Congratulations indeed. This sort of thing makes me feel that the universe is maybe not totally unjust after all. You're a brilliant developer; honestly I think you deserved first, but at YoYo the best man never seems to win.

Thanks, glad you liked it. Yeah, not big on the GMC myself.

I read Siddhartha quite recently. It did not blow my mind; in fact, I did not like it much at all.

Kafka, however, is one of the greatest writers ever to live in my opinion.

Also, Crime and Punishment is good, but The Brothers Karamazov is better. Hitchhiker's Guide, Slaughterhouse 5, and Catch 22 are all excellent books as well.

tell me something i dont know.

Ants form 15–20% of the terrestrial animal biomass.

Lies form 10-90% of quoted statistics.

I read a lot of books. Recently (like in the last couple of weeks) I have read A Passage To India, by E. M. Forster, The Bhagavad Gita, and three books by Kurt Vonnegut - God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle. I like Vonnegut and his books are full of ideas, but three in a row is sort of overkill, as he is rather nihilistic. It gets annoying. Also, none of his books really resolve. I like Slaughterhouse Five a lot, and Mother Night was very good, and Rosewater was decent. I didn't care much for Cat's Cradle, but maybe I was just too depressed to find a depressing book enjoyable at the time. And the last book I read was Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, which was more interesting than I expected... I don't think much of recent science fiction in general.

[Desperation]

Hi. Some of you might know me, most of you probably don't. I've been making games since 2006 using Game Maker. I haven't made anything recently, but I'm curious to know what people outside of GM-specific communities think of what I have done. I don't think these are great games by any stretch of the imagination, but some people have enjoyed them.

WARNING: all of these games change resolution; I know that bothers some people.

Desperation
The first game I made. It is sort of an art game, I guess. I kind of like it, but the programming is not too good. It recieved a pretty good review from Game Maker Games.



http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/desperation.html

Alienvasion
This is my second game. It's more of an arcade game. I like some things about it, and I still think it's a pretty good idea, though I could have done it better. It was featured on Indygamer, long ago.



http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/alienvade.html

The Wasteland
This is an exploration platformer; it is my largest completed game, but that isn't saying much. I still think there are some pretty environments and neat puzzles, though there are things I would do differently.



http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/wasteland.html

Radian
I think this is the best game I have made by a significant margin. The gameplay is pretty original, and I think it's fun. Cactus, Indygamer (who featured it), and Game Maker Games (who gave it a good review and spotlighted it) agree.



http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/radian.html

I have also made some games/fragments of games that are not really very good in my opinion but that you may, hypothetically, derive some small enjoyment from.

Crossfire - a scrolling shooter for 2 players; incomplete.
Dogfighter - another scrolling shooter. It's a pretty good idea, but pretty badly executed.
Noctus - another art game of sorts. I kind of like it.
Colony - just a fragment of a Metroidvania sort of game that didn't get far.
Nevada Thompson and the Temple of Scorpions - an obvious Indiana Jones spoof. Very pixelly. Made in four hours for a Poppenkast 4-hour competition. I think it is a good start, but not a good game.

I also got quite a ways into a full-length Metroidvania game called Mekanos that for various reasons will probably never be finished. There's a demo, though.

http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/mk.html





That's what I got. Sorry for the lengthiness.

For interesting characters and fascinating premises, you're much better off reading some Orson Scott Card. If you're interested in fully fleshed-out worlds, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is second to none. Harry Potter just doesn't stack up, I'm afraid.

I'm sure it doesn't if you never bothered to read it. The first book is not much of an indication; as one would expect considering the later installments are 2 to 3 times as long, the series gets more complex.

@XUE - I think The Lord Of The Rings are generally considered "high literature," precisely because of all of the world-building they do. I think a lot of fantasy books do it badly, but it's not an inherently un-literary genre. And I don't think you were being pretentious at all.

May as well introduce myself, I suppose.

I call myself Jabberwock. I have made a few games, though it is entirely a hobby for me. I have very limited pixeling skill, and very limited ability with Game Maker. Some people have found my games enjoyable, though, so I guess there's no terrible embarrassment in posting a list of some of the better ones:

Desperation
Alienvasion
The Wasteland
Radian

Here are some things I have drawn, too. I am not much of an artist.

http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/gallery.html

I fancy my primary skill to lay in the realm of music composition, though I still have a long ways to go in that area, as well.

http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/pmsymph.html
http://divinelyuninspired.110mb.com/gamesongs.html

I also record some rock/pop/folk/electronica/whatever sort of music. With sci-fi themes. A space rock sort of thing, I guess.

http://www.64digits.com/users/Jabberwock/robot_consciousness.zip

http://www.64digits.com/users/Jabberwock/alien_mind.zip

http://www.64digits.com/users/Jabberwock/this_comlink.zip

http://www.64digits.com/users/Jabberwock/no_ghosts.zip

I guess that is all I have to say. Oh, I am a member of EO and of The Poppenkast, if that means anything to anyone.

@Markham - yeah, thought I recognized your work... nice style.

Who are you, Jabberwock?

Once upon a time, I thought I knew... as of today, I am no longer sure.

Hey, personally I thought and still think they're very well-written books (mainly the later ones) with interesting and complex characters and plotlines and a very well-developed world, as well as a good sense of humour about them. I actually am more inclined to shun famous things than embrace them. :/

Hey, welcome.

