The double dip. It’s a seedy practice that buyers of DVDs are all-too familiar with, but one which also pervades the App Store. Making your customer buy the game separately for iPhone and iPad is bad form. Let’s stop doing it.
Read More →Some of the reaction to recent high profile Kickstarter campaigns such as those from 22Cans and Frontier Developments has been quite negative, specifically complaints about developers who are established enough to get traditional deals “resorting” to crowd funding. It’s hard not be irked by such actions when the language invoked is that of charity: “pledge”, “please help”, “support”, “donation”, “how you can help”, “we need your help”, “spread the word” all being fairly common.
This language is unhelpful and has probably taken us off-message with Kickstarter. Crowd funding is a genuinely interesting way to finance a game, and I don’t resent more established names going down this route per se. After all, in this depressingly monochromatic landscape of big shooters, what model 2012 publisher would back a god game, a space game or an adventure game? Yet there are enough potential customers clamouring for such titles to justify their existence. Kickstarter is a viable solution to this long standing industry chicken and egg’er. Undeniably, there are problems with Kickstarter, but this particular one is mostly about framing.
So I have a pledge to propose for world renowned and famous developers taking this route. Drop the language of charity, and be a little more candid with your pitches. Then we can all just get on with playing the next Populous.
The trend in games over the last couple of years is clear. Dark Souls, Super Hexagon, FTL - death is in fashion. Or, more precisely: frequent, almost inevitable player death. So why are us game devs climbing over each other to teabag the player? How can embracing the possibilities of death serve the game design?
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WIth all of this fuss over whether the umbrella of Creative Scotland includes games (it should), or indeed whether the Scottish games industry even exists (spoiler: it does), it makes sense to take matters into our own hands, and make the games industry in Scotland more visible. To do that, we need the tools.
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Long live Pixels on Toast. After an era of peaceful coexistence, I’ve decided to merge the two Twitter identities and websites together. bookofthedev.com will now redirect to the new url, blog.pixelsontoast.com. Details and plans after the break.
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I took Monday and Tuesday off after the draining madness of exhibiting at Dare 2012, hence the lateness of this post. Pics and thoughts, as well as a look at some of the Protoplay projects after the break.
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Here’s the video that’s going to be looping on a screen in our booth at the Dare Indie Fest, which, in case I have to remind you, starts this Friday and runs through Sunday.
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It’s official - Food Run will make its public debut at Dare 2012, as part of the Dare Indie Fest. Do the click through dance for more details.
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I’ll be in Brighton on Wednesday and Thursday for the indie tracks at Develop. Do give me a shout if you want to meet up for coffee / beer / just to say hello.
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Here’s the first video of enemies in Food Run. There are a lot of them in the final part of the level compared to most; this was done so I can stress test the enemy system. The final level may see changes from what you are seeing here.
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