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[DigitalEelRich]

Man, there's some great stuff here.

Greetings humanlings and earthloids from yours truly (Rich) and Digital Eel (at large)! I've meant to say hi and get involved here forever but making these darn things keeps me so self-absorbed that I loose track of space-time.  A mixed blessing to be sure.  It's going to take a while to get to know you all so I'll try to stay quiet for a while, catching up.  Here's some info about what I do and about Digital Eel and such.

I'm an older indie-spirited gamemaker.  I cut my teeth, and my fingers, on paper rpg's and genre boardgames in the 80's and 90's.  That's when I started tinkering with games.  Computer games were happening then too so naturally I was into that and began writing text adventures for friends, but really having no interest in any kind of game design gig.

"By trade" I'm a musician (keys, guitar, percussion, composition).  I played in bands and did all kinds of weird studio work in Minnesota for a couple of decades.  Don't even mention disco to me.  The thing is...Games began to encroach on my interest in music more and more.  It was insidious....

By the early 90's making games was like the "new rock 'n' roll" and I was making Doom and Heretic levels like a lot of others just beginning to interact via the internet (fellow modders who I found out were making much cooler stuff than I was!).  Then Quake levels after that, which someone at Ion Storm noticed and so, hired me.  Wow!  That was my first professional game job.  I met Iikka --future partner in crime-- there too.  Then I worked at Looking Glass Studios and Rogue Entertainment and a couple other places.  But I burned out on that corporate commercial scene within five years.  Something about it rubbed my rhubarb!  So, in 2001 I trucked and started making weird little indie games, and have been doing so ever since.

Digital Eel is three people.  We make PC games primarily.  Iikka Keränen designs, codes and makes art.  Bill Sears does the illustrative art, does design and creates ambient music.  I do design, overall sound design, sfx and music.  We live in the Seattle area.  I do this semi-full time among any other projects I can find to do.  Bill, who's shifting careers from old school computer game art to new, is currently studying animation.  Iikka works at Valve Software doing level design for all kinds of different projects there.

We originally got together to do this as an escape from our full time jobs; as an outlet for free roaming creativity so we could work on games we wanted to make. It became a labor of love between three weirdly goofy game geeks who just happen to be really serious about the goofiness.

Our best known games are Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, the latter, a kind of gussied up redux of the original (not to slight it at all).  Iikka and I designed this game system from an earlier, wayyyy more ambitious game we'd been working on but had to abandon.

Infinite Space prototype


Strange Adventures in Infinite Space


Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space



Dr. Blob's Organism and Brainpipe: A Plunge to Unhumanity got some attention, particularly Brainpipe.




Our most recent game is Data Jammers: FastForward.  It's hybrid driving-and-blowing-up-stuff arcade game that takes place in a "low poly" world of twisty racetracks.  Sort of like Hot Wheels on LSD.  It's getting mixed reviews but those who like it like it a lot.






Well that's my story and I'm stuck with it.    I look forward to chatting with you all very much.  Best of luck with your games, and keep the fire!

[Bishop]

Hey all, Lawrie here. Young UK based developer, working on my first big title for PC and Xbox.

Finally breaking the old bad habits of project fatigue while wrestling with every indies problem of having more ideas than you can make in a life time.

[EarthLaunch]

Hello everyone. I'm a professional game developer, now about to finish my indie 2-year game project, First Earth. I'm just here to pimp it and get feedback

I've developed games in AS3, JS/HTML, C# (Mono) in Unity3D, Erlang (server), Java (server) and a few other languages. Right now I have three major projects; First Earth, and two yet-unannounced small public HTML5/Flash games I'm doing on contract that are slightly educational.

Glad to be here.

[Stardog]

Hey everyone.

I'm a 26-year-old wannabe game designer. I've been working on a game since about June/July, which I'm hoping to release as a paid alpha of some sort within a month, then build the game over time.

My background is in website design, so hopefully I'll be able to hire a coder pretty soon to let me get on with the visuals.

I started gaming with Treasure Island Dizzy on the ZX Spectrum.

My favourite games are HL1, Natural Selection, Shenmue, Monkey Island 3, Caesar 3/Emperor and Dark Earth.

