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[jmzero]

I'm jmzero.  I work as a programmer at an insurance company.  I've been doing hobby game development since the C64 - no big, serious projects but a lot of working little games.  I'm particularly interested in algorithms (I spend a fair bit of time at topcoder.com) and value good game design and balance.

All time favorite games: Starcraft, Star Control II, Ultima V, Jumpman.
It appears this thread grows at an alarming rate, so I'll cut myself off there.   

[Wilson]

Hey all,

Been lurking around here for some time, and I've recently decided to start participating in the forums properly. I've been messing around making games (mostly starts of games really) in Gamemaker for a few years now.

Wilson

[Petethegoat]

Howdy, I'm Pete.

I've been making small games for about 4 years now, and have been gaming for about 12 years. Favourite games would have to include Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, System Shock 2, and both Stalker games.
I mainly joined because of interest in the indie scene, and also to sign up for the Berlin Indie Game Jam roster. Looking forward to participating in the forums!

[Slather]

Hey folks, I'll keep this short.
My dream is to co-own a game studio and have the freedom to be creative in my work.  I grew up with video games and decided when I was very young that I wanted to make them. Games represent much more to me than a diversion from life. As a medium, games can combine real substance from every area of study: technology, the arts, morality, history, humor, etc...  My interest is in designing experiences that affect people on many levels.  Making games is what I have to do. 

With that said, I have yet to finish a game! But it won't be long now...
I have a dev journal at Gamedev: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=479573 but no one reads it.
I love TIG Source, and everything about the indie game scene!
The Secret of Monkey Island is by far the most influencial game in my life.
Quick list: Raiden, Loom, FF6, MegamanX(1-3), Half-Life, Warcraft2, Stalker, GTAIV.

[JackNeil]

Hi, my name is Christian Teister and I'm a passionated games developer living in Hamburg (Germany).

My favorite games are The Witcher, Defense of the Ancients,  Portal, Braid, Jedi Knight 2, Gothic 2 and Neverwinter Nights.

My first game project was a very ambitious full conversion for Jedi Knight 2, called Journey into the Dark. Of course we never finished it, because it was like this "Let`s create a MMORPG that is better than WoW!"-projects. At least I learned alot about teams, management and game design and it was fun.

Bomb and Build was the first real game I finished. It is an extended Dynablaster-clone with network multiplayer support. The both classes, the bomber and the builder, were very unbalanced and I ruined the game by making the bomber less agile...


During my studies I created an edutainment game called "Farla and the Vitacup" with a fellow student. Yes, the game is all about food. ^^
The most important lesson during this project was: Stay focused and keep it simple.


I'm a big roleplaying fan. For two years I ran Nimbral, a persistent world for Neverwinter Nights. I learned alot about the psychology of players and game design during this time. Implementing a feature in the morning and testing it in the evening with 20 players is the best feedback a game designer/coder can dream of.

In 2007 I developed Gladiator, a Beat 'em up for mobile devices. In the game you play a Gladiator, fight in tournaments or against other players via bluetooth, buy equipment, improve the skills of your character ...
I was very proud because of the animation system, because the full equipment of the charcater could be changed and was animated.


Velvet Assassin, a PC and XBox 360 game, was the first commerical project I worked on as a game programmer. It is cool the see the daily progress of development, when more than 20 other guys work on the same project.



Since April I work on a game called Grappling Hook. The game is a First-Person-Action-Puzzel-Jump&Run like Portal. Braid, Tron and Cold Ice are also important inspirations.
Here are some short gameplay videos:







The project website is: http://www.speedrungames.com/

[Silverbristle]

Hello I'm Christopher

I studied multimedia in the past after finishing that I studied business. I enjoy art and programming. I look forward to participating in this forum full of like
minded individuals.

[robertogracia]

Nicely done Silverbristle! Your game looks very polished. Nice visuals. Have to try it..

[Bill Hoggett]

Ah... umm... what?... oh, right!...

