Looks interesting but I tried to access buy seems like the web site is down. 

wowowowow
someone updated the frontpage !!!

 

Hi

I'm from Mexico and I'm currently working on an indie game. I'm interested in taking part, I would be interested in a team of artists to produce concept art and ilustrations. Me and three members of my team have real work experience in the game industry most of us used to work at Gameloft. We can give feedback to the students.

Which is your market PC or Mobile?

Did you hear about the work marketing?

Is your game being reviewed by the press?

Did you set a budget for the advertisement?

I think we are getting into a "what kind of music is better?" discussion. I think that there are many ways to create a good game but without a doubt those which have a good story tend to produce a stronger emotional link between the player and the game. I mean tetris is a good game but I'm not emotional attached to it as I am with The Secret of Monkey Island or Grim Fandango.

I've been in the industry for 5 years working as a programmer for a big company and I have to say that I'm still trying to hit the nail. I mean I have tried to focus on doing personal projects on my spare time but I have failed miserably in big part because I ended doing a lot of over time so I would be burn out and I would not have energy to work on my project(s). I didn't even have time to make exercise so at the end I decided that I would get up earlier to make exercise so that if they asked me to stay at the office I would not spoil my progress, I would focus my efforts in saving money so that I could quit my job and work on my projects full time. I would work on my projects only on any task that was not related to programming like on the game design document or writing a stories or ideas that could work for any game. That's what I've been doing the last two years and I'm close to having enough money to quit my job and work for one year out of my savings. 

For me creating games is a medium to express my self just like a painter with a canvas, a film maker with a camera, a musician with a guitar or a writer with a note book. I'm a programmer and creating games is a passion that became my daily job but I have to say I'm not in a perfect situation at least not right now. I work developing games that I would not play but I have to pay the bills for now and I try to work on my own stuff on my spare time while I save money to get to a point where I can give it a try full time. Plotting plans and skills leveling is what I can do for now.

Yes it's full of details i like that the npcs follow you with their heads when you get close to them

Lately I've been thinking about quitting my job and I found this thread.

Pros of quitting: You might make a smash hit indie game.
Cons of quitting: You'll get so angry afterwards that you'll cancel the sequel and quit.

LOL 

Not log ago Ron Gilbert was addressing exactly this problem around the word Indie in his personal blog Grumpy Gamer. For my own definition of indie game developer I would say that it's any self funded or under a low budget either individual or a team who is trying to proof a game within an innovative concept. For me someone in his bedroom learning to program games is not under the indie game developer specially if he is just making old games clones in order to learn but if he is experimenting with new things with the objective of producing the best outcome he is able to achieve then I would label them as an indie. In the other hand there are companies like Double Fine which defines themselves as indie developers but as I see them they left the indie spot long time ago even that they got crowdfunded. I would say that they were an indie developer when they were developing Psychonauts. Now I feel like they just label themselves as indie developer just because that's more appealing to their niche market. It's like saying that Apple is an indie just because they challenge the status quo. Other good example is thatgamecompany. I think they are still an indie developer even that they have worked with a big publisher like Sony. They are trying to proof a new concept which they have kind of proved with Journey and my perception is that as soon as they can produce more similar games and be a profitable self sustained company then I would classify them as any other commercial game company. Other example that comes to my mind is Tell Tale Games they worked with venture capital from the right begging and they didn't really prove their concept until The Walking Dead. They had a few good games before like the Sam & Max series and for me TTG is not longer an indie company.

http://grumpygamer.com/1312686

I just hear today about GOG galaxy and it would be great to know the opinions from the TIGSource community.

http://www.gog.com/news/introducing_gog_galaxy

 

I use unity3d but I've seen that a lot of people uses cocos 2d, if you are the kind of guys that likes to write things from scratch then i would recomend sdl or qt. 

Envy? 

I agree knowing other tools for example programs for 3D modelling or Photoshop will be helpful. I learned to use Photoshop and Flash at High School and when I became a game developer I was able to communicate myself pretty well with the UI artist or the animators. It's helpful to define the work pipeline from art to programming since you understand both worlds there are roles such as Technical Director where you should be good at both. Also on being a tool engineer can help you to know such programs you never know when you will need to write a script or a plug-in or you know why not just to be able to become a solo indie developer! 

Soon or late I'll do it for now I'm just plotting plans and saving money.

Nice I like the concept and the gameplay. I think the HUD could be better but that's the only thing. I'll give it a try!

Lately I've been thinking about quitting my job and I found this thread.