Today, Unity and Microsoft announced a new world-wide contest with $100K in prizes to bring Unity games to Windows and Windows Phone. The rules are pretty straight forward, and he contest site is hosted at http://unity3d.com/contest/windows, so feel free to head over and submit your games!
I’ve taken a bit of a break from playing games lately, and instead have been cranking through books. A lot of this seems like “self help” or “empowerment” books, but I’ve chose to keep those silly things off of this list. Instead, I wanted to focus on books that actually offer some sort of practical and useful knowledge. Here’s a few of them, and why I think they would be worth your time: ...
I don’t write much about gaming anymore, which is disappointing, but I instead fill my time with development, and an indie development podcast. So this is my one chance to round up my brief, if not disjointed, thoughts on gaming this year. Here’s a quick list of things I’ve played recently, and most of which in the last week. I had 12 days off from work after Christmas, so I cranked through as many games as I could, considering I didn’t play much earlier in the year. Hell, many of these games weren’t even released this year. ...
Twice each month, I interview independent developers in the gaming industry. I felt that there was a niche not being served, in that I wanted the inside scoop behind many of the developers I interact without over the years. This 30 minute show is a casual conversation between a developer and myself, where he or she illustrates how they got their start, what their current and previous projects are, and some of their favorite tools, languages, and frameworks are. ...
10 months. 80 hours. That’s how long it took me to play through Persona 4, and with my severe video game ADHD, if I play anything for more than a night, then that’s an accomplishment. Well, it really took a bit more than that, because I earned all 3 endings and died a few times, but we’ll go with the official game time of 8o hours. The last time I put this much time into a game was Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2, and Final Fantasy VII on the PS1. ...
Yesterday’s E3 conference was perhaps the most interesting one I’ve seen since 1995’s Sega debacle, where they thrusted the Saturn out of the gate, 6 months ahead of schedule and unbeknownst to developers. Microsoft came out of the gate with a strong lineup, a solid piece of hardware, and certainly some clarification on their policies which people were understandably curious about. Yesterday evening however, Sony came out swinging, pulling the ole’ rope-a-dope: A tactic where a fighter sits back and takes punches until it’s finally their turn to shine. And that’s exactly what they did. ...
My first book, UnrealScript Game Programming Cookbook has been published by Pakt Publishing today. It covers a variety of topics, from creating your own modular camera system, crafting AI, creating intelligent pathfinding for bots, and manipulating weapons. A free sample chapter is available as well, which covers creating a modular camera system, from beginning to end. It’s available in a number of formats, including a physical copy, as well as Kindle and .pdf formats. You can find the book here, or also at Amazon.com here.
**Update:**If you have GDC Vault access you can now watch the video. GDC has just released the schedules for this year’s show, which is set to go exactly one month from now. My speech for the Indie Games Summer Uprising will be on Friday, at 2:30pm in Room 2002. Are you headed to GDC this year? Drop me a line and let me know, I’d love to catch up!
UPDATE: Thanks @BigBossBenGilbert for the photo! Headed to GDC Europe? Why not come take a gander at the panel I’ve been invited to attend by Deejay of Indie City. Taken straight from his page: I’ll be hosting the Indies’ Got PR Talent panel at GDC Europe on Monday 15th August, 12:40pm. I’ll be joined by games press veterans Mike Rose, Christian Nutt and Keith Stuarterr, someone else who’s yet to be officially confirmed (That’s me!). We’ll be going through various indie press releases, screenshots and videos, highlighting the best and worse examples. All in the format of the [INSERT COUNTRY HERE]’s Got Talent gameshow, which should add extra mirth into the mix. After dissecting each, the panel will be giving their expert opinion on how indie developers can make a better impact with their PR activities.
I’m off to my first GDC Europe and GamescCom event, . I’ll be there from Sunday 8/14 – Sunday 8/21 and staying on the north side of town. If you’re there and would like to say hello, get in touch with me! If you’re an Indie developer, come by this event hosted by GDC at Club Diamonds in Koln on Tuesday evening. I’ll be there to support the Indie Games Summer Uprising. ...