Posts from ‘Features’ Category
TIGdb: Update
By: Derek Yu
On: May 5th, 2008
Jeff and I spent another day and a half hacking away at the The Indie Game Database. A lot of smallish changes, but they are significant:
Tags. Users can now add tags to games (e.g. abstract, music, dinosaurs, stealth, co-op). It’s mostly a novelty right now, but once filters are in place it will be a great way to search the database.
Note: tagging is still slightly buggy.
Site Layout. The site has been widened, which makes screenshots look much better, and also gives us more room to play with. A number of small cosmetic tweaks have been made to the layout as well.
Basic Browsing. Jeff has added support for browsing. Right now you can either flip through the pages of the master list of games, or flip through the same list sorted by rank.
The major additions to the site will come in another few weeks or so, when we add user reviews (yep!) and also filters, which, when added to what we’ve done this weekend, will let you browse games in a fairly advanced way.
In the meantime, I entreat you to rate games, add tags, and have fun perusing the site! Comments and suggestions are still very welcome.
TIGCompo: Procedural Generation!
By: Derek Yu
On: May 4th, 2008
Procedural content generation has been applied to video games forever to create random content and to reduce the space requirements for games. Roguelikes are a genre that generally depend on procedural generation for level creation. And recently, Will Wright’s Spore has put this idea in the spotlight, since the game is mostly procedurally-generated.
But all in all, I think this is a concept that is still relatively unexplored, and it could be applied creatively to every part of a game to do some really neat stuff! The focus of this competition is to develop a 4-week game that uses PCG to create compelling, new content every time the player starts a game.
ROM CHECK… SUCCEED!
By: Derek Yu
On: April 9th, 2008
The results are in! Voting for The VGNG Competition is now over, and our buddy Farbs caught 16% of the vote with his really-rather-brilliant ROM CHECK FAIL, followed close behind by Farmergnome’s excellent My First Skydiving Academy. All in all, the VGNG Compo was a huge success. It’s been said before, but all the entrants should be really proud of themselves for participating, and making some really good shit!
Regarding the next competition… keep your eyeballs peeled. You never know when or how it’s going to hit. But you can expect that it’s going to be a lot of fun!
Congratulations, Farbs, and all the entrants!
Challenge Everything (TM)
By: Derek Yu
On: March 31st, 2008
San Francisco, CA – April 1, 2008 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced today that it has bought The Independent Gaming Source, putting the (sometimes) respectable independent video game community/news site in its trophy case alongside acquisitions such as MaxisTM, developers of the best-selling PC video game series The SimsTM.
Derek Yu, Editor-in-Chief of The Independent Gaming Source, stated (while swimming in a pool filled with hundred dollar bills): “This is a pivotal event in the continuing transformation of the independent gaming industry. Electronic Arts is the leader in video games and their expertise in this field will undoubtedly bring great things to this community, especially in the area of 3d sweat physics. Also, I am so goddamned happy right now!”
John Pleasants, President and COO of Electronic Arts, stated: “I dunno, I was bored and we had a spare billion lying around.”
Please visit Electronic Arts’ press site www.info.ea.com for more information about the company and its games.
Note: Electronic Arts, EA, EA GAMES and the EA GAMES logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. This is a joke. Please don’t hurt me.
VGNG Compo: Voting Has Begun!
By: Derek Yu
On: March 26th, 2008
Wow, amazing turnout for the Video Game Name Generator Competition – we have 48 hot hot entries for you to rub up against! A new record!
The quality and variety of the games is really just inspiring. I had a blast watching the development goin’ on, and the results met and exceeded expectations. I’m alternately excited and fearful by the prospect of later competitions – on the one hand, you guys are obviously honing your game-making skills like crazy… on the other hand, that means I’ll probably have to spend the rest of my life compiling the great games that are going to come out of the next compo!
I was also really happy to see so many new faces in the forums. Even if you joined just to participate in the compo, it was great to have you guys around, and I hope you stay!
Well, my blathering on isn’t really doing anyone any good. Just check out the games. And for everyone who participated, you should give yourselves a hearty clap on the back. This is legendary stuffs.
Special thanks to the creator(s) of the VGNG, ’cause that thing rocks, and also to moi, who compiled the final list of games and made my life a lot easier.
EDIT: Fixed Time Shark’s link and added BaronCid’s Super Mario Versus Programming in China to the list (it’s a pen and paper game!). Sorry about that, guys!
TIGdb – The Indie Game Database
By: Derek Yu
On: March 24th, 2008
Hey, guys, I’m happy to announce a new addition to the TIGSource family: TIGdb, the indie game database! It’s a searchable, sortable compendium of independent games and independent developers.
Jeff and I have been talking about this for a while, and this weekend we finally got together and just set the damn thing up. 14 hours of video game music, disgusting energy drinks, and designing/hacking later, we came up with what you see here!
One thing that’s pretty cool is that we have a rating system. Anyone can sign up for an account and start rating games (out of five stars). Eventually, these accounts will let you do more, like keep track of your favorite games or submit games to the database. The task of populating the database is a monumental one, so it’d be great to crowd-source this… but until we have some controls in place, me and Terry (and perhaps a few other people) will be adding the games. I will, however, take submissions/suggestions very seriously! See this thread for details.
So yeah, this is a very early version of the site, but it’s a great start, I think. Once the site levels up a bit, there are a lot of things we could do with it. In an earlier post, we briefly discussed the idea of alternative business models for indies… well, once we have them all organized and sorted in one place, I’m sure there’s a lot you could do to that end…
But for now – sign up, rate games, and excuse any errors, unfinished bits. It was kind of a mad rush today to get the current 40 games/26 developers up so we could make the site public. I hope you like it!
TIGSource Interview: Jamie Fristrom
By: Derek Yu
On: January 26th, 2008
Lars Doucet recently did an interview for TIGSource with Jamie Fristrom. And just who is Mr. Fristrom?
Be forewarned, it’s loooooong interview. But a great read that covers a wide range of topics, including game design, XNA, team management, moral responsibility in game development, and Richard Garfield (the guy who created Magic: the Gathering). Definitely worth checking out.
TIGSource Interview: Matt Hammill
By: Derek Yu
On: December 21st, 2007
Matt Hammill is one-man-show behind the beautiful action/puzzle game Gesundheit!, Comic Dice, and other fun, nifty things. Recently, Steve “moshboy” Cook took the opportunity to ask this talented Canadian illustrator/game developer a few questions about life and the pursuit of gaming.
Text the Halls: a TIGSource IF Competition
By: Derek Yu
On: December 10th, 2007
Sorry, guys. It’s time to learn how to read!
The Independent Gaming Source: A community of independent game developers and players.
TIGForums DevLog Magazine
TIGForums Image Crawler:
