Sixteen Indie Success Tips

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 29, 2012

Mike Rose quotes Robert Boyd’s five steps to indie success at Gamasutra: 5 Ways to Be a Successful Indie Developer I don’t consider these to be all that controversial. The first one – don’t go it alone – is about the only one I’d raise a minor exception to, and that is primarily an implementation […]

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Are RPGs Too Long?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 28, 2012

I feel a little heretical asking this question, in an age when $60 mainstream games have been cut down to 12 hours (or less) of gameplay (“But we make up for it in multiplayer!”). In discussing turn-based versus action-based RPGs with a friend and fellow Frayed Knights developer Xenovore (much more of a fan of […]

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Indie RPG News Round-Up, June 2012

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 27, 2012

I’ve been holding onto some of these so long they don’t seem much like “News” right now, but it’s been a pretty crazy few weeks. Anyway, here is a quick summary of some of the things that have been happening on the indie RPG news front of late: Long Live the Queen!– I really want […]

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The Game Which Can Not Be Killed: Interview with Dead State Developer Brian Mitsoda

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 26, 2012

As I have frequently stated, I’m pretty dang excited about the indie RPG-in-development Dead State, even though I’m not much of a zombie fan. But I have been a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction and (dice-and-paper) RPGs for a long time, and Dead State’s focus on the survival aspect intrigued me from the get-go. Over the […]

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No Time for Retro-Gaming?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 25, 2012

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend about how I recently re-played Ultima III to completion.  I explained to him that it started out mainly as a research-thing, but after about an hour (all I was really planning on putting into it, to get the feel for it again), I was really […]

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Indie Innovation Spotlight – Orbz

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 22, 2012

This week’s spotlight is on another indie game that is a personal favorite of mine, an older title that I encountered early in my own discoveries of the whole “indie scene” (that term still cracks me up). I discovered this game while knee-deep in the development of  Void War. I’d made the mistake of not […]

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Survival RPGs and Dead State

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 21, 2012

A few years ago I started talking to friends about what I termed “survival RPGs.” There weren’t many, to my knowledge. I kinda put the Ultima Underworld and Arx Fatalis games in that category.  Though I haven’t played it, it sounds like Robinson’s Requiem would firmly belong there. Several roguelikes would probably fit, too. But […]

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Frayed Knights Dev Update: Looking Back

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 20, 2012

I guess it’s time to start talking a little bit about Frayed Knights 2. Having weekly (or nearly weekly) updates on the original on the blog was actually pretty handy for the development process, and we’re getting close now to the point where I may be doing the same thing with the first sequel. We’re […]

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Indie Game The Movie – Thoughts

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 19, 2012

I pre-ordered the Special Edition of Indie Game: The Movie some time ago. Unfortunately, I still ended up being one of the last people to see it. I wasn’t able to see it when it showed at the Sundance Film Festival here in Utah, and I guess there was some kind of exclusivity thing with […]

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism, Movies - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Worlds of Ultima 1 & 2: *FREE*

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 18, 2012

They aren’t indie, but they were made on what would be considered an indie budget today. And they are free at GOG.COM … Worlds of Ultima 1 and 2 – FREE These are two spin-off games from the Ultima series that were made using the Ultima VI engine. As I recall, Warren Spector said his […]

Filed Under: Free Games, Retro - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

On My Way Back Home

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 15, 2012

It’s been an exhausting 3 weeks in France – and sadly, I don’t get much of a vacation because I took that on the front-end 🙂 Anyway, the job in Le Havre is done, and it’s time to go back to Utah. By the time you read this, I should (hopefully) be somewhere over the […]

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The Dead State Kickstarter Thing

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 14, 2012

I’ve talked about Dead State several times here on this blog.  I’m pretty sick of the whole zombie thing, but I’m very excited about this RPG – which is billed as more of a post-holocaust survival RPG  where zombies are the primary environmental threat, but not so much an ‘enemy’. Anyway, I was excited for […]

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IP Rights – Why Are They Are Important to Indie Game Developers? Part 3

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

Okay, part three of my ramblings (I’m stressed out in a foreign country trying to post between 12-hour days, so forgive me) about IP. In this one I try to finally answer the question… “WTF?” Or, rather, “Why?” Let’s dispense with the lightning-in-a-bottle examples like Minecraft for a minute. Your average indie, making a game […]

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IP Rights – Why Are They Are Important to Indie Game Developers? Part 2

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 13, 2012

So yesterday I prefaced the whole “IP rights” thing with a story about a non-indie publisher. My feeling – echoed by most within the indie arena, but apparently not all – is that owning your own IP is a “necessary but not sufficient” aspect of your game being indie. But even within that, there’s a […]

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IP Rights – Why Are They Are Important to Indie Game Developers? Part 1

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 12, 2012

This is gonna be a multi-part article about a discussion we had last week (in comments) about Intellectual Property rights. Why are they such a big deal? Why should indies care (beyond the fact that, in the opinion of most, if you are working on someone else’s IP, you ain’t indie)? Let’s talk about a […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism, Mainstream Games - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

How to Tell a Story – Pixar Style

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 11, 2012

Just one o’ those links I feel compelled to share. Here are 22 “Rules” of storytelling according to Pixar – which hasn’t made a movie I haven’t liked yet (or that hasn’t made bajillions of dollars).  Via Pixar employee Emma Coats, here’s the little nuggets of wisdom she’s picked up from the studio: The 22 […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 5 Comments to Read



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