David Barnes @ Packt

Indie Games Channel: One of the goals of events like IndieCade and IGF are to expose new indie games to a new audience. In your experience, what is the best way to market and create awareness for indie games?

Ricky Haggett: It takes a lot of time to build awareness for anything these days – there’s so much stuff out there! And this is especially true if you’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, and you don’t have a huge marketing budget. I think for a game like Hohokum, it makes sense to start showing and talking about something as soon as there’s something you’re happy with people seeing.

Of course, this has downsides too – we’ve definitely seen that people are excited about our game to the point where they’re actually frustrated about not knowing when they’ll be able to play it for real. But especially when you factor in the benefits of being to watch people play early versions of your game at events like IndieCade or IGF, the net result of announcing early is positive.

So here it is! Let’s jump right in by walking through game.js. You can also play the game right here.

1. Create the canvas

// Create the canvas var canvas = document.createElement("canvas"); var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d"); canvas.width = 512; canvas.height = 480; document.body.appendChild(canvas);

The first thing we need to do is create a canvas element. I did this in JavaScript instead of HTML to demonstrate how easily it is accomplished. Once we have the element we get a reference to its context, set its dimensions and append it to the document’s body.

From the creator of HTML5 game Onslaught! Arena comes this fun step-by-step tutorial where you build an HTML5 game from scratch. Have fun!

Don’t forget Packt’s HTML5 Games Beginner’s Guide too: http://goo.gl/tRMg1

This Flash game book is getting serious now, already up to 70 pages! Still need to flesh out the section on Blitting as well as Game UI sections. Blitting will probably be the largest part of the book. I already have a feeling like I am going to need to cut back or see if O’Reilly is ok if I go a few pages over my 100 page estimate. I would really love to add in a few pages of interviews. How do you summarize an introduction to Flash Game Dev in 100 pages?

I also added some screen shots of my tabel of contents. I’m interested in feedback on it.

Finally, I put in a B&N Nook Color Market deployment section based on +Terry Paton post yesterday (https://plus.google.com/114101814013862230773/posts/NgNXtCSMBHL) and some chats I have been having with Ted Patrick.

2011-08-30 (4 photos)

Good idea to share your outline early and get feedback. Too bad he’s doing it for O’Reilly. (Why am I helping him then?)

One problem with his approach is that you get feedback from educated people about what they think should be covered, but not much from the target reader: people who don’t know exactly what they need but ultimately will decide whether or not to buy and read the book.

Another innovation introduced with this new format is the ability to rent ebooks rather than buying them. Books can typically be rented for between 30 to 360 days, although the exact limits will vary from book to book. And rented book can be bought with full credit given for the rental fee, if bought before then end of the rental period.

Had to happen really.

Also new in the latest Kindle software: fixed layout ebooks (like PDFs) for books with complex formatting.

A nice clear How To for creating learning games (and not just video games either). For an example of the sort of learning experience Chloe comes up with, visit Creepytown: http://goo.gl/LjfyW

Or click the via for more details.

Meanwhile, a book idea inspired by this for you to vote on: http://goo.gl/mod/zr8N

Have you ever seen a game (such as Tiny Tower) that contains similar sprites that only vary by certain attributes (coloring, shading, accessories, etc…)? I would often wonder how long it would take the artists to create each permutation of these sprites. After discovering that you can call a method on a CCSprite called setColor, I realized how most of this customization is done in code.

This tutorial will be a continuation of my last post about creating your own Bitizen in Photoshop. So, if you don’t already have a Bitizen character to work with, I suggest you follow that tutorial OR download my template here.

Want to fill your Cocos2D game with hundreds of sprites of all races, creeds, and fashion sensibilities? Go no further than this adorable tutorial.

The job market for HTML5 game developers is growing fast, already out stripping advertised positions for Unity game developers according to job search engine Indeed.com.

Not just the first one.

And not all three.

But you really need at least one.

1. Results. If you can offer a return on investment, an engineering solution, more sales, no tax audits, a cute haircut, the fastest rollercoaster, a pristine beach, reliable insurance payouts at the best price, peace of mind, productive consulting or any other measurable result, this is a great place to start.

2. Thrills. More difficult to quantify but often as important, partners and customers respond to heroism. We are amazed and drawn to over the top effort, incredible risk taking on our behalf, the blood, sweat and tears that (rarely) comes from a great partner. A smart person working harder on your behalf than you’d be willing to work—that’s pretty compelling.

3. Ego. Is it nice to feel important? You bet. When you greet us at the door with a glass of white wine, put our name in the lobby of the hotel, actually treat us better than anyone else does (not just promise it, but do it)… This can get old really fast if you industrialize and systemize it, though.

This explains why the local branch of the big insurance company has trouble growing. It’s hard for them to outdeliver the other guys when it comes to the cost effectiveness of their policy (#1). They are unsuited from a personality and organizational point of view to do #2. And they just can’t scale the third.

Put just about any business with partners into this matrix and you see how it works. Book publishing, for sure. Hairdressers. Spas. Even real estate.

The Ritz Carlton is all about #3, ego, right? And on a good day, there’s a perception that the guys at Apple are hellbent on amazing us yet again, delivering on #2, taking huge career and corporate risks on our behalf. As soon as they stop doing that, the tribe will get bored.

