background preloader

To read

Facebook Twitter

Art

ToSort2. To sort. ShipIt Day! Blog, websites. Ryan Clark's Blog - What Makes an Indie Hit?: How to Choose the Right Design. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

Ryan Clark's Blog - What Makes an Indie Hit?: How to Choose the Right Design

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. Who the hell are you, and how are you qualified to tell me anything? In this industry it's difficult to go far without learning from others. But from whom should we learn? I think it is wisest to study developers who have been repeatedly successful. (A quick aside: Just because someone has been repeatedly successful doesn't necessarily mean that they KNOW why they've been successful. So who the hell am I? I have an explicit method that I use when selecting which game designs to move forward with, and I will describe that method in this article. Good Isn't Good Enough A "good game" is usually not enough, and I think the method used by many newcomers will generally produce "good games". To improve the likelihood of success your game needs to stand out. Hooks. Raghav Mathur's Blog - How To Write Compelling Feature Lists: Imperative Verbs.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

Raghav Mathur's Blog - How To Write Compelling Feature Lists: Imperative Verbs

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. When developers write feature lists, they usually write a sort of brag sheet showing off everything unique they did for their game and how much work they put in. James Montgomerie's Blog - How We Made a Trailer For Our iPad Game With No Budget. Coolson’s Artisanal Chocolate Alphabet , our iPad game, has been out for almost a month now. This is the first of hopefully at least a couple ‘behind the scenes’ blog posts about its creation. This one’s about its trailer video, and how we made it on a budget of $0 . You can see the trailer on the Coolson’s web page . Background We submitted Coolson’s to the App Store in mid July, hoping it would be reviewed in a week or so, and knowing we’d need to have some publicity and marketing materials ready.

Www.gdcvault.com/play/1020467/Experimental-Gameplay. Dwarf Fortress in 2013. This post has been highlighted as one of Gamasutra's best stories of 2013.

Dwarf Fortress in 2013

"What we've done is lay out a framework for version 1.0, and you just have a giant piece of paper with everything on it, and there's the stuff that's on the paper, and there's the stuff that's off the paper. " Tarn Adams and his brother Zach have been working on procedurally-generated fantasy game Dwarf Fortress for around 11 years now, although if you include the DragSlay and Slaves to Armok development work that preceded it -- and essentially molded the game's early beginnings -- it's more like 13 years.

Although you can download and play the game for free right now, version 1.0 is still a long time coming. Tarn Adams recently estimated that we can expect 1.0 in around 20 years' time, although he admits it'll probably take even longer than that, "because I always underestimate release times. " Rami Ismail's Blog - Four common questions. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

Rami Ismail's Blog - Four common questions

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. I’ve been using ask.fm for the past few months, answering questions from both developers and gamers alike. There are a number of questions that I’ve received more often than any other, and instead of answering those on ask.fm or Twitter, I wanted to sit down and write a proper response. Here are the four most common questions I get about independent game development and my answer to those questions. How can I get started, or how can I get better at making games? The answer to this question is always disappointing to many, but the answer truly is to make a game. Curating Video Game Culture: The New Wave of Video Game Events. Keith Fuller's Blog - You, Personally. You, Personally.

Keith Fuller's Blog - You, Personally.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. The above is a list I disseminated amongst the leaders at a client studio recently. I wanted to get a feel for where everyone thought they could improve so I put together a medium-exhaustive collection of leadership topics and asked the leaders to rate them from 0 (I have this one mastered) to 5 (PLEASE I’M BEGGING TEACH ME THIS PLEASE).

Typically, companies will claim they need no help in the area of leadership development. Regardless of the reasoning behind the “Nope, we don’t need help…we’re good” mentality, it’s extremely unlikely that everyone with leadership responsibilities at a company will report that they have mastery of all 20 items in this list. Developers deserve the best leadership. The ups and downs of doing online multiplayer as an indie. With the recent launches of local multiplayer games like TowerFall, Samurai Gunn and Sportsfriends, players are making their arguments for the inclusion of online multiplayer.

The ups and downs of doing online multiplayer as an indie

For developers, the issue of online multiplayer goes something like this: Sure, adding online multiplayer to your game is massively time-consuming, very costly, and not exactly the greatest fun you'll ever have -- but it can potentially bring in multitudes of extra players and sales, so it's always worth it, right? Of course, we all know this isn't always the case, thanks to as plethora of examples were developers have put time and energy into including online multiplayer options, only to find that no-one bothers using them, and expensive servers remain dead and empty.

