Utah Indie Night – Summer 2011

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 29, 2011

It’s amazing to think we’ve been doing this indie night thing for so many years. Six years, now, I guess? Utah Indie Night was held this time at ITT Technical Institute in Murray. The attendance wasn’t our highest ever (maybe we should start advertising more, again?), but it was an excellent event. First off, Tim […]

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Frayed Knights – Manual: Background

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 28, 2011

Here’s another update on Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon. Today I’m posting a short section from the manual presenting the basic background / backstory. While much of this material is revisited in the game, making this purely optional reading, it’s hopefully an interesting set-up to explain the world and the adventurers in it. And […]

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A Terrifying Tale of Indie Game Development…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 27, 2011

… Wherein one developer frantically battles near-bankruptcy and changes game design repeatedly to avoid starvation, and eventually releases Amnesia: The Dark Descent to very impressive sales. The Terrifying Tale of Amnesia (at The Escapist) I gotta tell ya, this is a lot more riveting than the standardized-format post-mortems available in Game Developer magazine / Gamasutra. […]

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

Humble Indie Bundle #3!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 26, 2011

Donate to charity and pay what you want for five indie games. Cogs, Crayon Physics Deluxe, And Yet It Moves, VVVVVV, and Hammerfight are the games heading up this installment’s collection. You’ve got a couple of weeks to grab ’em for whatever price you feel reasonable. The charities include the EFF and Child’s Play, both […]

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Hit Game Designer Speaks Out on Ever-Improving Graphics, Reduced Innovation

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Here is a great quote from a game designer with several games (including a couple of hits) under his belt: “I’m afraid that what I see in the future is a heckuva lot more mundane than what most people come up with. I think that imaging will become a lot more realistic; that’s been the […]

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The Twenty and the Seven

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 25, 2011

The fun thing about opinion lists – no matter whose list it is – is that they immediately generate counter-opinions about their order, about what was included, and about what was excluded. This weekend we had a couple of interesting lists circulate. The first is from Wired, entitled “7 Fantastical Indie RPGs Worth Playing.” This […]

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Frayed Knights – The Manual: Magic and Spells, Part Three

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 22, 2011

Yesterday, I listed a couple dozen base spells from the Nature and Sorcery spell lines that are in Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon. Those are two lines that all players will be fairly familiar with by the end of the game. Today I’m sharing a dozen spells each from the Divine Magic and Dark […]

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Frayed Knights – The Manual: Magic and Spells, Part Two

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 21, 2011

Here are more excerpts from the rough draft of the Frayed Knights manual. For this installment and the next one, I thought I’d share some actual spells. I’ve decided to only include a sampling here, to reduce viewer fatigue. 🙂  A dozen spells of each magic type.  Today, I thought I’d share the two magic […]

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Frayed Knights – The Manual: Magic and Spells, Part One

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 20, 2011

The latest counts in Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon put the number of base spells in the game at just under 150. Yes, ONE HUNDRED FIFTY base spells. I guess there’s no kill like overkill – I’m a little stunned by the count myself. Plus, many of them can be upgraded with the spellcasting […]

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But… but… but… I Thought the PC Games Were Dead?!?!

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Apparently not. Zeboyd PC Sales Leave XBLIG In the Dust. A short excerpt from a short article: “In less than a week on Steam, Zeboyd’s Cthulhu Saves The World and Breath Of Death VII have already made more than they did in over a year on Xbox Live Indie Games. Let me repeat that: More […]

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

What Modern Gamers Want…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 19, 2011

Cristoph Harmann, president of 2K games, recently tried to explain about the rebooting of the X-Com franchise as something nothing like X-Com: ” The problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing – strategy games are just not contemporary.” Well, […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

The Feature Creep Cycle

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 18, 2011

So here’s the feature creep cycle, illustrated by user (including developer) requests: 1) Request – “Man, you really need this one little feature. It would totally take things over the top.” Implementation time: 4 hours. 2) Request – “The new feature you added is awesome. But it’s got these bugs in it. And it looks […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Indie RPG News Round-Up: July 2011

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 15, 2011

I note that as FK development heats up, I have fewer opportunities to peek out from my foxhole to see what else is coming. Thanks to readers for emailing me tips and news – keep ’em coming! Many of today’s items in the world of indie computer RPGs are simply reminders of what has already […]

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EPIC PULP!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 14, 2011

The lengths I will go through to avoid having to write a new blog post, huh? Anyway, sorry about the down-time of the website today. Everything should be honky-dory now. To make up for it, here’s a movie trailer that I personally am really looking forward to – if they don’t screw it up. Edgar […]

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Frayed Knights Manual: Feats, Part 2

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 13, 2011

(Link to Part 1) That’s right, two Frayed Knights updates in a row! This time, I do a nice little dump from the manual-in-progress explaining the more interesting feats in Frayed Knights. Again, none of this is 100% final yet, even after release (let alone the sequels), but we’re getting pretty dang close. One tester […]

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Frayed Knights Manual: Feats, Part 1

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 12, 2011

(Link to Part 2) Frayed Knights is a pretty big, detailed  game, and is gonna have a pretty substantial manual. My poor testers have been laboring without one, and have sometimes had trouble figuring out whether or not something is a bug with how certain things work. This means that, in addition to fixing lots […]

Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 11 Comments to Read



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