New York Gamedev

Where I play The Old Republic

2012-01-10T15:30:00.006-05:00

So in my last entry I described my attempts at buying this game and the brick walls I ran into just trying to download it. Suffice to say, I finally managed to get it to work. After a four hour installation, where it downloaded 25GBs worth of files and patches from the internet, I was ready to play.

Let me preface this by making two disclaimers. First, I was a HUGE fan of the original Knights of the Old Republic (hereafter called Kotor), which is the main reason why I've been chomping at the bit to play this. The original Kotor is, in my opinion, one of the best RPGs ever made. Wonderful design, wonderful characters, great moral-choice system, and a roundhouse kick of a twist that I never saw coming. It's the first game I ever played that upon finishing it, I instantly began again with a new character. It's the game that inspired me to get into game design. It's the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned, of how to blend story and gameplay and has yet to be topped.

Oh, you.

Second disclaimer, I know nothing about MMOs aside from what I've gleaned from popular culture and watching The Guild. I've heard terms like "aggro" and "flashpoints" and "instances" but have no idea what they really mean. So I was going into this a total MMO newb, knowing nothing except that I liked the franchise. So this "review" such as it is, is for people like me who don't care about MMOs but really want Kotor 3.

So let's dive in. The first thing I do is create my character. I do this very weird thing when creating characters these days. Whenever a game lets me customize my avatar's features, I will often choose the female option and make her look as much like my wife as I can. So here's my lovely Sith Inquisitor, Janet:

I am either the best husband ever or the worst.

(Sith Janet also joins the ranks of Janet Shepherd, Janet Hawke, Janet the Grey Warden, Janet the New Vegas Courier, and Janet the leader of the Third Row Saints. I'm sure there's a psychological reason why I do this, but I'm not equipped to figure it out. It doesn't bother my wife (she is actually flattered), so I keep doing it.)

Anyway, the Sith Inquisitor campaign starts on Korriban, which made me happy because Korriban was my favorite area of the original game. Korriban is the birthplace of the Sith Empire, and the Sith have recaptured it after a bloody battle. The Empire needs raw recruits, so they offer slaves the chance to earn their freedom by training at the new Sith Academy on Korriban. I, or rather my character avatar, am one of those former slaves.

Right away, things look good. I walk out of my shuttle and into the academy, where I am greeting by my new instructor who is not impressed with me at all. I am presented with several dialog options during this conversation, where I am given the usual opportunities for role playing. I can bow my head and say "Yes master" and take the abuse, I can lash out at the instructor and threaten to kill him when his back is turned, or I can relish my new position to kill for the Empire. It's all very Star Wars, and a nice way to introduce the game. Either way, I am given my first task: to enter a tomb and speak to a hermit who has sequestered himself in there. He's going to give me some kind of test.

So I wander off into the valley where the tombs are. Let's see what kind of trouble I can get into...

Eat lightning!

K'lor'slugs. Lots of them. They fall quickly to my force lightening strikes and trainee lightsaber thing. I make my way towards the tomb, slaughtering K'lor'slugs as I go, feeling pretty badass. I realize I've gone the wrong way and turn around, only to come across my first difference between this and the original single-player game.

All the K'lor'slugs I killed have are now back again. There's not even a dead sluggy body as a reminder of my victories. I suppose I should have expected that (the other players need something to kill as well), but it's hard to retain that that sense of accomplishment when I clear an area of foes, only to have them pop back into existence again. But no matter. Off into the tomb I go...

More K'lor'slugs, but bigger!

I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Lots of small and easy enemies to kill to get you used to the mechanics, with the occasional bigger and slightly harder one to make you feel more powerful. As I make my way into the tomb, I find a message on a datapad. It says that there are looters in the tomb and to dispose of them as you see fit.

Hm. In thinking about it, all the quests on Korriban involve going into tombs and looting what's inside. What makes those looters any different from me?

LIGHTNING FROM MY FINGERTIPS! That's what.

So yeah. I won't take you through the game step-by-step, but the rest of Korriban is pretty much like this. Get a task from your instructor, which usually involves going into a tomb, and bring back some ancient artifact. There's a bit of intrigue involving your instructor and his master, which is all wonderfully told. All the lovely original Kotor conversation/character goodness is definitely present; the only problem is that you have to work so much harder to get there. There's a lot more emphasis on combat, for good or ill.

The game really picked up when I got my first companion character. Much like the original Kotor, you can have companion characters that fight alongside you. Not only that, you can have conversations with them and influence their approval of you by what you say or do.

My companion character is a hulking creature named Khem Val. He was the proud servant of a Sith Lord who existed a thousand years ago. I found him trapped in a tomb vault on Korriban, where he was waiting for his long-dead master to return to him. In freeing him, he became bound to me and began to fight alongside me. We made a good team, as he was a close-quarters fighter and I preferred blasting my enemies from a distance with lightning. He's also completely insane - his approval of me goes up everytime I do something particularly evil or bloodthirsty.

Just a Sith Apprentice and her pet psycho

This was what I was looking for. My favorite part of Bioware games (and the original Kotor especially) was having party members I could talk to. And Khem Val is a pretty interesting character. He hasn't said much so far, but he does pipe in during conversations and offer to eat my enemies for me, which I definitely appreciate.

There is a side-effect of having a companion character, and one that I can't help but think is odd. This is a multi-player game, so often you will see other guys running around and doing their thing.

Like this guy, Margol. On the same quest as me, I assume.

I've never been what you'd call a very social gamer, but it was an interesting experience seeing other players running around the landscape. Sometimes I'd be throwing lightning on a higher-level monster and getting nowhere, only to see another player leap in and come to my rescue. I'd often pay the favor forward - zapping away on a monster that another player is fighting. I don't talk to the players and they don't talk to me, but it's kind of cool in an esoteric way.

But there's one REALLY weird side-effect of having other players around. That companion character of mine, that ancient monster who slumbered in a tomb for a thousand years only to wake up and join forces with me... ain't so unique after all:

What? I didn't tell you about my 962 twin brothers?

You want to feel special and cool because you've got this awesome character to pal around with, but then you see dozens of other players are running around with identical clones of him. It's one of those MMO-isms, I guess, but it does ruin the immersion just a tad.

So that pretty sums up my three days of playing this game. Is it Kotor 3? No. But is it fun? Yeah, I'd say so. I'm enjoying playing it. The ratio of combat to character interaction is higher than I'd like, but it's not ridiculously so. There's a ton of content on offer, and lots of ways to play through the game. When I get tired of the Sith path I will probably try the Jedi path, just to see what it's like. So for what it's worth, consider it a recommendation from me.

-Dave

Where I try to review The Old Republic

2012-01-05T17:21:00.002-05:00

When I heard the news that Bioware was making my beloved Knights of the Old Republic RPG into an MMO, I was dubious but hopeful. The trickle of press reports that reassured us that yes, yes, just as much effort was being put into the single player campaign as the MMO mechanics, and it would be just as satisfying. And when the game came out, I read every review. But each review hit me with disappointment, because they didn't tell me what I really wanted to know: What about us folks who don't care about MMOs, but just want Kotor 3? I know diddly squat about MMOs, aside from maybe watching Felicia Day in The Guild.

So after a few weeks, I could take the suspense no longer. I decided to take one for the team, buy the game, and write that review myself.

Or rather, I tried to. Here is a chronological list of my attempts to just download the game, let alone play it. Honestly, you'd think this would be an easy thing for a company like EA to deal with. If an idiot like me can do it, you guys can.

-----

2:10pm - Here we go. Biting the bullet and buying the game. Happy belated holidays to me.

2:22pm - Still waiting for email confirmation.

2:31pm - Got an email saying my EA Master Account was ready, whatever that is. I go to the site, give myself a username and password, and sniff around. No download link or any way to get my game. After clicking around a bit more, I finally see a button that says "My games" and dutifully click on it... only to see nothing listed. There's another button called "Orders and Billing", so I click on that. Aha! There's something listed under "pending orders." I click on it and see that my order has been "submitted and pending" I guess the payment process takes a little longer at EA than at Wadjet Eye? Eh, no problem. I can wait.

3:35pm - One hour later. No download link. Okay, maybe there's something I am supposed to do myself. I go to the Customer Support page and click through a bunch of items. Apparantly there's some newfangled software manager called "Origin" that I have to use to get the game. What, seriously? I'm just getting the hang of Steam and now I have to have another software manager eating up my system memory? Bleh. Okay, fine. It was too late to back out now. I dutifully click the download button and wait for it to install.

3:50pm - Origin is installed. I open it up, enter my login info, and... nothing. "No games detected for this account." Okaay. I check the "Orders and Billing" page on the Mastar Account site. It still says pending. Getting a bit annoyed now. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but a customer coming to my store would have been playing their game for an hour by now. But still. This is EA we're talking about, and one of the biggest games to hit the interwebs in a long time. I'll give it a bit more time.

4:10pm - Bam! Two hours after I paid, I get an email confirmation that I paid. Patience is rewarded. "Downloadable products may be accessed by looking up your order." I'll check the Master Account website first. Hopefully I can bypass using that Origin manager completely.

4:12pm - Um... it still says "Order pending" with no download link. Right. That's a no go. I take another look at the confirmation email. Waaaay at the bottom it says go to "www.swtor.com/redeem/game" and enter a code that's at the bottom of the email, and then I'll get download instructions. Why does it tell me to do one thing and then another? Meh, whatever. Being a dutiful drone, I go to the website. I enter my login info and the code.

4:13pm - LOGIN FAILED. @#$@#$@#.

4:20pm:- In trying this a few times, I notice a message at the top of the page that says "Log into your SWTOW account." I've been using my "EA Master Account" login, and now it's dawning on me that this is something entirely different. Welp, okay. There's a little link that says "Create SWTOW account" so I'll click that and see if it works...

4:25pm - I created an official SWTOR account. I click OK and this message pops up: "An email will be sent to the address you registered with shortly. You must verify your address for your account to become active." Sigh. I go make some tea.

4:30pm - Email verification has arrived! Not a bad turnaround. "To complete your registration and activate your account, simply verify your email address by clicking here." I click here. It asks for my login info and a new password. I dutifully come up with one.

4:31pm - "Password must contain 1 uppercase letter, 1 lowercase letter and 1 number; must not use special characters." Screw you game! I like this password. Siiigh, fine. Have it your way...

4:32pm - "You have successfully validated your email address and completed the account registration process. Welcome to the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ community. Press OK to continue." Hooray! I press OK to continue.

4:33pm - I have been redirected to www.swtor.com - the homepage for the game where I started this journey over two hours ago. And... still no download link. But.. aha! I see a "login" link at the top. Perhaps logging in with my spiffy new SWTOR username will let me get the game?

4:35pm - It's asking me for my security code. Ah, right! Duh. I need to enter in that code that came with the email. The one that I needed a SWTOR username in order to enter. Which is why I made a SWTOR username in the first place. I enter the code.

4:36pm - "Sorry, we couldn't find your code. Try again?" BLARGH AND DOUBLE BLARGH!

4:40pm - Okay. The original confirmation email said I needed to redeem my game at "www.swtor.com/redeem/game" and enter my security code there. Maybe if I enter my login and security code on that page it will magically work?

4:42pm - "Sorry, we couldn't find your code. Try again?" Guess that's a no. Lacking any other options, I leave the security code field blank and click OK.

4:43pm - I get another prompt to "Enter my security code, exactly as it appears" in my email. Um, didn't I already do that and you told me it wouldn't work? Meh, whatever. I enter my code and I click OK.

4:46pm - "Congratulations! You are now registered for the following items: STAR WARS(TM): The Old Republic(TM) Digital Standard Edition. Press OK to continue." Hooray again! I press OK to continue.

4:47pm - "Get ready to play! In order to play Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ you must first answer a series of security questions and provide your contact information." Um, buh? Seriously? You know what? Fine. FINE! BRING IT ON! I'VE COME THIS FAR! I'M NOT GIVING UP NOW!

4:59pm - I finish the survey, hit OK, and come to a games page with this gorgeous sight:

I dutifully click that button.

5:10pm -

FINALLY. Let's do this.

5:11pm -

I'm going to go cry now.

-Dave

The Post about the New Year

2012-01-02T15:11:00.000-05:00

Normally I would have written about this yesterday, but I was delayed for totally legit reasons. So, here are my thoughts on the last year, one day late. It's interesting to look back, because we entered 2011 a bit wary and battle-hardened. I wrote last year about how we lost the backing of PlayFirst, so while we had much more freedom we were also completely on our own.

It turns out that our worries were unfounded. In February, we launched Josh Neurnberger's Gemini Rue and it was our biggest success by far. It cemented us as a serious publisher and caught the attention of mainstream gamers and major league websites like IGN and Rock Paper Shotgun. It became our first game to be localized into German and Polish thanks to the wonderful guys at Daedalic, and given a boxed-and-retail release in those areas.