[Capiright]

Hello!
I'm Capi and I lead a small team through the development of good robot bad robot.
I am a programmer and project manager a few good years now.
Been working in the gaming periphery for a while till I got tired making other peoples games.

Hop you like it. I posted it on the feedback section so have fun with it 

Good night, capi

[lean]

Hello! I'm Leandro, from Argentina (or Lean, for easier English pronunciation) and I've always been a big fan of videogames and other visual arts. 

Also, I've always tried to make videogames (back when I was about  eight years old, my sister and I made a couple of "platformer games" in PowerPoint. Then I learned basic, bla bla). I have started multiple projects through my lifetime so far, but sadly, I didn't finish most of them as I tend to approach things that are out of my reach, generally skillwise.

Lately I started working on a game with my highschool friend (we went to an informatics oriented highschool) and here I am now.
I like checking indie games around the internet, but I usually don't get involved with forums and social activities as people always have projects to show, and I don't so it's kind of embarassing. Anyway, I registered here this time, and I hope I can hang around for a good time and get to share my work with you.

Big chunk of text, sorry. Now a short list of games that touched me in a kind of chronological order:

(hope this doesn't strech the frame)

Prince of Persia

Zen, Intergalactic Ninja

Dragon's Lair

Full Throttle

Beneath a Steel Sky

Heart of Darkness

Shadow of the Colossus


It's pretty hard to pick not too many games, but those are some of the most relevant in my life, and generally the games related to them are too.

[msmith]

Hi! I'm Mark Smith, and I am a long time lurker here at TIG Source. Not sure why I haven't actually signed up until now. I've been making games since about the age of 8 when my parents got me an Apple IIe for Christmas. Nothing crazy, text adventures and the like.

I lost interest in programming when I hit high school, and it wasn't until college where I started getting back into it by working on some mods for Quake 2/3. Worked on a few projects with small teams that didn't work out, then did the start-up thing out of college.


I finally got the itch again to work on a new project about three years ago, and have been plugging away in my spare time ever since. I entered my first solo project to IGF this year, and I am happy to finally start showing it off to people.

Check out http://www.crashtastic.com for a peak at what I have been up to!

[Sawtan]

Hello! I'm Glenn Edberg and I just found this forum, pretty weird that it would take such time since I've been active to and fro in indie gamedevelopment since 2004.
My history of gamedevelopment really start when Quake got released, I really loved doing small mods such as a Giblauncher and Santa Grunt, nothing advanced, but it really planted a seed that would later develop to something more serious.

In 2004 I joined up with Spell of Play studios and started work on my first casual title that would later become Time Breaker released by Alawar games http://www.alawar.com/game/time-breaker/, this was not much of a success in the end, but it was a good way to get into the feel of developing games. At this stage I worked pretty much only with graphics, but I wanted to learn programming and start doing my own games, this took quite some time, but today I feel that I'm a pretty able programmer and can embody most of my thoughts in both graphics and code.

As a gamer I guess it all started with NES, I was a total NES addict in the late 80's, later I got a Amiga500+ which was an amazing machine, I worked a lot with Deluxe Paint and got the munchies for doing game graphics. Later in the mid 90's I got my first PC and this is where Quake took my fancy, and the rest is history hehe.

Some of my absolute favorite games are:

X-Com: Terror from the Deep - Love to play this one, and I play it quite often.

Colonization - I really loved this title, got me into the Sid Meier franchise!

Eye of the Beholder series - Got I and II on my Amiga, probably the first dungeon crawler experience I had, blew me away!

Zelda: A Link to the Past - Who doesn't love this one!

Fallout games - Love the humor and art of these games!

Elder Scrolls games - Started with Daggerfall and I'm still a diehard fan! Skyrim is awesome!

Everything Blizzard minus WoW - Love the artstyle and atmosphere of their titles! A great inspiration on many levels!

These days I'm pretty much into HTML5 gamedevelopment, working on my latest project Zombie Grinder!

[Cassy]

So, uh, hello.

Actually, I'm not new, but I've been gone for three years.

I'm Cassy Cade, though probably I'm better known as Erin Gardien, Qelippot or null & void.

I took a three year hiatus where I tried to work on a full-scale UDK title, failed due to all the artists I tried to get (with promise of money) flaking out despite repeated promises of "One more week", and finally resigned myself to creating shitty electro-industrial and power electronics. Just tonight I became inspired to make a game that was relatively "lo-fi" -- and so I appear here, from the ethereal haze, ready to ravage TIGSource again.

