I was speaking of the latter.

For me, I've always toyed around with parsers and interpreters, so making my game moddable is trivial at most. [...]

So would it actually be better to not allow modification until/unless there's a sequel? I would think just having the option from the beginning would be the way to go.

If that's what you want to do, go for it. I don't see any way it could hurt a release. I wouldn't think it would be worth the extra effort, but there is nothing to say that the game won't take off and the modding could be a key factor in that. Do what you believe in and make something you're proud of. That's the heart and soul of an indy game.

Other indy developer sites at all or just community sites? Any traffic from ads/banners or the like or is it mostly forum linked traffic?

so there are things you can do that help, but to me there's really no solid connection between the popularity of a game and its quality nor the effort spent promoting it; it's like the weather.

Is this a static weather pattern, or does more/continued marketing do anything for indy 'weather'?  After the initial push for a games release, how much marketing would you suggest doing after the fact?

Of course it's possible for games to be 'discovered' a year or more after their release, but isn't that highly unlikely?

What about making a game fully moddable? How does that play into sales?

Are we talking LittleBigPlanet customizable? Or Counterstrike out of Halflife modding?

If you mean the former, custimization is all the rage of course. If the game is a social game, in that you can share your customizations, it becomes part of the gameplay, even if it's just dressing up your hero. It may or may not be worth the effort to get into the game though. I guess that would depend on how much time you feel you'll be implementing more peripheral aspects. I'd considering it 'polish' unless the game is based around the concept of customization.

If you are speaking about modding as the latter example, which I believe you are it should help -- provided you already have an audience. Not having any developer experience with this, only customer experience, if there isn't a strong community (for a specific game or developer), there isn't much of a point to modding. Who is going to be interested in doing the modding? I would think (again no developer experience with it) that re-releasing a project that did well, or releasing a sequel or expansion to a project that did well would be the best time to introduce modding capability. Once you have a game that people want to play, there will be some that will want to expand or change it. Don't assume that people are going to want to toy with your game before you even have players.

Good code (IMO) always keeps expandability in mind. I wouldn't put too much effort into mod-ability for your first commercial game though.

Thanks for the response. I don't tend to have a lot of people I can bounce ideas off of that have any clue what I'm talking about.

Taking a more scientific approach to the game, the player will slowly gain a fair amount of detail about the organisms and will be able to influence the environment for better or worse. They will also be able to directly interact with individual organisms.

While color doesn't have to be a main distinguishing feature, I think you're right in that it seems well suited and is likely my best bet. Thinking about it further, and using the color coding will likely take away some tedium that might otherwise be needed to identify and categorize organisms.

In fact, thanks to your mental prod, I think I've gotten it figured out. Each gene will influence the color is a slightly different way. The further apart the organisms are genetically, the less their coloration will have in common. I'll have to see how play testers feel about it once it's in, but it's going in the design plan.

Well, being rather inexperienced with AS and not having had to deal with graphical elements (other than UI) in my other coding projects I wasn't aware of the vector class. I'll certainly be looking into it now though! Thanks.

the vector class in flash is a container, not a math vector just so you know

Yup. Figured that one out pretty quick. Physics here I come. lol. I haven't had a whole lot of time to go over vector math yet, but from my initial glances it seems understandable (if non-trivial). Into the wild blue unknown I go!

Is there something wrong with taking a vector average of headings?

Well, being rather inexperienced with AS and not having had to deal with graphical elements (other than UI) in my other coding projects I wasn't aware of the vector class. I'll certainly be looking into it now though! Thanks.

Edit edit: coincidentally, my job right now is using a flocking-based method adapted to a solver for unconstrained non-linear optimisation problems in quantum chemistry. You wind up with swarms of particles moving in anywhere from 30-60 dimensions, flocking around and trying to find optimal solutions. Neat, huh?

That does sound interesting.

@st33d: Sure have, as well as various other resources. Just struggling a little with the implementation, mostly due to my inexperience in AS and with graphical elements in general.

What, specifically, is the issue?

Currently, it's calculating an average heading.

Beyond that it's the question of, how to stop those in front of the group avg from peeling off and heading towards the center, but I'm assume prioritizing alignment over group position will solve that.

For smaller projects I've always used a Google wave. Has worked out nicely for all involved. For larger projects... Actually I've yet to have a project too large that I wanted to move away from using a wave. I'm sure the day will come.

Working on flocking in AS3. More specifically, I have individual flocking working, but am working on group flocking dynamics. Really need to get my head around the angle/degrees/radien crap. 

Could the maths for the movement I made for these fishes and this head last week be of any help?

I don't think so, but thanks for the offer!

I've been able to piece together the math (I really need to get some good trig and linear algebra books) but honestly it's more about wrapping my head around how to use each of the formats -- because I'd rather not constantly convert from one to another for complex calculations.

Soon as I get the group flocking working the way I like, it's on to obstacle avoidance!  *yipes*

Working on flocking in AS3. More specifically, I have individual flocking working, but am working on group flocking dynamics. Really need to get my head around the angle/degrees/radien crap. 

While not programming related, also actively looking for an artist for an iconic 'blinsight' character and perhaps an animated banner. Yay progress!   

Beginning my first new topic here, with much fear of the "you're cluttering the boards" responses -- if there is someplace better for this, please let me know.

I've been slowly working on what was a side side project simply to learn AS3, flocking and eventually genetic algorithms but it always seems to creep to the forefront of my mind. It's grabbed my attention again I'm really still working on getting flocking to work in a way I'm happy with , but my mind will never stop pushing the design for the game. The simple synopsis is this:

You play as a scientist facilitating the growth of a small species in a petri dish as they become more complex over generations.

