Blog added – Indie CGI
The fairly new blog of Jason Bowers, an artist with quite a lot of experience (hey, over 10 years is unfortunately a pretty rare thing in this industry!)
There isn't a huge amount on here at the moment, but it is being updated regularly as his currently personal project advances. I really like his cardboard cowboy as well.
Blog added – Gaming Reality
Gaming Reality is the recently started blog of game designer Pete Collier. To quote Pete:
I've found it to be a really therapeutic practice to organise and structure my thoughts by writing posts for the blog. I'm sure most of these thoughts previously would have gone forgotten or left messy and unrounded in my head!
Head on over to read what those thoughts are, and find out why he thinks table tennis is one of the best games in the world.
Blog added – Graphics Runner
Kyle Hayward is a graphics programmer for Human Head Studios, and he's been keeping a graphics programming-based blog (as you could probably tell from its name) for a couple of years now.
Lots of tutorials and source code to get your teeth in to here - check out his series of posts on volume rendering for some cool stuff.
Blog added – Semionaut’s Notebook
From the mouth of the author himself: "I'm an indie designer with a focus on storytelling via game mechanics."
This is a case of a blog where the layout puts me off, but I find the content interesting enough to battle through. Call me old fashioned, but I like being able to scan through recent articles quite easily, not have to click back through them.
But hey, it's worth it. For example, have a look at a recent post on the deconstruction of the verb "Jump". The up-coming HoneyComb Engine also sounds like an interesting project.
Article: QuizQuizQuiz – iPhone sales numbers – ‘US-eh?!’
I love "numbers" posts, where a developer not only shows you their sales, but also breaks down how the various peaks and troughs relate to their marketing pushes and other external factors.
To be honest, I don't even think they need numbers attached - just having the relative sales graphed out, given context, can be informative enough.
I think they are one of the most useful types of post a developer can make. They help both themselves, and other indie devs, sit down and try to work out how best to get their games into the hands of players (and money back into their own pockets, of course).
Four Door Lemon have just posted such an article about their iPhone game QuizQuizQuiz. Go and have a read!
QuizQuizQuiz – iPhone sales numbers – ‘US-eh?!’
Back with 7 more coding blogs
I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks, which is why it's been a little quiet around here. I've still been receiving submissions though, and have a bit of a back catalogue to get through. So without any more stalling, here is a new list of coding blogs to look at.
- Jeff on Games. Author: Jeff Ward
- Level of Detail. Author: Jeremy Shopf
- LightSleeper. Author: Pete Isensee
- Lost in the Triangles. Author: Aras Pranckevičius
- Ozymandias. Author: Andre Vrignaud
- Parveen Kaler's blog
- Real-Time Rendering
Article: Tiny Subversions – anonymous blogging
A good article by Darius Kazemi about blog content here. I think in general his suggestion to massage your words is good, though personally I like a bit of passion in a developer's blog.
As long as you can back up anything you say, obviously. A good rule of thumb is "would you say this to the developer's face, if you met them?"
Student question: anonymous blogging
6 Blogs added
Yeah I know, I promised a monster update. I have a huge list of submissions to work through, so I've decided to just start lumping them together so that you guys can find more good stuff more quickly.
In other news, I'm coming down with a cold just a few days before doing on vacation. So unfortunately I'm going to have to cut this update short for tonight.
Art:
- Beautiful Pixels. Author: Vincent Scheib (yes, Vince is a programmer, but his blog seems to be entirely about arty stuff, so into this category it goes).
Code:
- Aurora. Author: Jim Tilander
- Catalin's XNA Experiments. Author: Catalin Zima
- c0de517e.
- Coder Corner. Author: Pierre Terdiman
- Treatise on Graphics Programming. Author: Wolfgang Engel
Not given up!
Hello,
I know there have been no new posts in a few days. Sorry about that. I have been doing a bit of something for charity, you see.
I have a huge update coming in the next couple of days, as well.
In the mean time, have you read this post on marketing lessons learnt by Score Studios? It really is very good.
Blog added – QFC Design
QFC Design are the guys behind the popular fast-paced Roguelike Desktop Dungeons, and there are a healthy number of articles on their blog about the thoughts and processes that are going in to making it. I thought this post on the unlocking system was interesting (and while I agree with them completely that making unlocks in your game meaningful is best, I do think there is room for cosmetic options to unlock, especially in a role playing game, where character customisation is a compelling factor).
Anyway, their blog is not limited to just discussing their own game's features, and recent articles have also touched on dating games and the fickle nature of multiplayer gamers. What are you still reading this for, just go and read their site.
(And yes, I did almost publish this post with "Rougelike" in it.)