The Indie Games for Good marathon is going on right now! Go watch these fine folks sit in a room and play indie games and yell at each other when they die! They’re on World of Goo as of this writing, and I can hear them yelling in the background. I imagine someone’s structure just tipped. Good times!
IGG Marathon going on NOW NOW NOW
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A Weekend Full O’Jamming
This weekend was TIGJam! (A game jam organized by TIGSource) It was a lot of fun! We did a lot of jamming! Here are some highlights:
- Participating in the “hey let’s make a game in 1 hour” minijam. (We took 1.5 hours, but it was fun anyway. We weren’t the only ones who went over.) The inestimable Brendan Mauro handled the art, while Jim Crawford and I sat and stared at code. We made a game about steadily expanding sumo wrestlers, and maybe when I get some time I will post it here because it is rad.
- Eating lunch with random indie people who were visiting from Canada, making jokes about how everyone in Canada knows each other, bringing up Kate Beaton as a shining example of Canadiosity, only to discover that not only does he, in fact, know her personally, but he used to be her roommate. Inescapable Conclusion: Everyone from Canada knows each other. This has now been proven by Science.
- Admiring Brendan’s fine collection of Lego art, depicting various indie games. (It is a testament to his lego skillz that they were all quite recognizable in spite of the transition between mediums.)
- Discovering over lunch that Brendan was into Celtic tunes, and I am into Celtic tunes, and I had my tinwhistle, and he had an accordion, and having an impromptu jam session out in the parking lot. (He actually didn’t have his accordion with him, but serendipitously, someone else had brought one which we were able to commandeer.)
- Watching the epic Red Ice tournament on the big screen.
- Watching Team Meat give out Meatboy sound tracks, and then write terrible, terrible things on them, at peoples’ request.
- Seeing all the simply amazing things everyone else was working on. There was probably too much to list, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most right now is probably “Eels being dicks” simply because it had a name that was both awesome as well as incredibly apt.
So what have we learned from all of this?
Jams are Awesome.
Posted in Cool People, Other Peoples' Games, Uncategorized
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Happy IGF Day!
I've been making a game!
Well, it’s that time of year again. IGF has rolled around. And with it, a new game announcement! From me! So while I’m sure in the coming days we’ll see an incredible deluge of amazing games by talented people on the IGF site, I figure I’ll take a moment and talk about my own humble contribution to the festival. A little something I like to call “The Elements of Magic”.
It’s true. I’ve been working on a new game, and while it’s not done yet, it is at least far enough along that I don’t feel quite so embarrassed showing it. In what should be no real surprise to anyone who has followed my games, it is another SHMUP. And it doesn’t even have the strange mechanics of Negative SpaceCraft, or the weird role reversal from Boss Rush! So what DOES it have? Well, a few neat things. Read on to find out more!
Posted in Dev Log, Elements of Magic, Games, Uncategorized
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I am Bad at Capitalism
So in theory, when you make games, other people are supposed to pay you to play them. But here at Paper Dino Software, we don’t play by your rules, society! So in gross defiance of conventional wisdom (not to mention basic business acumen) I have turned the tables on your precious paradigm and am instead now paying other people to play the fruits of my hard labor!! That’s right, take that, society-at-large!
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Still alive!
Dear internet. How have you been?
I’ve been good! Terrible about keeping you up to date about my goings on of course, but you’re probably used to that by now. And other than that, things are going swell!
GDC is of course, this week. I hope to see many cool people there! (I have already been seeing many cool people in preparation, since folks like the Final Form Games are out on this coast at the moment. We hung out on Friday, and it was rad!) Also it is sounding like there is a TIGSource meetup, and several misc. indie events going on, so I have high hopes for the quality of the random dudes I will meet in the next few days.
In other news, I have a new project, which I’ve been working on ever since Negative Spacecraft. I am pretty proud of it! It’s a little bit more ambitious, in some ways, but it is coming along quite nicely, and I’m very happy with the direction it is going. I’ll do a more formal announcement (with, you know, actual details) once I get a little bit further along. If I run into you at a party this week though, there is at least a 50% chance I will attempt to draft you into playing it, so consider yourself warned.
So. Here begins a week of parties, indie gaming, and awesome random dudes. Life is good!
Posted in Cool People, GDC, Industry News
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Negative SpaceCraft – Launched at last!
Negative SpaceCraft!!!
Well, it has been a long and crazy development path, but I am happy to announce that my most recent game, Negative SpaceCraft, has been officially launched!
You can play it over at AddictingGames.com.
Or if you would prefer to read about it, you can do that too.
I have you covered, gentle reader!
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A brand new year
It’s a whole new year! Back again from Christams vacations and family visits and the like! Back to some fun news, in fact!
First off, I was incredibly gratified to see this article. While Hydorah was a shoe in for #1, I was incredibly gratified to see Boss Rush even made the list, let alone snagged a respectable placement on it! (Also gratifying was that, based on the comments, some new people played it who hadn’t seen it yet. And liked it!)
Second of all: Final Form Games has snagged an honorable mention for audio in this year’s IGF! Congrats fellows! That is no small feat!
Finally: Negative SpaceCraft! Nearly released. Once again, it has been done for a month or two, but I have been bogged down in sponsor-getting. How do I keep doing this? I need to not try to release games right before I go on vacation for the holidays, I think. But it will be public soon. Soon, I tell you! Soon!
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That time of year again
IGF time!
It’s mid-October, and the pumpkins are out. And, potentially more interesting, the list of IGF entries for the year is out as well. There are some fantastic things on that list! And while there is one of them at least, that I have a certain amount of bias towards, I think I will highlight a few of the others that caught my eye!
Below the fold, of course. I still have some sense of decorum.
Posted in Games, Industry News, Other Peoples' Games
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Announcing Negative Spacecraft!
New crazy shmups inbound!
Looking at my recent dalliance into games about poetry, you could probably be forgiven if you were worried that I was past my “boss rush” phase, had forsaken SHMUPS and had decided to go play with word games, my new best friend, for ever and ever, from now on.
If you thought this however, you were in err!
I also still make crazy SHMUPS as well!
Behold! A new game: Negative Spacecraft!
What? You don’t believe me? Well… maybe some details will convince you… after the break!
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Haiku News (Hai-news?)
So I released Haiku Hero, and then promptly vanished off to Japan to hang out with the cool folks from Nigoro/Asterizm, sing Karoke, and eat delicious chicken katsu. (I’m not actually cool enough to know them personally, but got a rare chance to tag along when master translator extrodinaire Shih Tzu went a’visiting. Since him, apparently, I am cool enough to know personally.)
It was a good two weeks! But now I’m back, and digging out from under all the things I put off in the meantime. Not the least of which is press coverage! Yes, humble haiku hero has managed to get at least a bit of decent press, thanks to its unusual premise and peoples’ innate love of writing silly things while under constraints.
So! What are people saying? Click on to find out!
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