So when is the right time to add online multiplayer to your game, and how much effort is it going to take? The Evolution of Zombie Lane - How to Successfully Develop a Casual Social Game with a Hardcore Theme. Inside Pandora's pivot from record stores to Internet radio. Articles. Rock, Paper, Shotgun: I only went to bed because Montezuma killed me. Your work contradicts Einstein, so what's next? A haptic gaming vest, obviously.

Open source tracking software. Olga Cherkashina's Blog - The tendencies of the mobile art on the example of top-grossing games. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

Olga Cherkashina's Blog - The tendencies of the mobile art on the example of top-grossing games

Bill Borman's Blog - Unity 3D: Batching independently moving GameObjects into a single mesh to reduce draw calls. Unity 3D: Batching independently moving GameObjects into a single mesh to reduce draw calls.

Bill Borman's Blog - Unity 3D: Batching independently moving GameObjects into a single mesh to reduce draw calls.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. I discovered some black magic for batching to reduce draw calls in Unity recently. Think you can't combine and batch objects that move independently? You can. Tyler Durden’s 6 Rules of Innovation. Fred Tang's Blog - Make use of main social platforms for designing and operating.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

Fred Tang's Blog - Make use of main social platforms for designing and operating

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. Today, most f2p games are distributed into various social platforms, like Facebook, Google play, App store, etc. And those platforms provide game developers with all kinds of tools, API, SDK, to facilitate game development. How does game designer use those platforms to enhance attraction, retention, and monetization of games? This article focus on those aspects. There are some features that are common across all platform. News and reviews on Chinese mobile gaming industry. Video: Narrative lessons from Road Not Taken. Road Not Taken has wowed critics with its storytelling -- despite being a roguelike, a genre not primarily known for emphasizing and excelling at narrative.

Video: Narrative lessons from Road Not Taken

What led to this? In the video above, taken from last year's Full Indie summit and just published on YouTube, Spry Fox designer and co-founder Daniel Cook delivers a talk about how the game's storytelling took shape. Last year, Cook told Gamasutra that the inspiration for Road Not Taken was "a painful topic, so I tend not to talk about it," and that tone underscores the game and the complex feelings it engenders in players. You can learn more by watching the video.

GAME DEVELOPMENT IS GETTING VERY CROWDED. Let’s say you download Unity3D, you roll up your sleeves and you get to work. Six months later, you've got a game! All your friends say it's fun, and when you posted it on that forum, it got good feedback. Congrats, you're a game designer! You upload it to some online stores, watch it pop up at the top of the 'New Releases' list and wait for the money to roll it.

Special E3 Gaming Report: The Growth of Mobile & Online Multiplayer. Top mobile games with multiplayer features are taking in increasingly more revenue. There’s a lot to be excited about in mobile for this year’s E3. Traditional gaming companies are moving their budgets and focus from handhelds to mobile like we saw with Nintendo’s mid-March partnership announcement with DeNA. In addition, online multiplayer continues to be a growing part of the gaming ecosystem on consoles, PCs, handhelds and, increasingly, mobile devices. To learn about online multiplayer’s significant impact on the gaming industry and mobile gaming’s continued growth, download our special E3 report.

Below is what you can learn from our free report: Interactions Cards as game design tools – Handy Tools @ Cowface Games. This is an effort to identify the different ways that a player interacts with a computer game, and put them into a card game as a tool for game designers. Hey! You can get these cards professionally printed now! (US$10 plus postage) Or you can download the free version They’re smaller, no longer maintained, not as well-written, and a bit confusing in places. You also have to print them yourself. Thanks to Lorc for the icons! The Good, the Bad, and the Future of Creative Collaboration — StackStreet.

