The Indie Flood Continues…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 30, 2013

Steam just Greenlit 100 new games – the largest ever. It gave Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon greenlight page a nice little boost towards the top 100. It is apparently Valve’s intent to phase out Greenlight in favor of a better system that removes most barriers to getting a game on Steam. The 100 […]

Filed Under: Biz, Links & Tidbits - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Unity Levels Up?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 29, 2013

The big buzz in the game dev community has been about Unity’s embrace of 2D support, announced Wednesday. It’s … big. Unity Introduces New 2D Tools I figured something like this was in the works when they hired the guy responsible for the best-selling NGUI toolset. I expected that it would be more limited to […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 28, 2013

I haven’t mentioned Guido Henkel’s new thing yet. I figured I should remedy this little problem. First of all: Who is Guido Henkel? He’s the producer of some pretty legendary titles in the computer RPG history – the original Realms of Arkania series, and Planescape: Torment.  He was also involved in the production of Fallout […]

Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

An Unusual Tale of Online Romance

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 27, 2013

Last week I read a very cute novel. I don’t normally go for little romantic comedy books, but this was an exception. It was about a girl, Nattie, who meets a guy online. At least she thinks it’s a guy, but she’s not sure at first. The whole anonymity that comes from remote communication via […]

Filed Under: Books - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Will Movie Theaters Go the Way of the Video Game Arcade?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 26, 2013

Once upon a time, arcades were a fixture in my life. This was so deeply ingrained that even to this day, on those (relatively rare) occasions I find myself inside a shopping mall, I still find myself looking for one. It was something of a surprise in the late 80s when I’d go to a […]

Filed Under: Geek Life, Movies - Comments: 14 Comments to Read

How to Evangelize Indie Games

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 23, 2013

I saw what was supposedly an ad on YouTube for the Ouya a couple of days ago, and really wanted to believe Ouya had nothing to do with it. But apparently, they did. I don’t even want to link to it directly. It was revolting and embarrassing. Gamasutra: In the hardware messaging war, Ouya’s playing […]

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 11 Comments to Read

Game Dev: Hitting the Brick Wall

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 22, 2013

I have met a few people in my career who seem to have the magical ability to “do it all.” They can code. They can design. They can draw. They can write. They can do sound design. They are the jacks of all trades, and IMO ideally suited to the indie scene. They didn’t get […]

Filed Under: General - Comments: Read the First Comment

GOG.COM Does Even More Indie Outreach

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 21, 2013

It’s not earth-shattering or anything. But GOG.COM is trying to make themselves more accessible to indies than their competition. What that really comes down to is that they are making it a little easier for indies to submit games; they are promising “honest feedback” (telling you why your game was not accepted), and switching over […]

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: Comments are off for this article

It’s About Communication

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 20, 2013

We drive my daughter to college today. This makes no sense to me. I’m barely out of college myself, right? Right? I don’t know if I can even begin to comment on all the weird thoughts going through my head at this time.  But I guess I captured a lot of them a few months […]

Filed Under: Geek Life, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Advice on Making an FPS

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 19, 2013

The 2013 7DFPS (7 Day FPS) ended this weekend, but here’s the keynote chock full of advice for making games in a single week. Much of this advice is not unique to FPS games. And… well, some of it is just sarcastic. And funny. And even contradictory. 100% as it should be… Best advice from […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: Comments are off for this article

The Humble EA, er, Origin Bundle

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 16, 2013

The Humble Bundle started as the “Humble Indie Bundle,” but hasn’t been purely indie for a while. The Humble THQ Bundle – sort of a last gasp from a dying publisher (but one of the better-liked ones) – was a clear signal that it wasn’t just about the indies anymore. I kind of looked at […]

Filed Under: Mainstream Games - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

The Gamers: Hands of Fate

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 15, 2013

It looks like this Kickstarter-funded movie, the sequel to The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, is now available for streaming for about two weeks. This is the “festival cut”, so it is not the final, release version of the movie. The Gamers: Hands of Fate And hey, my name is in the credits! Along […]

Filed Under: Movies - Comments: Comments are off for this article

The Improv Rule for Role-Playing Games

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 14, 2013

This one may be a bit focused on dice & paper gaming today. But hey, for me, it’s all connected. One of the few “rules” adopted for improvisational acting (and for round-robin story writing exercises) is the “do not negate” rule. That means you can only build on what those before you have said, not […]

Filed Under: Dice & Paper, Geek Life - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

The Challenge of an Episodic RPG

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 13, 2013

I’ve had an idea for an episodic RPG for a long time. A very long time, actually – since before Frayed Knights. I actually put a great deal of time and research into the design. One day, I plan to revisit it – with a vengeance. After Frayed Knights 2 and 3 are out the […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 14 Comments to Read

X Rebirth

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 12, 2013

I’ve had a soft place in my heart for the entire X series. I discovered the first one – X: Beyond the Frontier, on accident, at a *gasp* game store one afternoon, and bought it on a whim. I’d never heard about it before. But it had several things going for it: It was a […]

Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Old-School vs. New-School – The Literary vs. the Cinematic

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 9, 2013

Weird thought for the day… Dungeons & Dragons came into existence before the era of the “Hollywood Blockbuster.” Which generally means pre-Star Wars. Reading the old Dragon magazines (yes, I do that) of that era, and the references mentioned in the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons manuals, it struck me that the vast majority […]

Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



« previous top