It's a good thing I started buffing the column up with external links. This appears to have been the guild's slowest news week in quite some time. Let's blame it on the holidays.
- Amagam Software's Chris Kaitila has been collecting a list of indie game jams. Check it out if you're interested in meeting to develop games in a short amount of time.
- The Game Crafter is teaming up with Queens New York Board Games and Card Games Meetup. Organizer Jay Huang is offering reviews and exposure.
- I mentioned an interview with Ralph Baer last week. However, I missed that GDC Vault recently made a speech of his free to view. Check out "How To Create an Industry: The Making of the Brown Box and PONG".
- Starcraft commentator Sean "Day[9]" Plott spoke with the University of Washington's StarCraft Club. The hour-long interview is available on Ustream. Check out Day[9]'s new Facebook fan page as well.
- Actually, I have a lot of interviews bookmarked this week. Andrew Vanden Bossche spoke to Dejobaan Game's Ichiro Lambe about about business models, Simon Parkin spoke to Matt Rix about the global iOS hit Trainyard and Travis Boisvenue spoke with Captain Forever's Jarrad "Farbs" Woods. Meanwhile, Quote Unquote interviewed Crawl's Linley Henzell, the conflicted Krimelo and AGameInAWeek's Jayenkai.
- Speaking of Jayenkai, somehow I missed his Retro Sprite Tool. It lets developers adjust a few sliders to create random graphics with animation. Providing you like the retro style, you can can combine it with Tomas Pettersson's sfxr and then focus on the programming. =)
- The Humble Indie Bundle #2 is now available! This time the bundle includes Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos and Revenge of the Titans... At least two of those are on my Steam wishlist, but I always feel too guilty to make my measly offering.
- Members of Spry Fox have been describing the development of their turn-based strategy game Steambirds. On his Lost Gardens blog, Danc expressed that he learned static, handcrafted levels decrease the depth of games. I agree. Procedural generation or die. That's sort of a theme this week.
Acebloke is aiming for seven updates to seven games before the end of the year. His Spore-inspired Dreamland has been shifting to an isometric perspective. Screenshots and descriptions of the steps he takes to generate the universe have been posted.
I keep focusing on the project's earlier "Spore-inspired" description rather than the phrase "graphical MUD" that is right on the hub page. I think I'm in denial.
Geldonyetich has been making progress and doling out what he has learned. He has also decided on the direction of his project. It's a roguelike... A roguelike?! Fifty-three columns of Tech Tree and it's a roguelike?! *GASP* *SPIT* *SPUTTER*
Flick, where are you?
I had planned to release an update to my procedurally generated rhythm action game, Fused Finale. Subscribers to that game (or Fooldom Come) will be able to start from any level they have entered and view their high scores in each. Little fixes include things like a redesigned fourth map that removes turns which were too close to the scanners. I also decreased the rate at which song duration increases so it doesn't feel as dragged-out and boring.
Unfortunately, I ran into a simple bug that I didn't have time to fix this week. The new version should be uploaded before Christmas.
...FRELLING A! You mean I didn't work on a strategy game this week either?!
I give. Play me out, Branks. I've been sitting on this for a while and I haven't decided if there will be a Tech Tree next week. Happy holidays, everyone! =)
Got news? I didn't have to edit the Gamasutra URL this time. Nifty!