the multiuser code I intend to use on more creative projects. So if you hit a bug, I'd love to know! :)

    Blockwars [blockwars.com]: a real-time, multiplayer game similar to Tetris.

  • It's not jsut computer gaming... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Misch ( 158807 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:29PM (#6591401) Homepage
    It's not just computer gaming that people are developing on their own. I was part of a small board gaming group [yahoo.com] that informally meets at RIT.

    While we primarily focus on playing euro-based board games, we've test played quite a few games that individuals have come up with. We play, think about what happened, then come up with suggestions on how the game can be better.

    True, sometimes the games are knock-offs of others with little twists (We had a game called Feregi that was based on the German bidding game Kohle, Kie$ & Knete [webnoir.com]), but more often, the games were true originals.

    It takes some thought to make a game. it takes a lot of thought to make a good game.

  • Only Indy until your successful! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Serapth ( 643581 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @03:30PM (#6591414)
    The Irony of Indy Games

    Outside of the handheld ( PalmOS, PocketPC ) markets, or cell phones... many indy games are either crap... or sales pitches to publishers! Im not saying all... there are probrably dozens of exceptions, but on the whole this remains true. Its funny though, when you look at "past" indy games...

    HomeWorld
    Doom
    FlashPoint

    Really... by definition, an indy game is self financed, without a publisher in site. Its funny that that moment you have success in the indy market, you tend to get picked up by a publisher... then your no longer indy! ;) Than again, there are a few companies that are going from commerical projects to more of an indy style. Once you see the amount that publishers take... you start to see the value in online distro's!

    For anyone really interested in learning more, check out:
    Garage Games [garagegames.com] Misc resources, plus a licensable engine
    FlipCode [flipcode.com] Great gaming related site
    Gamedev.net [gamedev.net] Like flipcode, but less mature ( you'll see! )
    Gamasutra [gamasutra.com] The site for game developers! Must see
    CrystalSpace [sourceforge.net] LGPL 3d Engine. Very impressive
    WildTangent [wildtangent.com] Cheap game engine (web based), plus online publishing
    Auran Jet [auran.com] Affordable 3d engine, flexible licensing
    OpenGl [opengl.org] The site for OpenGL info. Lots of useful links

    From the above list, you should easily be able to find anything else your looking for! ;) Enjoy the world of game development for zero cash!
  • It's a Sourceforge project (Link. [sourceforge.net]). One of the things we're trying to do with the project is to keep it original, which games are desperately lacking. I am with the rest of the slashdot crowd that artists are very hard to find, and right now my project only has one artist. Which is a shame considering I have not even considered implementing sound and I know of a few friends that are willing to compose some music for the project.
  • Indie games have so much going for them in that they aren't stiphled by the big budget and theirfore need to make lots of money that big games have. I am currently involved in an Indie Game company project called Happy Kitchen Games [happykitchengames.com], we will have our first game out in a few months and we have had a blast doing it. Our overhead is so crazy low that we plan to sell the game for about $3 a pop. Head on over and if you want sign up to get emailed when we release our first demo.
  • Take your pick at E-Baum's World [ebaumsworld.com]. SimGirl is one of my favorites.

    Soldat [cyberion.pl] is great multiplayer fun

  • I was disappointed not to see a section about Chris Sawyer, who programmed one of the most popular games ever essentially on-his-own (although backed by a commercial vendor, eventually).
  • ive been working on a indie game for the last couple months. It's a very relaxing dev schedule. None of the team works on the game full time, we all have 'real' jobs that we spend most of our time on but since making an indie game on the net is mostly a for fun and not considered a job we make good progress.

    Further more, the net is a perfect place to develop a game, you can find all sorts of talent if you know where to look. Hell, 2 of our team members work in the game industry.

    Indie games have the fre
  • The 'indie game' field has a whole spectrum, from one man companies to the biggies like PopCap.

    I happen to fall pretty close to the one-man shop, with the only other person being a friend who does the graphics. I've only been in business for 8 months, but things have been getting better and better as time goes by and my game improves.

    If you are interested in the real numbers then I can say that in the month of July I sold 32 copies. Not enough to make it my full-time job, but I still hold out that it co

  • I've simply tried to make do with games that don't require a whole lot of graphics. What graphics I do have, I generally draw in pencil on a piece of paper, scan that in, then color it in using either Paint Shop Pro or The Gimp. My artwork isn't all that good, but it really doesn't have to be if the game behind it is good. Whether my games are good is in the eye of the beerholder, but I do my best. But better art is usually the hardest thing to come up with, being more of a coder than an artist.

    Been workin
  • This article sucks. Does anyone else get the feeling that this is an annoying Microsoft tactic to discredit good Indy games with implicit advocacy of their stupid console?

