Last week I head the pleasure of being interviewed by Andrew Webster of Ars Technica for his piece “We Band of Brothers: Developer-led Xbox Live Indies promotion returns.” In it he describes how the uprising came to be, our future plans, and lessons learned from the previous uprising.
EDIT: To see a clearer list of the 26 (read below) entries, click here. The Indie Games Summer Uprising list has been narrowed down from 70+ to just 25 this week. Starting Monday July 11th, developers will have the opportunity to select 8 picks to represent the platform in the Uprising. Voting closes on Sunday July 17th. Developers are to vote on a variety of factors including: Marketability, originality, appearance, entertainment, music, and gameplay. A 5 star rating system will be used, just as XBLIG tittles are rated on Live, and the 8 titles with the highest average score are selected in the promotion. A poll will be e-mailed to all XBLIG developers who have submitted candidates. Winners will be announced the following day, Monday July 18th on the IGSU home page. ...
We’ve finally launched the Indie Games Summer Uprising site! Josh Addison, Nathan Smith, and Chris Brousseau have all done an outstanding job with the web design, art work, and initial launch trailer. You can find more of their work at Blazing Forge Games and Game Production Studios. In addition to the site, we’ve released the initial launch trailer and press release to a number of outlets. Be sure to “Like” us on Facebook as well, where you will have the opportunity to vote for two additional titles that you would like to see as part of the uprising. Click through for the press release. ...
I’ll be attending my second GDC conference this year. I’ve recently received my press pass as a member of the Armless Octopus. I plan on staying the full week this time, most specifically for the UDK game track. I’m also scheduling an XNA meet up for XNA and Xbox indie developers, so if you’d like to join us, feel free to contact me.
I just finished putting together a feature geared towards indie developers on how to market their titles. I frequently find that many of the smaller, or even 1 man studios tend to have a difficult time promoting and marketing their work, so I felt it was time for me to share some of the best practices I’ve come across so far. I should have part 2 up some time later in the week. It originally appeared on Armless Octopus on April 16th, and you can access it through this link.
I’ve always enjoyed writing, and since an early age I’ve pursued it. Recently I found a story I wrote 18 years ago with my friend Kevin when we were in the first grade. One title which has had a profound effect on my view of gaming was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and it stays with me today. As we were both fans of the title, and shared astounding artistic and creative writing talents, we believed it was the best time for share our efforts and create this masterpiece. If I ever needed to qualify my geek credibility, this should do it. I also have a Crash Bandicoot book I wrote in 1996, composed of images from an old Game Informer mag – I’ll look for that one soon too. ...
I’ll be attending Pax East 2011 with the rest of the Armless Ocotopus staff (minus the Canadian). We’ll be there interviewing XBLIG and XBLA developers, previewing the latest and greatest titles, and are considering another live podcast like we did last year. A video review may be in in order well. If you’re headed over as well, feel free to contact me so that we can meet up!
Who’s got two thumbs and is headed to PAX Prime 2011? This guy! If you’re going too, why not reach out to me before hand so that we can meet up while we’re there?
Thus far, the enthusiasm behind the uprising has been great. We have over 45 submissions at this point, with additional ones coming in. The press has been kind to us as well and really helped with spreading the word. I didn’t sent out a press release to any of the outlets, as the one listed below was really just geared toward the developers, but looking back I probably should have. I’ll have an updated one in the next week or so as more news gets solidified. The website should be up within the week, so be sure to check back here for a link for that. Andrew Currie of Evil Robot Logic has been doing an outstanding job of handling that for us. ...
While I was down in Philly visiting Armless Octopus Editor-In-Chief Mike Wall, we headed over to the “Too Many Games” expo, which I detailed more information about below. Here’s some photos so you can live through the nostalgia we experienced! Unfortunately, I didn’t find any copies of Panzer Dragoon Zwei :/