Categories
Games Geek / Technical

Playing Older Games

For some reason I woke up this morning wanting to play a game I haven’t played in years. That game is The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse.

If you’ve never played this game, probably because you think you’re too old for Mickey Mouse games, you missed out. This game was surprisingly well made and had a number of my friends in grade school and high school asking to play it. These were the same friends who would pop you in the face if you dared to question their tough guy image.

My favorite level was when Mickey donned the mountain climbing gear. It was like playing Bionic Commando! Rather than go through all of the obstacles, I enjoyed falling below the (floating?) mountain and swinging my way below the level. You bypass everything, and there was something satisfying about knowing I did.

There are other games from my past I’d like to play today. I want to get back to my save game in Homeworld so I can continue through the series. I still haven’t finished any of the Wizardry titles. Conquest of the Crystal Palace music still gets stuck in my head occasionally. I want to get my Atari 2600 out and play Berzerk, one of my favorite games from my childhood.

While new games are constantly getting released, there are still some older games that never get old for me. How about you? Are there any games you still play long after it disappeared from store shelves and the game-playing public’s mind?

[tags] games, classics [/tags]

Categories
Game Development Marketing/Business

The Long Tail of Casual Games: You’re Doing It Wrong

Raph Koster linked to a Forbes article complaining that casual games aren’t exploiting the long tail.

Well, duh.

Indie game developers seem focused on making games that will be accepted by the portals. They think, “If you don’t use the portals, how will anyone hear about your game? Making a game that the portals won’t take is the Kiss of Death. Well, except for all the successful games that don’t use portals. But those are exceptions, of course. They don’t prove anything.”

The portals only take a few types of games. If you make a casual RTS, good luck finding a portal that will take it. They’ll argue that their customers aren’t looking for that kind of game.

Well, who cares if most of their customers aren’t looking for that kind of game? The point of the long tail is that each game is just a database entry anyway. It doesn’t cost any more to offer a wider variety, and you still make the sales. Half of Amazon’s sales come from its major hits, but the other half comes from everything else combined. Imagine if Big Fish or PopCap offered more than match-3 and hunt-the-item games.

But then again, the long tail is really only a big benefit to the portal anyway. Being part of the long tail might mean more customers, but as Cliffski has complained many times, if you sell through a portal, the portal gets your customer’s info. You don’t. All you really get is a portion of the sale, and maybe that is a sale you might not have had if it didn’t get the exposure the portal provides.

[tags] marketing, long tail, casual games, indie [/tags]

Categories
Game Development Games Linux Game Development Marketing/Business

Online Development Platforms

A few months back, I wrote about how I couldn’t use Flash for game development, mostly because of the poor Gnu/Linux support. The comments to that post have since made me rethink this position, but I’m still researching my options.

Unfortunately, my only real options are Flash and Java. I went to the Linux Game Tome forums and asked for advice on web-based game development. The opinions were mixed, as expected. Some people love Java, some people hate it. Some people didn’t like the proprietary nature of Flash, and some people said that it’s the nature of the web to support Flash.

The Indie Gamer forums had a separate thread going about online 3D game development, and it seems that there is an overwhelming vote in favor of Flash. I questioned how people could dismiss Java so quickly considering Jagex created Runescape, which was the top MMORPG until this past year. People seem to think of it as an exception, but I think it shows that Flash doesn’t have a monopoly on browser penetration. Adobe will tell you that 99% of browsers have Flash while less than 90% have Java, but when it comes to people who will play games in a web browser, do those numbers still hold? Jagex doesn’t seem to be hurting from not using Flash.

In general, Flash is the most ubiquitous platform, and I’m sure its Gnu/Linux support will get better over time. Java’s browser penetration isn’t that far behind, though, and it isn’t clear if it is at a significant disadvantage. Both have open source development tools available for them, but Flash is still a proprietary platform.

I still haven’t made my decision, and I could avoid this decision by choosing to make a persistent browser-based game (PBBG) instead. Still, I’d like to make games that are easy for others to play, regardless if they are using Windows, Mac, or Gnu/Linux. For now, I will continue to make desktop clients.

[tags] web game development, indie, flash, java [/tags]

Categories
Marketing/Business

Part 2 of Quick and Dirty Marketing Tips for Indies

I forgot to post about it yesterday, but Jay has posted part 2 of his Quick-and-Dirty Game Marketing Tips.

[tags] marketing, indie, business [/tags]

Categories
Game Development Games Marketing/Business

New Indie-centric Escapist Issue

A new Tuesday means a new issue of the Escapist, and this issue is focused on indie game developers:

This week, The Escapist celebrates these sweet potato moments in our beloved industry. We go looking off the beaten path, in the rough and out in left field for the people “Going It Alone.” In this issue, we explore the wild and crazy world of the indie game developer. Enjoy!

I haven’t read all of the articles yet, but I saw that Jay Barnson of Rampant Coyote wrote about quite a few other indies in Going Rogue.

