The advice is complementary and I am qualified (I am a certified ITIL practitioner.) But if you implement said advice and want it re-evaluated, I require a second fee.

For example: I play game X for you at a nominal fee and advise you to tighten up the graphics on level 3.

You do this and wish for me to check if the graphics are sufficiently tightened. This would require a second fee.

for $400 I can confirm whether this software is a game or not.

If not I can offer constructive advice on how to turn it from non-game to game.

It struck me on my visit to these forums today that I barely get time to post responses in interesting-looking threads, let alone read all of the interesting looking threads in the first place. I've been mostly lurking for a while, so I thought by way of kickstarting a conversation I'd actually get involved in, I'd talk/ask about this.

I've got a dayjob (which has involved some "crunch" over the last few weeks), and when I'm not doing that I'm working on my own indie game. And when I'm not doing that I'm trying to juggle my time between finding time for my girlfriend and my friends, indulging in some of my other hobbies (some of those involve social obligations of their own, so I have to make time because other people are relying on me), and occasionally trying to eat and sleep. I read games blogs, news sites, message boards, to keep in touch with what else is happening out there. I drop into this forum, and others, when I can, in an attempt to be sociable, but it's a lot to juggle.

I'm sure I'm not unique in this - in fact I expect some people here also have families to maintain, or qualifications to study for, and all kinds of other commitments to fit around indie game development. How do you manage that? I try to stick to a schedule of about 4 hours a day, 6 days a week working on the game in the evenings (generally 8-9pm until midnight or 1am) but between other social commitments (or sheer exhaustion some evenings) and the frustratingly slow progress of my game, I often find myself wishing that there were more hours in their day.

So, yes, nice TIGSource people. Do you experience this? Do you have specific times set aside for working, and how do you fit that around the other pressures of everyday life? Are there particular time-management tricks you've found useful? Discuss...

you've described what is at least a 64 hour working week (probably more if there is 'crunching' at work.) No wonder you're not getting any productive work done.

First order of business: Cut most of the 'compulsory' work on the game out of your schedule

If you are serious about the game. It would be far more productive to take a week off from work to concentrate on it during normal working hours, than to continue running yourself into the ground. If you are 'crunching' now then surely there will be a low workload period coming up?

These guys make games using Java.

They have this radical idea for making profits. Involves you selling copies of the game in exchange for currency. They seem to earn a modest income.

Immersion is a good thing,
First Person Shooters are popular,
popular things cannot be good,
therefore First Person Shooters cannot be immersive.

Salome, Jarboe...

I'm detecting an angry female vocallist theme here.

[I would do the same tbh.]

And there is absolutely no consideration for the other political point of view , so yeah I can understand that Chavez would want to restrict these games, I would do the same tbh.

Independent game developers ladies and gentlemen. Always sticking up for freedom of expression.

Whil i agree we shouldn't bash the goverment as a whole for the issue, ou can't totally refrain from political commentary when this is a law being passed in a country that has clearly intended to ban every possible product emerging from capitalists countries.

And your end of discussion statement seems a terribly apathetic stance on the issue. It's totally careless with our possible Venezolan developers, whose freedom of expression and recreation (on a field we as a gaming playing/dev site we are supposed to condone and enforce) is being supressed.

you haven't read any of my other posts and don't have a working sarcasm detector. do you?

ps. I'm advocating relentless mocking and criticism.

Yes, lets refrain from political discussion on the issue.

This law is planned to be introduced. End of discussion.

I have some questions about the site.

Who is this 'we' you constantly refer to?
Is this site meant to be parody?
Have you read Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity?

nice false analogy with dead or alive at the end of that kotaku exclusive.

that ties in with the topic in another way, perhaps it's the igda itself which stands in the way of unionization (because it's so incompetent and powerless and all)

more like they are under the dominion of other unions. See this semi-obscure piece of Langdellery I dug up the other day. (in the comments.)

It seems Langdell still has some PR credibility, which would explain the Escapist article...

Doubtful. This is how the escapist generally operate, take whatever position seperates them from the common filth. They're just plain shit really.

I'm not disagreeing, but I'm completely out of touch with popular opinion regarding Escapist. Is it generally regarded as a tabloid pulp-mill?

I guess what I'm really asking is, is this article likely to help drum up much support for this rat with a human face?

quite the opposite. what movius meant is that the escapist sees itself as a rarefied voice of reason, a place to discuss games at a high level, above the rest of games journalism, which is all tabloid journalism. a sort of mainstream / casual the gamer's quarter. and at the beginning, they were -- for the first few months. but gradually they lost all their good writers, and their writers are now generally gameplay religionists / academic ludologists from what i've read. they still do occasionally have great articles though, so they're worth checking out, but it's not up to the standard of when they first launched.

the standard wasn't very high in the days of the horrible pdf-magazine layout either. It's the sort of writing I'd use in high school/university when I was short of the minimum wordcount or had no idea how to address an answer. (eg. "My red car" becomes "This is a car that I own. It has a reddish colour.")

incidentally. One of the early big issues in the escapist was a bunch of articles promoting unionisation of the game industry. Remember when the game industry became 100% union dominated back in '05?.. didn't think so. That's about how much influence the escapist has.

whose essay homework are we doing tonight?

It seems Langdell still has some PR credibility, which would explain the Escapist article...

Doubtful. This is how the escapist generally operate, take whatever position seperates them from the common filth. They're just plain shit really.

I'm not disagreeing, but I'm completely out of touch with popular opinion regarding Escapist. Is it generally regarded as a tabloid pulp-mill?

I guess what I'm really asking is, is this article likely to help drum up much support for this rat with a human face?

Popular opinion about the escapist ranges from "Escapist? What the fuck is that?" to "Oh thats zero punctuation's site I love that guy"

It seems Langdell still has some PR credibility, which would explain the Escapist article...

Doubtful. This is how the escapist generally operate, take whatever position seperates them from the common filth. They're just plain shit really.

That said, I think you're over-estimating just how 'obvious' the situation is at a glance. I mean to someone who maybe has only a passing interest in games or perhaps none at all. At first look you have a bad person who has made some games nobody has heard of and has apparently trademarked a ridiculously common word in the English language in one part of the world versus... good people, who have also made a game nobody has heard of and have apparently trademarked a ridiculously common word in the English language in a completely different part of the world.

PS. If you hadn't noticed, this comic is a obviously a pale copy of the quality 'Castle-Vidcons.'

4000 hours in Ms Paint

Episode 1 - The Royal We