Indie Bug Blog

A Hypothetical Situation

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:18:54 GMT

It's an election year in Edmonton. Every election I head out and vote for the people who I feel will do the best job promoting my interests. Usually I vote based on who has the best environmental policies, stance on business funding, or whatever else is at the top of my mind when it comes to local and global issues.

But what if, hypothetically speaking, I was going to sit down and have supper with one of the mayoral candidates and talk about the tech scene in Edmonton... What if I wanted to know what the City of Edmonton can do for the game development scene in Edmonton?

Hello Nexus One, Goodbye Nexus One

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:50:22 GMT

Two days ago my Nexus One arrived. I've had a couple nights with it and so far I'm really impressed. It's just too bad the Nexus One has to die.

Connecting to Edmonton at GameCamp

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:10:45 GMT

On July 19th, 2010, I attended the June/July GamePub event. This was my first time attending a GameCamp event and what I discovered was that Edmonton has a diverse and talented game development scene. The turn out was good, about 20 people, and the room was filled with a good balance of creative types, coders, professionals, indies and students. I took some time to work the room and find out what some people were working on, and was thrilled to see the presentations by Fluik Entertainment, 3DI, and Ian Stubbington. GameCamp was hosted by Logan Foster from Max Gaming.

envoy: Empire Ave on Your Desktop

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Thu, 13 May 2010 17:39:32 GMT

I have recently become slightly obsessed with Empire Avenue. This is no secret. I find it's a great way to promote Knaves Online: I get to play a game and promote my own game at the same time, it's win-win.

When Empire Avenue (EA) announced they were launching an API I was excited because it let me play the game in my own way, with my own tools. I set out to build a desktop notifier for EA... In fairly short order I had something good, that could become great. If you play Empire Avenue I urge you to try it out and send me some feedback on what you'd like to see added!

Empire on Fire

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:48:54 GMT

This story starts with a game, and ends with a chocolate bar and an adventure.

First off, the game:

Empire Avenue is a strange and addictive phenomenon. A thousand people and organizations have flocked to the site to start buying and selling shares in each other, and it's still just in beta.

GamerSafe: a Great Idea... for a Different Game

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:24:39 GMT

When I first started playing with GamerSafe I found it to be a great service. Simple to use, simple to implement, it looked like the perfect way to add achievements and monetize my game. But everything isn't always as it seems. As I delved deeper into the world of Facebook development I realized that my original enthusiasm might have been a bit misguided.

World's Slowest Launch

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:33:30 GMT

Progress on Knaves Online has been great over the last month. The game is evolving and I am getting great feedback from a small group of players. Overall, I'm really pleased with the direction it is going.

I was, like many Flash developers, enraged by the announcement that Apple would no longer support 3rd party compilers on the iPhone and iPad. Now that I've had some time to think about it, though, I'm actually a little glad...

Faster Than the Speed of Beta

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:17:54 GMT

I'm finding it hard to believe that it is already March. January came and went, February blazed past, and now I am gearing up to put Knaves Online into a limited beta test... The only problem is that the game is only at an alpha state.

Normally this would worry me, but in this case I actually feel pretty good about it. I just nailed down some of the important server-side code for the game, and thanks to GamerSafe and PlayerIO the process of adding achievements and scalable multiplayer are all but done. I feel as if I have all the pieces, I just need to put them together.

But a completed game is only part of the picture. There are still two big hurdles to overcome...

What the iPad Means for Indie Games

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:00:00 GMT

After months of speculation Apple has finally announced the iPad and its reception is exactly what you would expect from a major Apple product announcement - a blend of everything from people ready to trade their children for one to disgust and disappointment.

But there is no denying that Apple's loyal followers will drive the sales of this tablet up beyond that of any other tablet on the market, and that means there is another app gold rush coming. With that rush will come a barrage of new games and a mountain of money... But not necessarily for independent game developers.

Building an Art Team Online

egoant@egoant.com (Admin) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:35:46 GMT

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of places to go online to get help with a project. I've tried Freelancer.com, oDesk.com, and RentACoder.com in an effort to shore up either my development or artistic needs but with each new game project I embark on I find that tracking down a good artist can be hard to do.

This time, I think I've hit the jackpot...