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[Bandreus]

I'm stoked to announce tomorrow's Issue is hosting an IGF Special, showcasing the 16th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards winners.

Of course, that's on top of the usual, sexier-than-ever bandwagon of awesome TIGSource devlogs. It's going to be a whooping grand total of 21 mind-blowing indie game projects.

 

Rated T for T-Rex. All children must be accompanied by a psychedelic slugcat. The TIGSource Devlog Magazine is not responsible for pants being sent into orbit by off the scale indie awesome

[ekun]

this is hot, thanks bando

[Bandreus]

GDC final day, what an amazing year for indie games! As previously announced, I thought the minimum I could do was celebrating Lucas Pope's IGF swept (and all other victors ofc!) by hosting an IGF special in today's issue.

The winners of the 16th Annual Independent Games Awards join 15 other great devlogs of projects by our lovely, local community of terrific game developers, for a grand total of 21 amazing indie games.

I also want to thank Christian, who has been kind enough to help me with keeping up with the ever growing number of amazing devlogs being posted on TIGS every week. Big props to you man!  

But enough talk, It's my honor and utmost pleasure to bring you the

TIGSource Devlog Magazine #18 IGF Special  

You can also find this week's issue on tumblr (please follow and reblog!), reddit and Imgur. As usual, you can follow @Bandreus to get insta-notified when a new issue is released, or you can activate notifications for this thread.

If you read the article on Venus Patrol, you can enjoy an interactive imagemap, allowing you to jump right to the according devlog's thread by simply clicking on its screenshot.



All 21 games featured in this issue, along with useful links!
Battle Brothers -
Catcher! -
DEVICE 6 -
Cogmind -
Forged
Gorogoa -
Hex Brothers -
K.I.S.A -
Lemma -
Let's Go Camping! -
Luxuria Superbia -
Malaika Princess -
MAZE -
Midora -
Papers, Please -
Party Animals -
Pilota -
Risk of Rain -
Star Dungeon
The Stanley Parable -
Upside-Down Dimensions -

[Christian]

Thanks for the shout out. It's a pleasure to help out this wonderful community and the developers here, who craft these amazing worlds and bring their incredible visions to life

I think it speaks volumes about the talent present in the forums that Papers, Please was once merely only a mock-up in a devlog here on TIGForums, progressing from those humble beginnings to IGF Grand Prize Winner. Strip away all its other elements and Papers, Please would still be a fun game of logic and matching. But amidst the story and premise, that simple game of logic and studying documents becomes a thoughtful experience with surprising emotional resonance. From your tiny booth, you hold incredible power; with your stamp of approval, you can allow the tired huddled masses into your country or turn them away. At its core, that's the extent of the gameplay: look for discrepancies and signs of errors and forgeries, interrogate the suspicious citizens, and make your decision. But Papers, Please is so much more than that. From your little window slot and desk, you become the linchpin in fates both big and small, from the entire country to the individuals before you to your very family.

And yet the other IGF winners are all equally impressive. The Stanley Parable, more than any other experience I've played in years, is a game for gamers, in the way it plays with, subverts, comments on the expectations and tropes of the medium, leaving you smiling, chuckling, laughing, confused, reeling from momentary shock and surprise in response to the myriad paths your choices will take you. Risk of Rain thrusts the player into a wonderfully realized pixel world hellbent solely on your destruction, delivering an onslaught of challenging adversaries and looming bosses. But even when faced with this gauntlet of death and mayhem, the player is always in control, thanks to the finely tuned gameplay, arsenal of abilities, and varied classes. Device 6 is a fantastic demonstration of a game using the strengths of its platform to the fullest, immersing you in its gripping adventure thanks to the tangible interactivity of the touchscreen. Luxuria Superbia and Gorogoa both presented incredible visual experiences, the former an abstract journey through a world of color and flowers, the later with its gorgeous painted style

I hope this post didn't seem too rambling, just wanted to give my own shoutout to the IGF Winners and the community.

[christopf]

cool. best magazine i know so far ((:

[Bandreus]

Today's issue just went live on Venus Patrol 

[Randomasta]

Good stuff as usual , there's some interesting projects that I hadn't seen before.

[ryansumo]

We're absolutely at a loss for words that Party Animals is in this month's magazine.  So much talent, and to be included in the same mag as Papers, Please? I have no words. 

Awesome mag, thanks for all the hard work, Christian and Bandreus! 

[Bandreus]

Thanks Ryan and everybody else  

The amount of work going into every following Issue adds up very quickly, but oh man, is it worth it! I might talk a bit about all the kind of things involved with making an Issue later, though since with the latest one we reached a milestone of sorts (4 issues worth of uninterrupted weekly-ish releases, yay!  ) I think it'll be nice to share some numbers.

[sadly enough, I didn't setup much in order to keep track of visits/views in a rigorous way, though I can leverage the effin' power of effin' digital technology in at least some way]

number of views per issue, according to Imgur (these don't take into account tumblr nor Venus Patrol)

Issue	Release Date	Views	Trend
#15	2 March '14	330
#16	7 March '14	992	+200%
#17	18 March '14	641	-35%	Unsurprisingly, as the issue was late + released in the very midst of GDC
#18 (IGF Spacial)	21 March '14	3,914	+511%	In less than 3 days.