Or, you know, do nothing of importance, like all those other times so long ago.

So, um, hi!

EDIT:
Special thanks to Xion, without whom I never would have found this topic, because I am apparently brainless, and also blind. (Thank you Xion!)

[raiderrobert]

Hi everyone! I'm Raider.

I've been gaming since before I remember. The earliest games I recall playing were on my Sega Master System, which I still have. Several titles comes back to mind: Great Basketball*, Astro Warrior, and Marble Madness. And on my Mac, I was allowed to play Where in the World is Carmen San Diego and Oregon Trail because they were educational.

Due to the educational value of these games, I was not limited to any time limit by my parents, so I recall in Oregon Trail in spending hours reducing the population of buffalo, antelope, and squirrels on the prairie. I also remember a rather humorous glitch that occurred when I decided to test the limits of what I could ask for in trading. I was able to trade something (clothing maybe) for 999 oxen, which I shouldn't have been allowed to do. Then I was promptly informed by the game that 979 oxen had died from starvation.  

For PC gaming, I remember playing a ridiculous amount of SimCity 2000 and Age of Empires. I also remember getting in a cereal box the game Chex Quest, a mod of the original Doom game. Eventually, I graduated to Battlefield 1942 and StarCraft. And I've just gone downhill from there. Recently, I've play SC2, TF2, and COD4 the most. Although I recently got back into Terraria, and I'm planning on playing Limbo soon.

But my favorite games include: Knights of the Old Republic, Age of Empires I & II, Total War series, Imperium Galactic series, Civilization series, the Battlefield series, Call of Duty before MW2, StarCraft series, WarCraft series (not WoW), Maxis' Sim games (SimFarm, etc) before the Sims, Portal series, Braid, World of Goo....I could keep on going on, but I think you get the point.

As an undergraduate, I studied Creative Writing. Since then I've employed my degree several different ways, including teaching English and writing various shorter works such as three 45 minute comedic plays. Recently I've been involved with Demergo Studios, a start up game studio. I finished the story for their first game during this year, and they'll be likely publishing the game this next year.

I'm coming here because I want to meet other writers in indie gaming, and just generally share what I've learned thus far in my writing career. And I really had no idea why I haven't joined here sooner.

*Note: I included links to YouTube videos to give examples of the games.

[Cail]

Greetings!  

Obviously, im new to the forums. Im not used to talking about myself, but here goes.

My name is Clifton, and I do 2d animation for a living, and it has been my passion for many years now. Im a big supporter of indie games. Ive had an itch for awhile now to get into indie production, but after Firing up and playing through Cave Story for the bajillionth time, It finally pushed me to pursue a partnership with a programmer to make something awesome and memorable. I have zero programming knowledge, but hopefully that will change relatively soon, with some of the research material Ive picked up. I prefer to be a part of the Graphical side of things though.

Im a big fan and supporter of Cave Story, Terraria, Super Meat Boy, Binding of Isaac, and many other indie titles. Soon to be a supporter of the upcoming Fez, which Ive waited decades to play xD haha.

My favorite games to play are brawler titles, fighting games, rpgs....hell, a bit of everything really. Nintendo and Playstation were my biggest influences as a kid, but now Im big into pc titles, not so much consoles anymore.

Indie games and small team productions are a huge inspiration for me, and encourages me to try even harder with my own works.

Here are some sprites ive developed for a game im working on in unity.

http://megaswf.com/serve/1374612
http://megaswf.com/serve/1375957
http://megaswf.com/serve/1375962

and a concept sketch I did up quick of a city scape theme for the first level. Original image is much larger, but resized for the forum.




I am excited to play fez!

Cheers!

[Westbit]

Hello everyone!
I fell in love with writing code and making games some 15 years ago.
I recently started wasting my spare time on some new projects targeting the fantastic iOS platforms. One is finished, more to come. Maybe. How come it's so much easier to start projects than to finish them?
Cheers,
Westbit of www.westbits.com

[moonkid]

Hey all -

I'm an occasional-games-journalist-turned-indie-developer. I'm currently involved in Throw the Looking Glass (www.throwthelookingglass.com) and Ark Games (www.arkgames.net), and always looking for projects that need writerly attention.

