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[skaldicpoet9]

Right on this is fucking awesome!

Makes me wish I would have more time to work on making my game a lot less shitty then it was

Mad props.

It is kind of weird though that they didn't even attempt to contact you guys.

Hmm, I am not quite sure that PC Gamer in the US will be the same as the UK version. I am pretty sure they each release their own respective issues. I used to subscribe to PC Gamer (US ed.) as of about a month ago and I noticed that they don't really give a lot of love to indie games. Hell, Games for Windows mag even featured Dwarf Fortress in their mag. From what I have seen though the folks at the UK version actually give a damn about indie games, I have seen more then just this occasion where they have featured some sort of indie game in their mag.

[Farbs]

Gratz!
Huge freaking gratz!

I'm still yet to make my magazine debut (I think). I contacted Steve Hogarty of PC Zone a while back though and asked him to check out Polychromatic Funk Monkey. I also asked for it to be on their coverdisk. And I asked for a pony.

I don't think the game's been mentioned in the mag, but he did send me this:


I believe he drew it himself

[ithamore]

I'm happy about all the coverage everyone got, but my favorite part is from the description of the games in the menu of the coverdisk: "For me games from the competition, hit the Website link," (emphasis added). I certainly hope the description didn't get approved by an editor and that whoever wrote it missed the "me games" because of an affinity for indie games. However, it was included as a "Light Byte," so maybe the attention applied to details and research is supposed to be light.

[Average Higgins]

Dang dudes, that's really cool. Congratulations!

I think this is just further evidence that the gods desire the B-Game competition to be annual.

[Radnom]

Hang on... just to clarify... is this the US or the UK version with the B-Game coverage? Don't want to buy the wrong one.

[Alex May]

UK, Jan 2008.

[Alec]

Bah, why does the UK have to be so cool. 

[Spincut]

Woot, this is awesome, guys! Congratulations to you all!

[Jolli]

SWEET

[cactus]

I contacted Steve Hogarty of PC Zone a while back though and asked him to check out Polychromatic Funk Monkey. I don't think the game's been mentioned in the mag, but he did send me this:

I know I've seen your game in a magazine. I think it was in PC Zone, but I can't find the article on the indie pages in the issues I have. Maybe it was somewhere else in the magazine? It could also have been in another mag, but I kinda doubt it... Weird that I can't find it, though

[Mr.Kio]

Here comes an article about the B-Game competition from the Swedish magazine SuperPLAY. There's one page before this one, but I'm busy right now and I will post it later

[Alex May]

Sorry, I gave Mr.Kio a bum link.



Thumbnailed.

Thanks for the scan, Mr.Kio!

[Farbs]

I know I've seen your game in a magazine. I think it was in PC Zone, but I can't find the article on the indie pages in the issues I have. Maybe it was somewhere else in the magazine? It could also have been in another mag, but I kinda doubt it... Weird that I can't find it, though

Really? Furk.... I gotta read these things more closely! Do you remember if there was a picture?

[Golds]

haha, that's great!  FUNNY CAT!

[cactus]

Really? Furk.... I gotta read these things more closely! Do you remember if there was a picture?

I know I saw it in a magazine rather recently. It had a somewhat big picture of the title screen and a decent amount of text, and I remember that they made a joke about the title. I can't find it in any of the issues of PC Zone that I have, though. So it was probably another magazine that I only glanced in but didn't actually buy

[Farbs]

I know I saw it in a magazine rather recently. It had a somewhat big picture of the title screen and a decent amount of text, and I remember that they made a joke about the title. I can't find it in any of the issues of PC Zone that I have, though. So it was probably another magazine that I only glanced in but didn't actually buy

Heheh, awesome!

[Buck Sexington]

Really? Furk.... I gotta read these things more closely! Do you remember if there was a picture?

I know I saw it in a magazine rather recently. It had a somewhat big picture of the title screen and a decent amount of text, and I remember that they made a joke about the title. I can't find it in any of the issues of PC Zone that I have, though. So it was probably another magazine that I only glanced in but didn't actually buy

That was also PC Gamer UK. Issue 179. Sorry if you guys are a little perturbed about the coverage - the section is mostly done off the cuff in a few days at the beginning of the issue, so research is basically us finding and playing the games. It's really the stuff we love at that moment (sometimes the games are quite old). I'm always on the look out for the next 96kb marvel.

If anyone has any thoughts on improving indie game coverage in mainstream mags, I'd be happy to listen.

[Alex May]

Hoo, thanks Craig. I'm sure you'll get some good responses to that invitation

And thanks for covering the games! I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say it really means a lot to us.

I'm of the opinion that the indie and homebrew community is getting bigger and bigger and I think it's soon going to be hard for anyone to ignore it. Just look at the IGF this year, allowing the inclusion of Game Maker games and effectively opening it to anyone with 100 bucks and a mild interest in making games, or how Portal came from being a student project, and that's on the top of several GOTY 2007 lists. I can't say for sure, but I'd wager that four years ago there weren't half the number of interesting free games being released every week by people across the world.

People are taking notice, which is great, but review space and other dedicated column inches are mostly given to shareware or those titles that make it onto the console distribution services. It'd be great to have some dedicated space for interesting freeware, and I mean across the media in general.

[skaldicpoet9]

Agreed

Both the freeware and indie scenes are becoming more and more prolific these days due to this influx of creativity from people that may be "amateurs" according to many, but are in act fostering the development of a immense shift in the way that people play video games. It is great to see all of the innovation that people bring to the table, it kind of reminds me of this documentary that I saw about the early PC pioneers, in it (I think it was Steve Wozniak) says that the reason he thinks that what they were doing with the PC worked is because they didn't know it wouldn't worked so therefore they were able to come up with all kinds of stuff that was generally thought to be impossible by other computing companies at the time. I think that that is the same thing that is happening now: people want to make the games that they themselves want to play and they don't care how impossible an idea could be. I really am loving the fact that 3D is starting to be considered just an aesthetic/design choice rather then it being obviously superior to 2D (which is the vibe I started to get from the XBOX/PS2 generation) and this is really bringing some great new ideas to the table. I hope that the scene will start to get more and more exposure (especially in the states). I am incredibly excited at what the future will bring...

[ravuya]

We'll see. There's still a lot further that it should go on the technical side; a lot of developers are still stuck with Game Maker, which (IMHO) is a lot like wringing a supercar out of a Yugo. The effort is admirable, but it might not be the best use of time and motivation.

We definitely need better resources to improve the quality of development, but without losing the amateur enthusiasm.