The success of Gemini Rue has prompted us to publish other games, and 2012 will see three new games published under the Wadjet Eye banner. The first one is earmarked for a February release, and we'll be doing the usual announcement at the end of this month. It's been a blast working with all these developers, and a major learning experience as well.

This year also saw the release of the Blackwell Deception, the fourth game in the Blackwell series. And personally, I think it's the best one yet. I feel like this is the first time I "got" what Blackwell was about and I was just blundering my way up through until this point. The reviewers and customers seem to agree, as it became our highest earning game ever.

This was also the year of Steam, with Blackwell finally popping up on the service. While it's true that we have other games on Steam, it was hard for me to be personally as excited about them. There was the game I wrote but didn't own (Emerald City Confidential), the game I own but didn't write (Puzzle Bots), and the game I just owned the sales rights to (Gemini Rue). But what about poor Blackwell, the games I both wrote and owned? Steam kept rejecting them, but tenacity prevailed and they finally changed their mind in 2011. Getting that acceptance email about Blackwell made me giddy with glee. Like it or loathe it, Steam has the hearts and minds of mainstream gamers and it feels good that my own games have been accepted into their ranks.

The month of December alone was a game-changer, with the first three Blackwell games being sold as part of Indie Royale's Christmas bundle. As a result, over twenty thousand new people were playing our games, and my inbox and forums exploded. It's overwhelming and awesome, and dealing with it all has forced me to be a lot more vigilant about keeping up with my emails.

So all-in-all, it's hard to think about how 2011 could have been any better. We have two smash hits under our belt, three more games coming out this year, and more people are playing our games than ever. And really, I owe it to all of you. Whether you have followed my work since the beginning, or you are a new fan who has just hopped on the WEG bandwagon, it's hard to know how to express how grateful I am. As I've said before, I love doing this, and you guys let me keep me doing it. So thank you, and happy (belated) New Year!

-Dave

Ocean Marketing and Don't Do This 101

2011-12-27T15:07:00.004-05:00

So just like the rest of the internet today, I read with slack-jawed amazement about the trainwreck that is Ocean Marketing. For those of you who don't feel like clicking over to read, here's the story in a nutshell:

A customer ordered a product (an Avenger's themed PS3 controller) from a web-based company called Ocean Marketing. The product was delayed, with very little communication from the provider. The customer voiced an understandable complaint. So the rep from the company responded with a childish and patronizing attitude ("put on your big boy hat and wait it out like everyone else"), insulting the customer with horrible grammar and bad spelling ("You just got told bitch … welcome to the real internet"). This went back and forth for awhile, and then Penny Arcade got wind of it and the internet exploded.

I've written about stupid PR before and I admit that I'm no expert, but yeesh. But I have to say, something about the rep's replies did resonate with me. His reoccurring theme seems to be "Crap happens." This I can get behind. Crap, without a doubt, happens to me on a regular basis. Some of it is beyond my control and some it is undoubtedly my fault. But no matter what, it is the customers who have to deal with it and they will share very little sympathy for your plight. It is up to you to handle it properly.

So in honor of this internet train wreck, I thought I'd share three of these "crap happens" incidents with you and tell you how I dealt with them.

Incident #1: What, none of your downloads work?!

July of 2009. I just finished coding Blackwell Convergence. It was tried, tested, and true. After a year and a half of work (with a break to make Emerald City Confidential), it was finished. I uploaded it to Plimus, my store provider at the time. I tested it to make sure it worked (Ha!), gave it a day to mature, and made the announcement that it was available. Now I could sit back, relax, and watch the orders pour in.

Not quite.

Due to some technical snafu, half the download links were completely broken. The affected customers would either receive an email with the mysterious message "download link" with no URL, or they'd receive a link that would disconnect after downloading only ten megabytes or so. I tried uploading the game, but this didn't seem to fix the problem. I frantically called Plimus, but they wouldn't answer. I'd stay on hold for 40 minutes only to be told to leave a message.

The problem was sorted the next day, when I finally got in touch with Plimus and they got it working again. It took 24 hours to sort out, from start to finish. During that time I hurled countless curses at my computer screen, but not a one at my customers. Yes, it was a frustrating, hair-pulling experience but I knew not to take this out on the players who gave me money. This is PR 101 stuff.

(Incidentally, you can read about how the whole drama played out on our forum)

Incident #2: Dave is an idiot.

In February of 2010, I received a worrying Google Alert about Puzzle Bots. One of my beta testers had taken the current build (a very incomplete, very buggy build) and uploaded it to a pirate site. I'm not naive. I know leaks and things happen, but I was very upset to see it happen to me.

There was no way I could discover who actually did it, so I took some precautions. I dropped all the testers who were on my beta list but hadn't sent me any bug reports yet (figuring that such a person wouldn't be submitting bug reports if they are so morally reprehensible as to pirate a game before it's done). The second thing I did was add a time stamp to the game. I knew I was going to release it in early April, so I added a bit of code that would prevent the game from playing after a certain date in late April. If the game was pirated again, then the game wouldn't be playable.

And wouldn't you know it, I frigging forgot about it. I woke up that fateful morning in late April to a bunch of emails telling me that their game wouldn't work anymore.

There was no excuse for this. There was no way to put a PR spin on this. This was my fault, pure and simple. All I could do was re-upload a working version of the game, send out an email to apologize, and give everyone a discount code for a future game. I waited for a big mass of angry emails, but they never came. The customers that did write appreciated my honesty.

Incident #3: Savegames go kablooee

This happened just last week, so it's fresh on my mind. From the day we launched Gemini Rue, we were faced with a severe compatibility problem that we couldn't seem to fix. On some Windows 7 laptops, the game would just freeze up on the start screen. After months and months of banging our heads together, we finally came up with a solution that seemed to work perfectly, but it had one side effect.

One issue with the Adventure Game Studio engine (which we use to make our games) is that when you compile a new version of a game, all your old savefiles stop working. There was no way around this, especially for the Steam version of the game which applies all their updates automatically. We knew that uploading this fix would break everybody's game, but we were still receiving complaints from Win 7 laptop users who couldn't play it at all. We were damned if we did, damned if we didn't. So I gritted my teeth, applied the update, and braced myself.

Sure enough, people who were in the midst of playing the game were annoyed. Fortunately, there was less than I thought there would be. I created a bunch of compatible savefiles that they could use instead, and that seemed to do the trick.

The lesson?

The one thing all of these incidents have in common is that I kept the customers in the loop. I've learned that game customers (especially customers of indie games) are very quick to forgive if they know you are on top of any problem that arises. With my Twitter feed, Facebook page, and forums, I am always accessible. These tools are available to everybody, so there's no excuse for keeping your customers in the dark.

And above all, don't do what Ocean Marketing did and treat your customers like an irritating child.

-Dave

Too long didn't read version: Crap happens. Stay classy when it does. Don't mess with Penny Arcade.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-25T12:25:00.000-05:00

Graphics and budget

2011-11-07T16:55:00.013-05:00

There's an interesting thread over on the Adventure Gamers forum about Blackwell Deception, mostly regarding the graphics. I figured it was a good time to address the issue of the graphics in my games and my thoughts on them.

It's no secret that my games are all over the map in terms of style. Every game boasts a new set of artists, and its rare that the same artists work on two projects in a row. This is due to a number of reasons, but the core reason is that the artists I work with are all freelancers. When I have a new project ready to go, I have to go with whoever is available at the time. They all have varying schedules and are not always available exactly when I need them. They might have gotten a full time job, taking a break from art, or are swamped with other projects. So each new game often means searching for new artists, which often means a new art style for each game.

It also depends on something else: budget. When I made Blackwell Convergence, I had a lot of money coming in from my work on Emerald City Confidential. Since I had money to burn, I thought it would be a good idea to invest it in nicer graphics for Convergence. I hired a professional art studio to do the backgrounds, and the results spoke for themselves:

Pretty!

It was still low-res (creating and animating high-res characters was an impossibility, even with the money I was getting) but the game was definitely gorgeous to look at. When the game was released, the responses were interesting to say the least. The hardcore point-and-click fans loved it. They called it some of the nicest graphics they've ever seen. Other sites? Well, not so much. Here are some quotes taken from various forums on the internet:

"Wow - are the graphics really as bad as those screenshots depict?"

"I couldn't stand playing this for even 10 minutes ... the graphics are terrible! Looks like it was written over 20 years ago."

"It is like giving yourself crossed eyes for the fun of it. HORRID. My eye sight is still blurry."

"I can't see a game developer releasing a game that looks this bad and is so hard on the eyes"

"HORRIBLE!!!! I wouldn't take this game if it were FREE."

So, yeah. Talk about conflicting reports. Even still, it shouldn't have mattered, right? The better graphics meant that more adventure game fans were buying it, right? Well, not so much. Convergence's budget was easily triple that of anything I'd ever done before, and while it did earn a profit it took significantly longer to get there. In terms of money made, I pocketed the same amount of money as my previous games.

Think about that for a second.

I was spending more money, working much harder, and yet my bottom line remained exactly the same.

This was dumb.

There was a lesson I learned here. As far as low-res graphics are concerned, there is only so far you can go. You can make it as beautiful as you like, throw as much money at it as you can, and painstakingly place every pixel, but the majority of the gaming audience will still think it's ugly.

This posed the question: would the people who bought Convergence have bought it anyway, pretty graphics or not? After a lot of thinking and fan feedback, I decided yes. The people who buy my games weren't buying them for the graphics, so why not focus my efforts to where they'll do the most good? So when the time came to make Blackwell Deception, I made the conscious decision to spend less time and money on the graphics and more on the actual game. The art was cheaper, but there's a heck of a lot more of it.

The graphics might be simpler, but the lights
change color and the characters dance!

I was able to take more risks. I wasn't breaking the bank, so I wasn't worried about it failing as much. I implemented, tested, and redesigned the ending of the game three times before I was satisfied. I never would have conceived of doing that with Convergence, since so much money was going out the door. With Deception I could test more often, scrap ideas that didn't work and try new ones. It was very liberating.

The result? The highest selling and most critically acclaimed Blackwell game so far. And yes, there are people who hate the graphics, but those detractors would still be there even if I tripled the production budget. Did I lose a few customers by downgrading the graphics? Perhaps, and I'm sorry to have disappointed them. Did I gain many more customers by improving the game play? Undoubtedly yes.

With every game I change my production methods, and inevitably I get something wrong or wish I did something differently. This time, I seem to have gotten it right. I guess after five years and eight games, it was bound to happen eventually.

-Dave

Doodles while designing

2011-10-20T18:22:00.000-04:00

Over the last couple of days, I've been reading my old design notebooks for inspiration. Apparently I tend to doodle a lot...

Sooo, yeah. I'll leave the psychoanalysis of my past self up to you guys.

-Dave

Tweeeeet

2011-10-17T17:44:00.001-04:00

That sound is me blowing one of these things:

So, five years ago I incorporated Wadjet Eye Games. I was so wrapped up in the recent launch that it almost passed unnoticed. Not a day goes by that I am not floored by the fact that I am making a living doing something that I love, and all I can wish for is to do it for another five years. And if it's not too much to ask... another five after that, and another five after that.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to bake us a cake, we wouldn't say no.

Tweeeeet!

-Dave

On giving away stuff for free

2011-10-11T15:40:00.001-04:00

Today I wanted to address another infrequent question I'm getting about the pre-order offer. The DVD (which is only available for one more day, incidentally) contains all the previous Blackwell games burned onto the disc, and buying it gives you immediate access to Blackwell Convergence, the third game in the series.

I've gotten a few emails from customers asking why I didn't give them access to Blackwell Legacy instead, since it is the first game in the series. It technically makes the most sense, but in practice... not so much. When a company gives a product away for free, it's not just to be nice (well, maybe a bit nice). The free product is being used - primarily - as a promotional tool. So why not lead with your best product? Telltale did this with Sam and Max a few years ago. The fourth game in the series - Abe Lincoln Must Die! - is now freeware, and it is widely considered by fans and critics alike as the best of the season. This is no coincidence.

Blackwell Legacy is a solid game, but it was also my first game, and I've improved my skills significantly since it was released five years ago. Convergence is a much better showcase for the series, so it made more sense to give the customers immediate access to it. Had I given them Legacy instead (or given them all three, in which case they would play Legacy first), I ran the risk of them not seeing me at my best.

Maybe this was the right decision, maybe it wasn't. Some of you might feel slighted. Heck, you bought the DVD which contains the games, so why can't you play them now? To you I say: I understand. So, here's what I'll do. If you bought the DVD and don't want to wait for it to arrive before playing the first three games, I will give you a voucher so you can nab the downloads free of charge. Email me your DVD order receipt and I'll hook you up.

