I'll just quickly add my first experience with FGL.

I made a fairly average twist on the match-3 puzzle game. It took about 15 hours to make, over a few weeks (usually while I was in lectures).
Put it up on FGL and did some updates.
Over all I've had 13 sponsors look at it, about half of them stay long enough to play the game at least 5 times and I never had any bids or contact from any of them.
After a 2 months or so, I put it up on Kongregate  and so far have earned about $8 from it 

This game is absolutely terrible and I don't know why you made it.

That's exactly why I made it!

I like to think I'm pushing the boundaries of what gameplay can be, in completely the wrong direction

Even better, it's a six an a half minute game. With no gameplay for about a minute and a half into it.

It was never meant to be a game that anyone liked.

But to my surprise, there are people that do like that "game" part of it:
Here, click on some colored squares and ill give you points

[Ten Seconds]

So, with March's EGP theme as Ten Seconds, I made a game for it.

After reading the theme, I came up with an idea.
Then I scrapped that idea when another one came along.
Then that one died, and I came up with the idea for the game I made.

After a total of 3 days development, I present: Ten Seconds Of Awesome!

And I'd love to hear what you guys think of it!

[Controls]

One part Columns, one part Lumines and one part tracker. With some procedural music, inspired by chiptune artists and some chunky artwork, Chiptune Hero is like something you've played before, but better.

V1 Prototype
To play the prototype, you'll need:

• .Net2.0(Only needed on Windows XP)
• XNA 3.1

Controls

• Left and right arrows to move active gems
• Up arrow to swapactive gems around
• Space to drop active gems

Also, I'm using Mod DB to keep track of it all.
ModDB Page

I'm just looking for what people think about this and if I should spend more time developing it...

[Alex May]

Damn you Alex May!

* Charcoal shakes fist

How much of this have you done?

As for conversion rates to people buying your game, if you're expecting every 10 or so people to buy it, then you're going to be sorely mistaken.
Your site and game both look good and there's a bit of info, so I'm guessing that isn't the problem.

I would be putting my money on you not sending the word out to as much media as you can.
Something I'm sure many of us have failed to do at times.

I saw this game at the State Library of Melbourne, they had it set up and featured there. It's great and has a unique style. Can't wait to download.

Keep it up Aaron

Well, it's up for download now on the site.
And the newest version posts high scores to the web.

If anyone needs more convincing, here's two reviews:
Vito Cassisi
DIY Gamer

I just put my game up last week.

Originally I went with Plimus.
They seemed good and fairly professional.
But when I was testing, I tried a few different coupons codes and eventually got hassled over the phone a few times, not something I would want my potential customers to deal with. And I seemed to be losing many potential customers on their shopping trolley pages.
Also, there were no provisions for giving away free copies of the game through the service.

After that I went with BMT micro and have not had any problems.
I've given away a few free copies and the (few) people that have brought it (seem to) have had no problems.

So, I'm a big +1 for BMT Micro
and a -1 for Plimus.

Wednesday, 2 December 2009 – Melbourne, Australia – S.H.M.U.P has been released!
 
Indie developer Aaron Styles is thrilled to announce that his game S.H.M.U.P, a finalist in GDC China’s Independent Games Festival Competition, is now available to buy for $9.99USD! An updated demo is also available at http://charcoalstyles.com/SHMUP/
 
S.H.M.U.P puts you in command of up to fifteen independent ships, defending your wall against a never ending collection of enemies and massive bosses. To aid you in your defence, you have access to a plethora of upgrades and awesome exploding, homing missiles. S.H.M.U.P features chip tune inspired music from Bart Klepka (http://www.myspace.com/bartklepka) and Multifaros (http://multifaros.info.se/). The game also features Twitter integration and extensive modding capabilities.

Availability and system requirements: S.H.M.U.P requires Windows XP/Vista/7; a 1.5GHz processor; 1GB system memory; a 3D card with Shader Model 2 capability ; .Net 2.0 and Microsoft DirectX 9.0c. Download the demo and buy the full game at http://charcoalstyles.com/SHMUP/
Review copies are available for news sites, blogs, poscasts and print media. Email [email protected] for more information.

