Podcast Interview: Joe Lieberman from ArcadeTown

Another quick interview from GDC 2008…

Joe, author of the Indie Developer’s Guide to Selling Games, talks about current opportunities for indie game developers out there…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/vgsmart-2-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/vgsmart-2-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Joe Lieberman
VGSmart Guy
Does marketing for arcadetown.com

Oppotunities for indies…
always need to find the new thing and getting to the new thing first

Indies have been pushed out of the match-3, Diner Dash, games, etc….

So find new markets for competition

Suggestions for where indies can compete…
Lots of genres and old games that can be rethoughts and reskinned…
Like bringing a casual adventure game onto the market
Bringing casual sim games and casual RPG games
Make something new and original that has already been done

Indie MMO opportunities…
feel it is viable to make an indie MMO

But odds are that indies will do it wrong

Not going to compete with World of Warcraft

You can make money as an Indie MMO…as long as you don’t try to compete with those guys…

Ways to do Indie Marketing…
1) Grass Roots
2) Blogs
3) Can still get into magazines and newstands

Need to make a solid product

Made
Indie Developer’s Guide to Selling Games

Last Message…
Keep at it, it’s rough 🙂

***

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: PMOG Founder

Here’s a quick interview that happened at GDC 2008…

Justin, from GameLayers and the founder of the Passively Multiplayer Online Game (www.pmog.com) talks about developing and designing the unique game…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pmog-podcast-full.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pmog-podcast-full.mp3

Show Notes:
0-5:00
PMOG.com
Passively Multiplayer Game
Installed as a Firefox Toolbar
Started as an experiment

Builds a player profile based on your surfing/browsing habits

Game Designer Victoria…innovated and created something where folks can leave traps and other
suprises on websites for other players in the system

Wanted to build a game that used everyday actions to play the game

Wanted people to just play as they went about their lives

Having a toolbar in Firefox was a huge breakthrough for the game bacause it allowed for a passive
playing experience

5:00 – 9:00
Interesting Game Mechanics

Players can create missions in the game and allow other folks to play these missions…and so it allows
folks to learn topics by following a mission

There are hundreds and hundreds of missions played

People can lay traps as they create missions. So people use these missions to prank each other.

Two or three surprises as they developed the product…like learning how communities taking place

There is a huge potential for games that are integrated in everyday life.

Your everyday actions help to create new ways to interact and engage with them.

Hopes that games are made open so games can communicate with each other.

Envisions that there is a meta game that works with all games

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Ego City Developers and 2008 Mobile IGF Finalists…

Hey folks,

Tobin and Steve, from Punch Entertainment, talk about developing mobile games and their flagship product Ego City

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/egocity-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/egocity-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Two developers from the Ego City mobile game
an IGF Mobile finalist

Started into mobile games at the beginning of the industry in North America

Challenges for the initial mobile games…was developing for handsets with very limited capabilities

Also, did not realize how difficult it would be to port games to mobile…and making them work across many handsets

Did a multi-player title with Box Sports Racing…did this a few years ago…and realized how hard it was to do multi-player in mobile. Gave a reality check

The main challenge was to figure out how to get networking to work across different handsets…because networking worked differently on different handsets

Also, was hard to network across different carrier networks

After that first multi-player games several years ago, came to conclusion to focus on more single player games…did feel that community games would be the future, but would immediately
work on single player games…

There are a lot of large business challenges in the space…the marketing and sales channel is very challenging to overcome…because carriers control distribution
Carriers are more into taking already-successful brands and bet on them…they do not want to risk effort on new titles, etc.

5:00 – 10:00
Tried to do another multiplayer game before ego city…did something that worked with bluetooth…but by the time got to market….bluetooth devices needed to make the game work were not available…

Design goals for Ego City was to leverage the mobile space…and focus on the strengths of mobile…mobility and connectivity
So the goal was to focus on a community game

Question was…
How do you create a social game in mobile space that allows people to social/connect with each other?
So developed a system so that when communicated or interacted with other people in the game…would create a change on your ego as well as theirs

Asynchronous gaming vs. synchronous gaming and
how it relates to Ego City design…focus on PASSIVE multi-player design. So when you are off-line, your ego can interact with others…the AI your ego gets is based on the stuff you did in game earlier.

