I can't make it due to a birthday party (my own!), but I'd go if I could. I had a great time at the last one. =D
My favorite time apart from the coding was the bomberman session at Dock's place.

I shall be there!

When is the game most fun? If you can find a "hook", that's probably what you want to put in the demo. Then end it on a high note, keeping the player wanting more.

I'm not scared away by difficulty, buy I am scared away by being confused. Or in other words, I'm fine with losing as long as I understand WHY I lost and not lost just because I didn't understand the interface.

As for having a too big demo, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Focus on getting enough in there to get the player addicted. If it takes several levels, let it do so.
I would suggest throwing the player directly at the most fun part of the game, though.

Care to elaborate? I don't believe there are any uncracked DRM. Well, some games haven't been cracked, but this is mostly a case of obscurity, not security.

Ah, sorry, I didn't mean there was uncrackable DRM.
I meant basically exactly what you said in the second sentence there. Some things haven't been cracked yet, so it CAN slow down some people (especially if you're not huge), but there's no way to make it truly secure.

When you steal something, someone loses something. Not as in "loses a potential sale", but actually "is not able to sell that thing at all any more".

Piracy is copyright infringement, not theft.

Anything you give to the players can and will be hacked in any way. If you make a hugely complex isAllowedToRun() method, it takes minutes to make it always return true. You can duplicate this method all over the place in different shapes, but the fact is that anything you put in there can always be hacked, and there's nothing you can do about it ever.

So the only solution is to NOT give them the game, for example by doing this:

Have the client only draw graphics, do all processing on the server. This has the added advantage of not needing to update clients on small bugfixes and being able to collect user statistics (since you're running the actual app on the server). This is basically how MMOs work. Not really, but simplified.

This is mostly theoretical, though.. In practice there are some fairly successful hard to crack DRM schemes out there that haven't been cracked yet.

It depends on how much time you want to spend making the game, what your technical requirements are all, and why you're writing the game.

If you want to learn or have specific requirements, by all means write your own!

If you just want to get the game done and don't need extra fancy stuff, I'd suggest using something existing.

Today I made OO tilt when he runs on inclines.

Oh wow, that looks great! Very playful (almost Yoshi's Island), I love the bullet hell enemy thing.

 

That's a really impressive conversion rate for donations!

As a customer, I don't care what you do with the money, so make sure not to phrase it like "buy this game and I will spend some of my money on charity".
If you instead involve the customer directly (like glum buster does), and treat the donations as a fundraiser, I'll feel like I'm joining some joint effort. And that's nice.

If there's some overlap of themes in the game and the charity you choose, you might get even better conversion rates. Like donating to help fight back problems while playing tomb raider.

It's not the size of the disk, it's the revolutions per minute?

Nicely put, Vostrov. I was gonna point out the excuse that you missed, and the most rage-inducing one - "It's not theft or hurting anyone because it's just a copy. You're not 'losing money' if I pirate this, it just means I'm playing something that I otherwise wouldn't."

Well, the core of that statement is true.

Hi, I'm Markus Persson, and people are pirating my game. This does not in any way impact the fact that I'm doing very well off my game.

Pirates do not cost real sales, only potential sales, but there are a hell of a lot more potential sales out there than there are lost sales to pirates. For example, there's a couple of billion people out there who haven't even HEARD of my game. If I could get 0.01% of them to buy the game, I'd be set for life.
Why should I focus on trying to convert a target group that's already made a direct statement about their desire to purchase?

But I will say that "it's easier to steal than to buy", when it's not just an excuse, could potentially really be seen as a lost sale. You made it difficult for your customers, so they got it by other means.
It's probably a good idea to consider piracy your competition, not an outright enemy.

My gf names her plants. She's got a small palm tree called Laura Palmer. I said I'd get a pair of loppers and name it "Bob".

Back when I was working on Wurm Online, I named my hard drives after the gods. I still have Magranon laying around here somewhere..

I'm thinking about how to name my Pandora (which will hopefully arrive soon here) since "Pandora" itself won't be that unique.

Nice, I'm eagerly awaiting mine too! Hephaestusdottir? Too long?

These days, I mostly name things "Notch"+something. My WLAN is called NotchLand, my PS3 is called NotchStation, and my main computer is Notchputer. So I'm probably going to call my pandora Notchdora..

The second it finishes loading it just kinda disappears... so I can't play this. 

Macintosh? As soon as the new MBPs get released, I'm getting a mac for testing..
If it's not mac, what hardware do you have? How much memory does it say it's got in the title menu?

Hey Notch!  Good to see you posting here again.

Hey hey! I'm trying to be more active in the TIG community. =D I've even started reading some of the forums again.

PSP being an obvious exception)

I actually started playing PSP games quite a lot when I got the PSP Go. I find it to be almost the perfect handheld gaming device. Well.. until the Pandora comes out. :D

Hey hey hey! There's an interview with me up on gamasutra.com now, and I'm super excited! :D

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27719/Interview_Markus_Notch_Persson_Talks_Making_Minecraft.php

It doesn't look truly 3D as you can discern between the layers, and you are limited physically to a number of layers, so there is a relatively small set of z-values.

Really? I can't even begin to understand why it would have a limit like that.

From what I've heard, it uses parallax barrier, which shows two separate images to each eye. That has no limit on the number of layers, or z values, and allows for images both behind and in front of the screen.

(Note that if you only place things on even pixels and have no anti aliasing, you get a limit of how close the z layers can be, but there's no limit on the number of layers other than the actual width of the screen)

Is this "3D without glasses" the same as

?

This is what I'm expecting.

.

God, I hope that's not it. I want proper steroscopic images, not something that attempts to track what angle my eyes are to the screen, fail, and will always lag behind.

A passive technology (parallax barrier, as mentioned before) would be perfect since you almost always hold a hand held gaming device at somewhat predictable distances and angles.

And just imagine, Zelda 85 - Ghastly Subways will have 3d bosses! Woo!

I'm currently reading Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. Very strange, very interesting, ever so slightly outdated.

Next up is either Fevre Dream, or I am a Strange Loop.

I quit my last job specifically because I wasn't allowed to work on games on the side. I got a great job working for a company that started out as an "on the side" type of deal that went good, so they have a very relaxed policy about stuff like that.

If I could give one advice, however, it would be to get everything in print. Verbal promises (while legally binding), don't really hold up too well if they decide to change their mind.

I've signed up now, as Notch.

Bring the svenska! =D