-Dave

CD or not CD

2011-10-03T17:11:00.009-04:00

One of our pre-order deals involves a DVD version of Blackwell Deception that you can nab for a limited amount of time. This "limited time" thing has led to a lot of you asking the same question: Why, dear Dave, did you decide to do it this way? And didn't you used to sell the hard copies as a regular part of your store?

You'd be right. When I started Wadjet Eye, there was a small but eager demand for CD copies, and it seemed self-defeating to not supply that demand. There weren't enough orders for me to use a CD duplication service, so I constructed and shipped all the hard copies myself.

With some moral support from my friend here, of course.

It was a pretty good system. I only got a few of those orders a week, so I could easily keep up with them. The customers got something they wanted, and I got a bit of extra cash. Sometimes I would even sign the CD if the customer asked for it. It worked well, but... not for long.

Time went on and things got busier, and I began to dread getting those CD orders. Even though I only got a few of them a week, I found myself with less and less time to deal with them. Sometimes I would be so busy and harried that I'd almost resent having to fill a CD order. I'd rush through the process, copying a file incorrectly or smudging the ink into something ugly, forcing me to start over and get even more frustrated. I knew it couldn't last, and round about the time I was working on Emerald City Confidential and Blackwell Convergence at the same time, I bit the bullet and discontinued the CDs altogether.

I hated to do it, but I also had to face a hard truth. In the year they were available, I sold only 30 CD copies of each game. With so little demand, and as time-consuming as they were, the choice was obvious. I had to stop selling them.

But as a gamer from forever ago, I remember the sheer joy of holding a physical game in your hands. One that was actually in a box, with a proper manual (that you actually were expected to read). I hated that hard copies of my games didn't exist anymore. So I decided to try another tactic. If there wasn't a high enough demand for them, why not try and create a demand?

And lo, the "limited edition pre-order CD" offer was forged. You couldn't just buy the CD whenever you gosh darned pleased. No sir. You had to buy it NOW. Or else it was GONE. FOREVER. And it worked. The CD of Gemini Rue became a hot item. We had to hire a duplication service to handle it all. Our little apartment began to fill up substantially with all the packages we assembled.

If you ordered a CD of Gemini Rue, your copy is in this pile somewhere.

It worked so well before, that we are doing it again. We are even going all out and throwing more stuff into the package to make it a more attractive deal. So much that we had to upgrade to a DVD instead of a CD to accommodate it all. But I'll shut up about it before this turns into a sales pitch (but you should totally buy it anyway).

Anyway, that's why I do it this way. It seems to work for us, at least for now.

-Dave

Blackwell Deception: Official announcement!

2011-09-14T12:56:00.006-04:00

Wadjet Eye Games’ Haunting Mystery Series Continues October 12 with Blackwell Deception

Free demo and limited-time preorder deal at www.rosablackwell.com

NEW YORK – September 14, 2011 – Wadjet Eye Games, an independent developer and publisher of retro-styled games, is officially unveiling the long-awaited fourth installment of its celebrated Blackwell adventure series. Blackwell Deception will release for PC on October 12 from http://www.rosablackwell.com. A free demo is available today to give eager fans a taste of the haunting mystery that awaits.

Starring reluctant spirit medium Rosa Blackwell and her ghostly partner Joey Mallone, the Blackwell games are supernatural adventures in the style of the “golden age” point-and-click adventures of Sierra and LucasArts. Working together, Rosa and Joey investigate suspicious deaths and help restless spirits cross over into the afterlife. The series features retro 2D graphics, compelling interactive storytelling, and unique puzzle-solving scenarios that require switching between the mortal Rosa and otherworldly Joey to make the best use of each character’s unique abilities.

In Blackwell Deception, an unexpected tragedy leads Rosa and Joey to a shady ring of street psychics who are preying on the gullible and milking them dry. When people begin dying, only a genuine psychic (and her wayward spirit guide) can help the victims’ confused spirits find peace. From a seedy downtown nightclub to a penthouse apartment to a luxury yacht on the Hudson River, Rosa and Joey will traverse the New York City streets to unearth the truth about this underground world—including some secrets Joey would prefer to keep buried.

Starting October 12, Blackwell Deception will be available as a PC download for $14.99. For customers who preorder the game between now and launch day, Wadjet Eye is extending two limited-time special offers:

Downloadable preorder offer: For $14.99, preorder customers get convenient download access to Blackwell Deception on launch day, as well as a free downloadable copy of the series’ acclaimed third installment, Blackwell Convergence, to enjoy right away.

Limited edition DVD preorder offer: For $24.99, preorder customers can reserve a limited edition DVD that includes all four Blackwell games, an exclusive MP3 soundtrack, animated Blackwell shorts, and other bonus materials. These customers also get a free downloadable copy of Blackwell Convergence to play now and convenient download access to Blackwell Deception on launch day. Limited edition DVDs are expected to ship in late October and free worldwide shipping is included in the price.

To view the Blackwell Deception screenshots and trailer, download the free demo, or place a preorder, visit the official website at http://www.rosablackwell.com.

About Wadjet Eye Games

Founded in 2006, Wadjet Eye Games has developed a reputation for producing award winning and critically acclaimed adventure games for the PC. Committed to creating unique character-driven game experiences around recognizable brands, Wadjet Eye has recently expanded to support and publish games by other independent developers. The company’s award-winning portfolio includes The Shivah and the Blackwell series, both of which have garnered Game Developers Choice nominations, Puzzle Bots, which was selected for the Penny Arcade Expo’s PAX 10 showcase, and IGF Student Showcase winner Gemini Rue. For more information, visit http://www.wadjeteyegames.com.

Contact

Wadjet Eye Games Public Relations

pr@wadjeteyegames.com

Emerald City Commentary (part 5)

2011-08-26T16:13:00.002-04:00

Hola! Another day another episode:

Most everything in this episode I've covered in some way or another on this blog, mostly how the VO got processed a little too much. I also address another concern that a lot of reviewers had - the lack of save slots! I did try and lobby for them, but I was successfully convinced that they would be "too confusing" for the casual audience.

In retrospect, I still wonder about this. Would they have been as daunting as the market research led everyone to believe? It's hard to say. When you think about it, not many games use multiple save slots anymore. It's just gaming dinosaurs like me who enjoy the security of having them.

-Dave

Emerald City Commentary (part 4)

2011-08-25T11:02:00.001-04:00

And another eppy is here:

Emerald City Commentary (part 3)

2011-08-23T09:46:00.007-04:00

What a great excuse to update my blog every day. Here is part three:

A bit of a followup. As you can see from the thumbnail, one of the characters looks like a certain former Alaskan politician that I'm sure you all are aware of. It was a total coincidence. The character had been designed six months before Sarah Palin came on the scene.

In August of 2008, I was visiting my parents in Virginia. Since I had a deadline and I'm a stupid nerd, I brought my laptop along to get some work done. They were watching the television when John McCain's running mate was announced. I brought up Glinda's image in the game, turned my laptop so my parents could see, and said "Check it out. The game has political commentary now."

I'm also still quite proud that the whole Betsy Bobbins thing didn't get nixed. Perhaps I was too subtle.

-Dave

Let's Play My Own Game: Part 2

2011-08-20T11:45:00.003-04:00

I've gotten some nice feedback from various sources, so I've decided to make this a daily thing! I'll be posting these LPMYG vids until I finish the game. And I think I'm going to call this "Emerald City Commentary" from now on.

A bit of a followup. I have NO IDEA how the whole missing textbox thing happened. Every version I played on my computer had the textbox, but somehow the game shipped without it. I vaguely remember PlayFirst QA telling me that a lot of the description text wasn't voiced, and I vaguely remember replying that PlayFirst had told me to do it that way. They didn't mention that the textbox was missing, but if they never saw it in the first place, maybe they never knew it was supposed to be there?

Oh well. It'll remain a mystery. It happened, and it's a bit too late to fix it now.

-Dave

Let's Play My Own Game

2011-08-19T19:36:00.003-04:00

For awhile now, I have become fascinated with the whole "Let's Play" phenomenon on YouTube. For the uninitiated,, here's the gist: someone plays a game and records themselves doing it. While they play the game, they give a running commentary on what they see and do.

When I first came across one of these videos, I couldn't believe it was for real. But yes. Apparently it is, indeed, a "thing." There's thousands of them. There are even several Let's Plays of my own games out there (and a special shout out must go to Resulka, who I think has Let's Played my entire catalog), which pleases me to no end.

Eventually it got into my head to try doing a Let's Play of my own, but instead of playing any random game I decided to play a game that I developed myself.

I chose Emerald City Confidential because, of all my games, I probably have the most to say about it. It has an interesting genesis. PlayFirst (a casual game developer) approached me (a old school point-and-click developer) to make a game for them. Their goal? To make a point-and-click style game for the casual audience. We came from two totally different mindsets, and the road to finishing this game was an interesting one to say the least.

Anyway, here's the first episode. In this first episode, we learn how to pick up and use a crowbar, why dialog options can be intimidating, and the story behind the quest gems.

(If the video is too small, click the "YouTube" button on the lower right to zap yourself to YouTube")

Please let me know in the comments if you find these interesting! I'll probably do more.

-Dave

Placeholder art: The big reveal!

2011-08-05T17:57:00.004-04:00

Wow. Has it been almost a year since I posted this placeholder art image from Blackwell Deception?

How awful of me to leave you hanging for so long. You all must have been tearing your hair out trying to figure out what it was. This could be a wedge of cheese, or a network of tunnels, or a box of bagels, or even...

A knotty pine wall! Can't you feel the excitement and pulse-pounding gameplay leaping off the image? Aren't you PSYCHED? I know I am.

On another note, remember when I said on this blog that the game would come out in April? Ha ha ho. This is why I don't officially announce release dates anymore. But, the game is almost finished and I can safely say that the game is coming very, very soon. On September 14th, we will be making our official announcement, with a PR campaign and trailer and website and everything. So set your calendars.

-Dave

Your game sucks! (and how to respond)

2011-06-16T11:02:00.011-04:00

So did you hear about Duke Nukem Forever? After twelve years of development hell, it finally arrived on store shelves to the fanfare of almost universally negative reviews. And how did the PR firm behind the game spin this development? By throwing a childish, angry hissy-fit. Suffice to say, this was bad news for PR firm Redner Group, who was dropped like a hot potato by game publisher 2K Games.

It was a facepalm moment, but one that made me think about all the times I've been tempted to do the very same thing. This might be shocking to hear, but there are people out there who don't like my games and will eagerly declare their feelings on reviews and public forums. The desire to leap into the fray and defend your work is great, but is it a good thing to do so? Well, it depends.

Keep your dignity

As an indie game developer, the best weapon in your arsenal is your reputation. If you get the reputation of being a prima donna who can't take criticism, then you will never be taken seriously. So if there's a nasty message on an internet forum (or negative review about your game) and you wonder if you should respond, think carefully about how it will effect your reputation. Remember, once it's out there, you can't take it back. You don't want to be this guy.

You won't change their mind

Seriously. Don't even try. I know it's tempting. Maybe they are playing it wrong, or they are approaching it with the wrong mindset, or they just don't "get it." It doesn't matter. Nobody likes being told what to do or what to think, and your customers are no exception. Don't believe me? Try debating politics sometime. No matter how logical your response, no matter how well thought-out and persuasive you might be, it is not going to matter. You're not going to make a person "see the light" and magically love your game. It just won't happen. If anything, it will just cement their belief further and make you look defensive and insecure. And on a public forum, that is magnified tenfold. So don't do it.

Reply when it benefits you

Here's a hypothetical example. A customer buys your game, installs it, and gets an error. Pissed off, the customer goes to their favorite game forum and rants about how your game doesn't work. They call your game cheap and you a rip-off artist. You, the developer, see this post. The customer's problem is a very common one and you know exactly how to fix it. So what should you do?

This is the only situation where I'd advocate responding publicly. There is no better opportunity to show potential customers that you can remain dignified under pressure and give great customer service at the same time. Keep cool, respond politely, and explain how to fix the problem. Congratulations, you've kept a customer, and probably made a few more to boot.

As for reviews, the only time I'd advocate responding is when they get something factual wrong. For me, this usually happens when they spell my company name wrong! (it's spelled with a J, darn it)

Remember, it's the internet

People who are otherwise normal, functional adults will say hurtful and stupid things simply because they can. Folks who enjoy something aren't as inclined to jump on the internet and rave about it as those who hate something. Remember that you can't please everybody, and you'll be fine.

-Dave

P.S. I know I said I'd write more about demos in this post, but with the whole Duke Nukem thing happening I wanted to remain topical! Next time. Promise.