10:00 – 15:00
Changes to the initial design of Ego City
Development process was challenging because of hardware issues
But also found that could put in more customization after initial design
Pleased with that
Was able to add different features like chatting, blogging, and social aspects
End result was way more ambitious than initially started

User testing for Ego City…
most important thing is to make sure game is really fun
Target demographic was teens on up
The biggest change as a result of play testing was…
trying to match a social site like Facebook with the mobile experience

Initial idea was to make something that would complement a social networking site
But in the end, developing something that was its own social site

Other thing realized was that people wanted to do a lot more things with their avatars

15:00 – 20:00
Empowered avatars to do a lot of interaction with others…like
debate with each other, flirt with each other, fight with each other, hug with each other, etc.
There is a lot of interactivity between avatars

Borrowing and learning from mobile games in Japan and Asia
They do wish North America had the handset capabilities of phones in Japan and Asia
could do a lot more stuff with the game

Inspired mainly by Nintendo and most of their games

Games with micro-transactions…inspiring future features for the game

Through actions, can change personality and unlock rewards based on gameplay instead of just buying features

How flirting and fighting works in the game…
Can create interaction by doing something

Can always trigger competitions by giving folks gifts … like if give flowers, triggers a flirt competition.

The website will complement the mobile experience. The flirt and fight club will happen on the website and augment mobility.

Ego avatar helps to express identity and visuals convey what to expect the person

20:00 – 25:00
How does the website relate to the game itself?
Helps to extend the initial experience

Is Ego City in the same design space as Facebook … or is it a different design space?
Not interested in building a competing social network like Facebook. It’s about gaming…and built a community around that.
Wanted to integrate Ego City into current social networks…released a Facebook app to promote Ego city

May eventually allow egos to interact with other Egos on Facebook

Gaia Online released something on Facebook…and it took off.
Is the goal to extend Ego City into Facebook and to get folks to join Ego City
Yeah, goal is to promote the Ego City…and at the same time, the goal is to allow folks that have egos they are working on…
and carry it into other parts of their digital world (like Facebook or other places they hang).

Each platform offers advantages…
Mobile allows for quick messaging

Websites have different experience…sitting down and spending more time. So can have a longer game experience

With Facebook, with “Ego Mail” app…a great way to take your ego and share it with friends.

25:00 – 30:00
Are there any nuances and differences to developing a mobile community vs. a web community?
A lot of these questions are unanswered…cuz pioneering the space.
The main focus is on support once the folks buy the game.

Have a set up where other folks can interact with your ego even when you are off-line…so folks can interact with your ego…and you make
friends while you are off-line

Is this a whole new design space … for mobile vs. developing for the web?
It is a little different because your ego can interact with other folks…even though you are off-line. So it was developing an AI personality
that allows your ego to interact with others properly when you are offline…

That was the main design challenge.

Learn from game actions you take online to develop a personality ai that gets used for your ego when you are off-line

Also realized that to do a good mobile, not necessarily about graphics…it’s about focusing on the FUN factor that takes advantage of mobile features

30:00 – 35:00
Another challenge for mobile is designing a game that works on many handsets

How does Google Android relate to doing mobile games? Google Android is promising…but hopes that it is more than just another platform
Will have to wait and see

Where do you see the future of Ego City going?
Find more things for the Egos to do
That will be more clubs (Fight and Flirt Clubs)…lounges coming out related to having fun and dancing

What about building missions in the game? Is that relevant to the mobile space…or is it too real-time to work in the mobile game space?
Well, it’s a good time to talk about the other real-time game, Mobile Battles…where you do battle others and do have missions to unlock fe
atures. That other game does offer
more opportunities for missions

Mobile experience can only offer so many maps or missions. Developed a way to make something that works with mobile and web. So you play mobile…and if liked that,
then can continue the experience on the web.

Aside from these 2 games, are there any other games you’re working on?
There are other games getting done, but these 2 are the main ones we can talk about

35:00 – 40:00
Where do you see the future of mobile game development going?
Seeing ports of console games where core experience ported to mobile experience
There are 1 or 2 experiences….that are everlasting…
You want to be powerful
you want to have a social circle, friends

Future of innovation in mobile…is taking those core experiences…and figure out how to make it work in the mobile space
Finding that core experience *and delivering it in a new way that is unique to mobile*

Business model challenges for mobile games…
cannot offer stuff for free because of carriers

40:00 – 45:00
Their favorite mobile games…
Games from Gameloft like Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell that took core experience and ported it to mobile

What are your last suggestions for indie game developers looking to get into mobile…
a) There are porting challenges to overcome
b) Need to think about ways to get marketing and distribution; hopefully carriers will be more open to innovative titles in the future

Rookie Series: Podcast Interview: Bouncy Qubes Developer

Hi,

We’re going to experiment with a few new types of podcasts to see how best to help indie developers. One series will be interviews related to new and interesting game development mediums.