Guest Post: 3 Ways to Monetize Users (And Keep Them Happy) With Mobile Video Ads. Being a game developer has a lot of perks, but when it comes to generating revenue, it can feel like an uphill battle. 91% of iOS and Google Play app store downloads in 2014 were free-to-play, and for any free app, creating a business around the game requires creative tactics. That’s probably why 35% of developers reported they used mobile video ads to monetize in 2014 and, in an App Annie survey, 17% said video was their highest-earning ad format. Mobile video ads are emerging as a format that not only nets revenue for the publisher, but also provides an engaging, on-demand experience for users. 10 Best Party Game Apps for iOS and Android. USP Analysis - Finding Your Unique Selling Proposition. The Unique Selling Proposition: Finding Your "Competitive Edge"

SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities, Threats) Discover New Opportunities, Manage and Eliminate Threats Find out more about SWOT, with James Manktelow & Amy Carlson. SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying both the Opportunities open to you and the Threats you face. SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis, with its four elements in a 2×2 matrix. Jerry Momoda's Blog - Criteria Used to Analyze Classic Arcade Video Games. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

Bushnell's Law. Methodologies to Analyze Classic Arcade Games - Game Analysis. Mission, Vision, Purpose & Values. The Ten Commandments Of Video Game Menus. Kevin Morris's Blog - The Fine Line between Collaboration and Distraction. The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

Worldwide App Annie Index for Games March 2015. Case Study: How Localization Can Boost Your Midcore Game. Making deep games accessible to more people through language. How Storm8 Got to 1 Billion Downloads With Data. If you make mobile games, you know the word “one billion” isn’t something casually tossed around when it comes to downloads. Publishers with massive teams and budgets might hit this milestone in a matter of months, but for most app makers this is a prized number. Early last month, Storm8 hit that milestone. Social Entrepreneurship - Copenhagen Business School. "Who the hell has time to do that?" Kyle Pittman's Blog - CRT Simulation in Super Win the Game.

Philipp zupke's Blog - Progression Control in Sim City BuildIt. App-store-optimisation-cheat-sheet.pdf. Mobile app marketing tools by MobileDevHQ. Last Invader - Sideproject - Devlog. Facebook User Acquisition Tips: Getting Your App’s Best Users. The Outlook for Mobile Advertising in 2015 With InMobi. Worldwide App Annie Index for Games December 2014. Usage Intelligence: Mobile App Usage Data for Thousands of Apps. Worldwide App Annie Index for Apps December 2014. Low Cost Credit Card Processing and Merchant Services. Nathan Lovato's Blog - Why habit formation is the key to long term retention. Daniel Cook's Blog - Minimum Sustainable Success.

Mike Sellers's Blog - Adding Debt to your Daily Scrum. Arcade, Videogame, Pinball Machine, Game, and Antique Coin-Operated History. My year with a distraction-free iPhone (and how to start your own experiment) — Life Hacks. Smartest $5K You’ll Spend on Your Mobile Game. Paid, Paymium or Freemium - Dan Counsell. Oculus' Mobile VR Jam 2015. Happiness Hero at Buffer. Game a Week: How to Succeed, Fail and Learn. Adriel Wallick's Blog - Game a Week: Year In Review.

The Big List Of Postmortems. Rami Ismail's Blog - Game A Week: Getting Experienced At Failure. Open - Our journey to greater productivity, more transparency and a happier work culture. It all starts with (good) intentions news - Epistory Game. Lars Doucet's Blog - Automated Transparent Development. Devin Becker's Blog - 10 Secrets to making your game longer (Part 2)

I am MT2 Elite copy Test Mobile games. Extra Credits - Making Your First Game: Practical Rules - Setting (and Keeping) Production Goals. Extra Credits - Making Your First Game: Minimum Viable Product - How to Scope Small and Start Right. Bozemanscience. 40 Secrets to Making Money with In-App Purchases - Ray Wenderlich. Awards - AdventureJam. Gamify Your Life. Japan's first pro caster on building an esports culture. Unreal Engine 4 For Unity Developers. Aa by General Adaptive Apps Pty Ltd (iOS, United States) - SearchMan App Data & Information. Flynn (@likeinFlynn) General Adaptive Apps Pty Ltd - Revenue estimates, app rankings & ARPU. Why I prefer ToDo over Trello for agile teams. Multiple Levels of “Done” in Scrum. The Last Lecture. Water interaction model for boats in video games. Water Technology of Uncharted. Time Management - Randy Pausch. Jerry Momoda's Blog - Criteria Used to Analyze Classic Arcade Video Games. Une enquête sur les critères d’achat d’une Wii U.

Katana Social Analytics Engine. Multiple Levels of “Done” in Scrum. 3 Ways to Create Animated GIFs Using Photoshop - wikiHow. Jean-François Zobrist (FAVI) : mon chef et moi. Lp-qc_questions_clc3a9s_112f022f2015_le_bonheur_au_20671355. Greg Wondra's Blog - Death of the Game Designer.