6 Reasons to Start a Devlog for your Indie Game (#Gamedev Audio Blog #7)

Posted on May 19, 2017 by Nathan Meunier

When it come to creating things, from making games to writing ebooks, I’m a nerd for process. I find reading other peoples’ devlogs a blast, but creating your own has numerous benefits, too. For indie devs, a devlog can be a great tool for getting the word out about your game, sharing your creative ideas, and documenting your design process to learn from down the road post-launch.

Episode 7 of my GameDev Audio Blog series looks at 6 reasons you should considering starting a devlog for your indie game, and the potential benefits you can gain from doing it right.

If you’re looking for an example of one way to approach this, head over to www.deathwell.com to peep my new devlog for my upcoming narrative horror RPG, Deathwell.

Enjoy the episode? Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and/or comment to let me know if you’re digging these and want more? Happy to take topic requests or answer Qs in future installments if you have any.

Minimizing Risk as an Indie Developer (#Gamedev Audio Blog #6)

Posted on April 13, 2017 by Nathan Meunier

It’s been a challenging week, with Missile Cards launch sales flowing along at a painfully slow trickle. What better time to talk about minimizing risk as a small indie developer, especially when you’re bootstrapping it and pushing to traction with your first few games projects!

This episode covers tips on minimizing risk to lessen the impact of your games tanking — or at least selling well below your least optimistic estimates.

Beta Testing Your Indie Game (#Gamedev Audio Blog #3)

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Nathan Meunier

Lightening things up a but, episode #3 in my short mini-podcast audio blog series looks at tips and techniques for Beta testing your game as a solo indie — especially when you live outside of the a major population hub and struggle with finding testers for your games.

Here are some of the topics I touch on:

Building your Beta testing list
Running your Beta through Steam
Tips for ensuring your Beta runs smoothly
Using Steam to deliver + update your Beta
How Beta testing improved Missile Cards

Missile Cards Public Demo is Live

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Nathan Meunier

screen8 After a lot of hustle and hard work this month, I’m excited to finally be able to share a playable public demo for my upcoming “Missile Command meets strategy card game” project, called Missile Cards.

The game is headed to Steam in the coming months, but before I can get it launched on the platform, it has to pass the voting gauntlet that is Steam Greenlight. That’s been slow going, despite an enthusiastic response from quite a few folks.

To help push things along, I wanted to give players an opportunity to try Missile Cards out for themselves, and go hands-on with the first base/area of the game.

Each unlockable “base” area gives you a unique card deck to work through, and each solo match tasks you with clearing all of the hazard cards in the deck by using deployable defense cards and energy resources. Meanwhile, you must defend you bases from destruction.

It’s super challenging, and packs a lot of replay as you aim to complete specific challenges in each base to unlock the next, while amassing resources to unlock special powerful cards to add to your deck.

Here’s one of the harder later base levels in action:

DOWNLOAD THE DEMO, AND PLEASE VOTE ON STEAM!

The game is coming along rapidly, but Steam Greenlight remains a hurdle I have to overcome in order to see this through to launch in the coming months. Hence the public demo.

You can download the demo here on itch.io right now!

If you enjoy it, please take a moment to vote on Steam right here!

I’d also appreciate any feedback you might have to help improve the game, and I’ll be sending out a meatier build with more of the game for testing to my private Beta tester group. Join my mailing list and ping me if you’d like to help Beta test!

YOUTUBERS / PRESS FOLKS

If you’re a YouTuber or Livestreamer, I love Let’s Plays and other coverage. Please feel free to Stream, record demo footage, or broadcast gameplay. And if you cover the game or write it up, please hit me with a link and I’ll spread it on social media.

Thanks!

-Nathan

Rejecting the “New Norm” of Games Industry Toxicity

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Nathan Meunier

talktohand

Making games is amazing. Making games is also absolute hell, which is why I want to take a few moments to give voice to something I’ve often struggled with since I started this crazy adventure roughly two years ago. It’s one of the few gruesome dark sides of game development, and some days it makes me seriously question whether I can stomach this industry.

I suspect I’m not alone.

It’s a question that comes up every time I hop online and inevitably wind up wading neck deep in the vile Internet spew flung forth from the absolute worst that gaming culture has to offer. It’s a question that I absolutely HATE having to ask, but it’s the kind of thing that’s hard to avoid much longer:

What do you do when you fundamentally loathe the behavior of so many of the players you’re supposed to rely on to buy your latest games?

Continue reading →

ADD & Game Dev Part I: Making games when you struggle with a hyper-mind

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Nathan Meunier

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In this first entry in a multi-part blog series about game development and ADD, I explore what it’s like inside the mind of someone who makes games and suffers from severe attention deficit disorder. Hope these posts offer some insights and tips to help other folks who face similar challenges.

Most of the time, my brain feels like the Millennium Falcon — always threatening to rattle itself apart as I blast my way through a vast hyperspace of to-do lists on any given day. Sometimes I’m firing on all thrusters, and things are going smoothly. Other times, that stupid thing inside my skull does THIS:

Welcome to the Hyper-Mind Hell Vortex. Are we having fun yet?

Continue reading →

Using Pinterest for Game Design Inspiration

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Nathan Meunier

pinterest1 Inspiration for your game dev projects can come from a lot of different places beyond playing other peoples’ games. If you’re like me, you probably spend quite a bit of time browsing the Internet for images, websites, music, and other resources to kick your creative juices into high gear. Finding a good way to keep all of this digital data organized can be a challenge, but I’ve found that Pinterest is a great solution.