Another series revolves around “Rookie Indie Game Developers”….Indie developers that have released their first game.

Oscar, from iikgames.com, is the first interviewee in this series 🙂

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/iikgames-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/iikgames-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
Podcast:
0:00 – 5:00
Introduces self
Oscar from http://www.iikgames.com/
Talks about getting into games (by first playing them)
Decided to go Online indie game developer so could reach folks directly
Not many publishers in Mexico so it’s easier to go Indie
First game is Bouncy Qubes
Did several games before, but did not have any intention of selling them
Took 1.5 years to finish the game
Developers on the team are all in Mexico too
Work with family on the games
Most difficult part of designing the game was dealing with the game mechanics related to changing the color

5:00 – 10:00
Art style was inspired by Nintendo games
Issues with Game Mechanics while designing first game…
Initially had a keyboard and that was very hard for users
Switched to mouse
Issues with developing a game for Vista
Integrated it with the “Game Explorer” in Vista
Security issues with Vista…
Was saving all game data in program files directory, but Vista does not allow that,
So had to save elsewhere on the user’s hard drive…saved into the Application Data directory

10:00 – 15:00
Tested game as much as possible so that can have responsive and usable game
Tested on very low end machines
When released game, focused on Marketing
Likes the book “Indie Developer’s Guide to Selling Games” by Joseph Lieberman
Sends to several shareware sites to promote games
Right now, focused on porting game system to Mac OS

15:00 – 20:00
Goal is to make innovative, fun, and original games to the casual market
Favorite Games:
Chronic Logic Games
Professor Fizzwizzle Games
Last words for Indie Game Developers
Try out indie game development, it’s worth it
Constantly Improve Skills and Do your Best

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Aquaria Developer and 2007 IGF Grand Prize Winner

Alec, from Bit Blot games and TIGSource Forums, talks about the journey from starting out as an eight-year old kid indie…all the way up to developing the 2007 IGF Seumas McNally Grand Prize Winner game…Aquaria

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/aquaria-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/aquaria-podcast.mp3

Here is a short video of Aquaria…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G40cXjcz-9c]

Show notes:
0:00-5:00
Introduction, from Bit Blot Games
Talks about playing games as a kid
Got a programming book and worked on small games
Biggest game worked on was an RPG that would get restarted every few years
Got into indie scene as a kid. Then did some work for small indie studios
Not-so-great feeling when certain games got cancelled
Worked on a casual game with someone else
Worked on a game with girlfriend…an underwater adventure and eventually would be a precursor to Aquaria

5:00 – 10:00
Finished the game and wanted to see how to sell the game. But was not too interested in the marketing aspect.
Was on Big Fish Games.
Feels that marketing flows from a quality game
Started a freeware team in high school
Team management experience in high school.
Vision to start own company and do games
Didn’t feel inspired by the quick 2-month game finished
Sat down and came up with changes in development/quality process for future games
Came out with a prototype that was the seed for Aquaria

10:00 – 15:00
Continued working on it after meeting up with a new partner, Derek
Met partner after doing music for a parody game that Derek was working on…
Worked on Aquaria
Had to revise game 3-4 times … and iterated to get it done
Game was inspired by Action RPG genre
The story was boring when replayed it…so had to redo story
The importance of story to gameplay
The value of story in games…being able to enhance the experience
Graphics changed through the iterations

15:00 – 20:00
Music changed during iterations; had a composer. Then wrote some music by himself…then changed that to be more unique.

Sent to other game developers to get feedback during play-testing phase

Food system added in a later iteration.

The IGF Submission was the one with pure gameplay.

