first half is the debug mode in Apotheon

hmm I noticed a few of our Steam codes for our entry were used just today in the last 3 hours (we didn't get in for anything). I assumed judges had access to whatever games they wanted to judge (but were limited in how many they had at once), then after a certain deadline only the jury members of whatever category the game was selected had access to the game. Or do all judges have access to the games at any time?

edit: i should add though! I did really like the IGF backend and had no problems with it, was just curious about how the process worked

Looks like I'll be able to come, haven't booked my flight yet but I confirmed with a friend who I am staying with.
First game jam for me, should be good

Just a small update - still working on the site and hope to get out of beta end of the month.

One significant change is that instead of the 9% commission there will be no commission. Bandwidth costs are low enough that I don't think thats needed - so 100% of the price of the game goes to the developer. This might change for specific specials/bundles but right now there is no commision

New features added are the review system, pay what you want and additional payment options (based on current sales customers have actually added additional payment around 30% of the time), and the key system for developers to sell Steam keys or any other service keys

No plans for Android/Web based stuff, though Android might be possible later on

The focus right now is on figuring out the promotions/specials system. I want to make sure developers have control of their price at all times and can control sales - but at the same time there needs to be the right timing so that we constantly have scheduled specials/promotions for customers. So thats still something I am figuring out

Not impossible, but unlikely. There are tons of "new indie games portal!!!" sites popping up. Most of them have zero traffic and are forgotten almost as soon as they're created.

Devs who want to sell directly through paypal already can, and without anyone else taking any more fees. You need something more to offer.

I definitely agree with you yeah. The main motivation for starting this site was all the emails I got from indie game stores after I released my last game. They were all asking for 30%/25% (usually plus their merchants transaction fees, which can be $1-$1.25), and just in general were badly designed. In some ways it's a saturated market just because of the large amount of sites trying to do ‘indie stores’. But that definitely shows demand and interest - and I really just feel something like this should exist and it needs to be done well. I don’t think any site is out there that is focused on the developers.
It could be a while before the site gets a large userbase, that is without a doubt going to be the most challenging thing about getting a site like this going, even with a lot of promotions/bundles. But just because it’s ambitious doesn’t mean it’s not worth developing

--what sort of analytics will the site offer?
--what sort of control will developers have over their game pages?
--what control will developers have over pricing? Any pricing caps or floors? What about promotional pricing and sales? Will the site support pay-what-you-want sales?
--I notice no option to browse games by genre on the site (and actually, it looks like pretty much everything is categorized as Action + something else). What do you plan to use to steer customers toward games they're likely to enjoy?

Right now the only analytics are about sales, so you can see how the game is selling and who it's selling to. I am adding support for developers to see their own page's google analytics though, so I think that'll be enough.
Developers have complete control over pricing and their page. I should probably make a quick youtube video showing the game adding/editing process, but it's pretty easy.
Games have to be at least $0.99, though I could lower than to $0.50 if there is demand for it, but I think thats low enough.
I was planning on getting 'pay what you want' option done before the beta launch, but I didn't get to it, so it still might come soon.
And when it comes to browsing through games, I am hoping to develop recommendations based on the user's previous purchases/ratings, but that's not applicable for new users to the site. So I'll have to just focus on making browsing games as easy as possible for new users - http://beta.indievania.com/games (added genre/platform selection to the menu tonight), along with making sure the quality games are presented first.

Craig: thanks for that, fixed

There are no plans to integrate with BMTMicro, the game has to be uploaded to our S3 storage for the site to keep track of and restrict downloads.

I should have pointed out though, that the fees are substantially less for this than BMTMicro. BMTMicro has a minimum fee of $1.25, plus the 9%, this has no minimum fee, and I think I should even lower the 9%.

The idea behind this is to develop a tool that indie devs can use to sell their games and get the highest profit possible. If it's the best option for devs, that will drive the traffic for the rest of the games. I think we are going to have special bundles to help drive traffic also (most likely a launch bundle), but the main goal is to make this the best option for devs to sell on.
The reason the fee can be so low is just how the site was developed - with drupal/s3 hosting/paypal apis, meaning the only cost to keep the site running is the S3 hosting.

Hey everyone,
I wanted to get feedback on a project I've been working on for the last 2 months:
http://beta.indievania.com

It's a game marketplace focused on indie games, where developers sell games using their PayPal account (currently only PayPal supported, other services coming later). More info in a blog post here:
http://beta.indievania.com/blog/about-indievania

The site was developed after I tried a number of game distribution networks for Capsized and was unsatisfied with all of them (with the exception of Steam). The rates were too high considering the service they gave, I had no control over my own game pages, and getting paid was a difficult process. So I developed this site to solve that - very low fees (9%, I wanted to match fastspring/microbmt, but I might lower that further), payment is direct to developer, and the developer has complete control of their game/page on the service.

To go through the game adding process, go to 'Add Your Game' in the menu and register as a developer, then that takes you directly to adding a game. I am hoping this will be a great service to smaller games, with even $0.99 pricing, and also an alternative for current games for developers to get a higher profit margin.

I am really looking for feedback from other indie devs to see how they feel about the site - pricing/features/look/buying process, pretty much anything. Let me know any questions people have also

i played this quickly with a coworker and it was pretty fun - does the alcohol slow you down or have any effect?

it would be nice to control when the simulation starts, it's hard to build stuff together when things are rolling off the screen. Even with no gravity, I have a hard time arranging stuff because it just quickly flies away and I can't make it stop easily - other than putting on a pin, but i cant disable individual pins
it would also be good to have the tools listed in some grouping, or some sort of logical way rather than all just together - Motor / Pin / Spring are things to apply to objects, and Grab should be with copy/delete/etc, and the rest are creations
there doesnt seem to be a way to rotate boxes or anything
i also agree it could use goals


crash log:
Block Builder.exe:724: DeprecationWarning: integer argument expected, got float
\Block Builder.exe:725: DeprecationWarning: integer argument expected, got float
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "Block Builder.py", line 2461, in <module>
  File "Block Builder.py", line 1154, in remove_all_constraints
  File "pymunk\__init__.pyo", line 189, in remove
  File "pymunk\__init__.pyo", line 241, in _remove_constraint
KeyError: <pymunk.constraint.DampedSpring object at 0x14A56CF0>

Hey this is Lee from Alientrap Games, I joined these forums a bit ago but for whatever reason didn't introduce myself,

I got into gaming with FPS games, arena games like UT and Q3 - mostly Rune by Human Head Studios.
I started the open source project Nexuiz along with the developer Forest 'LordHavoc' Hale in 2002 or so - I actually can't remember any point in my life when i wasn't working on some game project. LordHavoc and a few other developers are now working on a commercial version of Nexuiz to be released for PS3/Xbox/PC.
I had a number of failed projects after Nexuiz, then in 2009 me and the artist Jesse McGibney started Capsized which was released on Steam a few weeks ago. And now I am working on some different projects, hopefully with release dates of this year

They could be developing some sort of digital distribution store to go against Steam - they have a good opportunity to do it

I was definitely disappointed that our game Capsized wasn't even mentioned, mainly for visual arts and audio. I am not really bitter about the contest but it really doesn't make sense to me, hopefully judges notes will give some idea. I think a part of it is I gotta get more into the indie community and see what people are up to, hence why this is my first post

In any case i still love the Visual Arts selection more than I thought I would - Bastion / Hohokum