How could anybody abandon the steady paychecks, access to the best tools and engines, large teams of skilled colleagues and the glory of working on one of next holiday season’s blockbusters for a chance to labor in relative obscurity on tiny, niche titles?

B-)

[tags] indie, business, games [/tags]

Categories
Marketing/Business

Why You Should Use A Newsletter Service

As a follow up to my earlier post on marketing tips, if you want a mailing list, you need software to let your customer enter his/her contact information as well as a way to send that customer email.

If you’re like me, you probably think that it would be preferable to build your own newsletter software. After all, it can’t be hard, and even if I don’t write it myself, there are free scripts out there that you can just plug into your website. Why spend significant money on some service when you can do it yourself?

According to an Indie Gamer forum post about newsletter software:

The problem with php self-automation is that one subsciber who (perhaps even accidentally) lists you as a spammer might get your server blocked for everyone. Imagine all of your emails being labelled as spam by google, hotmail etc.

So while you could offer the service yourself, it’s risky. Maybe do-it-yourself is fine if you are hosting the list for a group of friends, but if you’re running a serious business, you probably don’t want to worry about being labeled a spammer, dealing with spam laws, or taxing your servers with sending out lots of emails at once.

According to the forum post, Plimus offers its vendors a mailing list service. Also, people seem to like MailChimp and Your Mailing List Provider. I’m looking into these options myself. Anyone have other options they swear by?

[tags] email marketing, marketing, business, indie [/tags]

Categories
Marketing/Business

Quick and Dirty Marketing Tips for Indies

Over at the Tales of the Rampant Coyote, Jay wrote the first part of his 10 Quick-and-Dirty Indie Game Marketing Tips.

I’ve been studying marketing over the past couple of years to the point that I get strange looks when I tell people it’s a hobby of mine. I own The Indie Developer’s Guide to Selling Games that Jay mentions in his article, although I’d argue that it should be titled “Guide to Marketing Games” to be more accurate. I read Seth Godin’s blog as well as Joel on Software, the latter of which is surprisingly about how to think about business concerns outside of writing good quality code.

When there are tips on marketing games, grab them like gold! I was told at the Software Industry Conference in Boston that marketing games is tough compared to utilities and applications. Those pieces of software usually have a problem they are solving. You can monitor your file server automatically with Foo v1.0! What about games? They solve boredom? Yeah, but ALL games can make that claim. What makes yours special? Jay’s Tip #3 addresses this issue.

I can’t wait for part two of Jay’s article, but I’d like to suggest that one of your biggest assets is your email list. When people opt-in to learn more about your products, and especially if they have bought something from you before, they are demonstrating that they have an interest in what you’re doing. According to Jay and Sterling at Internet Business Mastery, the purpose of your website should be to get people to join your mailing list. Listen to their podcast to get more information on why they think so, but you should also do research on direct email marketing. EDIT: Here’s the specific podcast titled The #1 Purpose of Your Web Site (even above selling products).

My own website is not currently doing anything to encourage people to join a mailing list because I don’t have a list in place. I plan on rectifying this situation this week since there is no reason to put it off any longer.

[tags] marketing, indie, business [/tags]

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

Thousander Club Update: August 4th

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 409.25(previous two years) + 86.5 (current year) = 495.75 / 1000
Game Ideas: 710 (previous two years) + 36 (current year) = 746 / 1000

I spent part of my weekend working with UnitTest++ and [tag]TDD[/tag]. I wish there was more documentation about integrating it with Makefiles. I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to get the Makefile to automatically build new .cpp files as I add them, as well as knowing how to build the test binary without using my main project’s source file that holds the main() function. I decided to try something simple, similar to the Bowling Game Kata, so I picked a Guess The Number game.

The point of the kata is to study the form of how to write tests, make them fail, then make them pass. What it doesn’t show me is how to write code that actually runs the game. Am I expected to write a test before I write my main() function that actually makes use of the game? After 12 passing tests, I have a fairly complete GuessingGame class, but I don’t have a working game. I can see how easy it would be to write the code to make a working game, but I don’t see how I can write a test first since I’ll just be copying lines of code from the tests into main(). Is this considered an integration step, where it is likely that there won’t be test coverage? I’m ordering the Kent Beck book Test Driven Development: By Example (The Addison-Wesley Signature Series) but as I haven’t read it yet, I’m mostly going off of what I learned from watching Robert Martin during a talk on TDD a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, experimenting with TDD means I haven’t spent time on updating Minimalist, my Ludum Dare #11 entry. The game is mostly finished, and really it is all a matter of making sure it runs on as many systems and for as many players as possible. I’m looking to have an official release at the end of the month.

On a productivity note, my email inbox and my desk inbox have been brought down to 0 for the first time in a year! It feels so good to know exactly what I need to process when I sit down in my office.

