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

Great Game Dev Courses on Udemy – On Sale only $11! #indiedev #gamedev

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Nathan Meunier

icon As a part-time game developer, I’ve been pushing to level-up my skills when it comes to all aspects of making games, from coding to art asset creation. Udemy’s affordable, online video courses have been a huge help in the past year and a half. It continues to be one of my top go-to places to learn from awesome instructors.

With Udemy’s 10 day Black Friday sales event now well underway, you can grab just about every course for only $11! But hurry if you want to get in on this deal, because all courses go up $1 every 48 hours until the sale ends and everything returns to normal full price! Today’s your chance to grab any of these killer courses before the price increases!

Here’s a hand-picked selection of some of my favorite game development courses I’ve been taking this year! All are highly recommended.

Make a Platform Game and Learn to Code with GameMaker Studio – $11 ~~$159~~
Right now, GameMaker Studio is currently my main game creation tool, and I’ve been a big fan of Ben Anderson’s YouTube channel and his excellent book on GML coding. Ben’s Udemy course on the topic is easy to follow and packed with great tips you can apply to lots of different game styles. Well worth checking it out!

Create Original Vector Game Art with Inkscape – $11 ~~$107~~
Creating attractive, scaleable art assets that jive with different game engines has been a challenge. Istvan’s course is a GREAT primer on how to use free vector art program Inkscape to design, animate, and export gorgeous 2D assets for games. It helped me wrap my head around how to use the program’s core functions very quickly, and I can’t wait to put it into play with some upcoming projects!

iOS 9 Adventure – Build 12 iPhone Apps with Swift 2 – $11 ~~$299~~

I admit, I wasn’t what sure what to think when I first saw this course. But goofy youngsters Nick and Jenna know their chops and do a great job of explaining the ins and outs of iOS 9 and Swift development in a fun, informative, and useful way! Great course, whether you’re into making apps or want to apply this to iOS games. I’ve been gradually learning Swift to apply for some specific projects down the road. This course has given me a great jump start on the process.

Learn to Code in Game Maker Language – $11 ~~$60~~

I rarely stick to just one source when I want to learn something new, which is why I’ll often buy multiple books and courses on a given subject to see how different instructors approach the topic. When it comes to learning GML code, this course makes the process painless and intuitive. Really super useful if you want to go beyond GM:S drag and drop functions, which you should.

Make Your Own FPS Without Code Using Unity and Playmaker – $11 ~~$99~~
I’m still very much a Unity noob, but I’ve been gradually learning more over time. Not ready to make the jump to 3D yet, but this course is an awesome starting point for learning how to design 3D FPS-style levels to explore and implement some cool gameplay elements using Unity and PlayMaker.

Learn to Code by Making Games: The Complete Unity Developer – $11 ~~$197~~

This comprehensive course to Unity development helped me hand code my first text adventure example game, which is great, but it also has a ton to offer anyone who wants to ease into game design in Unity while learning code. Good stuff!

I’ve personally taken and highly recommend all of these great game development courses, but there are also a TON of other great courses I’m looking forward to checking out too.

Here’s the full Game Development section in Udemy that’s jam-packed with cool courses, many of which are only $10 during this mega sale event! Ready? Set? Go to it!