Unfortunately, what Dragonmaw said goes for most people... I don't think there are many skilled coders out there who are short on ideas. If you have artistic skill, though, that may get you somewhere. Good luck, in any case.

I too would suggest using Game Maker. I will admit, I am not much of a coder either - I can enjoy it somewhat, but it is a means to an end. Fortunately, if you just have a little patience, Game Maker is very concrete, simple, and easy-to-use (comparatively, anyhow), enough so that a noncoder like myself can still make games in it. Plus there are lots of people who are willing to help you, so long as you don't try to make them do things for you.

Mammoth marketing couldn't prevent Napoleon Dynamite from going out of style.

Wait, YOU were saying things were pretentious?

Not really, I thought YOU were saying I was saying that. I thought maybe you had misconstrued something I said... I'm not sure what thread I'm in anymore either.

Ooh, another one I just remembered - Total Annihilation. That game is more or less the alpha and omega of real time strategy games for me... it's not a genre that I'm much into, but for some reason that game warms the cockles of my heart.

<3 HOMM2, also, but I've not played it in years.

@0rel - alright; in that case, then, I agree with you. And yeah, I do enjoy (and have made, or attempted anyway) "games" like the ones you describe. I think they're a worthwhile pursuit, and I can even think of a couple that I have found very moving.

The reason the masses can't see that is that they don't have a specific interest in games, but rather in entertainment and go for whatever looks the flashiest. It's the same thing with music and movies, the best and most creative things generally don't attract the masses as it isn't covered in a meter-thick layer of lip-gloss. I really don't think the solution to this is to change the good stuff to suit the masses, instead why not try to cultivate the masses' interest in different art forms?

That's a good thought, though I don't know how practicable it is. Because the media tells people, "if something isn't popular, it can't be good!" and that's a hard force to overcome - especially because liking things that aren't popular often makes you unpopular by association. Over my lifetime, I have "converted" exactly one person, who I could tell had pretty good taste, they just hadn't been exposed to things of a very high level of quality, in general.

I am indeed suggesting that. And, well, yeah, most people don't know my idea of quality when it slaps them in the face, but I, equally, might not know their idea of quality when finding it "all up in my grill." I don't really think you can say that their taste is wrong and yours is right.

To an extent, I agree with that, but I don't believe that art is merely a matter of taste. I believe that art, to some extent anyway, has, or lacks, quality independent of what people think about it. Of course, some things might not appeal to an individual because that individual simply doesn't relate to them - they haven't experienced the right stuff, I guess. THAT is taste. Being able to creatively engage and move someone who DOES relate to what you are talking about - THAT is quality. I don't claim to have all the rules down, being only one person with a pretty brief existence behind me, and I am willing to listen to other people's ideas on the subject, but this is what I think.

Dismissing things as pretentious gets on my nerves, though. Usually, it's totally unjustified and it's clear that they're not entirely certain of the word's meaning.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying all indie games are pretentious. If that were the case, why the hell would I even be here? SOME of them are pretentious. Some professional games are pretentious as well. Pretention is what arises when one says, "I'm going to make great art today, and it's going to be inaccessible, and I'm going to laugh at the people who don't get it." I think this is more widespread among indies than pros, though, because pretention doesn't usually sell.

[new format]

so, what i really believe, is, that someday a new format will come up. and a new market for interactive, artistic software. games, which are not as epic and high-end like industrie games today (they will be more kind of a hardcore niche market, imo). these new game format would work similar to cd albums of the past. games as products created by individuals, like music albums were by bands before. much more personal than the huge, generic industry productions of today. more like short experiences, moods, than challenges. a bit like interactive music videos...

that's the area where indie games could aim for.
it's a vast area, and not explored yet.

Okay, I'll grant you that that is worth exploring... it seemed to me that you were suggesting that indie games that are just, well, games are not worth the developers' time, and I disagree because I greatly enjoy some games like that. And anyway, the idea of being indie is you don't have anyone telling you to do things in a specific way... if indie games aimed for a single area, as you seem to be suggesting, they would not be indie anymore. On that topic...

so what does it mean to be indie today? - does it mean to be just a hobbyist, who brings out some freeware games on the web for fun? or to be an independent studio, which makes casual flash games for a web protal? or to be an game artist for festivals/galleries? are modders indie? what about xbox live for 8/10$? what does "indie" really mean?

"indie" is is something that is made independent of the influence of large corporations. People read all sorts of other meanings into it and it's got a boatload of connotation, but in essence that is what it means. Thus it is a very broad term.

Looks pretty neat, but...

From the video, it looks less like a "video game creation tool" than a platformer with an included level editor.

Yeah. Like Knytt Stories in 3D. Which the world could use, I suppose, though I probably wouldn't be able to get too into it. Personally I find making levels for other people's games less fulfilling than making games.

Baldur's Gate II is a big one, for me. And Ultima VII. The time I have thrown away on those two games combined... well, let's not get into numbers.

There are other, simpler, games that I come back to frequently for the enormous nostalgia value, as well. The Commander Keen series. Tyrian 2000. And then a few indies as well... Seiklus, Hero, Invader and Knytt come to mind. I guess I like explorable games.

I just don't think that there are enough intelligent, compassionate people in the world for that to ever happen. The violent, ignorant people procreate too, and fill their offspring's heads with... well, whatever. I guess I am just not a very optimistic guy.