Dev Links: Bug Hunt

Today’s Developer Links include articles on Infested Planet, The Unfinished Swan and the PS Vita.

La-Mulana’s Takumi Naramura on the difficult life of a Japanese indie(IndieGames.com)“The following is a distilled version of Naramura-san’s talk at GDC 2013, accompanied by his own hand-drawn slides from the presentation. Naramura-san’s presentation starts with a very interesting slide.”

Video: The Unfinished Swan – from student prototype to PS3 exclusive(IndieGames.com)“Prototypes make excellent “tools for thinking.” That’s just one of the lessons The Unfinished Swan taught Giant Sparrow creative director Ian Dallas. In this free GDC 2013 video, courtesy of the GDC Vault, Dallas recalls what he learned while studying at USC, and what he wish he knew while he was making the PlayStation Network game.”

Thoughts on Slender: The Arrival(Frictional Games)“Slender: The Arrival is the commercial version of a free game called Slender. The original was based upon a a simple concept: find eight pieces of paper before the Slenderman, a now famous creature that started out as an internet meme, gets you. I wrote a blog post about the game when it was released and as a short experiment I found it quite interesting, but wondered how one would make it into a longer experience. So when I heard a commercial version was in the works I became quite curious, and gave it a go soon after release.”

Art Asset Overview #40(Wolfire Games)“In this Art Asset Overview, I demonstrate some experiments with 2D/3D art: assets that are painted by hand, but have some 3D structure to support layering and parallax effects. We were thinking this might be an appropriate style for the Overgrowth “metagame”, where the player makes higher-level decisions, compared to the concrete moment-to-moment decisions of stealth and combat.”

Go Indie! — Get Started Making Indie Games (An Opinionated Guide)(Independent Gaming)“The game development industry is divided into two: the AAA, and the indies. They aren’t inherently “rivals”, but they sure are different. Unlike the big guys, the indies are usually smaller and less significant. They have less budget (but surprisingly, they manage a lot more than what a big boy with tons of cash could achieve given the same amount of time), but they are more relaxed. It’s the indies who usually innovate, because they haven’t got a lot of bucks to lose anyway. However, the lack of budget usually means a less polished experience.”

Secrets of Quick Iteration in the Core Social Space(Gamasutra)“Plarium was founded in 2009, when casual games on social networks were at the peak of their popularity. As long time game fanatics, the founders of Plarium — myself included — were excited to begin developing games driven by the growing demand on social platforms.”

Sony tells us what’s going on with the PlayStation Vita(Gamasutra)“Following Sony’s forecast last week that it will sell less than 5 million PlayStation Vitas this fiscal year, I reasoned that the company appears to be ditching the Vita in favor of its upcoming PS4 launch.”

Summer of Infested Planet(Rocket Bear Games)“I’ve been hard at work making the next version of Infested Planet. Big things are coming up ahead, and I thought you might like a little glimpse of them. The next update is full of little tweaks and changes. For example, I completely reworked the main menu with the gorgeous illustration done by Fernando.”