Category Archives: Fun and Opinion

Blogging for the point of blogging.

End of 2015, Looking Into The Future

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I haven’t made a blog post in over a month, which is probably the longest I’ve gone without one. And these breaks will be even longer in the future. But make no mistake: a lot of changes happened for me in the last month, and even more are expected in 2016, but Dust Scratch Games will still be active, and you can expect exciting announcements and developments in the months to come.

The biggest change is that I am no longer officially a student. I am thankful that I have a job position starting soon, but before then? The job searching process was painful…

When you're finally ready to begin your job search...

When you’re finally ready to begin your job search…


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Bad Game Design (By Example)

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I’ve released two indie games in the last year: “Drew and the Floating Labyrinth” and “Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament.” I’ve taken (and helped teach) University classes in game design. I have a large collection of games, some played and some not, but am familiar with their advances and can point out good and bad elements in each. All together, I think I have a good understanding of good practices in game design and making a fun and/or meaningful experience.

However, understanding is different from doing. While some players do appreciate my games, they have many flaws that have been pointed out. The gravity of these flaws on the overall experience would be lost on me had I not released my games to the public and received feedback. So in this post, I’ll go over some of the lessons I’ve learned in how NOT to do game design, using my games as examples. I hope this will be useful to me in the future, and I hope it provides insight to new indies and students as they build their first games.

unfinished_gameplay

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The Downside of Game Bundles and Sales

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If someone asked me whether or not they should sell their game in a bundle, I would be inclined to tell them not to. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been a hypocrite: as we speak, indiegamestand.com has my newest game “Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament” in a PWYW deal until September 17, 2015. This is only about 40 days after its release on Steam. All the same, I probably won’t include “Unfinished” in any other game bundles like I did with “Drew and the Floating Labyrinth,” and here’s my reasoning why.

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Game Conventions In Ontario & Beyond! A Helpful Guide For Local Indie Game Developers

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One of the best parts about indie development is the ability to participate with the community. There are many conventions and events every year throughout the world that celebrate video games, anime, comics, television, and geek culture in general, perfect opportunities to promote yourself. However, I noticed that most major game events in North America are on the West, East and South sides of the United States, central North America (specifically Ontario, Canada) has very little for indie games. Comics and tabletop games, sure, but indie games don’t really have much to be at. Its also really difficult to find any reviews or information outside the events’ homepages, so its hard to know what to expect.

If I Want To See Indie Games in this "Dead Zone," Where Do I Go?

If I Want To See Indie Games in this “Dead Zone,” Where Do I Go?

The following is a list of events I’ve been to, with my impressions of what type of atmosphere they provide. I hope the following information will be useful to developers in the Ontario area. This comes from me being in Windsor, Ontario, depending on your location you might have other better options.

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Special Thanks To Some Press That Covered Me & My Games!

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SOME COOL ARTICLES THAT MENTION ME BEING AT CONVENTIONS:

(A shout-out to a handful of the awesome people who wrote about me and/or my games, this list also gives a fair representation of how much “press” going to such events gets you. Generally, very little: larger events may have larger press representatives, but its still a lottery as to whether they even see your work, let alone care about it. Sadly, small press will also garner little to no business, but small press is better than no press. The dates give a vague idea of where the writers/bloggers saw me. For a detailed list on what conventions I’ve been to that correspond to these, see my next blog post.)

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