20:00 – 25:00
After played it, felt a little empty.
So added more characters and items.
Cooking system towards the end
Support/side system that gives you power-ups
Pressure of being told to release early
Knew that if released game early, it would be terrible
Last 10% takes longer than 90% of the game
Pressure to get stuff ready was challenging, had to submit to IGF in December 2006…and had to debug some major issues
Had a lot of interest, so making a great game…it was enough marketing to make a game a success

25:00 – 30:00
May do advertising in the future for the game, not sure
Wants to make a special boxed version of the game…as a collector’s item
Wants to make a soundtrack CD later on
Have a mac version that is going to come out soon
Subtle hints about the next game
Talks about doing a game that can hit a broader audience
Not necessarily a casual game, but something that is accessible to most folks

30:00 – 35:00
Top 3 lessons from Aquaria
Feels more confident now
Feels more relaxed
Feels better with partner….works well with Derek
Thinking about sending prototypes to testers and other game designers more early in the game design process

35:00 – 40:00
How definition has changed from an 8 year old to IGF Grand Prize winner
Since won IGF Grand Prize, more confident about abilities
Indiegamer.com and Gamedev.net as references for indies
forums.tigsource.com … enjoys the feedback section there

40:00 – 45:00
Community Projects at tigsource.com
Game competitions at the site too
Talking Online vs. going to GDC
GDC was cool because met folks doing games as a living
Skype every few weeks with various game developers
Favorite Indie Games…
Mr. Robot
Chocolate Castle

Some freeware stuff is nice

45:00 – 50:00
Where he sees the future of Indie game development going
Top 3 lessons learned so far being an indie…
1) Don’t give up
2) Work Hard
3) Have fun

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Mobile Game Developer of Anna’s Secret…

Jan, Developer of the IGF Mobile Finalist Anna’s Secret talks about developing the game.

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/annassecret-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/annassecret-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Description of Anna’s Secret and some of the mobile design features including geocaching

5:00 – 10:00
Educational goals of the game
Interesting features and unique design properties in the mobile design space

10:00 – 15:00
More ways and ideas to leverage the “mobility” aspect in the mobile game design space
User testing for Anna’s Secret and surprises encountered
Location Detection

15:00 – 20:00
Future mobile games that he would like to develop…mainly games that leverage location much better
Multi-player games in the mobile space
Developing a multi-player version of Anna’s Secret
Some of the features of a multi-player Anna’s Secret

20:00 – 24:00
Ubiquitous Gaming
Ideas for future mobile games
Educational Mobile Games
Suggestions for making games for the Mobile Space…like leveraging climate changes in mobile game design

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: George from PiEyeGames…

George, from PiEyeGames, talks about developing games as an indie and some of this experiences as a console developer.

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pieyegames-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pieyegames-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Talks about getting started as an indie

5:00 – 20:00
Talks about developing games as an indie
Development process
Design of games including Dark Side, Scavenger, and Circulate
Putting games on the portals

20:00 – 25:00
Future direction for games

25:00 – 28:00
Console development vs. indie development
Evolution of game design

Take care,
Action
Action

Podcast Interview: Developing the browser-based MMO Horse Isle

Joe, from Horse Isle, talks about the challenges and opportunities of developing a casual browser-based MMO. Joe discusses developing a flash-based MMO.

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/horseisle-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/horseisle-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00 — Introduction and description of the browser-based game called Horse Isle

5:00 – 10:00 — Development needed and testing process to release the game

10:00 – 15:00 — Description of how the world works and the underlying technical design of the game including PHP architecture

15:00 – 20:00 — Benefits of rolling own backend server vs. commercial backend server. Future development and enhancements to the game. Techniques for marketing the game.

20:00 – 25:00 — Game/Community limitations based on targeting an under-13 audience. Issues with updating a game that is always live….and having a test server to ensure stable releases. Time spent on technical vs. business issues related to the game.

25:00 – 30:00 — Social elements of running a game. Lessons learned from developing a browser-based MMO. Suggestions for other indie game developers out there.

Take care,
Action

Revised Gamma Bros Podcast…

Hey folks,

Thanks for all the great feedback about the podcast. One main theme was that the podcast had too many “clicks”…and so I’ve improved the podcast so that the hard clicks have been removed.

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/gammabros-podcast-revised.mp3

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: IGF Finalist and Gamma Bros Developer…

Part of the Gamma Bros development team talks about developing the game, benefits of using Flash…and their vision for their studio…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/gammabros-podcast-revised.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/gammabros-podcast-revised.mp3

Feel free to add our new Indie Game Podcast Widget that allows your readers to easily access our podcast library…
You can grab it here…

Thanks again for listening to the show and feel free to send over comments and suggestions on ways to improve the show.

We’re also looking for more interviewees…if you’ve developed a game and want to contribute back to the indie game dev community….send us an e-mail ( support at indiegamepod dot com) and we’ll go from there.

Take care,
Action