Game Demos and How I've gotten them wrong

2011-06-10T16:45:00.005-04:00

So when developers get together to make a game, their first priority is usually to get a demo out. After several games and several demos, I have come to my own conclusions about demos and how most of them get it wrong. I can say this with certainty, because I've gotten it wrong many many times.

For Blackwell Legacy, I didn't even consider creating a demo. I just wanted to make a game, and surely the game would be so awesome that people were going to buy it sight unseen, yes? Well, duh. Of course not. People wanted to try it before they bought it. Perfectly understandable, but I was faced with a problem. The draw of the game was the emerging relationship between Rosa and Joey, but Joey doesn't actually show up until you've played through a decent chunk of the game. I could have started the demo there, but the events that followed wouldn't have made any sense.

So, I hemmed and hawed and I patched together a demo that that was a heavily edited version of the first fourth of the game. It did the job, barely, but many people have told me that it doesn't sell the game terribly well. I have to agree. So from then on, I always planned my demos alongside the actual design of the game. And for Blackwell Convergence, I thought I got it nailed.

From the Blackwell Convergence demo.

I had a brilliant idea. I would start the game off with a stand-alone story - a ghost in an abandoned office that you had to save. It had nothing to do with the rest of the game, but it would serve as an introduction to the Blackwell world for newcomers and a refresher for everybody else. And the bonus? I could break it off and release it for free as a demo. Win-win.

But no. I realize in retrospect that it was a mistake. I'd forgotten the purpose of a demo, which is to encourage people to buy my game. By releasing a demo with a stand alone story - with a definite beginning, middle, and end - I utterly failed to leave you wanting more. There was no reason for you to come back. You had already left perfectly satisfied, and got it for free to boot.

So what's my plan for the Deception demo? To leave you hanging as much as possible. You're welcome, everybody.

-Dave

On headset microphones and my own damn stubbornness

2011-05-27T16:19:00.007-04:00

I mentioned in my last post that, until recently, I have been using a headset mic to record all the voice acting for my games.

Rebecca Whittaker, as "Astrid" from Puzzle Bots.

It's always surprised me that I've gotten away with this setup as long as I have. Back in the dark ages of 2006, when I was making The Shivah, I decided to give the voice acting thing a whirl. I only had one problem - I knew nothing about audio or voice over production. Not knowing any better, I downloaded a free audio recording program called Audacity, clipped a headset mic to the actors' heads, then handed them the script and let them go to town. I didn't even adjust the levels, which is obvious when you get to the scenes with Joe DeMarco.

When the game came out and reviews started popping up, there were ranging opinions about the voice actors but nobody seemed to notice or care that it wasn't recorded in a full-fledged studio. So since the system seemed to work, I didn't bother fixing it and used the headset mic again in Blackwell Legacy.

Abe Goldfarb as "Joey" in Blackwell Legacy

As time went on, I learned a bit more about audio editing and voice directing in general - a common complaint was the constant breath pops, which I eventually I got the hang of removing - but the core method remained unchanged. I was still using a freeware audio program and a $20 headset mic from Radio Shack.

A few games later and I got a publishing deal with PlayFirst for Emerald City Confidential. Suddenly, I was flown out to San Francisco to direct voice actors in a real, high-end studio. An audio engineer sat behind a complicated piece of equipment while the actor sat in a separate room behind sound-proof glass. We'd press a button to speak to them directly and direct them as we needed. It was all very slick. The studio was bigger than my apartment and the cost of the whole thing was higher than the budget of all my games combined, but it was worth it. For a week we recorded, and I admit - the sound quality was awesome.

But there was a snag. PlayFirst guidelines stated that the filesize of the game had to be under 80MB. The only way to do that? Compress the VO files as far as they would go, and then compress them some more. The end result of all that money and high-end equipment was VO footage that sounded like it was underwater.

Suffice to say, this experience embittered me just a tad. After ECC wrapped up, I went back to Blackwell Convergence and back to my headset mic. This setup - ghetto though it was - became a badge of pride. Sure it was cheap, but I could create VO footage that sounded infinitely better than what ended up in ECC. So I kept using it. Blackwell Convergence used it, then Puzzle Bots, and most recently Gemini Rue. The only ones who noticed were professional audio people who already have an ear for that kind of thing. But most people? Nobody cared.

Then, finally, my headset mic decided enough was enough. The sound quality became staticky and finally crapped out altogether. I went to Radio Shack to buy another one, but they no longer carried the same brand in stock. Deciding it was time to bite the bullet, I bought a Blue Yeti microphone at the recommendation of an audio buddy of mine who was extremely vocal in getting me to make the switch.

After spending some time figuring out how to put the thing together (and after being told that I had positioned the microphone the wrong way around), it was ready to go. I scheduled Abe Goldfarb and Rebecca Whittaker (the actors behind Joey and Rosa) to come over. After they were done, I had a listen.

And... well, it sounded good. Damn good. In fact, I'd go far as to say it was much better than the headset mic. It sounded cleaner, fuller. The actors also preferred standing up to deliver their lines into a microphone that wasn't an inch away from their mouths. Plus, I could plug my headphones into the microphone itself and get a much clearer representation of what was being recorded. I could listen more closely for breath pops and mouth clicks. The quality of both the sound and the performances were much improved. Here, compare for yourself:

Joey from Convergence

Joey from the upcoming Deception

The difference is subtle, but it's definitely there. Once the audio gets mastered, it will sound even better. So... I guess I feel kinda silly. It took me almost five years to make the switch to a "real" microphone. But now I'm never going back. I am extremely microphone proud. VO wise, I think Blackwell Deception will have the highest quality of anything we've done. I can't wait for you to hear the results.

Oh right, this is here.

2011-05-19T08:27:00.002-04:00

Hello wayward web wanderers!

With all the twittering and facebooking I do, it's very easy to neglect this little chunk of cyberspace. Here's what we've been up to in the last few months since I updated:

Gemini Rue was released, and is still selling very well (at least 3x higher than was predicted in the last post).
The next game in the Blackwell series (Deception) has hit alpha, and we're beta testing.
We've also started recording the voiceovers for Deception. Abe and Rebecca are back as Rosa and Joey.

Speaking of VO, I got a fancy new microphone!

Rebecca Whittaker voicing Rosa at the mic

For years I've been using a Radio Shack headset microphone, which has always done the job and - oddly enough - very few people noticed that it wasn't a professional setup. But recently an audio buddy of mine recommended this Blue Yeti microphone and I finally made the plunge. I have to say, I love the thing. I'll write more about that - among other things! - soonish.

-Dave

Seeing the future - with charts!

2011-02-01T12:28:00.001-05:00

Here is where I pretend to actually know what I am doing and look like a real businessman.

So you might have noticed that I announced a new game a few weeks ago. It's called Gemini Rue and it's a neo-noir, sci-fi adventure game set in a dystopian future with lots of rain and gangsters and moody jazz music. There's more to it than that, but you don't come to my blog for my marketing spiels.

(Or DO you?! Hey, this *is* my blog, so I will just say that if you pre-order the game you'll get a nicely printed disc edition with DVD-style case and everything It won't be available after the game launches, so be sure and nab it before February 24th. There's a reason why I'm doing this, but that's a subject for another blog.)

Aaanyway.

This is the first game that I've thrown a lot of PR muscle behind, and it seems to be really working. As I wrote in an earlier post, I hired someone to do that for me because, well, I suck at it. As a result, lots more gaming press than usual has picked up on the story. So it's been quite exciting. However, if I've learned anything it's that great press doesn't always translate into great sales, so I decided to take a look at my previous games and see how well Gemini Rue is measuring up.

Lots of indie devs are stat hounds, keeping track of every spike and valley of traffic. I do have software in place that does that, but I never really studied it until now. I decided to take some numbers and stack them up in certain ways and see if I could come to any interesting conclusions. What I'm about to show you seems very logical and straightforward to me, although I'm sure you accounting types will probably laugh.

The bad news is that I no longer have the original sales information for Shivah and Blackwell Legacy. I sold those games through a small service back in 2006 which went bust, taking all my sales information with it. I now use a mainstream service called Plimus which everybody uses and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So I had all the information for Unbound, Convergence and Puzzle Bots. I would have preferred to take data from all my games, but it was good enough.

Anyway, what I wanted to do was track how well each game did at specific points in the sales cycle. Each game had a pre-order period before they launched, so checking the stats for both pre-order and launch seemed like good places to start. Some games have been out much longer than others, so I figured the first month of sales for each was a good sample to take.

I divided up the sales cycles up like this:

1 day of pre-order
1 week of pre-order
Day before release
1 day after launch
1 week after launch
1 month after launch

I plugged in the numbers for the three games and I came up with this graph. I am not comfortable with giving exact sales numbers so I removed those, but I see no problem with showing how the games sold when compared to each other:

Looking at this graph was an interesting trip down memory lane. Unbound undoubtedly did the worst in its first month, but I was very green at the time with only one other game to my credit. I barely did any marketing or PR at all and that obviously shows in this graph. Puzzle Bots had very strong pre-order sales, but tapered off quickly after launch day. Convergence is the most interesting, as it had very weak pre-order sales but then shot up like a rocket once it launched.

What might account for Puzzle Bots' strong pre-order sales is that it had a very strong pre-order incentive - a limited-edition CD-ROM that you could only buy during the pre-order period. Convergence didn't have that. Convergence didn't have any pre-order incentives at all, which might account for the pre-order sales being kinda weak.

Anyway, I had three games worth of data over various points so I averaged them all out. Then I calculated the average percentage increase of sales from one point to the next. So based on the "Day 1" and "Week 1" pre-order sales figures of Gemini Rue, I was able to plug them into the graph and come up with this projection:

So, hey! Check out that purple line. Not bad. Using the sales figures of my previous games, I was able to create a reasonable projection of how I think Gemini Rue will perform, and it's looking pretty good. Of course, this is all theoretical and could end up being completely wrong, but it's a nice barometer. Once the game has been out for a month, I'll be able to say for sure whether it sold above or below expectations.

-Dave

Fan stuff

2011-01-19T17:32:00.001-05:00

Even though I've been doing this for quite awhile, it still surprises me that I have actual fans. Fans who follow my work and are eager for what's coming next, fans who post on my forum (which you should totally do) or are in general just awesome. But what I love best is the fan art.

The sheer level of creativity that some of the fans put into recreating the characters from my games is mind-boggling. One fan even molded Joey and Rosa out of clay (and I gave the guy a cameo in Convergence as a reward).

But today I think I have seen the coolest thing a fan has done to date. A new MMO recently came out called DC Universe Online. In the game, you create your own superhero or supervillian and then it lets you go to town. One player has created a supervillian based on the Countess from the Blackwell series:

According to the player (who's name is Resulka), her powers include flight, psychic powers, and choking.

I have no words.

-Dave

Hitman: Blood Money and why people think I'm a psychopath

2011-01-03T14:56:00.007-05:00

This is my first "game review" on this site. I might review others.

The other day, while walking the dog with my wife, I said the following words to her:

"So I thought about sneaking up behind the guy and strangling him with garrote wire, but I decided to use the sedative instead."

It took me a few seconds to realize that there were other people on the sidewalk next to us. I had to grin meekly and stammer out that I was talking about a videogame.

Several years ago, I picked up a copy of "Hitman 2" at a local Gamestop. I had seen it on sale and thought I'd give it a whirl. The concept definitely hit me in the right spot. A stealth/infiltration game where you have to assassinate a high-profile target, using the environment and disguises in order to get close to him. Your character was Agent 47, a six-foot-six, broad-shouldered bald guy with (for some reason) a barcode dyed into the back of his head. Apparently he's a clone of some kind. Since I didn't play the first game, I didn't quite get the backstory, but it didn't matter. I didn't like the game. After a few false starts, I gave up. Years later, I read in several game journals that Hitman #2 was considered the low point of the series, and #4 was a pure work of genius.

Seriously. What's up with the barcode?

So, on a whim, I nabbed #4 last week and popped it in. Again, I took over the role of Agent 47, who was hired to sneak through an abandoned amusement part full of thugs to take down a criminal kingpin. Fair enough, only I had to struggle through the worst tutorial ever. "Hold down the right-trigger to go into sneak mode. Sneak over to that guy over there and release the right-trigger to garrote him." Okay, fine. I'd sneak over and release the trigger, only to have my Agent 47 stand up and do nothing. I crouched down again and maneouvered him into a different position and tried again. Nope. Agent 47 stood up again, and this time my target noticed me. He whirled around and started shooting at me, and the game basically told me that I screwed up and I'd have to shoot my way through the level.

Here, Agent 47 strangles the gangster properly. It took me several tries.

