Opinion

Here’s a fun point. Almost everyone works at a desk, but nobody talks about desks. Chairs come up sometimes, especially in discussions about the Aeron chair versus a well made leather, or general sitting ergonomics. This is an incredibly broad topic that could easily span dozens of blog posts in it’s complexity. Game developers and other media professionals have many needs for their working surface. And depending on how many hats you wear as a developer, you’ve got to fit several monitors, speakers (stereo or surround), input devices (keyboards, mice, tablets, midi interfaces), scanners, printers, and other office friendly objects (fans, phones, paper and supplies) on it....

The innovative games arms race is on. http://gamevideos.com/video/id/9860 … Alright, I give up. Normally when I see a really fantastic game like this, I’m all excited (Spore). This one drove me in to a brief game design depression. Now that’s emergent gameplay at it’s finest, and I’ve not even played the game. Concepts like collaborative editing and modern user friendly editing. Two ideas I’ve been extremely excited about toying with. “Oh, we do them both”....

I like Slamdance. I entered PuffBOMB last year, and was a finalist for the casual game award. Since then, I’ve been excited that a more “artful” game competition was beginning to take off. Winners receive a funky ugly dog statuette. Cool! Then a controversial game was pulled. Things are not going well now. It’s a real shame, and I hope something good comes from the controversy, rather than developing in to more Jack Thompson style heat for our industry....

I tend not to go off on news topics, but ‘ehh… today’s special. No doubt you’ve heard about Microsoft’s big news that’s making Indie developers all giddy. $99 a year to “activate” an Xbox 360 so that you can test your games on it. Sounds great, but there’s 1 little thing that could pose a problem for some. C# … Alright. Nothing against C# as a language, ‘cause I’m sure it’s a great and efficient once you get used to it....

A condensed version of my previous post seemed to be making the rounds. It’s resulted in several interesting comments and additions from developers and gamers alike. I’ve decided to do your homework, and compile this list. Text in bold are the originals, with my comments in normal type. Here we go. GameProducer.net additions: 10. Resize and move all the previously opened windows to the upper-left corner of the screen after returning from full-screen mode....

Now that I’ve succeeded in world domination (also known as syndication), I present to you a short list of complaints to fellow developers. 8 ways to make the monthly round-up panel hate you. Unofficial in every way, as it’s just my observations, but toned a tad sarcastic and sharp to get the point across. It’s not for everyone, as we do get a good number of games that work great. But there’s just enough of them to compel me to write this....

Well, well. The IGF 2006 Entries are now online, and we have a PuffBOMB clone to duel with. Impulse. It appers to be, according to the description, pretty much the same idea. Lets quote. Impulse: The player must place bombs and adjust their timers to make a ball hit the goal field. Obstacles, special elements and force fields provide varied levels. An interactive timeline helps controlling the game by jumping to specific times and guarantees a flexible and unique gameplay....