bazookaBen

also looking to meet a potential technical cofounder - email me

got accepted too! any tools we can use to see a list of participants coming?

what I do when exploring any game concept is to quickly prototype a playable version, and try to "find the fun" in the game. Once a certain fun level is reached, iterate, and build the game around that.

to see if people actually want to play the game, you need to test the waters. Ghetto-like testing (Zynga's much publicized way of using FB game ads to gauge user interest ) is one option.

Fun = addicting game mechanic.

thx for the link, it's so awesome

you're talking about Test-Driven-Development (TDD). Any good resources for integrating TDD into javascript based games? I'm still looking for that gem.

To expand on testing a bit: at one end, there's unit testing where one tests maybe a single object's behavior in the game. I think for game dev, testing for absolute values are not as important as deterministic ones. We would rather want to know if a player has jumped, died or shot something.

Eventually, a functional testing is needed when objects interact with one another. It's like a system of systems. That one's more complicated to design. It might go as far as designing a test that runs through a complete level within miliseconds. Anyone have ideas/resources on this?

agreed on the iteration point.

if we look at social games, they are iterating every single day. It's come to the point where Zynga can tell if a game will be a hit or not, purely based on the collective data that they've achieved, over the course of 4 years. Not one Zynga game has bombed since Mafia Wars.

I'm assuming that this article is catered towards ppl intending to be game developers, or ppl wanting to make a game by hiring a bunch of developers.

if you count in man-hours, then yes it's into the 100ks.

going from the single indie developer perspective,

assume you pay yourself $100/hour game takes 4 months to develop total cost is 100$ * 120 days * 10 hours/day = 120,000 $

the cost for game assets have not even been included!

but no indie developer I know take these costs into account. Who actually cares about sweat dollars? If two-three people sit in room, code+draw for 4 months straight taking ramen noodles, launch and make millions off the game on iOS, they're not going to tell you "We spent $120k of our own money+time". Instead they'll say "We spent 4 months furiously making the game, living off ramen noodles in mom's basement"

in summary, the development cost could be either be close to zero, or $100k.

if you're hiring a team, yes prepare to splash $100k, but if you go indie, get some good game dev friends, and absorb all costs!

at this early stage, the facebook version doesn't have many users

Private Joe's core audience is male, 18-24. I really can't tell if adding a leaderboard/store/gifting system has helped the game. All I can do is to make sure i have those systems in place, so I can at least compete with the big guys.

in a way, it's similar to an arms race - if the other guy has it, you got to have it too.

link to the game is http://bit.ly/rhoHkH

link is http://bit.ly/rhoHkH

if you watched This Week in Startup, there's an episode where Jason and Jose were pitched on the ideas worked at StartupChile. the first was from brazil. second from Italy. Third was boston. No silicon valley in sight!

any social/mobile game startups considering a move to Chile?

Are there going to be presentation slides / videos / ustreams? Would like to cross the atlantic to come see but can't.

how will this affect facebook iframe apps? They load from a different origin, and the user is bound to receive a cross-domain error.

normally, the following would pass:

Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL http://apps.facebook.com/my_app from frame with URL http://server-hosting-my-app.com. Domains, protocols and ports must match.

will this blocked by Chrome in the future? if so, everyone running Chrome 14 onwards won't be able to play Farmville.

more info: if you load Farmville on Chrome, this comes up in the debug console (which still passes)

Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL http://apps.facebook.com/cityville/?installed=1 from frame with URL http://fb-0.cityville.zynga.com/flash.php?isOuterIframe=1... INFO HERE CUT OUT]. Domains, protocols and ports must match.

these guys are smart, they're probably going to use social media,social buys,etc to gain leverage over existing indie distribution channels.

I also smell a partnership with a big gun (like Xbox Live Arcade)

truly a work that never ends.

I started my indie game 4 months ago, and i'm still adding a few touches here and there. Guess it's a creator's bane.

wonder what's the typical split between programmers,visual and audio artists in a Zynga game budget

from the shoes of an indie dev, we can't afford 500 new images so we tend to use a lot of editing (i.e particles can have different colors, shapes, sizes ). Can't introduce so many 'new'/'groundbreaking' images.

have a quick question: how do I sort the comments coming in by time? Getting pretty overwhelmed here.

i'm still amazed myself! if the user doesn't even notice the difference between flash and html5, then there's hope!

ok sent

will keep that in mind. am pretty overwhelmed myself right now, due to the comments coming in. Basically trying to keep the game alive and fixing bugs

its pretty capturable. Ok the idea to configure keys make a lot of sense!

i fixed that, thx for the heads up!

i put the monster in as a teaser actually. Perhaps I need to include some sort of cutscene / chatter between characters. Have to find balance between game flow and fun

what keys do you suggest for Dvorak? let me know..

solved the restart problem. thanks!

i checked the servers, all is good

hmm i think you need to clear your browser cache before trying again. (this will retrieve the latest version)

it's the best you've got out there. The framework is organized, there's an awesome map editor, and the community is growing.