My pics are up on Flickr

That isn't to say that machinarium isn't very beautiful and well made, Cletus Clay just struck a chord with me and I was sad not to see it win.

That's wonderful of you to say but Machinarium had to win. We had already decided that if we did get lucky then we'd say as much on stage. It's just amazing.

The Cletus we showed on the show floor was quite different to the version we submitted to the IGF. We'd put in Anthony's original low-res 2d Blitz version and (if anyone got it running) had included an early build using HD artwork and 2.5d. We weren't very happy about it but circumstances were beyond our control so to get a nomination at all was a surprise.

People seemed to take to the new looks thankfully - which is good because it's been so difficult to make work.

Congrats to all the well deserved winners and I also wanted to say how cool everyone was too, especially our Dyson neighbours!

Photos will go on Flickr sortly.

Tired amazing tired manic tired weird tired REALLY TIRED.

I always make the mistake of staying out too late and by Friday I'm a mess, usually followed by a Saturday being ill.

The main thing is to go out and enjoy it. You'll meet all sorts of wonderful people at GDC if you're prepared to speak to anyone.

Anthony Flack's written quite a cool blog post about it means for him to attend GDC.

I think it'll resonate with a few other TIGSource peeps.

Hope to see some of you next week 

[you]

If you're making games for fun and have a day job, then just make a game you want to play.

If you want to make a living then you have to make an artistic choice; the game you want to play may not be a game lots of people will pay for. The question is, as always, do you take the risk or do you make a different game?

Doing something in order to make a living is not (usually) selling out. The people who say that sort of thing generally don't have kids and a mortgage and a pet goldfish to look after.

In the end, you have to do what makes you happy; it is not for others to tell you.

We found an apartment for the 5 of us in the end. Could be... cosy.

For anyone interested, we've just started Twittering development and are also uploading pics and videos.

Hopefully see some of you @ GDC. The Flack himself will be there to say hi

I'm going to have to disagree there (specifically on the Castle Crashers and Braid parts.)

http://kotaku.com/5123138/these-were-the-most+played-games-over-xbox-live-in-2008

You'll find that the IGF played a role getting those games there, and also that if you go into a game store most people still won't have heard of those games, or the Pixeljunk series. This is partly down to platform holders not being very good with promoting PSN/Wii content (user ratings, presents for friends, poor initial offerings, etc).

There is a difference between what they achieved and a game entering the mainstream consciousness, ala Fable, Fallout, etc. Castle Crashers is definitely moving in that direction though, and the point I was making is that the IGF is a way to help make this shift happen.

Still, you are right in that these games have done well and it's a really good thing too.

In terms of "what is indie" - it can be discussed forever because it means different things to different people. What's important is that the IGF judges take everything into account in their process.

Given that Sony have been very supportive of Q Games since the PS3 launched, I'm surprised they got nominated (so much too), but that's the judges' perogative. Q certainly have the right philosophy...

re: Q Games

I was very surprised to see them in the list because I wondered why they'd submit in the first place.

The answer is simple, and is faced by the likes of near annual nominees Behemoth and Grubby Games. Almost all the awards in the games world are for big budget games, and those awards are often decided semi-politically or with internal votes (I know, I get to vote for one set of awards).

Meanwhile, the IGF was set up to promote and reward those on the other end of the spectrum.

There is a big gap for "independent" games from the likes of Q Games. There was no gap before because this market didn't exist until very recently. The IGF is having to stretch from 1 man bands to the likes of Q Games.

I disagree with people who think Q Games have nothing to gain. Its very difficult to get publicity for these smaller games; many mainstream gamers still haven't heard of Castle Crashers, Braid or the Pixeljunk series.

Awards help get publicity, sales, future projects, and funding. The myth is that once you get going then it's easy. It isn't, you get other complications, and in fact it can be even harder because you have to actually make a living from it.

Both new developers starting out and existing small indie devs need the boost that IGF offers.

All this makes it difficult for the IGF but I do believe that the judges will take everything into account when making their decisions.

BTW Dyson interview is up on tunasnax today (good timing). As some of you know, it more or less came about because of TIGSource.

Yay, Cletus Clay made it too!

Also, good to see Dyson and Machinarium there, amongst others. Lots of new games to explore now

No videos yet but a little more on the blog today including something to give you an idea how it'll look on HD.

Quite different to the original but I hope people thing it's ok. You know when you're working full steam on a project you can become a little blind to it.

the screens look awesome...good to know that it will be released in the not too far future... 

I believe the only screens available are older ones. We'll blog some new artwork in the next few weeks - claymation in HD is awesome

Cletus Clay is happening - blog just opened over at our TunaSnax site

Anthony's been really busy for the last few months but he's very much still alive & pushing plasticine pixels, although just maybe we have him caged away in a dark, dank cellar somewhere in Tuna Towers.

Congrats. Hope you enjoy Frontier

(also posted to TCE)

So my nice lawyer has said he'll let me do a bit of QnA with him for indies since he works with a few of us.

So, if any indie devs or wannabe indie devs have legal or IP related questions, if you post them here I shall try and get answers for you. They'll be edited for the blog but I'll put anything relevant directly here too.

And, obviously, I'll recommend my (UK) lawyer!

Free legal advice, don't knock it

[also posted on indiegamer forums so apologies for any duping]

Hi all. Just a short post as my new blog - newretro.org - may be interesting to some of you whether you are doing more traditional games or casual.

Over the new few days I'll be discussing the pros/cons of considering development on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, PC and others.

I have various other bits'n'pieces tagged up, including about funding access, development issues, pitching, indie legal issues, and so on.

If anyone has suggestions, post them up or drop me a PM.

(Long time lurker - finally registered up!)

I'm actually writing about selecting between xbla, psn, wiiware et al. over at newretro.org over the next few days. Hopefully it'll be useful for some people here.

Generally speaking, posters here are correct. XBLA is hard to get on, PSN not so hard but Sony are strict about the manner of submissions, and WiiWare means Nintendo opening the door to you which is harder than it should be.

iPhone is a new option but a niche and somewhat unknown market. Could work well for indies but you'll need to market your product hard and you could be up against a lot of opposition in the near future - investors are liking the iPhone on portfolios right now. That means companies have investor cash to spend on original and branded iPhone games to compete with your little indie title.