The problem was, I *wanted* to play stealthy, but the game wouldn't show me how. It's not a good sign when the game's tutorial pisses you off. But, I gave it a few more tries. And wouldn't you know it, I got the hang of it. Soon I was sneaking around and silently taking down dudes left and right, hiding bodies in convenient locations and moving closer to my target. Finally I passed the tutorial section and was on my way to my next target. I was to take down a Chilean vinyard owner and his son, who were using their wine cellar to mask their drug factory. They were having a party on the grounds, which was used as a cover to gain access.

Put away that gun, 47!

I entered the grounds and I found myself completely lost. I saw a bunch of doors, a bunch of people walking around, and a whole area to explore. There was no map, no "goal" indicator, no nothing. And I was playing on easy mode. So, I took a few hesitant steps toward a door. I opened it and went inside, and a guard nearby yelled at me in Spanish. I kept walking and the guy shot me.

Restarting, I entered another door, which led to a hallway. I walked down the hallway and into some kind of guard station, where a bunch of guards were listening to the radio. Again, they leapt up and began yelling at me, and then attacked me. Yeesh.

Restarting a third time, I entered the same door but took a look around. There was a fuse box and a closet. I disabled the fuse box, which turned off the lights. One of the guards started coming my way to see what was up, so I hid in the closet before he could see me. While he was fiddling with the fuse box, I silently crept up behind him and injected him with a sedative. I stole his uniform and hid his body in the closet. Now, I could walk around the grounds unmolested by the guards.

What? I work here.

It was at this point I began to see the point of the game. You had to explore. You had to experiment with things and see what effects they would cause, and use them to your advantage. And you will fail. A lot. Once I figured out that the point of the game was to fail and to retry, I began to enjoy myself much more.

Sorry Santa. I need your suit to sneak into the Playboy mansion. No, I'm not kidding.

What's my point here? I guess lately there's been a trend in gaming about not letting the players fail. That they have to be constantly rewarded or else they'll feel neglected. This was a lesson that was hammered into my head when working in the casual market, but it effects the hardcore as well. A hardcore game like Grand Theft Auto (which I love) tells you what to do and where to go at any given moment. I've gotten spoiled by that, and I often expect it. Hitman: Blood Money doesn't lead you by the hand at all, and I'm - strangely enough - loving the everlasting crap out of it.

And hey, the disguises are awesome. What other self-respecting bald assassin would dress up as a clown to infiltrate a child's birthday party in order to get close to a mafia agent in the witness protection program?

I'm glad I gave this game a chance, even though it's a lesson how how Not To Do A Tutorial. Maybe I'll give the other games in the series a try, but I'll just pretend #2 never existed.

(Unrelated side note. I saw only one episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and I didn't like it at all, so I never bothered watching the show again. It was the one with the robot Buffy, which people tell me now is the worst episode in its entire 7 season run.)

-Dave

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T13:40:00.009-05:00

So, 2010 comes to a close and it's time for the usual Looking Back post. It's been an interesting year! Many changes, many lessons learned, and many things to look forward to.

Let's get the only "down" out of the way. It came early and was over with quickly, with our publisher dropping our in-the-works project due to it not being casual enough. While disappointing, it has proved to be a blessing in disguise. We are focusing more on the games we and our customers like, instead of what someone else says is popular. While the security of having a publisher with deep pockets is missed, we're enjoying the freedom much more. We might work with a publisher again, but only if their goals coincide more directly with ours

2010 has also been the first year I can safely say "we" instead of "I" without sounding pretentious, since my wife Janet has joined me full time. Our long-term project is something we're both very excited about. It's something completely different from what we've been doing so far, but it's also a natural progression. You'll probably hear more about that mid-late 2011.

2010 has marked our first release as a publisher, with Erin Robinson's Puzzle Bots. It's proved to be a critical success, rocketing Erin to indie stardom. I am extraordinarily proud of her, and am pleased to have had a small part in getting her there. The game also secured a place on the Steam service, making it our first internally developed game to be accepted by them.

I've learned to accept my major weakness: PR and outreach. In a nutshell, I suck at it. So I bit the bullet and hired someone to help me with that. Emily Morganti, former PR manager at Telltale and now working freelance, is helping us out and has become practically indispensable.

As for what's next? We've got another game coming out in February, which we should be announcing in a few weeks. Like Puzzle Bots, it was developed by somebody else and we were asked to sell it on their behalf. We've spent the last several months adding voice acting and adding a few graphical improvements here and there. It's a gorgeous piece of work, and it will probably be the biggest game we've released to date.

Also coming in April is the fourth Blackwell game, which I've called Blackwell Deception. I haven't announced it officially yet because I want the focus to be on the game we're publishing first. Once that's released, you will be hearing lots more about Blackwell.

And after that? Wait and see! All-in-all, 2011 is already shaping up to be a very exciting year. And it will mark our fifth year in business.

I couldn't have made it this far without any of you . To those of you who followed me since my freeware days, to the loyal customers old and new, to my friends and family (and my sister's unborn twins!!), to all my colleagues in the biz - a big sloppy thank you.

And HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

-Dave

Holiday sale!

2010-12-20T14:00:00.001-05:00

In case you missed it on Twitter, on the official website, or on facebook (yeesh when did I become a social networking hound?), we're having a holiday sale! Until January 1st you can nab all three Blackwell games for $9.99. Here's the official press release:

Wadjet Eye Games Announces Holiday Sale on Blackwell Mystery Game Series

Through Jaunary 1, get three great indie adventures for just $9.99 from www.wadjeteyegames.com

NEW YORK, December 20, 2010 – Independent developer and publisher Wadjet Eye Games is announcing a special holiday price for their Blackwell adventure game series. Now through January 1, the 3-game bundle is on sale for only $9.99—a 60% discount on the usual $24.99 price. The downloadable PC bundle, which contains The Blackwell Legacy, Blackwell Unbound, and The Blackwell Convergence, can be purchased from http://www.wadjeteyegames.com.

The Blackwell games are atmospheric mystery games reminiscent of the “golden age” adventures from Sierra and LucasArts. When Rosa Blackwell’s only relative dies after languishing in a coma for twenty years, Rosa thinks the worst is over. Then Joey Mallone, a sardonic ghost from the 1930s, blows into her life and reveals that she is a spirit medium. As much as Rosa wants to turn her back on her family legacy, it’s now up to this unlikely pair to assist tortured souls and cure New York City’s supernatural ills, whether they like it or not.

The Blackwell games were created by a small indie team led by Wadjet Eye Games founder Dave Gilbert. Features include retro cartoon graphics, a point and click interface, voice acting, a fully orchestrated soundtrack, and unlockable extras such as concept art and voiceover blooper reels. The story-driven gameplay focuses on investigation, character interaction, and puzzle solving. Throughout each game, the playable character alternates between medium and spirit, with each character possessing unique abilities.

Since its debut in 2007, the Blackwell series has developed a cult following among adventure and casual gamers. This year The Blackwell Convergence won an AdventureGamers.com “Aggie” award for Best Dramatic Writing. A fourth game, Blackwell Deception, will release in 2011.

To learn more about the Blackwell games, view screenshots and trailers, or purchase the bundle at the $9.99 holiday price, visit the Wadjet Eye Games website at http://www.wadjeteyegames.com.

What?

2010-12-14T09:29:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay between posts. Been crunching on a project and there hasn't been a lot to talk about aside from "Woke up. Turned on the computer. Worked for 12 hours. Went to bed."

I've entered the world of publishing a second time and am going to be publishing another developer's game, a la Puzzle Bots. We'll be announcing it in January, so stay tuned. It's looking pretty sweet.

But, to tide you over here's an old picture of me with pens in my ears:

-Dave

Playing cupid

2010-11-08T11:07:00.002-05:00

In one of my first entries on this blog, I wrote that I have become an expert on the location of every electrical outlet in all the cafes within a five block radius of my apartment. As laptopping in cafes becomes more and more common (these days there are more cafe people with laptops than without), this knowledge is necessary for survival. There's no worse feeling than lugging your laptop to a cafe, waiting in line, and then turning around with your drink to see that all the tables by the outlets are taken by other people. Seats by the outlets are coveted positions, and nothing brings out the worst in people when others are doing the coveting.

Several months ago, I went into a local Starbucks and gleefully nabbed the last table by an outlet. I ordered a coffee and bagel, set up my gear, plugged myself in and got to work. Five minutes later, I heard an angry "Hey! Excuse me!" from in front of me. I looked up, and there was a pert blonde lady in her late-twenties, looking down at me with daggers in her eyes.

"I reserved that table," she said through a deepening frown. "It's mine."

I blinked and removed my headphones. "Reserved?" I asked, genuinely confused. "How?" Could you actually do that?

"I put my jacket on the chair," she said.

I looked behind me and saw nothing. "I don't see a jacket," I told her truthfully.

"Yeah, it's over there." She answered, and then pointed to a jacket - which was hanging off the chair of an entirely different table. "See? It's right there."

"Um," I replied, talking slowly and trying to find the right words. "That's not this table. That's another table."

"Well, I *meant* it to be this one." She retorted, as if it was obvious. "So could you get up?"

I looked over at the next table, a good seven feet from where I was sitting and too far for my cord to reach. I looked back up at the woman, who looked ready to explode from frustration. Clearly the logic behind her actions made perfect sense to her. Somehow in her mind, the natural thing for me to do would be to get up and yield my coveted position. I looked down at my table, which was crammed with my stuff. A notebook full of design notes was propped in front of the keyboard. A cardboard coffee cup and half-eaten bagel were shoved into the narrow space between the mouse and the edge of the table. My power cord snaked through the mess, curling under the table and snugly plugged into the outlet.

Like I said, it was a coveted position. It was cramped, crowded and disorganized, but it was mine. There was no room for anything else. I looked around at the crowded cafe, where every table (bar the one with her jacket) was taken.

"Sorry," I said. "If you wanted this table you should have put your jacket on this table."

Her eyes narrowed into slits. "You are SUCH a gentleman," she huffed. Then stormed over to the empty table to collect her jacket. Just then a guy at another table waved at her and said "Hey, there's an outlet here. I'm not using it. You can share this table with me, if you want." She looked at him, looked at her stuff, huffed again, and then reluctantly agreed.

Normally the story would end there, but today I went to the same cafe and I saw her again. Not only that, but she was with the same guy! They didn't recognize me (why would they?) but for some reason I recognized them. I couldn't tell if they were a couple or not, but I'd like to think that they were. That on that fateful day, they shared a table and made a connection. That he hesitantly asked her out and she agreed, and after a short time love bloomed.

Maybe they'll get married one day, and decades from now they'll tell their grandchildren about that jerk who enabled them to meet by not giving up his table.

-Dave

The Blackwell Guide to NYC

2010-10-27T10:09:00.010-04:00

It is no coincidence that many of the Blackwell locations are places that I visit quite frequently, or places that I enjoy.

Blackwell Legacy had Washington Square Park, which is a park very close to my apartment. I pass through there almost every morning while walking the dog:

The dog in the image also looks suspiciously like my own.

Blackwell Unbound had Roosevelt Island. I used to take walks there quite often, as the tram going over there was close to an improv club I used to go to. The improv club moved, so I don't make it over to Roosevelt Island as much as I used to.

This is my wife Janet, who is not in the game.

And Blackwell Convergence had this awesome tree in Central Park, by the Gothic Bridge:

A few months ago, my wife and I took a walk on the High Line, an old elevated train track that was recently converted into a park. It's become one of my favorite places to go, so it was inevitable that it would end up in Blackwell Deception:

Maybe I should write a Blackwell Tourist Guide.

-Dave

Café people: Creepy sleeping guy

2010-10-01T11:25:00.003-04:00

There were times - especially back before I was married - when my schedule was thrown hideously out of whack. I'd wake up at 3am, full of vim and vigor, strangely itching to work but not wanting to hang around the apartment. So I'd walk the ten minutes to Union Square and enter a 24 hour Starbucks. Late at night, it's like a different world. I'd see drug addicts, drunks, late-night partiers just coming out of the nightclubs or bars, and yes - a homeless guy or two. The staff would crank up the music to ridiculous levels in order to prevent patrons from falling asleep (which they did, often).

My schedule is pretty normal these days, but if you ever play Blackwell Legacy or Blackwell Unbound, you can play them knowing that a good chunk was programmed while some frazzled drunk was at the next table, squinting at my screen and wondering what the heck I was doing.

Anyway, I was reminded of those carefree days when I entered one of my usual cafés this morning. It was a Cosi's, one of several that are scattered downtown. I went to this one because it is close to home and it was absolutely pouring rain outside. The staff know me (I go a lot) and it has a wall-length window that gives an awesome view of the street. The only problem is that there is only one decent electrical outlet. If the table is free, it's a sweet spot to work. It's tucked away in the corner and nobody bothers you. For some reason, this table is usually free in the mornings when I show up.

