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31 Games I published in Game Dev Story over the last two days

Karisoft's recently released game Game Dev Story for the iPhone OS and PC is kind of ruining my whole life plans right now. Though I've released more than 31 games over the course of the last two days with my production company Chow Chow Chow, this productivity exists entirely from within the game and does not contribute to my game making abilities IRL. That's a bug! Fix that, please.

My procrastination skills aside, Game Dev Story is pretty fun. It completely absorbs you in its details, and once you publish your first game it's hard to stop. The pulse of the game involves how you divvy up your funds across your employees, contract work, and advertisement while you strategically choose which consoles you develop for and what kind of games you aim to make. The release schedule and retirement of the various consoles (Intendo's Game Kid, Sonny's PlayStatus, etc.) is kind of predictable, but that only makes you think that you have an edge over everyone else. 

My favorite part is naming my games once they're all debugged and ready to ship. You only have 14 letters for the title so you have to get a little creative, but man. I wish I could play some of these. If you can figure out which out of these 31 games were the top sellers, I'll give you a cookie. 

1. Peg Leg Dads
2. Fang Gang
3. Dragon Beard
4. Haunted Hole
5. Sparkle Shots
6. Guts and Guns
7. What the Cat
8. Blood Mice
9. Ghostly Nips
10. Hairy Kids
11. Final Sash
12. Silent Nose
13. Sweat Plus
14. Hall of Oats
15. Hidden Eye
16. Dingo's Rage
17. I Love You
18. Dingo Revenge
19. Gargle Day
20. Starfish Hunt
21. Dingo Quest
22. Second Fantasy
23. Movie Land
24. First Fantasy
25. Laser Wizards
26. Topaz Hill
27. Mystery Pizza
28. Mystery Taco
29. Ninja Please
30. Dirt Pirate
31. What the Zoo?!

Currently superimposing Diplo into all PS2 games

*Chortles* This is a treat! You know those Tawainese Next Media Animation folks responsible for those less-than-Pixar computer animations of various celebrity drama? Well they've made it big this time with their animation for Lil Jon's "U Don't Like Me" music video. And guess what? It features playable versions of Lil Jon and Diplo in five versus trials, including an under the sea battle with a harpoon. How awesome is that? Plus they've made it really easy for me to start fantisizing about Diplo showing up in Deadly Premonition as Agent York's long lost sidekick. That would be really great.

U Don't Like Me via The Awl

IndieCade was great.

The incredible awards from the IndieCade award ceremony. To the left we have the Innovative Gameplay award for Marc Ten Bosc's Miegakure, and to the right we have the Sublime Experience award for Steph Thirion's Faraway.

This was my second year attending the IndieCade conference down in Culver City, and as one can expect from these kinds of things, this one was even better than the last. Mingling along the ranks of courageous developers and other aspiring game makers (like myself), it's hard to leave IndieCade without the motivation to just get excited and make things. And with games spread across the city's gallery spaces while swarms of people play ARG games into the night, you become overwhelmingly charmed by the spirit of imaginative play that colors this conference like no other.

I spent the majority of my time attending lectures and playing games alongside Steph, Cory, and Maré. Of course there was plenty of buddy mingling too with the likes of Brandon Boyer, Richard Lemarchand, Adam Robezzoli of Attract Mode, and many other game folks where just standing next to them is like inspiration by osmosis. My favorite lecture was That Game Company's presentation around their upcoming game Journey, which demonstrated just how much care is put into designing a game that feels organically cooperative (The Brainy Gamer has a great summary of the talk here.) And of course, Mr. Boyer's talk "All Play is Personal" served as a loving reminder that now is really the time to make a game if you've ever want to.

The Indicade award show was also better orchestrated than last year, having the perks of Levar Burton hosting and leading an all-audience Reading Rainbow sing-a-long, Old Spice actor Isaiah Mustafa (!), and a of course Ron Gilbert awarding Tim Schafer the Trailblazer award. The fact that Steph received the "Sublime Experience" award for his game Faraway was another unexpected but delightful treat. I can't tell you how proud of him I am.

Overall, a terrific experience. Well done Indiecade! I am definitely looking forward to what's in store next year.

P.S. Aside from the live demonstration of Humanoid Asteroid, the coolest thing that I saw this past weekend by far was this awesome Out Run go car. The photo below was taken by Ted Martens (another inspiring game maker!), but you check out this video by Cory to see how fast it went! Also, random, does anyone else see Richard Lemarchand as the Tim Gunn of indie games? I'd watch Project Gamemaker the show (I would!)!

Hohokum is looking good!

A quick HH gameplay test from richard Hogg on Vimeo.

From the creators of the charming Poto & Cabenga (one of the select games showcased at this year's Gamma IV show) comes the curiously colorful Hohokum. From the demo video above one can grok that this game involves a courageous one-eyed flying worm-thing that rescues helpless sky people, and judging by how the worm quickly meanders across the screen I'm going to guess that this might be (maybe?) motion controlled (either via a handheld or a controller). (Update: My friend Bill pointed out to me that the video showcases what looks to be an Xbox 360 controller in the left-hand corner... )

That's all I can deduce about the gameplay at the moment, but I really love what artist Richard Hogg is bringing to Hohokum's game world. Oh, you love it too? Thankfully Mr. Hogg has supplied some savvy desktop art for the early-Hohokum-lovers out there. Lucky us.

Note: View the video here on vimeo if you're having trouble seeing it on the blog. Don't know what's up!

Hohokum via GameSetWatch

Vibrant sidewalk drawings of Donkey Kong, Pac Man and more.

via gamescenes

A very vibrant shot of some sidewalk chalk drawings featuring the all too familiar gaming classics, discovered on the streets of Raleigh, North Carolina during SPARKcon. Fun stuff! Photo by Dan Hacker, found on Matteo Bittani's game art blog gamescenes, which you should all be keeping an eye on.