Even so, I took a productivity hit this weekend. On Friday, I found that my laptop turned off. I came home from the day job, found it off, and turned it back on. It said that it’s battery was low. I figured that one of the cats must have knocked the AC adapter loose, so I made sure it was plugged in and went out again. I came back to find the computer off again. I saw the power brick’s green light was off and that it was cold. It was also beeping as if it was about to explode at any moment. Since my laptop was still under warranty, I found Dell’s contact info and expected to go through a lot of customer service representatives, explaining the same situation over and over. Instead, I was surprised it was as easy as it was:

Me: “I just discovered that my laptop lost it’s charge, and it seems that my power brick is not working anymore. It has a tiny beeping when it is plugged in.”
Me: “The laptop itself seems fine, but I have no way of keeping it charged.”
Me: “As I understand it, it is still within warranty, so I was wondering what I could do.”
Agent: “I’d be glad to have the ac adapter be replaced, what address do you want me to send it to?”

Wow! After the details were settled, I went to put my laptop away and found out why my AC adapter stopped working. One of my cats had chewed through the cable!

Hopefully I will get my replacement AC adapter today. My desktop is alright, but my laptop has more screen real estate for viewing my code all at once and much more RAM to run more applications at once. It also has my most up-to-date GnuCash files, which means I can’t do my general accounting until I get my laptop running again.

[tags]game, game design, productivity, personal development, video game development, indie[/tags]

Categories
Geek / Technical Marketing/Business

Hardware WILL Fail

I got home from the day job yesterday to find that my laptop was off. Weird. Maybe the cats knocked the AC adapter loose? I turned it back on, setup the IRC client that I always run, and went out. I came back, and again it was off, only this time it was really off. It wouldn’t turn back on.

Then I found that the AC adapter brick was cold and was missing the little green light. It also had a very quiet beeping sound as if someone had placed a bomb inside that was about to go off if I didn’t cut the correct wire. It’s a bit disconcerting.

I found the contact info for Dell, and went through their online support. I was surprised at how great it was. I thought I would need to explain my problem twice to multiple people. Instead, David Brown replied with a simple, “I’d be glad to have the AC adapter replaced. What address do you want me to send it to?” Wow.

So I have to wait until Monday at the earliest for a new AC adapter, and unless I find someone else with a Precision M90, I can’t charge my laptop until then. Luckily my desktop still works.

Of course, it reminds me that hardware WILL fail. My desktop currently acts as a backup, but what about when one of its components fails? I haven’t had a backup system in place in way too long, which is sad because I have bought a few 300GB drives over the past year that have been collecting dust. Now I can probably get 1 terabyte of storage on a thumb drive for $3, but it still won’t do me any good if I don’t make use of it for backup purposes.

If these were just personal use machines, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I’m running a business, and so I need to treat the possibility of data corruption much more seriously than I have been. I would hate to discover one day that I lost the source code to all of my projects.

If you don’t have backup plans in place for your hardware failures, which WILL happen, you’re asking for trouble. Get something in place before it is too late. If it wasn’t for my desktop, I’d be out of commission for the weekend, and I’m worried that the data on the hard drives in it aren’t going to last too much longer. I shouldn’t be worried because I should have dependable backups.

EDIT: Now I know why the AC adapter stopped working. My cats chewed through the wire. They’re lucky they’re cute.

[tags] hardware, failure, backup [/tags]

Categories
Game Development Geek / Technical Personal Development

Test-Driven Game Development

It’s been a long time since I last looked at Test-Driven Development, or TDD. It has been years since I first read about it, and since then I learned about C++ frameworks, but I’ve never used it. It always seemed like a great idea, but optional. Agile or extreme programming sounded cool, but without paired programming, what is a lone indie to do? I had written about Agile individuals years ago, but I lost interest in finding the answers.

Not anymore. I had the chance to see Robert Martin of Object Mentor give a few talks about clean code and TDD, and he made quite the impression on me. He said that software developers give off an air of being unprofessional, but there are things professional programmers do, and TDD is one of them.

Writing tests is one of the practices in Agile development and extreme programming, and the benefits of writing tests are demonstrable. Besides allowing you to have reasonable confidence in the quality of your code, it can actually help drive the design of it, too. I want to emphasize this point since I apparently missed it years ago when I first read it. The design of your code, the actual decisions you make regarding when and when not to use a class, an interface, or a virtual function, gets shaped by your tests! I’ve read more than a few articles in which the author claimed that TDD’s effect on the design was the most important benefit.

That said, aside from High Moon Studios, you don’t hear too much about game developers making use of TDD. If business software developers are seen as unprofessional, what do game developers in general come off as?

I’ve been rereading Noel Llopis’ articles on Test-Driven Development, and I recently downloaded UnitTest++, which is a C++ unit testing framework. I joined the mailing list, which shows that a few other studios are making use of it. Still, I would love to hear more about game developers who have used TDD and other professional developer practices. EDIT: Oh, there is Agile Game Development. A game tends to change towards the end of the project, and having tests ensuring that everything is still working when you make those changes seems desirable. Quicker iterations, better code quality, ease of refactoring, and better code designs should help wrestle those multi-year projects down to manageable levels.

[tags] unit tests, tdd, game development, agile [/tags]