So this morning I enter the cafe, drenched from the rain, and see that the table is free. I make my way over, but then notice one small niggle. The outlet was partially blocked by a chair - one of those big, faux leather things. Normally not a big deal, as I'd just maneuver my electrical cord around the chair. The problem was what was IN the chair - an overstuffed, scruffy, middle-aged guy in dirty clothes who was snoring away with his head slumped on his chest. Next to him was a small coffee - evidentially purchased to justify his staying there - but he wasn't planning on drinking it any time soon. The staff at the place were looking at him with distain, but were saying and doing nothing about it. I asked one of the staff ladies, and she said that the "Manager said it was OK, since he bought a drink." Like it or not, the guy was staying.

So, I had a choice. One - I could go to the table and start working without plugging in my laptop, hoping the creepy guy would get up and leave before my battery ran dry. Two - I could actually WAKE the guy so I could move his chair and plug my cord in. Or Three - go back out into the torrential rain and go somewhere else.

I took another look at the guy. He was starting to drool. My mind made up, I chose the third option. I walked out into the drenching downpour and made my way to another place. So I began my day significantly wetter, but significantly less creeped out.

What would you have done in this situation?

-Dave

From programmer art to final art

2010-09-11T08:50:00.003-04:00

Hey, who remembers this?

One month ago, I showed off this lovely piece of programmer art for Blackwell Deception. I drew it myself, using such high-tech drawing tools as a white piece of printer paper and a ballpoint pen. I then scanned it into my computer and incorporated it into the game so I could program the basics of the location. I made sure to add the words "This is a yacht" for the benefit of anyone unlucky enough to actually try it out.

Eventually, Pepe (the background artist) took pity and did a preliminary sketch of the room:

It actually looks like a boat now! Kinda. You can faintly see Chelsea Piers in the background, which is where the boat is docked before setting off. I greedily incorporated this sketch into the game so I wouldn't have to look at my own artwork. Eventually, after several bouts of going back back and forth with the coloring, the final product emerged:

Overall, I am very happy with this. It's the very first scene in the game, so I wanted to make a good impression. There are clouds that drift by and a water reflection that shifts around. When the boat starts moving there's a nice image of the George Washington Bridge that scrolls in the background. Simple effects, but they do the job nicely.

Like with Convergence, I plan on releasing a free stand-alone demo to show off the game. You should see this background (along with a few others) incorporated in that demo a month or two before release.

-Dave

The iPhone question

2010-08-25T19:03:00.001-04:00

In case you haven't heard, iPhone and Facebook games are, like, huge. And whenever I am interviewed for an article or a website, or I get into a design discussion with a fellow gamedev, the question inevitably gets asked: "Dude, why don't you port your games to the iPhone or iPad or Facebook?"

It's a reasonable question. iPhone and iPad games are earning bagazillions of dollars. For some, anyway. But me? I have no intention on going there. At least not yet. There are several reasons for this, which essentially boil down to:

1 - I am not a programmer by trade. I muddle through by using middleware tools that are specifically geared to make my types of games (point-and-click adventure games) on the PC. There are no middleware tools for making these games on the iPhone.

2 - So there's no middleware. Why don't I go and make some? Well, yeah. I guess I could, but that would cost quite a bit of time, effort and money. Not only that, but once the tools are made we'd have to completely program the games from scratch, which would also take quite a bit of time, effort and money.

3 - Even assuming I could manage #2, I would have to sell the game for 99 cents after spending all that time, effort and money. Which is absurd.

4 - As I said a few posts ago, I am a coward. Even though I sell PC games, I earn enough to live on. It's asking a lot to risk everything for such an untested (for me ) market. I like being able to pay my mortgage and eat. I'd rather spend all that time, effort and money on something that's proven, rather than something I have no experience with.

5 - Couldn't I just make a small game to test the waters? See #1 and #2.

So that's the gist of it. It seems perfectly logical to me, but whenever I voice these reasons I am met with skeptical looks. Apparently I am crazy for not jumping on the bandwagon. Do iPhone games mean instant success? Certainly not. Unless you are Apple, or a major developer, or extremely (extremely!) lucky, it's a gamble like everything else.

True, the PC market has been neglected while major developers move onto greener pastures, but it certainly isn't dead. It's just hungry, and indies like us are in a good position to feed them. The iPhone market doesn't need our help. It is well-fed enough.

-Dave

Context is everything

2010-08-19T13:24:00.007-04:00

One of the great things about creating programmer art is that I can indulge my narcissistic desire to post screenshots without revealing anything at all of substance.

What is this? A wedge of cheese? A network of caves? A bad attempt at juggling? There's no way to tell!

What is Joey so impressed by? A blank wall? The back of Rosa's head? Or something else? What the heck is this room anyway? Thanks to my amazing art, THE MYSTERY REMAINS.

-Dave

Coming up short?

2010-08-16T14:39:00.006-04:00

Once in a while, a big indie game comes out to fantastic reviews but ends up being criticized for one specific something. Then I take that specific something and talk about how it applies to my own work. Last January I wrote about VVVVVV and how it was criticized for being $14.99, which led to my own thoughts about indie game pricing.

If you follow indie games, you might have heard of Limbo, a recent platform game available now on Xbox Live Arcade. It is deliciously atmospheric - you play a lonely little boy jumping his way through a minimalist black and white world that manages to be hauntingly beautiful without being pretentious. Limbo has been universally praised by reviewers, but there has been one universal criticism: it's a little on the short side.

Like VVVVVV, this is a criticism that has been leveled at my own games more than once. "The game is great - but it's too darn short!" the critics say. To which I can only respond... "Well, you're right." There's no denying it. A typical Blackwell game can take you from 2-4 hours to complete if you are a hardcore adventure gamer. Maybe 6-8 if you are more casual. There are those who even play with a walkthrough handy on their first go-round, and they zip through it in no time at all - often faster than me!

So yeah, my internal games tend to be on the short side. Why is that? There are a lot of good reasons for short games - they don't overstay their welcome, people don't have as much time to play games these days, or simply because the game is better served by being a smaller experience (Portal is the game that is usually used as the best example of this).

But for me, the reason is simpler than that. I am a trembling abject coward.

Read any indie developer blog and you'll often hear that they are "one flop away from going out of business." As an indie developer, and an indie adventure game developer at that, I don't like those odds. Adventure games are a tough sell even for mainstream AAA companies, and they have bigger marketing budgets than I do. If I spend a year or more on just one game, spending lots of money and man-hours on it, only to have it sell poorly... well, that would be the last you hear of me.

So... I tread carefully. To make a game, a developer can spend money to pay someone to do the work, or spend time doing it him/herself. If I spend more money, I will have to earn that money back. If I spend more time, it's time that the game is not earning any money (which I will still have to earn back). As a result, I tend to keep my games tight and lean - making them deep instead of broad. So if I screw up and the game bombs, then it won't be too much of a financial burden for my little studio to bear. I can just make another game and move on.

This is not to say that my games can't be long, epic works of grandeur.. It's just that they won't be long, epic works of grandeur yet. As I've gained more customers and fans I have slowly increased the length of my games. Convergence was easily longer than Unbound or Legacy, and the upcoming Deception is shaping up to be significantly longer than Convergence. Baby steps, kids. Baby steps.

So to answer the question of "Why are my games on the short side?" The simple answer for me is because I want to keep making games. I love making these games. And, for some strange reason that I am eternally thankful for, enough people like them enough to spend their money on them so I can continue to do this full time and make more (even during these crazy economic times). It's a great way to live, but there is always that little ever-present fear that it could all end if I am not smart. I'd have to - gulp - get a real job. And we can't have that.

-Dave

P.S.
This blog post is one in a series of posts for what we've called "Size Doesn't Matter Day." For other blog posts on this topic, check out:

http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/?p=810
http://24caretgames.com/2010/08/16/does-game-length-matter/
http://2dboy.com/2010/08/12/too-short/
http://blog.wolfire.com
http://brokenrul.es/blog
http://gamesfromwithin.com/size-matters
http://macguffingames.com/2010/if-size-doesnt-matter-where-do-you-get-the-virtual-goods
http://mile222.com/2010/08/a-haiku-about-game-length/
http://retroaffect.com
http://the-witness.net/news
http://www.copenhagengamecollective.org/2010/08/17/size-does-matter/
http://www.firehosegames.com/2010/08/how-much-is-enough/
http://www.hobbygamedev.com/
http://spyparty.com/2010/08/16/size-doesnt-matter-day/

Placeholder art

2010-08-11T18:35:00.000-04:00

The first placeholder art screen is a go!

Yes, this is a yacht.

-Dave

Deception Design Diary #1: Where I try to expose a phony psychic

2010-07-28T14:21:00.005-04:00

Those of you who follow my Facebook or Twitter feed probably already know that the next game in the Blackwell series - entitled Blackwell Deception - is underway. Things are moving a bit slowly while I get the last few design issues sorted out, but I envision things to start taking off very soon. I am aiming to get it done before Christmas, but I'm not going to officially announce a release date until I am sure. This has been the first time in a long while that I've been able to design and produce something completely in-house without any distractions from a publisher, so it's very exciting. I feel like I've got my indie cred back. Anyway, I thought I'd start a design diary to talk about the ups and downs of making it.

The Inspiration

A few years ago, I got a call from a friend. She needed a favor, but was embarrassed to ask it. To respect her privacy, I'm going to use a fake name and call her Cindy. For around six months or so, Cindy had been seeing a psychic. One of those storefront psychics that you see on every other block in this city. At the time, she had been drifting a bit aimlessly, unsure about her career choices and her place in life, and the psychic totally took advantage of that. The psychic told Cindy that her aura needed energy work, which cost about $200. After Cindy paid this amount, the psychic said that she would immediately buy a special candle and meditate on it. From there, Cindy just went deeper. By the time Cindy wised up, she was about $5,000 in hock to the psychic. Angry at herself, she decided that she was going to expose the scam and prevent the same thing from happening to others.

So, she called a news network.

The news network was interested, and they wanted someone to go in with a hidden camera and get footage of her defrauding someone. Did Cindy know anyone who'd be willing to do that? Yes, it turns out, Cindy did. I had just finished the first Blackwell game and she knew I was interested in that kind of thing. "I figured you'd think it was cool," I remember her saying. She was right.

I met up with Cindy and the news crew and they affixed a button camera to my shirt. It was pretty slick, even though it was a slightly different color than the other buttons. "Don't worry," the news lady said. "You just look like a guy who doesn't care about his appearance." Fair enough.

So I went into the psychic's office to get defrauded. She asked me a bunch of questions about my personal life and did something with tarot cards. Sure enough, the psychic eventually told me that I needed energy work and it would cost $200. I told her I'd think about it, and I left feeling proud of myself for getting it all on camera. Unfortunately, my life as a spy was a short-lived one. I had aimed the button camera one inch too far to the left, and ended up with 20 minutes footage of her wall. James Bond I am not.

In the end the network decided not to pursue the story, but the experience opened my eyes to a subculture in New York that not many know about. Cindy's story is not an isolated one. Fortunately for her, she got out before any major damage was done. She's now kicking butt and taking names in the self-esteem department. Others... are not so lucky.

The inspiration becomes a Blackwell story

In the years since this happened, it's stuck with me. I would walk around the city and I would see one of those psychic storefronts and I'd flash back to what happened to Cindy and what the psychic attempted to do to me. I have read reports of victims who got totally brainwashed by these psychics; giving over their life savings and breaking off from their families, simply because their psychics told them to. They attract the kind of people who are confused or lost, and then milk them for all they are worth untill they are dry.

I knew there was a Blackwell story in this somewhere, and as I've seen more and more of these storefronts my imagination began to wander. It's weird, I'd say to myself, there sure are a lot of them. I know of four psychic storefronts in my neighborhood alone. Move up towards midtown and you'll see them even more frequently. They've all been in place for as long as I have lived here. Even in this economy, they are still around. How come major bars, restaurants, and shops - which have been in existence for 50 years or more! - are all going out of business left and right while all these parasitic phony psychics remain open?

Surely, I felt, they must be organized. There must be some kind of unifying power behind them. Something beyond the mere storefront. Something even more sinister behind the scenes. But what could it be?

I think Rosa and Joey are about to find out.

-Dave

Cafe Pick Me Up

2010-07-21T14:02:00.001-04:00

Several months ago, someone suggested I do reports of the cafes I go to and rate them based on their "laptop friendliness". I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not, but I can't think of a better place to start than this place.

As I wrote in my last entry, I tend to wander around more now that I just have to carry my notebook and pen. And since I wander around quite a bit, I discover lots of new places around my neighborhood. Usually I walk west towards Greenwich Village, but lately my feet have been pushing me east toward Alphabet City.

