also, this should go in the unpaid job postings forum, not the Business parent forum

Maybe have the people who spread the game to say, 10, of their friends get the game cheaper. That way, you gain respect for making it cheaper, and they spread it. That is what many MMO's do, get the friends to get hooked as well. Although here, you are doing it mainly for free publicity. 

Oh yeah, I totaly forgot about that, i think its really effective. That is definately being added to my list of cool ideas
If I remember corretly hawken did a similar thing where people could reserve thier hawken screen namevand get into the alpha if they got 5 friends to click the hawken site and join the mailing list, it sucked me into promoting thier game for them, but i dont mind coz i got alpha and beta access in return

I've been playing a bit on my galaxy S2
The performance is great, everything looks nice and runs fine
Menus work, but the choices given confused me a bit, why do you give the player a choice of 3 ships right from the start? and in Campaign mode, why do I get to choose from about 3 different missions? shouldn't the missions be in a linear progression (where I need to win the first one to unlock the second)
Having multiple choice of mission to start on also made me confused as to which one would be more difficult etc.

Similarly, with the ships, I didn't know how the differed, since they where all about the same size and shape, I think maybe they should be unlocked as you play, and when they are unlocked then you could tell the player how that ship is different to the one they have been using so far.

The game-play I found really nice, but only when I played "The road not taken", the reason, I think, is because that level has lots of asteroids in the foreground and close in the background, having this static geometry is really important in anchoring the level in the players mind. In the fist mission I played there was no static anchor like this, so the player ship was moving around, the bullets where moving and the enemies where moving, so most of the time i felt confused and disoriented, I couldn't tell if my ship was drifting or how fast I was going etc.
But all this is cleared up when there are static objects in the background, so I would suggest throwing heaps more of those in around the place, especially in the early levels where the player has just started and has no idea about the game's physics.

on to the visuals;
I didn't have too much of an issue with the visuals, but I think the following could be improved;
objects often blended into the background, shapes where hard to distinguish, perhaps you could have an outline glow shader, make enemies all share a different colour to the background or something else like that to make gameplay objects pop out from background stuff.

Also pickups, on a small screen, look too much like enemies, they are about the same size etc.
Often I would kill an enemy but not know it because he's immediately replaces with a pickup object, maybe pickups could also have a certain color or glow or something that easily tells players that they are good and not an enemy

Last thing, the in game dialogue text was too small to read on my screen, and compared to most smart phones the galaxy S2 has a huge screen, so that may be a problem.

That's all I can think of now, good luck with the project, i found it fun and i'm sure it'll only get better!

Another idea I found to add to the list;
-Hold a competition (design a new character, best new map, funniest game summary slogan etc.)

I work with one other person, he has a second computer that stays at my place and he comes over 9 to 5 weekdays to work.

Working in the same physical location makes collaborating really easy but has negative impacts on my life outside work,
working alone i would usually work sporadically as motivation comes and goes, i'd fit in gym, fitness etc.
Working in a consistent time block I find I'm usually burnt out at the end of it and it's far more effort to fit in running or swimming. Even though I feel less efficient I think it's still better overall for the project, given the speed we can discuss design decisions and compile work (doing this online is a terrible task).

Well from pixel prospector I also read that the press is interested in new things. They don't want to cover a game that was released a month ago and was covered elsewhere, unless it's really good.

Yeah, that's true, A lot of game review sites say things like "We will be more likely to review your game if you are sending us a sneak peak of something not-yet-released" But I think that's more relevant to games that are already anticipated or have a large marketing budget. Every game site wants to be the first one to cover battlefield3, since then all the extensive marketing for bf3 drives them directly to their review. But for indie games I don't reviewers would even consider doing reviews of unfinished / unreleased titles that don't already have heaps of fame or money behind them.

Also, getting press after release may not make other press sites think "oh, well we can't cover that now, it's been done", it's more likely to make them think "oh crap, our competitors covered this game, we need to cover it too!, quickly cash in on the this while it's hot"

Still I could be wrong about all this, it's just what people have made me believe so far

So far as I know, getting press is just as hard before release as it is during/after. Since the methods of getting press don't change regardless of how finished your game is.

From what I've heard said in talks on the matter, getting hype or buzz is actually a waste of time for indies, because: if someone reads a review on your game and can't click a BUY link at the end, they will forget that they wanted to buy it in a matter of days and you will never get that sale, even though you had them hyped up to buy it for a moment.

