15 Steps Roguelike

I'm starting a game using TheSheep's 15 steps plan, doing a step per day.

I will be starting fresh but reserve the right to pilfer and pillage any of my previous projects for source code, as well as anything I can find online.

In January 14th at night (or January 15th in the morning) I will post my success or failure. I also reserve the right to use the most generous of time zones for determining the end date.

I will try post small status reports here as I go along- see you in 15 days!

-Ido.

New Homepage Design

I've decided it was time for an overhaul for my homepage.

The result:

http://www.tametick.com

Still need to tweak the colors for higher contrast, but I am happy with the outcome so far.

-Ido.

Most Played Roguelike - Poll Results

The final results on the poll are in:

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the top 4 are Crawl, Nethack, Angband & ADOM in that order (with Angband & ADOM tied for the 3rd place).

What is surprising (at least to me) is the disparity of the results: Crawl in the first place has almost twice as many votes as Nethack in the second place, and exactly double the amount of votes as Angband and ADOM!

-Ido.

Yet Nother Roguelike Framework

As most developers probably know, every game you develop make all subsequent ones easier to make.

Until now I've been using the venerable Ad-Hoc Craptacular Framework method (AHCF from now on), namely- starting new games by ripping off relatively-general-use code from older ones.

The AHCF method works, and works quite well. Every new game your ever changing "framework" gets more general & useful and before you know it it doesn't take that much effort to transform it into something that's easily packable and usable in a new game simply by copying a single directory/jar/dll/whatever.

As you've probably guessed by now, the game I'm currently developing has its code separated to an engine and a game component, and when it gets a bit further along it might even be useful for other people to build their own projects on top of its engine.

Stay tuned for further updates,
-Ido.

Which Roguelike Have You Played the Most?

Feel free to participate in the poll to the left, it will run until October 19th.

-Ido.

Monetizing Indie Games

I have recently come across 2 articles about monetizing indie games:

• 6 ways to try and monetize indie games- by the infamously prolific Kevin Glass.
• Getting paid, earning a living in a free world- in GraduateGames' blog on GameJolt.

Some interesting ideas all around, but probably nothing you haven't heard before in one form or another.

Another oldie-but-goodie: on being an independent game developer.

On a different note, please make use of the rgrd subreddit if you find links to something worth sharing with your fellow roguelike developers.

-Ido.

No More NoMoreSweden

No More Sweden is over & I am back in Vienna.

My entry to the 40h dev jam even won the 1st place in the "Most Procedural" category!

I will use some of the code to remake three old projects (finally finishing 1 of them & adding some polish to the other two) with a unified framework.

That will make them easily accessible through web start, with some new eye candy & an online scoreboard. More features will probably follow.

-Ido.

First Donation at tametick.com

Yesterday I received my first donation in the sum of 14 Euros from the generous Nick Thompson of Little Rock, AR!

Thank you Nick!

Use the Paypal button at tametick.com if you want to support the development of more indie games!

-Ido.

Roguelike Traffic

It has been a bit over a year since I started tracking traffic to the first 7DRL I made for the 2008 7DRL Challange (I have since then also submitted another game to this year's challange).

It seems most of the traffic comes from Roguelike specific site such as RogueBasin and Temple of the Roguelike, but popular gaming sites such as Jay is Games also contributed their fair share of traffic.

Here are the top 10 refferes:

Overall visitors numbered 4,348.

The number of downloads of the most recent edition (not including people who got it directly from the subversion repository or downladed any of the previous versions):

I unfortunatly didn't have a mac to compile/test on - the mac version without sounds was contributed by a player.

Overall downloads (including old versions but not including subversion checkouts or downloads from 3rd party sites) numbered 2,451.

Operating system stats are also not surprising - considering I couldn't provide very good mac support - with Windows taking the lead followed by linux:

Would be interesting to see how my newer (and upcoming) games would do in comparison. With my 2nd 7DRL game released about 4 months ago, there is still a while left until they could be compared, though.

-Ido.

1 Week for NoMoreSweden

Only 1 week left 'till I hop on a plane to Copenhagen (and a train to Malmö afterwards) to attend NoMoreSweden.

38 people registered, many of which I would be very interested in meeting.

Fun times ahead!

-Ido.

FWOD Performance Problems & Bugs

Seems like I've made some silly mistakes in my first Java2D application.

The good people on StackOverflow and JavaGaming seem to have some good advice that I'll incorprate into my code.

A post on Sun's forum also seems to address similar issues.

-Ido.

Falling Wall of Doom - Final!

Finally finished last night- get it here.

The jar file (click to play) can be found here and the source at github (README).

Almost Done!

Get it here.

I hope I didn’t forget anything, I’ll probably post a final submission soon.

It was my first LD and it was a good one!

1st Screenshot, Still a Way to Go

I’ve been having some wierd performance related problems, but nothing too bad.

Here’s the 1st (early) screenshot.

Cat Got Tangled in Plastic Bag, Physics & Drawing Stuff Done.

Poor stupid kitty.

Progress is made

I've got basic IO stuff & a game Idea - more of a Falling Wall of Doom than an Advancing one, though.

The 1.5l pitcher of black tea has been drank and have made way for the 1l of coffee with cream & sugar.

Good Morning!

Oh crap, I see the theme is Advancing Wall of Doom :(

Ludum Dare Coming Up

The first LD I'm taking part of begins tomorrow morning.

Joy!