Most people are familiar with the number grid system of NYC. If you hear the phrase "8th street between 5th Avenue and Broadway", something about it sounds very New York. But there's a section of the city where the Avenues are given letters instead of numbers. It's a small stretch of city in the far East Village, north of Houston and south of 14th street. It starts at Avenue A and goes to Avenue D. Hence, Alphabet City. I love wandering through there, as it's grungy and dirty and still has an old New York vibe despite the gentrification.

Anyway, last week I found myself checking out a cafe in Alphabet City. It was a little indie place, which is unusual. It had huge wall-length windows that were wide open, and several ceiling fans, so it was nice and ventilated despite the scorching heat. I got a coffee and sat down and whipped out my notebook, where I whiled away an hour or two.

Normally I wouldn't mention this place at all, but I decided to go back the next day and I stupidly didn't have any cash on me. They didn't take credit cards, so I asked where the nearest ATM was. The woman at the register said "Eh, don't worry about it. You were here yesterday. I trust you."

So, yeah. That's never happened before, and certainly not on my second visit. Since they gave me a free cup of coffee, the least I can do is give the place a mention on this blog. I've gone back several times since then and the place is definitely worth visiting. It's called "Cafe Pick Me Up" and it's on the corner of Avenue A and 9th street. It's laid-back and unpretentious, the staff is super friendly, and it's got a great view of the street. As a bonus, the iced coffee is really tasty and comes in an actual glass, plus they've got an Italian menu that's even better (and wicked cheap!). The gnocci is especially good.

Anyway, to bring this blog post back on topic, they are very "laptop developer friendly", as they've got plenty of electrical outlets and will happily let you stay there for several hours as long as you order something. Their internet isn't free, but if you're looking to sit and work and not get distracted by web surfing, it's a great place to be.

So... who thinks this cafe review thing is a good idea?

-Dave

Design mobility

2010-07-19T16:56:00.004-04:00

So I'm in the midst of what I call the "design phase" of development. For me, this is the most fun and also the most challenging part of the process.

On the one hand, I've got a lot of creative freedom. I let my mind go nuts and my pen follows suit. If what I come up with sucks or doesn't work, I just cross it out and start again. It's quick, it's dirty, and it's very satisfying. I think I have about a dozen notebooks of cross-outs and scribbles on my shelf.

On the other hand, I rarely feel like I'm accomplishing anything substantial. During proper production, you have a list of tasks you need to accomplish and you get the satisfaction of ticking them off one by one. You have a large goal that is broken up into smaller goals, and it's much easier to digest.

The design (or pre-production) stage isn't like that for me. I can't break up the game into smaller chunks, because I have no idea what the game is going to be. It's some nebulous, insubstatial, raw thing that's floating out there in the ether. So there are days where I feel great that I get to be all artsy and creative (this is fun), but there are days when I pound my head in frustration when I see that a whole day has gone by and I've only designed half-a-puzzle that I may or may not keep (this is not fun). Time is money, and all that.

But the biggest perk to the design phase? I don't need my laptop. No longer do I have to lug that thing around. I just grab a working pen (usually two, just in case) and a notebook and off I go. A laptop gives you great mobility, but a pen and notebook is even more so.

In the last week, I've done design in the following places:

- on the subway
- Washington Square Park, while a live jazz band played
- on a bench overlooking the east river
- a park overlooking the Hudson river
- the back seat of a taxi
- the bathtub

So yeah, the design phase can get frustrating but it certainly has its moments.

-Dave

I have no words

2010-06-23T16:18:00.003-04:00

Game talk

2010-06-15T17:41:00.003-04:00

There's an interesting thread over on the Adventure Game Studio forum about how to handle large dialogs in adventure games. The question is whether conversations that give lots of background detail on a character or event is important enough to include, even if it's optional. Does it bloat the game? Or does it enrich the game?

Dialog is something I have always struggled with. Writing it comes easy enough for me, but should I? I've found myself growing incessantly impatient with long dialogs in games, and unless the characters are engaging enough I simply skip through it.

Adventure games have it tough, especially indie ones. If a company like Bioware wants to have a longish conversation in one of their games, they can usually get away with it. They have production values, so we get all sorts of funky camera angles while the characters talk. We get wide shots, close-ups, even pans and zooms. The characters move. They gesture. We can see their eyes and expressions, and so we get drawn deeper into what they are saying. The fact that the conversations are usually well-written and engaging are just a bonus.

Alas, little games like mine don't have this luxury. Usually you have one screen and two characters standing there. They talk. And that's all you see. The camera doesn't move. The characters barely move. Nothing happens, except the dialog. Even if the conversation is an interesting one, it is bound to get boring for many players.

As I've written more games, I've found myself writing less and less dialog. Or rather, each individual dialog exchange has gotten shorter and shorter. It's very tempting to give your character gobs of words to say, especially if you think they are interesting. And since the characters are interesting, obviously the player will want to spend some time listening to them talk and get to know them, right?

Meh... sort of. It's taken me several games to learn this, but less is definitely more. Games are all about interacting with the world. Yes, you want to talk to the characters, but you also want to explore and get on with the game (and meet more characters). Yes, allow the player to chat with your characters, but try and keep it short.

I am very guilty of this sin. Inspired by the Adventure Game Studio thread, I went and skimmed through the dialog of The Blackwell Legacy. And man, can those characters talk. Here's a particularly evil example of what I'm talking about. It's a long section of dialog which is made worse by the fact that Rosa is on the screen by herself. She's on the phone talking to her boss:

Boss: Rosangelina. Hi.
Rosa: Hi Bob.
Boss: Thanks SO much for submitting your last review on time. For once.
Rosa: Yeah.
Boss: I got a little assignment for you today.
Rosa: Assignment?
Rosa: I just review books, Bob.
Boss: Well, today you're not.
Boss: Human interest, Blackwell. And it's RIGHT in your neighborhood.
Rosa: Human interest?
Boss: Yep. College girl. Suicide.
Rosa: Someone killed herself?
Boss: Yep. Some girl named... JoAnn.
Rosa: That's-
Boss: You know the Britany House? The NYU dorm?
Rosa: Yes, but-
Boss: Great! Head over to the dorm and get a few statements.
Rosa: But-
Boss: Speak to some people on her floor. Get a word in with the roommate.
Rosa: Listen-
Boss: Speak to the R.A., too. And hey, if you can score a picture of the girl, that would be a real coup.
Rosa: But I don't do that stuff!
Boss: Like I said, today you ARE.
Boss: Jared's over at city hall covering that strike.
Boss: So you're it.
Rosa: Today is not the best-
Boss: Not hearing you.
Boss: Write it up for tomorrow's edition.
Boss: Pressures of college life, etc.
Boss: It practically writes itself.
Rosa: Wait-
Boss: I'm SO looking forward to reading it, Blackwell.
Boss: Ciao!

(hangs up)

Rosa: I hate him so much.
Rosa: Is freelancing for that stupid paper even worth it?
Rosa: I guess it keeps me writing, but...
Rosa: Oh, whatever.
Rosa: I'll just go over there and get it done.
Rosa: It's not like I don't have enough death in my life right now.

So hm. Let's count those lines, shall we? 1..2...3... 41 lines! 41 lines to tell the player they need to go to a location and ask some questions about a girl, and to grab a picture while there. 41 lines of zero player interactivity. 41 lines of Rosa standing there on the screen with a phone to her ear.

I'm not knocking the dialog. I like the dialog. But hey, I'm a bit biased. However, I can't deny that it could have been much shorter. So as a little writing exercise, I decided to see if I could edit it down:

Boss: Rosangelina. Hi.
Rosa: Hi Bob.
Boss: I got a little assignment for you today.
Rosa: Assignment?
Boss: Human interest, Blackwell. Suicide. A college girl named JoAnn Sherman.
Rosa: That's awful, but-
Boss: You know the Britany House? The NYU dorm?
Rosa: Yes, but-
Boss: Great! Head over to the dorm and get a few statements.
Rosa: But-
Boss: Speak to some people on her floor. Get a word in with the roommate.
Rosa: Listen-
Boss: Speak to the R.A., too. And hey, see if you can score a picture of the girl.
Rosa: But I don't do that stuff! I write book reviews.
Boss: Versatility, Blackwell. That's you make it in this biz.
Boss: Get cracking.

(hangs up)
Rosa: I hate him so much.

Count 'em. It's now 17 lines instead of the previous 41. It's shorter, snappier, and gives you the exact same information. I probably could have cut it down further by removing all of Rosa's interjections of "But!" and "Listen!", but they show Rosa's reluctance nicely and made the dialog flow a lot more naturally. This is how I probably would've written this exchange today.

I have no plans on releasing a "cut down dialog" edition of Blackwell Legacy, but it begs the question. How do you feel about long dialogs in games? Do you enjoy them? Skip through them? Did you play Blackwell Legacy and ever cry out "God, do these people ever shut up?" Please comment and let me know.

-Dave

Wi-fi is everywhere

2010-06-12T09:12:00.002-04:00

Cafes and laptops go well together. There's something about tapping away on a sleek little machine while sipping a drink in the intellectual surroundings of a cafe that appeals to a lot of people. You only have to peek into a Starbucks or a Cosi's or a Think to see that thousands of others feel the same. Which is why many cafes offer free wi-fi in order to bring people in.

Wi-fi in cafes I understand. Wi-fi in some other places... well, it just baffles me.

About six months ago, a burger joint opened up around the corner from me. I've eaten there. It's pretty good. Eating a burger in a burger joint makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the sign in their window that proudly displays the words "FREE WI-FI!" I read this and was instantly baffled. Surfing the web while drinking a double mocha latte? Sure! Surfing while munching on a burger? How does that work? Wouldn't you get grease everywhere?

I've noticed free wi-fi being offered in bars and diners, too. I guess it makes a kind of sense, although I have yet to see many people taking advantage of it. Maybe I should try working in one of those places one day. In the name of research.

-Dave

More programmer art

2010-06-02T09:45:00.005-04:00

You might have noticed the programmer art I posted yesterday. It happens that Ron Gilbert (no relation) of LucasArts fame also posted some programmer art on his blog. So in the interests of keeping up with my fellow Gilberts, here are some more of my attempts at programmer art from my previous games.

The Minetta in Blackwell Convergence:

At one point looked like this:

And the construction site in Blackwell Unbound:

Looked a little something like this:

And let's not forget my first attempts at Rosa and Joey:

Maybe I should have kept Joey's original design. Who wouldn't want a ghost slug as a sidekick?

-Dave

Post release philosophy

2010-06-01T20:41:00.002-04:00

With all the twittering and Facebooking I do, it's hard to come up with interesting things to write about. Puzzle Bots came out a few weeks ago. And in case you haven't heard, it's awesome and stuff. So you should check it out.

And as I often do after a release, I tend to get a little philosophical. This is the sixth game that we've completed since we started this studio in 2006, and man have things changed. And by "changed" I don't mean myself. When I started, there were very few people doing this kind of thing. But now? The entire indie gaming scene has taken off like a howitzer blitz. Everyone's talking about it. Mainstream gaming websites and media outlets now dedicate a good chunk of their time to indie games. The IGF has become a force to be reckoned with. Game conventions normally reserved for the biggest high-budget console titles (like E3 and PAX) now have indie game booths and they are packed to the gills and swarmed with press. There are major websites and web TV programs (including the fabulous Bytejacker) dedicated to the subject. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on, but you get the idea. It's pretty darn amazing.

As for me? I'm still that guy in the cafe. Drinking coffee, plinking away at a laptop keyboard, and somehow ending up with a game at the end of it. The way I work hasn't changed all that much. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

So what's next for us? Janet and I are working on a new project, but there's very little to show so we're keeping mum about it for now. It's very much a "back to our roots" kind of thing, but it's also something very new. I DO have some truly epic programmer art, done by me, which you can see right here:

I wonder if the game would sell more if it looked like this.

I approve...

2010-04-04T09:04:00.002-04:00

... of Matt Smith as Doctor Who.

(and I'll have a real update soon)

My life in limerick form

2010-03-01T11:13:00.004-05:00

Hi all! I'm desperately trying to get Puzzle Bots to beta before the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. In lieu of a normal update, I thought I'd share a silly limerick I wrote several years ago about my life as a game developer:

Here’s how my time is spent.
While I’m in development.
I seek out inspiration
and maintain motivation
and just hope that it pays the rent.

It starts with writing a doc
That’s solid and tight as a rock
All items common and rare
They are all written there
‘lest anarchy come by and knock

Once the design is complete and computed
The team members must be recruited
For if it were all done by me
Nasty things you would see
‘cuz it would all come out convoluted

Then we all get right down to work
We do our jobs and we’ll never shirk
Pixels are dutifully slammed
The game’s mostly programmed
And hopefully no one’s a jerk

After ages of blood, tears and sweat
It’s complete, but it’s not over yet!
Heed the words I am telling
For now starts the selling
Lots of money we hope we shall get

The PR work is never much fun
But on its shoulders a business is run
Marketing Rosa or Stone
Is a whole different poem
So I that believe this ditty… is done!

