http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog "People tend to forget that play is serious." - David Hockney Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:21:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en After the experience of working on the almost 50,000 line Dragon Age: Journeys project, I've been thinking about what I love (and hate) about AS3. It's really not a bad language, and it's certainly professional enough to make high quality browser product. So, kudos from making something which looks sort ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=23 Aside from the game business, I do dabble in music. I've also been running a small indie record label for the last 8 years or so. Recently I've been thinking that the music business is truly and completely fucked, partly because of some dumb moves on the part of the ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=22 Yeah, 2009 is a great year for trying to make money off of Flash games. Instead of being able to buy a venti iced cappucino (and a muffin!), you're reduced to whatever grocery store swill your 85 cents per day can buy. Yep, ad revenue is in the toilet. GameJacket ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=21 Terry Cavanagh (of recent "Don't Look Back" fame) has a new short indie game -- Judith. This one's downloadable, not Flash, but shares the same atmospheric/creepy aspect. It plays with an interesting split-narrative approach, and the Wolf3D-esque engine strangely helps make the game much more immersive. It'll only take 30-45 minutes ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=20 GamePoetry has a nice article up about making money in the Flash space, specifically discussing how contract work can be much more profitable than sponsorships an advertising. From my experience, I'd agree. We have been lucky enough to get to the point where some sponsors are paying us up-front for ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=19 Kotaku has published a great article which echoes many of my feelings about the maturity (or immaturity) of the AAA game industry. From my view, games won't become "serious/arty" until the teams themselves are. Often dev teams will have 'writers' who can't actually write, fanboy designers, producers obsessed with violence/blood/sex, ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=18 The "new" E3, not like the "old" E3 of the last few years, but suspiciously like the "glory days" E3 of 5 years ago. While I've enjoyed getting, err, "tipsy" at a number of E3 parties -- do we really need to bring back the booth babes? As if we didn't ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=17 I was just reading an article on Gamasutra about researchers who were measuring "engagement" in first-person shooters. Using biofeedback, they graphed various physiological factors over time -- finding that the tempo and pacing of cutscenes, combat distances, weapon interactions, all affected how engaged the user was in the game. One of ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=16 I was so close! The solution is nicely laid out here: http://www.s-seven.net/blog/2008/11/puzzllotto-solution.php I had all four levels solved, I had the number spot assigned rights, and the final image, and I knew that the lemurs/butterflies were some sort of numeric code. I had scanned the application files with a hex editor ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=15 "The order of the puzzles in Puzzllotto has more to do with playability than solvability." This showed up on their Twitter feed yesterday. It has bothered me that at various points during the puzzles there seem to be multiple potential paths. Usually a bad move will pop up a "Fosa" and ... http://www.diffusiongames.com/blog/?p=14