This is the official thread for the new, revamped TIGSource Devlog Magazine. If you want to look back in the magazine's history, the old one is located
here
About Us
The TIGSource Devlog Magazine is maintained by yours,
Bandreus (editor) and designer extraordinaire
Dom2D (design).
The
original Devlog Magazine was created by
@Dom2D, but he eventually run short on spare time and had to drop it. After many sad, sad months without somebody pointing me at the most amazing devlogs on these boards I finally realized:
I HAVE SPARE TIME. And so here I am, diving deep into countless threads every week to bring you awesome.
Dom maintains several gaming related blogs on tumblr, including
GameSquares. Check it out, it rocks
Please help us reach a broader audience!
This magazine is an effort to give indie games proper exposure, and lots of work goes into it weekly. While indie games as a whole gained substantial traction in the last few years, lots more needs to be done still! A few indie developers and studios (like Edmund McMillen, Jonathan Blow, Capy, Vlambeer, our own Derek Yui, etc etc) raised to the ranks of indie superstars, but for every indie game hitting jackpot there are tens equally deserving projects which still struggle getting enough (if any) attention.
I beg you to spread the word about those games by sharing the magazine online and among your friends. Luckily enough, reaching hundreds of people is as easy as clicking a few buttons in this age of ubiquitous digital access.
Please:
- Tweet @Bandreus and/or @VenusPatrol and retweet our shout outs when a new Issue is released.
- Follow us on tumblr and reblog our Issues.
- Upvote/comment on links we post on reddit (you'll find the actual link along the issues themselves).
- Post about the magazine in other forums and boards you lurk (but obviously don't break any rules or get yourself banned for spamming xD).
- Just spread the word in on any online community you normally spend time on and among your friends, even the offline ones!
How do I get my devlog on the magazine?
Send your checks to: NO I'M KIDDING
You obviously need to maintain an active thread on these boards. Other than that, just do your best, put the most love and passion into your project you're capable of! I don't have a specific set of rules for picking devlogs to be featured, but simply try and showcase the more deserving projects.
That being said, I only have enough time and space for picking and featuring 15/20ish games per week, while hundreds of devlogs are actively maintained, and tens of more are created every week. It's only natural I can't give enough visibility to each and everyone of your awesome projects (I'd really like to!).
Help us make a better job
Lastly, although this is in no way going to make your chances at a pick any higher, please follow a few guidelines in the way you organize your devlog. As an added advantage, adhering to the following rules of thumb will make your threads much more effective, gaining you a larger following for your projects. Last but not least, the Press does read your devlogs guys, trust me. A well maintained thread might very well help you get some very needed media coverage. Better put a bit of love into them.
Good formatting: People
love reading about a good project. Even more, people love reading nicely formatted and thought out text. You don't need to train your writing/editing skills up to pro levels. Just make sure what you write actually makes sense (ie re-read before posting) and well formatted.
Keep the first post up to date: Especially important for 10+ pages threadsThe first post doesn't need to grow into a huge wall of text as development goes on, but simply sum up it briefly, including every important tidbit and up-to-date content. Which includes...
Relevant Links: People (remember, this might be press on top of me and fans) might want to find out more about you and your game. Make absolutely sure include a link to every online resource/network you're a part of into the first post. This includes: official/personal website, twitter, youtube/vimeo, blog/tumblr, greenlight, kickstarter, facebook, linked-in, indiedb, soundcloud, whatever online resource which might apply.
Screenshots (and pictures) are paramount: Take lots of screenshots (I mean A TON of them), then spend a few minutes manually picking the only best ones. Posting a random screencap of your latest development achievement is fine of course, but put the effort into producing some high quality screens suitable for being used by the Press.
Avoid lossy compression formats if at all possible: I suggest you use PNG for all of your still screenshots. If you really want to use JPEG, at least set the encoding to high or maximum quality. GIF acceptable for showing small segments of gameplay but pay attention to the ugly compression artifacts.
For pixel art games: avoid JPEG (and other lossy standards) at all costs! Capture and save screenshots at native resolution (if your game runs at 640x480, that's what your pic's dimensions should look like). Upscaling can be okay (needed if you work at very low res), but be absolutely sure you're using nearest-neighbor interpolation.
Gifs are great, but... : they are a pain in the ass when the person willing to showcase your game (again, this might be the Press) is only allowed to use static media. Every time you capture an awesome Gif, go back and also take some quality screenshots. Even assuming someone is willing to go the distance and extract a frame out of your GIFS (I do that when the devlog is short on still shots), what he usually ends up with is a picture in limited resolution, distorted colors and (hopefully!) some minor artifact. Not ideal.
And last but not least
Pick a good media hosting provider: Some hosting services will delete your pictures without notice (especially true if they also offer pay-for premium services). That might happen after a set amount of time, when a certain bandwidth-threshold is reached, etc. That's unacceptable. Find yourself another host, or consider subscribing to a premium account.
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