I'm Bill, a middle-aged kid exhibiting an extremely unhealthy obsession with a 25-year old game most sane people have forgotten about by now. So much so I spend most of my spare time in what feels like a never-ending travail on a browser-based version of it, because it somehow never seems "finished".

In my money-making life I get people to part with their hard-earned cash for my pearls of IT wisdom, which on occasion they find useful.

I have two cats but have so far failed to teach either how to play strategy games.

[Kadoba]

I have two cats but have so far failed to teach either how to play strategy games.

A thousand cats typing on a thousand keyboards could never produce the works of a completed nethack game.

Actually, replace cats with humans and you'd get close to the same result.

[BrixxieBee]

Hey guys. James here. I'm lead Developer for Moldering ->devblog.projectmoldering.com. It's a 2d platformer that's eight months+ in development. I've made the silly mistake of single-handedly writing the engine from scratch, but now that that, and the level editor, are out of the way, I've learned a heck of a lot and can move forward with designing the game.

I haven't posted a whole lot about the game on the internet so if someone wants to write an article here, TIGSource would be the first site to do any exclusive coverage on it. We've got a small team of great artists and musicians working with us, and they've all been doing a fantastic job.

I'd like to get involved more with the indie-game community, since after all I am an independent game developer, whether I like to proclaim it or not.

So, here's to seeing you around! Hopefully some of you will enjoy my game when it's finished, and I'm sure some of you won't, that's just the way things go. Can't please everyone now!

James

P.S. Here's a screenshot from the game:

[PANPOMMA]

Hey everyone, I'm Martlet Valentine. I have just this minute said to myself; "You really should make a game." to which I replied; "You're right, but maybe you should stop talking to yourself out loud..."

So, honestly, just this minute I've concluded I should make a game, I have no idea how to make pixel art or program, so it should be fun. 

I'm sure you're wondering why my username is PANPOMMA (no?), well, that is the name of my "company" (tm., all rights reserved, I have several, no, hundreds of lawyers) and it has absolutely no meaning what-so-ever! None!

My dream game would be to create a artifical world generator, but not overbearingly so, you'd make little creatures with simple body parts and mental traits like "cowardly", "stalking" and "nocturnal" and throw them into a themed world, like "evergreen forest", "snowy mountains" or "volcanic waste" and watch them evolve together, a food change set up ect. and then you could go all wrath of God on them after a while and introduce collosal beasts, raise the temperature or flood the place!
After you feel you've made a strong lil' critter, you could then play with a friend online and place two favoured creatures in a world and see who wins!
Well, whatever winning would be...I dunno.

Obviously that won't be my first game.

At the moment my ideas range from~
Power Prince 5!!!!! = platformer + exploration = Once again that meanie King Krumbs has stolen Lady Lovely! It's up to Power Prince to save her to restore the light of Lovely Lamp! But, there is a secret to why this is all happening...

Millimps = Tamagotchi + platformer + that sand game, you know the one = Millimps, from Impco., are amazing pets for the world of tomorrow! Each millimp brings with it its own piece of architecture and toy, which you can place anywhere you like. Its a screensaver-ish game, the millimps just run, jump and interact with each other around their home all day long. As well as that you can add non-permanent things like water, sand, candles, balls ect. for the millimps to play with.

Super Smash Tactics = Civ game + Super Mario = Yeah, no, I won't make this, but come on, Nintendo characters leading armies? Awesome! --The Koopa Troop has allied with the Game & Watch Brigade--

I am Mathew, Still = Silent Hill + High Fantasy novel + exploration game = You wake. You struggle to move. You hear the cackle of a witch, you know it is a witch, anyone would know. She leaves. You look to your left and there is a fox's head...on a boy's body...your body. And you, your head is on the fox's body. You retch. Your body stubbles into the night. You follow, four legs tangling. In the wood there are many terrible monsters, but you are a monster too now, do you become part of this strange wood, or find your fox-headed body and somehow, take it back?

WOOOW THAT WAS LONG.
Stay sharp kids and stay in school. Don't do drugs neither!

[Inanimate]

Wonderful looking game, NTCD.