My design question is based on two, what I feel are conflicting, views I hold on genetics and gaming. As the species mutates it has various traits that will change, including physical ones (color, shape, etc.). Eventually there will be a split into multiple evolutionary paths which should be distinguishable to the player. This is where my question comes in.

The mindset aligned with the more casual gamer view suggests that evolutionary paths should be linked to say...the color of the creature, or the shape of the creature. Shape, I've decided needs to be a factor for obvious reasons, but because color is likely to be one of the more distinguishing features of the creature seems a likely choice. The simulationist gamer in me, however, would rather the paths emerge naturally -- generally visible only by behavior.

There is of course a lot of range for mixing these two ideas such as allowing a color range to go along with an evolutionary path which will naturally show it's own behaviors etc. but even that feels really artificial to the stimulationist in me.

From my tests I believe the 'correct' answer is a mix of the two views that I just haven;t settled on yet and so I wanted to throw the topic out there for comment.

What are your thoughts?

Easily identifiable color coding?
More emergent behaviors defining evolutionary groups?
Something in between?

With one person I'm working with, he already has his own registered business so I'm going to just come on via contract with agreement to share audit information.

No matter how you go about it, you mentioned the key term there. Contract Contract Contract! Always have a contract and be as clear as possible who has what duty, including final decision making, and what the compensation is.

So, what's the general recommendation here? Don't bother selling this game, but instead look into flash development?

My opinion is that Flash would be a better route to go. Since you already code learning ActionScript 3 shouldn't be too daunting and you may find that you can churn out smaller games for a few pennies real quick. Those small learning projects lead to larger, more complex or better polished games that will only increase revenue.

Someone who has released Flash games and had some monetary gain from them would have better insight, but it seems to me that with flash you get shorter dev times and similar(?) monetary returns. Certainly the way I'm looking to build a portfolio solo as I look for teams for larger projects.

I've been working on Buildsim just for personal enjoyment and experience. A couple of months ago, I realized that I might be able to make some money from it as well. I came up with this plan for the next few years, but I'm not sure if it's good or not...

Obviously, this is over a period of time--I have no plans on getting rich this year

Any comments or suggestions?

Go for it. You never know what will come of it until you actually do it. Worse case, it totally fails and you now have experience making, finishing and releasing a game. To add to that, you will likely know things you would do, and would want to avoid doing for your next game. Is that really a failure?

I wouldn't EXPECT money for a first project, but it doesn't mean it can't happen. Do what you love and make something you want to play. There ARE others out there like you.

This sounds like it will be a very interesting project. The one criticism I see right off the bat is that if the character you play is also procedurally randomized then that will create a great disparagement in the scores attainable during the play throughs.

Mind you, the procedurally generated levels and such will as well, but not to the extent as having, or not having, a good ability for a specific game style for instance.

If you are simply going for a personal best as far as score is concerned it may not be much of an issue, but if it is going to be at all competitive with a shared scoreboard or something of the like, you might want to think about using duplicate bridge-ish techniques?

[HAVE]

They legally HAVE to try to protect their property, otherwise they lose it.

This is the one of the most common IP myths. In fact, it is not true.

Now, if they never enforced their copyright over an extended period of time, you might argue, if they tried to sue you, that the item was in the public domain.

That is exactly the issue. If they were found to not have attempted to protect their IP they may lose the rights to that IP as it may be considered abandoned. While I didn't run into this specific term while dealing with this issue as part of an LLC I'm involved in, if you check the wiki page, it states that enough usage of a term may allow it to be ruled "Generic" and thus no longer an IP.

While it may be easy to, within a given period (a few years), attempt to protect your property, if you don't and if it is used substantially, it will be deemed public domain. This point was pressed upon us by the judge overseeing our case -- noting that various terms like "substantially" are subjective when it comes to the law and a judgment could go either way. "Always protect your IP" was the judicial advice. [I won't go into the arguments that the law system is a self perpetuating/promoting business. Which I tend to agree with.]

So yes, if you do not attempt to protect your IP, it can, and will (at some point) cease to belong to you.

Not sure I'd push it with the name "Tetrashade". [Edit: No, I KNOW I wouldn't use that name] 1 letter off from having the actual game name your are using the gameplay of is too risky IMO when other names could work just fine. What they can protect is the Tetris name.  

The game concept has never been protectable, that's not the issue. So long as your game is different enough, you shouldn't have a problem. From a business standpoint, it had better be different and original, or it's not going to sell anyway.

[HAVE]

Um, how do they not? If you make a Tetris-like game, you're infringing on their copyrights and they can sue you.

They don't have copyrights. The only thing able to protect the game concept of Tetris would be a US patent, which they do not have and cannot obtain. I've thoroughly researched this subject, so I do know what I'm talking about.

They argue that it is intellectual property rights that are infringed upon. http://harddrop.com/article/article_160/

Just don't make a tetris clone, and you can't use any distinguishable part of the Tetris name. No Tetblock, Block-tris or *tris in fact. There is nothing wrong with doing a puzzle game. Just make it your own and you should be fine.

Worst case scenario, they send you a cease and desist order and you comply by stopping the sales of your game. Unless you have made some ungodly amount of money off of it, that's all they will want. They legally HAVE to try to protect their property, otherwise they lose it.

Don't get me wrong, hyping a game before it comes out and doing a short story about a playable demo or the like is great, especially for the indy crowd (if the game is anywhere near being finished). Dev blogs are wonderful for this sort of thing. What I dislike is the full stories about what amounts to little more than a concept or a proof of concept that may give you SOME insight to the game, but in the end is almost nothing like the released product -- IF the product even gets released.

I know marketing and advertising is a big part of getting your product out there (indy or not) but having a full write-up about something that is too early to tell if they can pull off what they say they are going to, before there is any substance to the vaporware, is just for attention and anticipation. We don't need more Duke Nukem Forevers...