Also, I'm one quarter of a podcast on game development and design (www.gameenginepodcast.com), which has just hit 20 episodes. It's loads of fun and I hope genuinely useful. I'm going to post a thread on it in this forum, hence me introducing myself here.

I have actually been a member here for quite some time (and a lurker much, much longer), but have only posted a couple of times.

Cheers,

Saul Alexander

[Armitage1982]

Hi my name is Michaël Lievens, I'm from Belgium.
A land where indie game design is merely unknown.

Hopefully there is TigSource, a website I consult on a daily basis and a forum I lurk since a moment now.

Like many, I will present myself by the games who made me.

I will begin with my two video games heroes :

Eric Chahi - Another World (Out of this World)

I remember playing this game on secondary school. We had a few 386-486DX filled with  games, something my prof didn't enjoy a lot. Each lessons (basically : what's a computer at that times.) was an excuse to finish this game.

Jordan Mechner - Prince of Persia

I was visiting my cousins when I discover that game. They had a computer, something I was very attracted by but didn't exactly know what it was at the time. It was the DOS version of the game (so again, probably a 386-DX). I think a year past before I found another computer with this game and finish it.

Manfred Trenz - Turrican

I was even younger when I discover the Commodore 64 thanks to my godmother with whom I spent holidays. I remember playing a lot of great games on that computer. It's also the moment when I fall in love with 80's movies. Great memories.

Shigeru Miyamoto - Zelda 3 - A link to the past

I was 12 when I play this game on Super Nintendo. It's at this very moment I tell my self : I want to make video game. Ever since, I never stop to learn things myself for this purpose.

Metagolf - http://www.metagolf.net/

Metagolf is probably the first game I will publicly release and consequently it is an important step to achieve my goals. I build most of the engine myself, take a few risks with no budget at all. One of these risk was to leave my country for a whole year, discover the world ( http://arm42.com/austral/ ), work on something else and then see if I still want to make video games for a living.
That's totally the case !


I will stop there since I love so many video games that it would be endless.
Thanks for reading me

[anonymous]

Toranoko means in Japanese " pup" when you call someone a toranoko, you mean that he is a paper tiger, someone who appears brave but is actually a coward.  I like that imagery, so imagine me a tiger pup.



My name is Keo Bun, I grew up in western Massachusetts.  I'm 22.  I'm first generation Cambodian-American.  I travel all over, on my bike or with my thumb and live like a bum most of the time.  I Couchsurf, and have done some WWOOFing which I'd like to do more of in the future.  You should check them out if you want a break from your life, meet great people, and connect with that which sustains you yes I said it.  I'm a dirty hippy tramp.

Ever since I crack opened rpgmaker I've been interested in making games - though not as serious as now.  A close friend of mine I met in my last year of high school, had a deep appreciation for games, recalling how sometimes he gets overwhelmed by certain feelings game environments would give him - and also miyazaki's films.  I really admire to this day the way he thinks about games, and the game ideas he has.  He introduced to me Cave Story, and also Tigsource.

I've been out of high school for 4-5 year now, as long as I've had my relationship, I chased her around instead of going to college on full scholarship.  It's not been bad aside from having to leave eachother for 3 months due to visa restrictions [she's czech], and always returning home broke [both my heart and my pocket] and working shitty stinking minimal wage jobs just to do it all over again.

I have a certain conviction that if I graduated with my intended fine arts degree, I'd still be working shitty stinking minimal wage jobs.

Currently I'm throwing all the chips in, working day and night on improving my art, living off of food stamps for the time being, possibly doing work exchanges on WWOOF farms, toiling away in the wee nights, until I have something to show, biking from place to place.  Currently residing in Portland, Oregon.  May leave in a few weeks to tour the southwestern states with a buddy ending up at a wwoof farm.  Enjoying Arizona weather and nature, while making art and games - the best.

Outside of game making, I fucking love to dance, bike, meditate, read.  I like going to punk shows, love drum circles, that punkyfolksygypsybusking trend that's happening.  I couldn't walk for 3 days last weekend from dancing the whole day.

And that's where I'm coming from.

Namaste - haha

If you ask me to give you a resume I might just give you this.