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[Chrissketch]

So the fine folks over at BoingBoing, have decided to throw their collective hat into the video game blogging ring. They've just launched Offworld.

As Offworld lifts off over the coming weeks and months, I'll be bringing to it a focus on the overlooked, the underappreciated, the rise of the independents and, in general, the games that are bringing genuine excitement and innovation (in both gameplay and design) to the industry.

Offworld will also be home to a number of guest appearances by and regular features from people outside the games industry proper and those that have had only marginal influence but deserve more, because it's when those influences come in that the results have been some of the most magical and memorable, from illustrator Rodney Alan Greenblat and Masaya Matsuura's unforgettable Parappa the Rapper (the face that would launch the rhythm gaming genre proving so profitable today), to studio artist Toshio Iwai's musical Electroplankton, to Keita Takahashi's Katamari Damacy.

This could be a good thing for indie gaming. BoingBoing's readership is legion. But the fact that the address isn't part of the main BB site like their BBgadgets blog is, makes me wonder how much love they're gonna send it's way.

Thoughts?

[nihilocrat]

Scrolling through it, I honestly only see a few references to anything really indie; it seems more like another general gaming blog with a peppering of more indie-oriented stuff.

[agj]

Read about this awesome thing there in that site:



8x8 handheld gaming device!! Freaking awesome!

[Paracetamol]

In BB tradition it seems to be more about hipsterisms than honest, blood-stained nerd visages. I'm glued to RPS and obscure German Gothic ethno fan bases like yiya.de (forum) full of disgruntled thirtysomethings. But then again ... who am I trying to convince anyway?

edit: Okayy, .. guess it's never bad to have multiple timewasting bases.

[Corpus]

more about hipsterisms than honest, blood-stained nerd visages

[Renton]

Paracetamol scares me more with each post.

[Paracetamol]

Excuse my bad English, I was searching for an appropriate metaphor describing militant devotion.

[r.kachowski]

edit: Okayy, .. guess it's never bad to have multiple timewasting bases.

It got pulled

[brandonnn]

But the fact that the address isn't part of the main BB site like their BBgadgets blog is, makes me wonder how much love they're gonna send it's way.

Well, they've sent me its way, at least, and as a regular TIGF reader, former IGF judge, and several-year Internet Game of the Month curator for Edge magazine, you can put your mind at ease that I'm at least paying very close attention to developments around the community.

Always happy to get feedback on the site (I'll see what I can do about the 'honest, blood-stained nerd visages' -- maybe a photo spread of Cactus drenched in pig's blood ala Carrie?), and if you've got anything you're working on that you'd like to tell me about, [email protected] is the place to do that.



P.S. qrrbrbirlbel: I've re-hosted the Grim PDF locally, thanks for noticing it was yoinked.

[Chrissketch]

Well that put any possible concerns to rest, in my opinion. Godspeed. 

Excuse my bad English, I was searching for an appropriate metaphor describing militant devotion.

Militant devotion has done well for the indie community up until now. But with more and more developers getting mainstream distribution (Braid on Live, Cave Story Wii), a widely read, BB style, highly informed hype machine is good for getting some support from outside indie's super insular communities.

In other words, there's no excuse now, for Cave Story to not become a best seller.