is it just me or does this gif image seem like it's buggy / glitched? i'm on google chrome so it may just be the browser though

At first I though this was some really weird mechanic and was thinking "fun, but that wouldn't be very easy to understand". Then it went full LSD. I'm on Firefox.

They look for a BSc Previous Industry Experience.

But in all seriousness, a portfolio is much more important than any degree. Having some sort of game design degree over a generic IT one is probably advantageous, but not as much as one might expect.

I think a lot of it comes down to personal preferences on what projects to work on. There is a lot of choice for programmers, especially if the project isn't paid. For example, a game about "swimming as a fish and eating other fish" wouldn't quite do it for me.

Coffee

I think some might have unrealistic expectation of what "rural" actually is in non-first-world countries. It's fine to consider US, UK, Japan, etc. and how conventions, local indies, meetups etc. are all a factor. But consider if I moved even 50 km away from capital or large cities I can say goodbye to stable (or definitely cheap) internet or nearby electronics shops. The capital might look almost first-world until you drive 10 minutes out.

I suspect this has gone out of fashion in recent years because games generally suck, and if you even got to play the first 10 minutes your money would begin magnetically repelling itself from that purchase.

It's much easier to make a sexy and enticing video/trailer and then force people to give you money just to test if the trailer is lying to you.

So much this. God forbid you see a single instance of gameplay that isn't tailored by a PR team.

Sites filled with paid reviews don't get real readers, people can smell it a mile away

But they get bots and higher search engine rankings, which is sometimes all they want.

Bt, anyway if there gonna be a sew and a court - then the judge will take your opponnent's side because their domain (or game name) is irrevocably older then yours.

This is only true for trademarks that are also found to be for similar products (which it is in this case). But if my baby shampoo is called Lettercaster, I have almost no chance suing you over the trademark.

From player's perspective, when I buy a game, I want the full game. I somewhat despise DLCs as they are never as advertised and charge way too much for way less. I also don't like episodic releases and only get them all once they are released.

From developer's perspective, it makes sense to release in episodes if you can keep the momentum up and have a fanbase willing to wait. As mentioned, it has to be story or characters that advance, not just more levels or something. This way, you can charge more while distributed over several mini-games, this way supporting ongoing development and even responding to feedback.

But this doesn't work for all games. For example, The Walking Dead game was great, even if broken into episodes. They already have a huge fanbase and the whole series lends itself to episodes. A smaller example would be Hector adventure games. On the other hand, even though HL2:EP1/2 were pretty good, it got a whole lot of backlash for being short as it didn't feel like a full game and Valve couldn't keep the "more frequent" promise given the scope involved.

You should really specify what platform(s) you are targeting as that may or may not significantly alter what kind of language/framework can be used. You should probably also mention if the extra features you need are not already available in ready-made VN engines, which might significantly simplify the task if you are willing to use one.

So, poorer countries aren't really that much cheaper to live in. They are simply poorer. Food prices and rent might be slightly lower, but you can't live on food alone. Services, luxury goods (including video games), clothes -- those tend to be roughly the same or even more expensive than in the US.

I'm from Latvia and I'd like to reiterate on this point that housing and food may be cheaper in poorer countries, but luxury goods certainly aren't. Electronics and software cost just as much (and, in fact, more in Europe when converting straight $/€). That said, once you're done with initial investment, you can probably relax.

Per capita GDI in Poland was $21k in 2012, $23,5k in Russia. For comparison: US is at $50k.

I think it's worth noting that although the GDP/GDI may be similar, the distribution among population isn't. For example, Russia is notorious for having rich cities but very poor coutryside. 35% of country's wealth is held by a little over 100 people.

in the US we pay two taxes -- one to the state, and another to the federal government. often if you add them up, and combine with sales tax, taxes can be very high (can reach 50% in some cases). even just self-employment tax is very high.

Here we pay income tax and insurance tax for a total of ~50%. And there is hardly any help or incentive for self-employment. Plus the social pressure, as hardly anyone is self-employed. The actual healthcare and pensions are pretty ridiculous, and you can't expect anything without paying extra under the table. I'm kind of used to this by now, but after having lived in UK, I can certainly see the stark contrast here.

It needs to be in writing, with actual signature.

It will be hard time convincing anyone to sign anything unless they are huge and have a legal team. And even then, why should they bother to sign some indie's papers when no one else is asking them to? This really doesn't happen in practice.

A 110% refund policy helps a lot too.

Hm?

I had the same reaction. Usually, when applied to goods, you can exchange for something equal or up to 110% of the original value. Though I'm not sure how this applies to video games, unless you have an arsenal of miscellaneously-priced games.

This comes up a lot and there's a lot of misconception on the Internet due to the sheer amount of digital media infringements out there.

Bottomline is copyright is automatic, immediate and lasting for a significant time, even after death. You cannot claim it, you can only have it transfered from the owner (or wait until it's in public domain).

Copyright infringements are only enforced if someone files a lawsuit. So, yes, chances of getting sued over some abandonware are near-zero, because no one cares. But it's still illegal.

Lately, there are literally hundreds of mobile game "reviewers" out there focusing on recent top selling games. It's a cheap cash grab - write a short "review", put up some ads, contact devs for paid reviews or PR blurbs. All you really need is a webhost, Wordpress+theme and a Paypal.

Check Gaslamp Games blog for an example of community/non-technical reader friendly development blog.

As you know, first few seconds are crucial for the user to make an impression. I'm afraid your website has failed to capture my attention, as it looks quite amateurish. May be it is not, and many professional sites look silly. On a closer look, there is almost no in-depth information about what and how you do and offer and all links seem to generate a login prompt. I'm being modest when I say this is bad design and presentation. The top banner is a particular offender. For providing a service of essentially marketing, you do not market yourself.

if they aren't [successful] .. Then people aren't going to want to read them

Actually, unsuccessful stories can be just as informative as successful ones. This is of course to our niche audience and not general public.

Didn't work for me either. But a little search-fu leads to http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=2037.

I'm not proposing something like 'you work on my project full time and I work on yours full time', that would be silly. I'm proposing just plain and simple mutual help.

Oh, whoops, me no read good. I thought that was what you were proposing.