  • I'm working on a solo project, mostly for fun... (Score:4, Informative)

    by crazyphilman ( 609923 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @04:32PM (#6591955) Journal
    The thing about developing your own game is, you have the power to really try and make it perfect. You have real creative control, you know? You can take the high road if you want, or lean towards a humorous kind of bent, or just go completely deranged and do something freaky. It's cool. And, you don't have any creeps in suits leaning on you to make your character's tits bigger, or dumb down the dialog.

    One bummer is, being only one guy, I won't be able to get anything to market in less than a year or two, and I can't afford too fast a computer, so my graphics will be targeted at lower-end machines, like, say, a 500Mhz Celeron. So, my game will *look* like an older game in a sense, and won't be as flash as the crop of games it would normally be competing against. But I don't think that's a bad thing. Let the big shops have the high end. I think there's room at the lower end for guys like me. Not everyone has a P-IV, right?

    As far as my game goes, it'll be a third-person shooter with first person controls and modest but smooth graphics. I don't want to give away too much, but I think it'll really appeal to this crowd. It's very high-tech oriented. I figure, maybe, 2005 sometime. My business model is: I'm going to release the game engine itself, with development tools, open source for Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD so that anyone who is into this stuff can create their own game using the tools. I'm looking at using Crystal Space or Ogre as a base, and building my system as a game-engine layer on top of their graphics engine. So, if you want to play the game, you download a bundle with the game engine and a compatible build of one of the graphics engines, for free. But, then, you pay for the actual levels and mods. Every couple of months, I come out with a new set of levels and mods, which you can pick up for like, twenty bucks. You can't steal my *story*, because it's like a novel, right? But you can write your *own* story using my tools, and jump into the market right alongside me. Isn't that a neat idea? I figure, the more people create cool, weird little games, the more there are for me to play. That's GOT to be a Good Thing, right?

    And, since I just posted it, and it's now in the public domain, it can't be patented (this post is a prior-art description of the concept, 8/1/2003 5:29PM).

  • WOW an On-topic chance to plug my OSS project. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vtechpilot ( 468543 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @04:35PM (#6591977)
    I have an OSS game project that I have been working on as a hobby for about 4 or so years now. Its in Visual Basic (I know, some will say Yuk!) and the basic idea is to build a framework that others can use to create their own MMORPG. I wouldn't exactly call it an Indie game since its not exactly a game (more like an engine), nor are we(mostly I) incorporated in anyway.

    My Comments on such a venture, Unless you just really like to program and don't have any thing to code that is more worth while then don't start such a project. However, If you just want to flex your muscles, and understand that it will almost never be finished, or 'good enough' or profitable then go right ahead. Also keep in mind that there is a good chance that it will become one of those unfinished things that you will probably spend the rest of you days regreting that you still havn't finished it. You'll go through periods of fast developement where you code more every day, and there will be times when you won't touch it for months. God forbid should anyone actually want to play your game then you introduce new nightmares in terms of support and such.

    Other than all these headaches it has been a very rewarding hobby for me.

  • Another overlooked benefit about being an Indie (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rinikusu ( 28164 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @04:38PM (#6592007)
    *YOU* choose your platform. THink about it.
    Are you tired of seeing the best games only come out for Win32? Maybe you're a Linux user and have to dual-boot, just so you can play the greatest/latest game. Maybe you're a Mac user and you're just SOL (for the most part). The fact is, most commercial companies only want money, and lots of it, and money can be made on Win32. Even with a shitty game, if it can sell to just 1% of the market, can still pull a profit (unless it's one of those billion dollar all-graphics-no-game jobs). With Indie developers, there's no shareholders to satisfy. There's no board of directors mandating you use DirectX or whatever. You can target minority platforms if you choose, and with a reduced overhead (and pent up demand for a good game), can actually find a market. I don't know if A Tale in the Desert is making a profit, but you know, the marketing (almost non-existing, word-of-mouth kinda thing), the packaging (download only? I've not seen a box) and the fact that it runs on Linux without WINE is truly revolutionary in many ways. While the game doesn't appear to be my cup of tea, I give them mad props for doing it and doing it on their terms. AFAICT, they didn't have to rush it out of the door to meet some projected sales targets. AFAIK the rollout was very smooth. It's nice to be able to produce quality. (Of course, someone's probably going to come along and say they're not an Indie company and were bankrolled by EA or something and completely crush my dreams.. :: sniff ::)

    Anyway, if I were under the pressure to produce mounds and mounds of money, you can bet I'd be a Win32 developer. However, I'm just a hobbyist/indie/wannabe, so guess what? I'm trying to do everything I can on Linux, because I can. No one is there to say I can't. YOu know what? I'm even using Java! Take that! (see www.lwjgl.org). See, I'm not stuck in a shop that says I have to use 3DStudio Max (I can't afford $6k, can you?). I use TheGimp because it works for what I do (although Photoshop + some KPT filters is better for a few things (the KPT Procedural Texture plugin is just.. nifty.. For the kind of stuff I require, that is). I can use Eclipse + Java + LWJGL, all on Linux, targetting Linux (of course, get the benefits of cross-platform, but that's secondary, eh?). What I'm getting at is, as an indie developer, you can call the shots! And I can even GPL the game, if I so desire! That's what's rewarding, to me, the ability to have control.

