Experimental Game Dev Podcast Show

Using Amazon Web Services To Build Your Online and Mobile Games

Jeff, Amazon Web Services Evangelist, discusses how game developers can benefit from EC2, S3, and other services

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

Or listen to it here…

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Development of a new game genre, SOLAR games

A discussion with the CEO of Tonchidot about developing innovative mobile games

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

Or listen to it here…

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Indie Flash Developer Discusses The Changes He Made To Develop A Hit Game

Andy, developer of Steam Birds, talks about how he transformed a below-average flash game into a success

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

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]9p6MwHRucuo[/wp_youtube]

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Alfy: Using Video To Monetize Your Games

Chris, CEO of Alfy, talks about the benefits of using video to monetize your flash, social, and online games

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

Or listen to it here…

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Games As Art? How About Games As Utilities…

Hey folks,

As I attend various game conferences, I usually hear discussions about “games as art”…I’m not sure that’s the most important question. For games to be ubiquitous, they need to be utilities. I think the important questions to ask are…what mechanics/systems do we need to invent to turn games into utilities.

When a game becomes a utility, it then jumps out of the consumption curves of movie content/mmos…where there is a huge uptake initially and then a taper off over time…and into the utility curves of things like Google or Facebook….services that have grown over time.

We’ve already seen some innovations in ways to make games utilities…with services like FourSquare, Digg, and SCVNGR

With a utility, the games success grows over time. Now the question is…what are mechanics/systems that we can reference to build these game utilities…
Here’s an incomplete list…mostly borrowed from MMOs and Casual Games…

a) The game utility needs to work within the normal habits/acitivities of people/teams. That means…these games are not diversions from everyday life…but either amplifiers or accelerators of everyday life. FourSquare amplifies your experience of visiting a specific place. When you check-in, you may get a badge, etc. Digg relates to ranking and organizing news.

b) Badges/Achievements…this gives folks mini-missions/goals as they use the utility

c) Persistence…this is something that helps to show people’s time investment in the utility. This can be in the form of points, rank, or other types of system-generated content/information that helps to communicate the player’s investment in the utility…like an archive of their posts, comments, or ratings by others.

d) User-generated/Community-generated information streams…systems like Digg and FourSquare rely on users GENERATING content (rather than consuming it) … that content is added to the system to help make the game utility more valuable…for example, one player may create content relevant to other participants in the system.

These are the obvious mechanics…there may be other new ones…there has to be…because right now, the current design spaces have not thoroughly identified the mechanics/systems that can modify current games and turn them into utilities. Once we discover/invent these mechanics, we can easily apply gaming to everyday activities like search, dating, news, etc….with the expectation that the games will grow over time, rather than decline and taper off.

Any thoughts on other mechanics/systems that can turn games into utilities?

Upcoming Releases from Unity 3D + Contest to Win Unity iPhone/Android License

Hey folks, Unity was nice enough to donate a free copy of Unity iPhone/Unity Android to the winner of the contest…you can find the contest details here…

Now onto the podcast…

Tom, product evangelist for Unity, discusses upcoming updates for the Unity product

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

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]OeJXt65pVIk[/wp_youtube]

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Free Seattle Casual Connect + Gamesauce Conference Videos…

Hey folks,

For those of you looking for some good game design/development content to watch/listen to during the day…Casual Connect and GameSauce have been nice enough to put videos of the conference sessions online…

Check them out here…
http://seattle.casualconnect.org/content.html

and

http://gamesauce.org/news/category/lectures/

Also, we got some great interviews at the conferences…they’ll start airing next week 🙂

Development of Rock Candy, A Student Indie Game…

Daniel talks about his student team project, Puzzle Bloom

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/rock-candy-games-gdc-2010-interview-final.mp3

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]YCr_dVVQI2Q[/wp_youtube]

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Development of the game, Vox Populi Vox Dei

Pablo talks about his game, Vox Populi Vox Dei

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/werewolves-gdc-2010-interview.mp3

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]cRxiO4cNPWo[/wp_youtube]

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Mobile Game Development + Win Free Unity iPhone/Android License

Hey folks,

Every 4 months, we’ll cover a “new theme” … an area of games that may be useful and interesting to experimental game developers. In the past, we’ve done things with Alternate Reality Games and Social Games…now we’re going to focus on mobile game development.

Every week, we’ll focus on topics related to mobile game design and mobile game development. By the end of the 4 months, the goal is to spec out the unique aspects of the mobile design space.

To kick things off, we’re announcing a Unity iPhone/Android basic game license contest. You can enter the contest by doing one of the following…
a) Write an article about mobile game design/development that will be posted on the blog…it can discuss a mobile game you’ve worked on
b) Do an on-show interview about your current/previous indie/mobile game
c) Help to get someone else interviewed for the show…if you know another game developer that preferably does mobile games and would like to be interviewed, help set that up 🙂

The contest will go on until October 7th, 2010. The winner will be announced on October 15th, 2010.

Enjoy 🙂