The response to the latest Issue has been terrific. Obviously the whole IGF special was an easy catch + the huge PR work being done for the past 4 weeks is starting to really pay off.

Also, a whole lot of views are actually from the /r/IndieGaming subreddit link for the issue

TL;DR: we're only starting with getting serious here guys.

Which is great, as the whole purpose of the zine is bringing-in a larger audience to the ever growing number of amazing devlogs on these boards. Seriously guys, you rock   and all the credit should really go to you

What can I say? I couldn't be any happier about my decition with picking up the magazine again, thanks all for the huge support!

Also, thanks again to Christian who, since the last week, has been helping me with keeping track of all the devlogs. Despite all the scripts and tools I've coded, there's no way I could keep track of all the awesome being posted every day on the boards. Big props to you pal  

And last but not least, a huge THANK YOU to dom2d for actually creating the zine in the first place, and to Brandon Boyer for supporting us by featuring our work on Venus Patrol.

So yeah, it's going great. But we're far from where I'd like to take this little magazine of ours. Please help us grow even stronger, and we shall give proper exposition to each and every project of yours.

To that end, please follow the DevlogMag tumblr and reblog our issues there. Also you can ofcourse help spreading the word by sharing the zine with your peers/friends, retweeting @Bandreus, upvoting/commenting on reddit, etc etc etc

Yet again, thanks all! Until next time, cheers  

[Impmaster]

woah 4k. Nice job guys!

[ryansumo]

Very cool!

I'd like to make one suggestion.  I know that generally speaking the magazine features new devlogs, but it might also be cool to go back and feature games that have had a lot of work done since they were first featured.

In terms of traffic, you could also time that when these games get some press coverage, like Okhlos or Mini Metro.

Again, keep up the great work guys!

[Bandreus]

Hey Ryan, thanks a lot for your feedback  

I agree with you, in fact we kind of do that already. You can see that in issues 15 to 17, where 1-2 older devlogs were usually mixed-in with the usual newer-stuff coverage. I didn't feel like doing the same in #18 mainly because the IGF Special. I'ts a balancing act I guess  

I'll keep in mind the suggestion about boosting traffic by featuring projects which have been in the news.

Again, thanks a lot. Your opinion is greatly appreciated  

Also props to you for mentioning the Devlog Magazine on your blog, and keep up the awesome work with Party Animals!

[Vanhail]

I'm not sure man, I thought (and am still thinking) about the release schedule a lot myself. In the end (though I don't pretend I have all the "right" answers) I just settled on "the more, often the better".

I won't quote everything you said since I'm responding late. But all good points! Wasn't a dig in regards not getting the magazine out on Friday, was just a thought I had kicking around. Good work, keep it up!

[Bandreus]

Thanks for your appreciation! I welcome every kind of feedback Vanhail 

Also, that gave me the chance to expose some of my thought process in regards to handling the magazine and (hopefully!) making it better and way more effective over time.

So yeah, feel free to share you feedback, thoughts, questions, whatever publicly, I keep every user's opinion in the highest regard 

In other news: I've been (and will be) pretty busy for the whole week thanks to my older bro and family being in town for ten-ish days. Lots of playing with little-human-cubs and that sort of fun.

Doing my best to squeeze-in enough work on the zine in order to have a timely Friday release, though not making any promise just yet. Oh and if everything goes smoothly, starting this week the zine posts on the official tumblr might be getting more awesome.

[Bandreus]

Sorry for being late! The new issue has been on VP for a few hours already, but I literally finished it and had to run, so I'm updating here only now.

Given EGX Rezzed is in full swing during the weekend, I thought it'd be nice to feature some of the games form TIGS which are present at the event.

TIGSource Devlog Magazine #19

You can also find this week's issue on tumblr, Venus Patrol, reddit, Imgur and twitpic. As usual, you can follow @Bandreus to get insta-notified when a new issue is released, or you can activate notifications for this thread.



All 19 games featured in this issue, along with useful links!
AEROBAT -
Apexicon -
Citybound -
Copod -
Copy Girl -
Corridors of Uncertainty -
Eidolon -
Hunting Anubis -
Kaiju Panic -
Lakeview Cabin 2 -
Light -
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime -
Lumo -
OKHLOS -
Otherworld -
Path to the Sky -
Reprisal Universe -
SwapQuest -
TinyKeep -

[phi6]

*blush*

[Eigen]

Great issue, Bandreus! Thanks for doing this

[Bandreus]

Thanks! Your appreciation is very much welcome to us guys. Talking also on behalf of Christian, whose contribution you don't really see in the finished product but has been invaluable.

[anselm_eickhoff]

Thanks for featuring Citybound!

[SolarLune]

Posting to follow. Glad to see someone picking this up, Bandreus! Dom did a really great job, and I hope you will as well (no pressure).