and handling speeds over ±127 would be simple enough to do too, just treat b10000000 (-128) as a special character indicating to read 2 bytes instead of 1 for the next value, assuming this doesn't happen very often the 'extra space' required would still be minimal.

If you're really concerned about space, how about storing deltas instead of actual positions? If the difference between points is rarely over 127 pixels it could easily be compressed down to an average 2 bytes per position

also

genesis was my childhood so I have some fond memories of some pretty crappy games








and also some pretty kickass games

e-mail brandon or ask him on twitter (@brandonnn)

True that.


I remember listening to a podcast where Edmund was really close to releasing Super Meatboy, and even though he had all that hype and he was set to have a huge release he was still worried that he might completely fail. Maybe if there was a therapy session for the big league indies, they could move the circle jerk around a campfire in the redwood's some weekend, cry on each other and relate their holocaust experiences, and then Fish could gtfo of the IGF this year

question: have you ever went into debt to work on a single project for 2 or more years?

but anyway, to make this more constructive, can anyone name games that they feel had especially good intros? (indie or non-indie, doesn't matter). besides super metroid and a link to the past i mean, which were already named

portal 2 had a good intro

so it's not whether a good intro makes the game better or worse. it's whether the intro makes the game better than adding 10 more levels or 10 new enemy types or a new weapon or a new boss would. time isn't infinite, especially for indies

and I'd argue that making a good intro is far easier than making a good boss

also that a good intro is more important than an extra level

but if you don't like the super metroid example, about about metroid for nes? it didn't have that type of cinematic intro

You can't argue that lacking an entertaining intro makes the game better though.

Point is better intro = better game in 99% of cases

If you're not already a media darling or a "known face" , don't bother entering IGF...

ug... this is wrong and dangerous advice

Budget for an indie game is not easy to measure.

2 people x 3 years of living expenses adds up to a LOT of money. Are we a high budget game because of that? Or a low budget game, because we could just as easily not count living expenses as part of a budget. What if someone else covers living expenses for you? Or if you work part time to cover expenses, does that count as part of your budget?

in any case, as i suggested earlier, a category for low budget games

budget has almost nothing to do with the quality of a game

since your game has to meet their standards in regards to control schemes and user interface elements and such

fyi this is the same for wii, xbox, and ps3, regardless of if you're self publishing or not every single game has to meet a set of technical requirements

Are there any statements made about (non-)acceptance of unfinished games, for this edition, or in the future?

nope

they will and should always allow unfinished games

Also, I don't fully understand the whining about Fez. They won a prize for their art style, and if they win a prize for having a good game too, then they deserve it. I'm more into whining about games that have been pseudo-published by Sony and what-not

Well fez is being published by microsoft isn't it?

I dunno, I know how phil feels here, a game can change a tremendous amount in 2 years, nevermind 5 years, to the point where its embarrassing to think that the shitty demo you submitted so long ago was actually able to win stuff. I feel the same way about Closure, but since it has only been 2 years it would just feel wrong for me to resubmit, even though the game is so different now. We wouldn't be where we are today without the IGF award so it feels wrong to submit again and potentially rob someone else of that opportunity.

other (neutral) thoughts:
Would there be this much controversy if the game wasn't called "fez" 5 years ago? If the current version was called "fez 2" or "new fez" or something to that extent?

1. gen y? 90s kid. Immigration wise I think I'm 4th gen, great grandparents being the ones to move here (or possibly the gen before for a good chunk of them)

2. euro mix (mom's side, italian french plus others etc), syrian/lebanese (dad's side)

3. family's been american for so long that its not much of an influence other than for eating lebanese food sometimes

1) no one really said it's a bad thing. it's just nothing really special. it's simple technology advancement. as compared to major medicinal advances such as polio vaccine or finding out the structure of dna-it is minor and relatively unimportant.

I thought we already resolved the fact that "Its not important if its not in medicine" or its strawman equivalent, "If you didn't cure cancer, you're Hitler. No, worse than Hitler, cause Hitler at lease had decency to kill himself" is a stupid argument.

There's not a single industry personal computers haven't changed. Including medicine.
Folding@Home, there medicinal achievement that lies on the backs of personal computers.

How about all the recent middle east revolutions, where smartphones were a huge necessary part of gathering support for these people?

I shouldn't have to go list stuff like this

I'm done arguing here though, have work to get done

so we have this list of how i feel about apple:

apple's pros
- started the pc revolution
- started itunes
- made os's simpler to use

apple's cons
- image / social status marketing
- started smartphones
- made os's so simple to use that they are harder for advanced users to use
- large amounts of pollution
- unfair wages
- planned obsolescence of their products
- exploited chinese workers

the last four of which are common among pretty much all corporations but should not be discounted as negatives

apple didn't pioneer, invent, or popularize "social status" marketing, it has been used pretty much since marketing was invented. Just cause people bought into it a lot in this case doesn't make it apple's fault.

smartphones are not a bad thing, throw that up there on a pro, because new forms of communication is what human advancement, and while smartphones weren't the same leap as phones or internet were, its still an advancement.

"made os's so simple to use that they are harder for advanced users to use"
false, unix core in OSX is a huge bonus and I get pissed off every time I try to use unix commands on windows only to realize windows has no such thing. OSX is fine for advanced users to use. I could go on about the under the hood stuff OSX has (application packages are way better than the mess of dlls and exes windows uses). But I won't, this is not a bad thing to make computers easier for an average user. Its elitism to think otherwise. (you did put that as a pro too, so :/)

pollution, fair point
unfair wages + chinese workers should be grouped together as the same thing, but apple's record shows that they did attempt to make foxconn treat their works better (links have been posted in this thread already)
those 3 apply to all corporations though.

planned obsolescence of their products
my apple products last way longer for me than other electronics (with the exception of nintendo handhelds). Maybe not ipad/iphone/ipods (original ipods lasted a very long time) because of software updates forcing updated hardware, but you can still USE them even if you can't access the latest and greatest on them. Their laptops are very sturdy though, my old laptop (5 years old) is still sitting in my office acting as a backup server, on 24/7 with no problems.

should i just quote from earlier posts? i don't really like saying the same thing several times

yes, because as far as I'm concerned (its a very hard thread to keep up) you have just skirted around the issue instead of answering it directly with stuff like (paraphrasing from memory) 'shipped jobs to china', 'macs are expensive', 'macs arent better than pcs', 'starving children in africa dont have computers', 'they advertise amorally', and a ton of other stuff that seems to be more picking on modern apple rather than the fact that they created the first personal computer.

Do you think the world would be a better place with no personal computers at all?

double posting instead of editing cause this thread moves too fast


How is the personal computer revolution a bad thing?
Or digital distribution (itunes proved its the way to go)?
Or portable internet?