And PANDOMMA, seen you around other parts of the forum. You seem like respectable. I'M WATCHING YOU. 

[Amirai]

Hi. I'm Amirai. I've wanted to make games since grade school, and for the past few years have been playing around with various prototypes. The types of games I want to make are mainly RPGs, strategy games, action platformers and a shmup. I recently started working on a humorous, lighthearted RPG called: Treasure Adventure! The search for the mountain of money. Here's a couple of screenshots:





As a designer, I'm struggling a little with "keeping it simple". Treasure adventure is the RPG I'm making after I realized that the one I wanted to make in the first place was way too much for my first game, so I came up with a simpler one to make first - then I did that a second time after the 'simple' RPG turned into an epic. The goal is to get this one done. It's being made with construct, in case anyone's interested.

Piece of advice: don't make an RPG for your first game! It's harder than it looks!

Favorite games: Final Fantasy IV/VI, Star control 2, Gradius V

[knucracker]

Hi,
Virgil Wall here.  I started KnuckleCracker.com a couple of months ago as a medium for releasing my games.  I wrote a little flash game called ChopRaider (whiteboardwar.com) about a year and a half ago.... interesting experience that made me want to do more.

Since then I have focused on developing a new game called Creeper World.  I was inspired to write a physics game that wasn't kinematic based (after all, thermodynamics is physics too!).  After much effort, Creeper World was the result.

As for me, I hold degrees in Physics and Computer Science and have worked as a professional developer for my entire career (15 years at this point :/).  I write, and manage developers that write, business and networking applications.... but games are a night time hobby and are also much more of a challenge! 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Creeper World as much as I enjoyed developing it.

[Lemming]

Hello and welcome to TIGForums!

As for me, I hold degrees in Physics and Computer Science and have worked as a professional developer for my entire career (15 years at this point :/).  I write, and manage developers that write, business and networking applications.... but games are a night time hobby and are also much more of a challenge! 

I love you saying this!

Edit:

Also, out of curiosity, hoping not to be killed like the cat, but do you apply a scientific approach to game software? I'm currently studying CS, and I find that our assignments and tings we do in school often have "standard" solution. Certain data structures are often used  for a certain type of problem. Hashmaps for O(1) lookup, etc. This is IMO often quite narrow and easy to solve.

When doing hobbyist programming, I often tend to want to figure out a nice solution by myself, kind of thinking outside the box. It doesn't necessarily make me write bad software, instead of solving a standard problem, I often make it so that it problem itself doesn't even exist.

Just wondering if you feel that you use a different approach to writing game software.

Again, welcome to the forum!

[Loren Schmidt]

Hello everyone, welcome aboard. I always love reading the stories people post here.

[arexmastah]

Hi, im Ar3x and im 24. Im mathematically-retarded so my games are very simple:P i have mathematics! but i love to create: draw, sculpt, write semi-code.
Im from Poland,
I want you all to have good fun with my games.

[jugival]

Hello,
Jure aka Jugival here. I am working on my first game, which should be completed soon. I am not a programmer by profession. I had been doing some coding from time to time (blitzbasic, action script) but more to play around than to make something serious. Then I tried a demo version of BlitzMax, played with it, made some simple graphic utilities and got this crazy idea to make a real game. Why crazy? Because i have no idea how much time and work is needed for such undertaking. I will show it soon for audience to decide is it any good. If it is, great. If it isn´t, then I have at least learn a lot and my next game will be better.

[squidlarkin]

Been lurking here long enough that I totally forgot I hadn't posted my introduction. So now I'm posting my introduction. I'm a mediocre programmer and somewhat less than mediocre at every other discipline required to make a game, though I've been known to make some pretty interesting ambient noise music from time to time.

My turn-ons gamingwise include procedurally generated content, exploration, and fast-twitch shooting action. I obsessively try to sample every notable new game that comes out, but in my heart of hearts I'm not sure anyone's going to outdo Robotron.

[Lifesnoozer]

Adam, it's the introduction thread. Not the self biography thread.