Aaron Styles is an independent developer of (currently) PC games. After working at Infinite Interactive, he broke out of the industry and decided to join the indie scene making games with new and interesting gameplay mechanics. And then he made S.H.M.U.P instead. Follow his game experiments on his website: http://charcoalstyles.com/
 
# # #
 
PRESS MEDIA: http://charcoalstyles.com/SHMUP/
PRESS CONTACT: [email protected]
WEBSITE: http://charcoalstyles.com/
TWITTER: @Charcoal

You should go to GDC regardless of IGF. Everyone should. It is rad.

Well, I've always wanted to go.

Guess I'll have to find a reason to get my work to pay me to go

Oh damn! Sorry to hear that dude.
I arrived at my hotel 20 minutes ago and was about to see if you wanted to meet up tomorrow.
Have you arranged a self-demoing demo for the expo?

No, I was really expecting to be there.

And since I emailed her yesterday, my contact hasn't got back to me about what's going to happen now.
Also, I don't know anyone there that could take some hardware in to run it.

I know, when you win the grand prize and I win one of the excellence awards, we'll meet up at GDC

I'm the only TIGer going, aren't I?
 

Yeah.

Melbourne Chinese Consulate General let me down 

Now to Copypasta my press release 
Friday, 2 October 2009 – Melbourne, Australia – S.H.M.U.P is a finalist in GDC China’s Independent Games Festival Competition!
 
Indie developer Aaron Styles is thrilled to announce that his game S.H.M.U.P has been nominated as a finalist in GDC China’s Independent Games Festival Competition!
To celebrate this, a demo has been released and is available at http://charcoalstyles.com/SHMUP
 
S.H.M.U.P puts you in command of up to fifteen independent ships, defending your wall against a never ending collection of enemies and massive bosses. To aid you in your defence, you have access to a plethora of upgrades and awesome exploding, homing missiles. S.H.M.U.P features chip tune inspired music from Bart Klepka (http://www.myspace.com/bartklepka) and Multifaros (http://multifaros.info.se/). The game also features a Twitter integration (which was included months before any commercial game announced it!) and extensive modding capabilities.
 
This being the first time S.H.M.U.P has been widely shown, there are no comments to which the game can be promoted. If you want to have a quote in the next press release, email [email protected]
 
Availability and system requirements: S.H.M.U.P requires Windows XP/Vista/7; a 1.5GHz
processor; 1GB system memory; a 3D card with Shader Model 2 capability ; .Net 2.0 and
Microsoft DirectX 9.0c. Download it at http://charcoalstyles.com/SHMUP/

Aaron Styles is an independent developer of PC and Xbox Live Indie games. After working at Infinite Interactive, he broke out of the industry and decided to join the indie scene making games with new and interesting gameplay mechanics. And then he made S.H.M.U.P instead. Follow his game experiments on his website: http://charcoalstyles.com/
 
# # #
 
PRESS MEDIA: http://charcoalstyles.com/SHMUP/
PRESS CONTACT: [email protected]
WEBSITE: http://charcoalstyles.com/
TWITTER: @Charcoal

Awesome, so I'm not as retarded as I thought I was...

 

So...

how many oter people have killed multiple damsels by throwing sticky bombs while holding a damsel?

 

Nobody ever gets hired as a 'game designer' right out of college.

I did 
But I got lucky.

As for the original question, you should be making your own games.
That's really the only way to learn.
If you have a problem with one area of game development then you could possibly look into taking a course for that.

But yeah, just go and start making some games!

Lot's of face palms I'm seeing in this thread, I have a feeling this won't turn out to well.

That's 'cause it's the easy way to make yourself appear better than something. Like, check it out...

That is one of the more annoying videos I've ever seen.

 




See how easy that was? It's like I just proved my opinion better than his, and I didn't even have to say a word! Gotta love the facepalm.

On my laptop I'm using Firfox.
At home I'm using IE, as firefox on the machine is dead; I could reinstall it, or try Opra again, but I'll be reinstalling hte OS again soon, so why bother?

WEll, it is 6 in the morning here an I only have cider on hand.
But what's the use of being an indie, if you can't drink while people are beginning to get up?

Or, How about translating English into French?
You know, for all us lazy people 

Sort of what I was thinking. I could give quotes or something. I dunno how this is normally done. Money for French I mean.

I thought you would be paid in wine and cheese, or in the case of a French Canadian, poutine