(There’s a variation of ego, #3, that comes from being in good company. This is what gets people to sign up for Davos, or to choose ICM as their agent. Your ego is stroked by knowing that only people as cool as you are part of this gig. Sort of the anti-Groucho opportunity. Nice position, if you can get it, because it scales.).

It’s tempting, particularly for a small business, to obsess about the first—results—to spend all its time trying to prove that the ROI is higher, the brownies are tastier and the coaching is more effective. You’d be amazed at how far you can go with the other two, if you commit to doing it, not merely talking about it.

Can tech writers and publishers offer more than results to readers?

1. Results: shows readers how to do the things they needed/wanted to do.
2. Thrills: shows surprising tricks, features witty and attention-holding examples and stories.
3. Ego: makes the reader feel like they’re doing a great job, making loads of progress, and are really clever.

Is it possible to do all three? Sometimes it’s hard to massage the reader’s ego — making them feel clever — and at the same time be thrilling, which means doing things outside the reader’s expectations. Which is most important?

Felix Salmon has a couple great posts on the New York Times’ paywall. He notes that it has been successful and explains why. Felix says:

Yes, the NYT paywall is porous — but that’s a feature, not a bug. It allows anybody, anywhere, to read any NYT article they like. That makes the NYT open and inviting — and means that I continue to be very happy to link to NYT stories.

I’ve been a fan and a proponent of porous paywalls since studying the FT’s model a few years back and was very pleased to see the NY Times go with the FT’s model. 

NYT enables visitors to read any story they land on, and even to hack their way around and read all content for free. But elegant navigation between stories requires the customer to pay… and many do.

The genius of the NYTs approach is to enable sharing of any piece of content, while making the full and convenient experience of the product available only to people who pay.

This is similar to freemium games where the game can be played for free, but in a more intense and fun fashion if you buy in game items.

Here’s the image showing Apple’s alleged manipulation of the Samsung product images.

The Register adds…

“… it was the supposed similarities between the devices that convinced the judge to ban sale of the Galaxy Tab within Europe (Netherlands excepted). Although Apple never specifically claimed the two devices had identical proportions, presenting these images (without explanation) is surely - quite literally - a case of stretching the truth.” — http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/16/apple_samsung/

Combat Tests: The bulk of hardcore console games are action games that involve hitting and shooting. They are so for a reason. Combat games are highly master-able, often extensible and so players can immediately understand what they need to do in order to win. The test is whether they have the skill to do it.

Agility Tests: Platform games, from Mario to Ico and back, test the player’s ability to work out a series of actions to get from a start point to the gold star without getting killed. The single biggest cause of unfairness in agility tests is bad camera placement, which is why Mirror’s Edge is an unfair platform game.

Reaction Tests: Racing games keep the scenario pretty simple, so the player’s test is obvious (win) and easy to comprehend. The question is whether he can react fast enough or not to get there. Beat em up fighting games also test reactions, but in a different context.

Tadhg posted this a couple of months ago: examples of fair tests, unfair tests, and “non tests” in game design, and why fair tests are important.

Reminds me of one of Jesse Schell’s Lens of Judgement:

Miyamoto originally named the character “Mr. Video”, and he was to be used in every video game Miyamoto developed.^[7] According to a widely circulated story, during localization of Donkey Kong for North American audiences, Nintendo of America’s warehouse landlord Mario Segale confronted its then-president Minoru Arakawa, demanding back rent. Following a heated argument in which the Nintendo employees eventually convinced Segale he would be paid, they opted to name the character in the game Mario after him.^[8][9]

Miyamoto commented that if he had named Mario “Mr. Video”, Mario likely would have “disappeared off the face of the Earth.”^[6] By Miyamoto’s own account, Mario’s profession was chosen to fit with the game design. Since Donkey Kong was set on a construction site, Mario was made into a carpenter. When he appeared again in Mario Bros., it was decided he should be a plumber, since a lot of the game is played in underground settings.^[10] Mario’s character design, particularly his large nose, draws on western influences; once he became a plumber, Miyamoto decided to “put him in New York” and make him Italian,^[10] lightheartedly attributing Mario’s nationality to his mustache.^[11] Other sources have Mario’s profession chosen to be carpenter in an effort to depict the character as an ordinary hard worker, and make it easier for players to identify with the him.^[12] After a colleague suggested that Mario more closely resembled a plumber, Miyamoto changed Mario’s profession accordingly and developed Mario Bros.,^[4] featuring the character in the sewers of New York City.^[13]

Due to the graphical limitations of arcade hardware at the time, Miyamoto clothed the character in red overalls and a blue shirt to contrast against each other and the background. A cap was added to let Miyamoto avoid drawing the character’s hairstyle, forehead, and eyebrows, as well as to circumvent the issue of animating his hair as he jumped.^[4][10] To make him appear human onscreen despite his small size, Mario was given distinct features, prominently a large nose and a mustache, which avoided the need to draw a mouth and facial expressions on the small onscreen character.^[14]

I love how every single aspect of Mario’s character exists for a reason, but there was no big master plan behind him… Every part of Mario got picked for a practical reason.

On a smaller scale check out the Chop Chop games for a successful “microfranchise” on the iPhone: http://gamerizon.com/games/