Really pleased to say that one of the teams I am working with have just wrapped their latest XBLA game. Geon: Emotions (www.useyouremotion.com) was developed by Strawdog Studios (www.strawdogstudios.com) and will be published by Eidos on Xbox LIVE Arcade this summer/autumn. The team are now starting work on their next original game (also for XBLA) [...]
The Next Never Mind The Polygons is going to be in Brighton on the last day of the Develop Conference, Thursday 26th of July, 18:00 – 20:00. Sadly Iain Simmons can’t make it so we have a stand in captain for the evening. The panel this time will be: Toby Barnes (Pixel-Lab) as the host [...]
Tuesday 15th May – Pixel Labs will be hosting the latest evening of beer and game dev discussion at Friargate Studios in Derby. Iain Simmons and I will be joined in the hot seats by Nick Burton (Rare), and Alan O’Dea (Business Development Manager, Monumental Games) for a light hearted industry quiz/rant followed by general [...]
I attended the inaugural Northern Exposure gaming conference yesterday, which took place at York Racecourse. The event was organised by North-based games networks GameHorizon and Game Republic and was focused on the future of games publishing and the impact of digital distribution. There were a number of interesting and lively talks given by a variety [...]
In a recent blog post (Pag on Games » Designer’s Intent) Pierre-Alexandre Garneau talks about something he calls Design Intent, which I have always referred to as design objectives. In essence the designer sets objectives for the project and for each section/module of the project that the team can clearly understand. When setting objectives I [...]
Grand Theft Auto Syndome is a disorder which afflicts small start-up developers and causes them to believe that their small team is actually five or six times its actual size. As a result they decide that their first project will be a Grand Theft Auto beater, requiring three years development and a $15 million development [...]
The concept of selling game ideas is one that appeals to a lot of people, especially those outside the industry looking to break in. In a recent post over on Gamedev.net (Link) someone once again asked the question of how to go about getting $10 million from a publisher for a game idea (with no [...]
Making games requires creativity and a great game idea is an important part of that. However, starting a company need more than just a great game idea. If you are looking to go the digital download/self publishing route you also need to know how to market your company and your games to customers and how [...]
Let’s assume that you have managed to negotiate a deal where the publisher doesn’t recoup advances (as mentioned here) or maybe you have self-funded development and will be earning a royalty from unit one. It might seem that all is looking rosy is the cash-flow garden. Sadly there is a weed in the flower bed [...]
A sudden change of circumstances isn’t a good reason to start a business (unless you have spent the previous few months planning to do so). Being made redundant can be a stressful event and for that reason isn’t ideal for planning a company. There is a lot of planning and research that should be undertaken [...]