So what the heck is a "wadjet" anyway?

2010-02-24T17:33:00.008-05:00

Several months ago, I sought the advice of marketing and PR people since I know virtually nothing about the subject myself. A common thread among their advice was that I should give serious consideration to changing the name of my company.

I have to admit, this is something that I've considered more than once. "Wadjet Eye Games" was not the best of choices. It's hard to spell, hard to pronounce, and it has nothing to do with games. It should have been obvious that the name was iffy when I was nominated for a Game Developer's Choice award in 2007 and the committee completely butchered the name at the award's ceremony.

So why did I give my company this name in the first place?

When I was a kid, I had a brief obsession with Egyptian myths. I read as many as I could get my hands on, and in doing so I came across the symbol of the wadjet eye. I thought it was the coolest looking thing ever, and I knew that if I ever needed a logo for anything I would use the wadjet eye.

Flash forward twenty years later. It was October of 2006 and I wanted to announce my first game. I was on the internet, fingers poised over a keyboard, the screen locked onto the domain registration page of ipowerweb.com. In order to announce the game, I needed a website. And in order to register a website, I needed a name for my company. I had been thinking and wrecking my brain for several weeks, but nothing was coming. I had to choose something and now.

Then, it struck me. I always knew that I would use the wadjet eye symbol as my company's logo, so why not just use that for the company name? The decision made, I typed "wadjeteyegames.com" into the registration field, entered my credit card info, hit "confirm", and bam.

Four years later, marketing professionals are telling me that I should change the name. I thought about it long and hard. I even posted a thread on indiegamers.com about it, asking what other folks thought. But, really, the point is moot.

Would changing it now magically make me super successful? Probably not. I've already developed five games (soon to be six!) under the Wadjet Eye Games banner, so there's little point in changing it now. It would do me much more harm than good. And honestly? I like the name.

So the name is here to stay! But if you could spread the word that it's spelled with a "J" and not a "G", my google searches would be eternally grateful.

-Dave

10 things I've learned from working in cafes:

2010-02-06T13:09:00.006-05:00

As I've posted before, I've been doing the laptop cafe thing for awhile. Here are a few little bits of wisdom I've picked up. Use them wisely.

10 - It's impossible to sound masculine when ordering a latte.

9 - If you have to answer a call of nature, bring your laptop with you. If you ask someone to watch it for you, they will always say yes before promptly forgetting about it.

8 - The girl smiling and cooing at her computer screen is talking to her boyfriend on skype.

7 - Get there before 9:30 AM if you want any hope of getting a table near an outlet.

6 - You can coast in a cafe all day on one cup of coffee, but it won't make you well-liked by the staff.

5 - People might look like they are doing important things on their laptops, but half of them are just updating their facebook status.

4 - Free wifi sounds like mana from heaven, but in a crowded cafe (with dozens of laptops) you might as well be on 300 baud dialup.

3 - The people you think are weird are thinking that you are just as weird.

2 - Nobody actually cares what you are doing on your laptop, no matter how interesting you think it is.

1 - Rainy days + warm cafe + sweet jazz music = best work environment ever.

My thoughts on indie game pricing

2010-01-29T10:50:00.007-05:00

So, there's been some interesting news in the Indie game scene lately. The controversy, such as it is, got kickstarted with the release of a game by Distractionware entitled VVVVVV (that's 6 V's, all in a row). The game looks unabashedly old-skool with blocky Atari 2600-like graphics. The game mechanic is interesting (you get around by flipping gravity), the levels are very challenging, and the soundtrack is this awesome pumping techno music that puts you just in the right mood. It's hecka fun. The issue? The game is made in Flash, it lasts around 3-4 hours, and costs $15.

Nobody is denying that the game is interesting, but there are wildly differing opinions on the price. An article on the Escapist says that it's way too expensive, and an on-the-spot sarcastic comic offers tips on how to afford it. The argument seems to be that Distractionware is hurting themselves by pricing the game too high, and that a lot more people would buy the game if it were $5 instead of $15. The opposing argument is that $15 is not really that much and indie games are too cheap in general.

As someone who has been on the brunt-end of this argument before, I thought I'd offer my perspective. I've always had a lot of difficulty knowing what to charge. With a film, it's easy. It could be a multi-million dollar blockbuster or a ten-thousand dollar indie film, but you'll still plunk down the same amount of cash to see both in the cinema (FYI: movies cost $12 in New York) . Games are different. There are so many different kinds of games that no set price could ever be agreed on.

So, I experimented. My first game, The Shivah, was only $5. My second game, Blackwell Legacy, was $15. When I released Blackwell Unbound, I decided to sell it for $10. Mostly I was just experimenting to see what worked, but some thought also went into how much money I spent producing them (Unbound cost significantly less to make than Legacy). When the time came to set the price for Convergence, I took a look at how well my previous games sold at certain prices and tried to reach some conclusions.

The argument about cheaper prices is usually that "if the game is cheaper, more people will buy it." This is definitely true. Unbound definitely sold more than Legacy. But while Unbound cost 1/3 less, it certainly did not sell 1/3 more in order to make up for the drop in price. The lower price was earning me less money. So based on that, I decided that $15 was the "sweet spot" for my new games, and $10 was a good price for the older ones.

Of course, I don't know much about business and I could be completely wrong. There are probably many factors I have not considered, but it's been working out pretty well so far. As for VVVVVV (and other games like it), if $15 works well for you, then resist lowering it by all means! We want you to stay fed and happy so you can make more awesome games.

Anyone else have their own thoughts on this issue? Agree? Disagree? Comment and let me know!

Till next time,

-Dave

Single player games as a social activity?

2010-01-21T11:52:00.003-05:00

A few years ago, my friend Brandon and I were chatting about games. More specifically, games that took place in New York. I remembered hearing about a game called "True Crime: Streets of New York" for the original XBOX. It was a GTA-like urban sandbox game, where you played a cop who went on various missions around the city. It had been out for awhile, and it was reviewed very poorly, but from what I read it was very faithful in re-creating the streets of Manhattan in virtual form. Sure enough, a week later, Brandon found a copy of the game in a bargain bin for 5 bucks and brought it over to my apartment.

After getting through the tutorial, our avatar was walking through a last-gen version of Times Square. Without wasting a minute, we nabbed a car and drove our character downtown through Union Square and into the East Village. Soon enough, we were walking through my neighborhood, looking at my apartment building as depicted in the game. There was something very zen about the experience, but that didn't stop Brandon from selecting grenades from the character's inventory and start fire-bombing my apartment building.

A few hours later the novelty of wandering through (and blowing up various pieces of) virtual New York had worn off. The game was as buggy and rough as the reviews said it was, but it still remains one of the more memorable experiences in gaming for me. Why? Because for the first time in my life I was playing a game with another person. Brandon and I both remember that moment and laugh.

I've been playing video games since the Atari 2600 lumbered its' way out of the primordial ooze and heaved itself onto store shelves. It's a hobby I've enjoyed all of my life, but there's one thing about it that you can't deny. It's a very solitary one. Sure, there are two player games, but most mainstream console games are made with a single player in mind. Even social MMOs like World of Warcraft require that the player be sitting by him/herself at the keyboard.

Lately, I've discovered the joy of playing games with other people. I recently went to a gaming meetup, where every month a group of people play through "Shadow of the Colossus". I went to it wondering how it was going to be handled. Do we take turns? Do we each take down one Colossus (there are 16 in the game)? In actuality, it was a very laid-back and loose affair, where people who wanted to play would play and the rest of us would just watch and make funny comments. It was a total social thing, and I had a great time. Something I never thought I would experience while playing a single-player game.

Honestly, I'm not sure of the point I'm trying to make here. I just think it's great that video gaming - once considered the past-time of pale shut-ins, has become much more widely accepted. Does anyone else have memorable moments like these? Do share 'em!

Cafe people: Angry phone lady

2010-01-11T16:52:00.005-05:00

One of my regular cafés is a place called "Cosi's". There are quite a few Cosi's in New York, but they seem to concentrate downtown where you get a lot of students. I like Cosi's because you can order food and they bring it to your table like you are in a real restaurant.

If you go to a place often enough you begin to recognize certain people. Some are just faces, while others are a bit more... eccentric.

Whenever I enter this café, I always see the same woman. A middle-aged, heavy-set, black woman with a permanent scowl. She stomps in carting a massive suitcase on wheels and maneuvers her way to a booth in the corner. Once there, she heaves the suitcase onto the seat opposite her and sits down. She grabs a coffee and then proceeds to mumble angrily into a headset phone. For the entire day.

And when I say the entire day, I mean the entire day.

Now, there are days when I get to the café at 9am and don't leave until the late afternoon. There are days when I don't leave until six or seven. But this woman? She's still there. She's still talking into her headset phone, she's still looking angry, and that massive suitcase is still on the seat next to her. I first thought she was some kind of homeless lady, but her clothes always look clean and she's not dirty or anything. I've seen enough sleeping weirdos in cafés to tell the difference.

After three years of seeing her in action, I still wonder. What the heck is she doing? And why does she need so much stuff to do it with? I suppose I could just walk up and ask her, but hey. This is New York. You don't do that kind of thing. Perhaps one day she'll end up in one of my games. If so, you heard it here first.

-Dave

The cafe lifestyle

2010-01-07T11:52:00.002-05:00

I mentioned in my first post how I generally write my games from various cafés in New York. This practice started with in 2006 and continues now.

At the time, I did it because I was between jobs and I wanted to feel like I was really working, so I'd pack up the laptop and bring it to a café in Tribeca (an area of NYC which is short for "triangle below Canal"). I'd plop down, order a latte, boot up the laptop, and then type type away on The Shivah. For a solid month, I'd be there by 9am and leave sometime in the later afternoon. The place had food, so I was able to nab lunch when I wanted it. When I finished the game I figured it was a neat way to work, so I kept doing it.

In the four years since then, I've worked on games in all sorts of different coffee joints. Most are your average Starbucks, others are New York based chains, and some are unique privately owned indie cafés (which there are less and less of, lately). I tend to choose different cafés depending what my needs and mood are that day. They all have something different to offer. Some have food, others have free wifi, and others have more convenient electrical outlets. I've actually become an expert on the location of every electrical outlet in every café with a five block radius of my apartment.

Lately, more and more people have adapted to this café lifestyle. I used to be the only nerd in a Starbucks with a laptop, but now it's hard to find a café-goer without one. I see people writing papers, working on resumes, updating spreadsheets, or just surfing the internet. I've seen a group of men in suits gathered around a café table, hunched over their laptops, discussing what appeared to be a high-powered business stuff. I once saw a dentist examining 3D models of his patients' teeth! The sheer amount of productivity that goes on in these places is mindboggling.

Earlier this year, the crowds temporarily drove me out of the cafés and I actually rented a cubicle in an office. I gave it up in a few months. Despite the crowds, the café lifestyle suits me.

-Dave

A new year, a new decade, and a new blog!

2010-01-01T13:12:00.000-05:00

Hello and happy new year! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dave Gilbert, and I've been running a small indie game studio for almost four years now. My studio is basically a laptop, which I lug around to various cafes in New York City. Most of the games you'll see from me have been written and programmed from cafes, from the zero budget Shivah to the higher-budgeted Emerald City Confidential.

I am not all that new to the blog scene, as I used to write ad nasuem about my life on my old personal website, but maintaining the wordpress software became too much of a bother. You've got to keep it updated or it gets attacked by spyware, and it was too easy to let it slide. So I've decided to move house and set up camp here on Blogspot. The Blogspot site is hosting my stuff and the system gets updated automatically, so I don't have to bother doing it myself! Delegation, baby. That's the key to success.

Anyway, back on track. It's been said that indies like me are bottom feeders, taking the crumbs that the big developers miss. And while a few games like World of Goo and Braid have reached major mainstream success, there is some truth to that analogy. We don't do this for the buckets of cash, but because we love it. Myself, I count myself as one of the lucky "bottom feeders" who have managed to eek out a living doing this full time. I'm not rich by any means, but I've somehow managed to keep this company going even during these Dark Economic Times, so apparently I'm doing something right.

Like most indie developers I have many opinions on games, game development, and anything in between. As time goes on I plan on talking about the New York game scene, funny things that occur while working in cafes, and my own thoughts about the games I (and others) make. I also hope to offer some insight or tips for fans or other aspiring indie game developers. I'm a total moron, so if I can do it anybody can.

Thanks for reading this far!

-Dave