Big name games can do buzz because they will likely have TV advertisements and posters at bus stops and shopping centers to remind everyone to buy that game when it's actually released.

I've been trying to think of cool stuff to do when releasing a game to help with sales,

So far I've thought i could try;
-Giving away free copies of the game to the first 50 people to like your facebook page
-Giving free game soundtrack downloads to all who like the facebook page (there's a facebook app called "like to download" which sets this up, apps.facebook.com/liketodownload/)
-Mailing out free posters/art prints to a few random people who tweet about the game, using the correct #hashtag

And yeah, that's all I can think of now, so i thought I'd start a thread to hear the ideas people here may have tried/thought about
Yeah Go!

I finished my intro movie thing

I might upload the video to indiedb or something later, I have to decide if that's a good idea first

drawing an intro comic/cartoon/slideshow for Stampede

I've been drawing a series of images for a slideshow/comic to make the loading screen of my current project more interesting,

See borderlands 1 for an excellent example on how to make a game with the minimum amount of artist work time.

Wait.. What..
Borderlands style graphics might be easier because all artists can draw and sketch, which is why it comes natural with the cartoony, sketchy, rough style. But it's not like they just jotted some stuff down and said done. It's still a style which relies heavily on artistic talent and ability to express yourself. Even more so than realistic art, since you need to know where to put emphasis, what to exaggerate, etc. And not to mention using colors in a way that you wouldn't see in real life.

You can't just take a picture of a rusty pipe texture and place in the game, like you can with games using the realistic approach.
I'd even go as far as saying that realistic graphics are much easier, since you're just copying things that exist. Which means a lot of the textures can be actual photographs that have been photoshoped.

Borderlands 1 is far from minimal artist time, Minecraft is a much better example.

I wasn't just talking about the textures, but I still believe they would be much quicker to produce than photo-realistic ones (it's not as simple as just taking a photo)
There are heaps more techniques used in borderlands 1 to skip work;
-all the characters wears masks to avoid having to make faces or facial animation for all the extensive dialog
-much of the dialog isn't voice acted and is only presented in text
-enemies models are re-used again and again just being scaled up and/or color tinted
-enemy AI is re-used
-the world is a dessert, mostly
I'm not attacking the borderlands team or anything, I think if a developer is looking to make a game that feels big with minimal man power or budget, it's a great example on how to achieve that.

Hmm, I have an iPad new with iOS6 and no jail break. I would like to beta test, but is it possible with my setup?

Yeah, to clarify, using test flight means you don't need a jailbroken phone, it is a legit distribution technique.
But with testflight you don't instantly get access to a build, once you register your iphone/ipad there I have to then manually add that device to the list of devices that the NEXT build will work on, and then upload that new build. So it can take a bit of time, but testflight does send our emails automatically to tell you when a build has been made available to you to play.

unfortunately tho, testflight hasn't been working for iOS6, because the engine this game is running on hasn't been updated since iOS was released, hopefully that will be fixed soon, either way, you should get a test flight email

My approach to coming up with game designs used to be like so;
mix and mash enough game mechanics together until you have something that could be enjoyable to do, then try it out.

But more recently my process goes along these lines;
-think of an experience (eg. the feeling of gaining freedom)
-then beak that experience down into common pieces, so, things that usually accompany the experience, (eg. to feel like the player has gained freedom they need to overcome restricting bonds, they also need to initially feel trapped and uncomfortable and then be given a rewarding and powerful feeling)
-then I think of game-stuff that can achieve those elements (eg. to feel trapped the player could start the game without the ability to run or jump or attack)
-then the very LAST thing i think about is the platform / genre / mechanics based on what I think would give people the experience best.
(do you wan't full realistic immersion? probably should be an FPS, do you want a fun arcade vibe? then maybe something more retro styled etc.)

EDIT: at this point you should be thinking "what will require the most (art) work? how can I use a style or technique to cut down on the total work required?"
See borderlands 1 for an excellent example on how to make a game with the minimum amount of artist work time.


Anyway, that's a very rough and quick explanation of how I try to think,
Hope that helps
 

the command for attacking is extremely difficult to do, i think if you wan't people to enjoy this game you really need to work on making the rules and controls a lot clearer, but keep it up because I like these 2 player turn based type games