    (Also note: I'm an independent musician (lack of talent? ;) ) Same rules apply. I play the music I want to play, no one can tell me otherwise.)
    • *Whoops!*
      For those of you who might wonder how I substitute TheGimp for 3DSMax, well, I don't. I got off-track (ahead of myself) and forgot to plug Blender (www.blender3d.com, I believe). Blender is also free software. Version 2.28 out now!

      (and if you're wondering about models and what not, I don't necessarily do that.. I just render static images, process with TheGimp, and use those to "texture" quads, essentially using OpenGL for a 2D type game)

  • Vega Strike (Score:2, Redundant)

    by PeteyG ( 203921 )
    Disclaimer: I am a Vega Strike whore

    Vega Strike [sourceforge.net]

    It's an open source 3d space flying/fighting game where you take missions or trade cargo to improve your ship. (quick description)

    For the old-schoolers: It's like Wing Commander Privateer
    For the n00bs: It's like Freelancer

    Currently in development, but a lot of fun. It's interesting seeing a game evolve over the course of its development. One of the hardest things, I think, in making it available while its being worked on (even though its essential t

  • Dark Unicorn Products (Score:3, Informative)

    by ArcadeNut ( 85398 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @04:47PM (#6592069) Homepage
    http://www.darkunicornproductions.com [darkunicor...ctions.com]

    A lot of cool games here. Some are 100% Free too!

    Yes, I'm a little biased as I wrote one of the games (FrostByte Freddie), however, since it doesn't cost you anything to try them, you have nothing to lose :-)

    Check it out!

  • Sometimes, it's the only option. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AndrewWood ( 680668 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @05:02PM (#6592210) Homepage
    Ah - a subject close to my heart. I've been programming games of varying quality and complexity for 13 years. The closest any of them came to 'success' was the modest following garnered by a top-down RPG called Aspetra back in '96; but it has never really been about getting big or making $ for me. I simply LOVE designing game engines, from graphics to AI to physics to everything else. Although I have had a pretty easy time of landing interesting, fun software jobs, I have had absolutely NO luck attracting the slightest bit of interest from game companies, ever. So I continue to enjoy my 9-5, M-F, working on everything from compilers, to integration, to various business apps; but if I want to develop a game, doing so in my 'garage' is, so far, the only way to go!

  • Just an FYI to other Indie developers and people who are lookin' at getting into Indie game development. Oct 10th - 12th is this year's IndieGamesCon [indiegamescon.com] )but they haven't updated the website) in Eugene, OR, hosted by GarageGames. I was there last year as a speaker ("Can I Make Money As An Indie Developer?" co-presented with David "RM" Michael of Samu Games [samugames.com]) and will be there again this year as a speaker ("How to survive Indie Game Development" - again co-presenting with David). IGC rocks - it was a hell of

  • I think the hardest part of being an Indie Game devel0per is making the right choice in proejcts with repsect to resources, market potential/business potential , and etc..

    My first bad year out I made the mistake of not fully investigating itv platform and thinking I could do games on that platform as it turns out not all the infrastructre is there to make it business wise..whereas I might get back in in 2005 ro 2006..

    Whereas I worked at some startup project earlier this year to fund part of my dev in J2ME

  • Why the engine is the easiest part to write? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @05:54PM (#6592568) Journal
    I have a fairly good knowledge of the Amiga scene, where - for obvious reasons - almost all the game releases of late 1990's were independent games. Some [marble-eyes.dk] of them were actually quite good and I really miss them on the mainstream platforms. Amiga coders were doing some true magic with optimizing 3D engines to cope with high-screen true-color animations on ancient processors like the 68040. The quality of their work was superb. However, it was rarely followed by the quality of the scriptwriting and graphics design. Now here's my question: why is it easier to find a guy who will spend many sleepless and unpaid nights writing the game engine - than to find a guy who would put a similar effort in writing a good story or drawing an interesting texture? This resulted in weird "sort-of-games" [demon.co.uk], that were actually nothing more than a blazing fast 3D engine and just a couple of rooms to show that it works. What's the point?

  • I'm going to go ahead and state the obvious: There's a definite future in indie games. We've soon come full circle and will have enough framework(s) in place that the indies can play again, really play.

    I just heard that Reflexive/Black Isle had to remove the "Childkiller" trait (basically a visible flag that was set if you killed children) from the game Lionheart and make the children in the game immortal, or they couldn't get the rating they wanted. Crap like that is what's nice about doing it yourself,

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