Dev Links: Growing Pains

“This was originally posted on the Flat Earth Games blog.

Today’s Developer Linksinclude some revealing stories from a few indie devs, along with app suggestions and dirty game dev tricks.

The 5 stages of depression in game development, according to Epiphany Games(IndieGames.com)
“This was originally posted on the Flat Earth Games blog. For background, the company is run by myself and my brother Rohan, and our first game is being co-developed by a Sydney-based studio called Epiphany Games. They and about ten other contributors have been working in their spare time, to be paid in a percentage of the profits from the game. This is an article about the stress I’ve felt during this process as a result of the depression I’ve been grappling with at the same time as all this has gone on…”

How a bad publisher deal made Mutant Mudds dev Renegade Kid go indie(IndieGames.com)
“There was a specific point in time when Renegade Kid went full bore indie. I prefer to avoid using the term ‘indie’, but the current meaning of the word accurately describes our current status: we stopped relying on publishers for game-development funding and decided to start trying to fend for ourselves financially with the development and publishing of our original games. At least, that’s what indie means to me.”

Dirty Game Dev Tricks(Gamasutra)
“One of Game Developer’s most popular features was our “Dirty Coding Tricks” bit from 2009, where we got devs to open up about some of the ugly hacks they’ve resorted to in order to make a ship deadline or pass certification. Well, we’re back with nine new from-the-trenches stories, including a few unorthodox tricks from other dev disciplines besides programming. So read on, revel in your colleagues’ ingenuity, and relax — because you’re not the only one that pulls out a dirty trick under pressure.”

BattleBlock Theater Cutscene Development(The Behemoth)
“About a year ago we were very lucky to bring in a new member of The Behemoth team to help with BattleBlock Theater development. Derek Lieu first joined us in 2012 to help with our Kickstarter video for the Necromancer figurine. Then we brought him in to change the process for BattleBlock Theater’s cutscene animation. You may also recognize his video editing in the recent trailers for BattleBlock Theater with art by Dan Paladin & Eric Haddad and narration by Will Stamper.”

Geoff’s List of Awesome OS X Apps(Lost Decade Games)
“I’ve been using a MacBook Pro as my primary development machine for 6+ years now. As such, I’ve collected a bunch of great OS X applications which make my life easier.”

“App Of The Day” type apps can help indies with app discovery(#AltDevBlogADay)
“App discovery has to be one of the biggest hurdles that independent developers will face in the mobile marketplace. When limited marketing budgets butt up against a crowded app space, it’s difficult for small devs to attract attention to their work. This is one of our primary obstacles we’re facing with our new release, Vex Blocks for Android. We’ve made the game, people seem to like the game, how do we get people to notice the game with our marketing budget as constrained as it is? I’d had a successful mobile developer recommend to me in the past that when you launch a new game, all you need to do is to pay the Russians $5,000-10,000 to get you to the top of the app charts and then see if you stay there. If your app doesn’t stay there, move on. That wasn’t the particular answer we were looking for with this game release and that’s where App Turbo helped out.”

Getting the development / PR balance right(Positech Games)
“…is a difficult thing for an indie game. I know of some companies where HALF the staff work full time on promoting the game. Doing nothing but making youtube videos, tweeting, replying to people on forums and facebook, emailing the press, looking for new indie game review sites, and generally building up a chatty online presence with lots of online friends so that they have an easier job of getting ‘viral’ PR for their game when it launches.”

Industry instability is here to stay, says The Behemoth(The Behemoth)
“BattleBlock Theater devs say chaos will keep everything moving forward, studios big and small always face the same hurdles”