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[increpare]

Main List:

allegro.cc (allegro)
AGS Forums (AGS)
Blitz Basic Community (Blitz Basic)
Castle Paradox (OHR)
FreeGameDev.net (Open Source)
GameDev.net
Gaming World Forums
Game Maker Community (Game Maker)
Glorious Trainwrecks
iDevGames (mac)
IndieGamer.com
Ludum Dare
LÖVE CLUB (LÖVE)
Mugen Fighters Guild Forum
Retro Remakes
Robosquid
Shmup-Dev
TIGsource
Unity Community (Unity)
Yoyo Games (Game Maker)

Others:

Artsy Games Incubator
The Daily Click (Clickteam)
Developia (auf Deutsch)
DevMaster
EO Community (Private, invite-only, game-maker)
Experimental Gameplay Project
Linux Game Tome (linux)
Indie Zen (Zen Engine)
Rogue Temple (Roguelikes)
The Poppenkast (discussion)
64digits (wip section)

Flash Portals:

Kongregate
Albino Blacksheep
Newgrounds (portal)


It was weird entering in LD13, sort of shifting into a parallel community for a couple of days, who use a wide range of different tools, and have enough of a different slant in their approach to games that I might be willing to designate them a separate 'school'.  There were a lot of games (the Towlr ones, for instance) that I had never heard of before, but that were seriously interesting. 

But anyway, I realized that though there're many of them, it's still reasonably possible to compile an informative list (provide we don't worry too much about getting a comprehensive list of flash portals), to get a sort of overview of the indie-communities about.

Hmm...I'm not sure quite how best to go about categorization, now that I think of it.  In principle particular game dev tool forums shouldn't be ruled out, but one would like to see a community of people making particular games, not just a tech Q&A board with little or no presence of finished products (yeah, I guess I'm taking as my model TIGsource...).

Really I guess I'd like a quick way to navigate between all these various and diverse game making communities (that often don't overlap much with each other), and see what they're up to.

Maybe this would be a hopelessly messy task?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yeah, there are different groups. Another one is the indiegamer.com crowd, who make mostly shareware indie games. The GMC community (the game creations forum) would be another. Another would be the gamedev.net forums crowd. There's the Grand Text Auto type stuff too. There are probably hundreds of them. Some people are involved in several, and some people just focus on one.

[Hajo]

A list would be useful. I found this just by chance, since Terry mentioned it on another forum. Even if each island is different, I'd like pointers on shipping routes from one to the others

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Ludumdare is an interesting community because it doesn't have a forum at all!  It has an IRC channel that is always active to some extent, and many of the main people behind LD have their own forums, but it doesn't really have a hub other than a shared blog. I'm not used to this sort of thing.

Their one-man approach to the contest also breeds a different type of person.  I quite like it, it's a pretty friendly community.

Other obvious communities are the ones that exist around game-creation programming languages, like pygame, blitz, Darkbasic, Unity, etc. Most of the people there count as indie by virtue of what they are doing is amateur to some extent.

[increpare]

Another would be the gamedev.net forums crowd.

Oh, I hadn't noticed that they have an announcement board before; I generally just go there for their rather fantastic tech boards  :D  There's a lot of crud there, to be sure, but a couple faces I recognise.

Ludumdare is an interesting community because it doesn't have a forum at all!  It has an IRC channel that is always active to some extent, and many of the main people behind LD have their own forums, but it doesn't really have a hub other than a shared blog. I'm not used to this sort of thing.

Yeah, I found the whole community aspect to be pretty confusing myself.  There is a definite community there though.

Their one-man approach to the contest also breeds a different type of person.  I quite like it, it's a pretty friendly community.

I didn't go to their IRC room until after the deadline, and generally didn't get into the spirit of LD13 (except for the game-making part...).

I found this just by chance, since Terry mentioned it

ditto

[increpare]

Okay...so a tentative (very short, doubtless to increas by several orders of magnitude)

I'm also linking directly to their feedback forums.  If they don't have one, or something like it, then I guess that's a reason to exclude them from the list?  Also, private forums (like poppenkast) aren't included.  Both of these points are up for debate.  Either way, each of the others can be accommodated to their some list (maybe the main one, maybe a sibling list).

Anyway, a start:

[MOVED TO FIRST POST; will keep it updated there]

I'm sure there're a couple of people who do the rounds publicising games on various forums who must be able to suggest many other places?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

If you're just looking for social places where indie games tend to be released. There was one at garage games too I think. And there's the experimental gameplay project. There's castle paradox for the OHR. There's probably equivalents somewhere for zzt, mmf, blitzbasic, blitz3d, rpgmaker, mugen, and so on.

p.s. also retro remakes.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Actually, if you really want to know where they all are, ask Tim W, he probably has his brain directly attached to all of them, in order to achieve the level of coverage he achieves.

[increpare]

If you're just looking for social places where indie games tend to be released. There was one at garage games too I think. And there's the experimental gameplay project. There's castle paradox for the OHR. There's probably equivalents somewhere for zzt, mmf, blitzbasic, blitz3d, rpgmaker, mugen, and so on.

p.s. also retro remakes.

I've started adding some of those.  I don't think EGP really counts though for what I've been thinking of.  It does have interesting stuff, to be sure, but doesn't feature much/any discussion, or feedback as such.  It functions more as a portal.  Though maybe the same could be said about LD?  Hmmm.

Actually, if you really want to know where they all are, ask Tim W, he probably has his brain directly attached to all of them, in order to achieve the level of coverage he achieves.

Good idea.  Let's see what others have to say.  If, after others have contributed the list still feels lacking, I'll send him a mail.

[laserghost]

Here's some suggestions, though I'm not sure of the status of the community, if any, surrounding these sites:

http://64digits.com/
http://www.newgrounds.com/ (Flash portal yes, but an important one.)
http://nomediakings.org/artsygames/

[Zaphos]

allegro.cc is another one -- it has some interesting traditions, like speedhack, minorhack, etc

[increpare]

Cheers Shoo.  I've made notes of those.  Not sure where to add artsygames and 64digits...for now I'm going to put them in the 'other' section.

allegro.cc is another one -- it has some interesting traditions, like speedhack, minorhack, etc

Hah! How could I have forgotten allegro.cc?  It's the only games forum other than this one that I've posted on  :D

[Aik]

In the realm of indie PnP RPG making, there is The Forge and Story Games. Not sure if they fit into your list...

[increpare]

In the realm of indie PnP RPG making, there is The Forge and Story Games. Not sure if they fit into your list...

not really, but cheers all the same

[Edmund]

is the gametunnel.com community still active? -Edit. nevermind.

[Türbo Bröther]

Me and my homies.

[increpare]

Me and my homies.

added (took me a couple of seconds to navigate through the train metaphors though...)

[Türbo Bröther]

Yes, as you can see we are very serious about our work.

[increpare]

Yes, as you can see we are very serious about our trains.

verily

[Loren Schmidt]

There's also http://www.roguetemple.com/