Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Matt Chatt – Brenda Romero, Parts 1 & 2

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 31, 2014

Matt Barton interviewed Brenda Romero for Matt Chat! Parts 1 and 2 are up, covering mainly the Sir Tech era. It’s a fascinating look back into the early games industry. And part 2: Great quote: “I’d rather make games for half the money than pretty much anything else in this world.” There’s a great little […]


Filed Under: Interviews - Comments: Read the First Comment



Deep Game Sales: Awesome or Terrible or Both?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 28, 2014

Cliff “Cliffski” Harris contends that the deep game discounts and massive bundle sales are a horrible trick played on gamers that will be the downfall of the industry in the long run. In his rant, he does acknowledge that in spite of flaws (devaluing of games, emphasis on quantity rather than quality, nobody finishing games, […]


Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 12 Comments to Read



While I was Gone…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 27, 2014

Man, I’m out of it for a couple of days, and crazy stuff happens. First of all, if you haven’t heard… Facebook is buying Oculus VR (best known for their still-in-prototype product, Oculus Rift), for a total price – if they hit their targets – that could be valued at around a cool $2 billion. […]


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 7 Comments to Read



Eleven Tips to Get the Most out of Rocksmith 2014

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 26, 2014

Now that Rocksmith 2014 has been out almost six months (I’ll have a six-month report in early May), articles and reviews about it have dropped off significantly. This is unsurprising, but also unfortunate, as Rocksmith 2014 is a game / tool that is best evaluated over the long haul. Sadly, that’s not how this industry […]


Filed Under: Guitar Games, Mainstream Games - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



Midnight Plane to Georgia

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 25, 2014

Caught the Red-Eye and a connecting flight to Savannah, Georgia again. By the time you read this, I should already be there. Please pardon me if I’m not too responsive. I’ve got a very, very long day in front of me at a customer site (going straight to the site from the airport), and so […]


Filed Under: General - Comments: Read the First Comment



Dem Indie Game Dev Blues

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 24, 2014

When I was a kid, I thought making games for a living was a dream job. I mean, I loved games. And while I wasn’t good at it (except in my parent’s eyes, I guess), I taught myself to program well enough to make games. I loved doing that. I’d come home from the arcade […]


Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



IGF Winners for 2014

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 21, 2014

I’m sad to say I haven’t played any of the IGF winners this year. I’ve definitely heard many of their names quite a bit – Risk of Rain, The Stanley Parable, and Papers, Please have kinda been everywhere over the last few months. I suddenly feel so out-of-touch. Or maybe I’m just channeling my inner […]


Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



Game Engines Plunge in Price

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 20, 2014

Remember what I said Monday about announcements coming this week about “ways to make / distribute games more cheaply and efficiently?” Yeah. Well, two of the big game engines – Unreal and CryEngine – have dropped their licensing costs through the floor. Following suit with Unity’s subscription model, Unreal is now charging $19 / month […]


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



Exploring Might & Magic X Legacy

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 19, 2014

Sometimes when you say, “Old-school RPG,” I think of games like The Bard’s Tale I, where you would get clobbered by villagers as soon as you left the guild. Or more primitive games that really had simplistic rules and not much by way of gameplay or graphics. On the flip side, you get the endless […]


Filed Under: Impressions - Comments: 10 Comments to Read



GOG.com Embraces the Penguin

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 18, 2014

GOG.COM has announced it is working on Linux support for much of its expanding library. For very old games running in DOSBox, this should be no problem. Newer games can be an issue, unless they already support Linux. I can read this a couple of ways. First of all, like Mac support, it’s simply a […]


Filed Under: General - Comments: Read the First Comment



GDC 2014 Begins Today…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 17, 2014

It’s been a long time since I last went to GDC (I can’t really afford it on my own right now), but I still miss it. I expect a great deal of game development news and announcements over the next three days. How all this will effect us as gamers remains to be seen. Most […]


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



Aldorlea Games’ Book of Legends – now on Steam and half-off

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 16, 2014

Long-time indie RPG developer Aldorlea Games has released – through a publisher (!) the game “Book of Legends” on Steam. It’s half-off until Friday, so if you are interested, I’d recommend snagging it soon. The Book of Legends on Steam Indinera Falls seems to suffer from a similar problem as I do – not knowing […]


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



Game Dev Quote of the Week: Interesting Decisions

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 14, 2014

This game design quote comes from Bruce Shelly, a designer of Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, and Age of Empires fame, from the way-back machine of 2001… and, as it is the season, it’s from GDC. “Presenting the player with interesting and well-paced decisions is the rocket science of game design. Players have fun when they are […]


Filed Under: Design, Quote of the Week - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



Why Indie Is Important…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 13, 2014

I’m not going to offer much commentary here, and it’s a big article. From my perspective, this is a story about exactly why there is such a thing as “indie” – bypassing the gatekeepers, the publishers and manufacturers, as much as possible. Because, simply put, if your business is beholden to another that doesn’t have […]


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



Something Old, Something New: New RPGs That Revisit Old Territory

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 12, 2014

My family happened to be in the neighborhood of Brigham Young University campus (where we met, actually) a few weeks ago, and we decided to show my daughter the school. I hadn’t visited the ol’ alma mater in over a decade, and wasn’t quite prepared for all the changes. I mean, it had changed a […]


Filed Under: Game Announcements, Retro - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



Are the New-Gen Consoles Stumbling?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 11, 2014

I wasn’t sure what to make of things when, right after the launch of a new generation of consoles, EA and Disney Interactive started laying off game developers and claiming that they were enhancing their “focus on mobile.” I mean, hello? In my experience, the first couple of years after a console’s launch is the […]


Filed Under: Biz, General, Mainstream Games - Comments: 10 Comments to Read



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