Vorg shareware RSS feed

2008 Lux Awards

dustin — 2008-10-23T16:41:39-04:00

The Luxtoberfest 2008 award ceremonies are being held inside online Lux Delux on Sunday at 1 PM Pacific / 4 PM Eastern / 8 PM UK / 9 PM Europe time.

All Luxers are eligible to vote for the best map of the year. Please vote now!

Platforms to Stand On

dustin — 2008-06-09T19:15:13-04:00

My company currently makes games for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

The first 2 have a good business case. Lots of people run Mac OS X and Windows, and buy games to play. (Thank you to all the customers who keep us small developers alive.)

Linux doesn't have as good a business case for us. Not very many people buy the Linux versions of our games. But, I foresee Linux continuing to grow in leaps and bounds on the desktop. And our codebase is in Java, so it isn't that much extra work to make Linux versions.

Going Mobile
The mobile OS wars are warming up fast. In the past we've gotten some scattered requests for PocketPC or Palm versions, but it hasn't seemed worthwhile. Apparently there was good money to be made selling Palm apps in the past, but greedy distributors (hearsay says Handango) and a decaying platform have destroyed it.

J2ME and BREW cellphone apps are making money, but only for a few big companies (at least in North America). The carriers have been very greedy distributors, and locked down their platform tightly.

Apple's iPhone is fresh mobile platform coming on strong. They've publicized their app distribution rate as taking a 30% cut. That's a lot better then most desktop games distributors (Yahoo Games typically takes 70%). Apple has been tremendously successful at iterating the iPod from version1 to perfection. They're following the same process with the iPhone, building a mobile platform from the ground up. I think the iPhone will be one of the long term mobile platform winners.

Google Android is the other mobile platform I'm keeping an eye on. Open-source and available for carriers to build on. Apps are written in the Java language, but using G's own VM and libraries. (A nice end-run around SUN, straight to Java developers.) It hasn't launched on any real phones yet, but I think it has huge potential. The first Android phones are supposed to be available "soon."

You already have a computer in your pocket (your cellphone). The big question for software developers is: what platform is your next one going to run?

Vidfest and the Pop Vox Awards

dustin — 2008-05-01T20:19:01-04:00

Vidfest is the Vancouver International Digital Festival, happening May 21-24, 2008. It's got a keynote from Chris Anderson of Wired, a day of "creative exchange" conference sessions, a day of "International Partnering Forum" one-on-one meetings, and the PopVox Digital Media Awards.

Lux Delux is in the running for the best casual game award. Please show your support and vote for the entry (you have to register an account for the Vote button to show up).

Launch Party 4 is also happening on the 21st, celebrating the local startup scene. And the Vancouver Game Summit runs concurrently on May 21-22, mostly focused on console business.

Techcouver is being used more as a nickname for Vancouver. Cool beans.

Map Porn

dustin — 2007-12-14T17:23:31-05:00

This post has screenshots of some of the hottest maps for the computer strategy game Lux. Images below the cut (work-safe).

US Map aka USA Map aka Map of US

Map of Iraq

Hey, you made it to the bottom! Share the wealth and spread this post on your favorite network. Your friends will love you for it!

PS: Map porn? Oh yeah, baby. Deep, wet, glistening rivers. Rock hard mountains. Trade routes spread wide open. Yours to dominate. This stuff is nasty dirty. ;-)

Luxtoberfest 2007

dustin — 2007-10-01T05:40:03-04:00

Luxtoberfest is a series of tournaments and awards for my Risk inspired computer game Lux.

There are lots of maps (RSS) and people in the running for the Lux Awards. You have 1 month to send in your votes...

Indie games roundup does Ancient Empires Lux

dustin — 2007-03-14T00:50:54-04:00

Ancient Empires Lux was included in GameTunnel's latest indie game roundup. It was ranked 3rd (out of 10 games) with a score of 7.8 and the "silver award." The pull-quote:

"The presentation here is extremely well done, with a polished interface, nice 2D graphics, and included historical notes for each period."

Also, I just found this Ancient Lux review on a Hebrew linux site. I don't know what it says (can you tell me?), but it definitely looks cool.

Java Game Programmers Wanted

dustin — 2007-02-22T01:01:57-05:00

Sillysoft Games is looking for talented Java programmers to join our team creating desktop strategy games. We are located in Vancouver, BC.

JOB 1 - Java game engine and AI programmer

Requires:
- CS degree or equivalent experience
- Knowledge of AI techniques

JOB 2 - Java graphics and GUI programmer

Requires:
- Experience with Java2D, Swing/AWT or java-openGL
- Strong 2D geometry and math skills

Bonus qualities for both jobs:
- Mastery of the Java libraries
- Experience with SVN, CVS, ant, XML, networking
- Experience playing Axis & Allies, Diplomacy or Risk board games
- PHP, SQL or web development experience

As part of a small team you would be able to have creative input during development. Flexible hours, a competitive salary and the possibility of profit sharing. We have a hit game in Lux Delux, happy customers, and a direct digital distribution channel. Our next game is loosely based on the Axis & Allies board game. This a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a profitable and growing game studio.

To apply, send an email with your cover letter and resume to lux@sillysoft.net.

Strategy Informer likes Ancient Empires Lux

dustin — 2007-01-15T06:19:56-05:00

Strategy Informer just published their review of Ancient Empires Lux. They sum up with:

Overall this was a great game. It's easily picked up and played for a few hours with a lot of options for replaying. Definitely worth the twenty bucks and the download.

Woohoo!

Mac OS X Downloads adds Staff Picks, better RSS and AJAX

dustin — 2007-01-11T05:27:20-05:00

Apple's Mac OS X Downloads pages got a re-design sometime in the last few days. They've added an AJAX table to the bottom of the page. It defaults to Top 20, and includes Just Added and Staff Picks tabs. They also have links to RSS feeds for each in the table header.

Staff Picks (RSS) is entirely new to the site. They used to have 'Hot Apps' but they were only displayed in the sidebar. Now an application will display Staff Pick after its name in lists, if it's a chosen one.

Their RSS feeds also now contain the icon or a small screenshot of the application (in NetNewsWire at least, FireFox seems to only display 1 line of text). I put in a request a long time ago for full screenshots to be included in the Games RSS feed. A small screenshot is better then nothing, but that games section could really use the full screenshot, moreso then the other app sections.

Apple's download site has always been an excellent resource for developers and users alike. I'm glad to see they are continuing to improve on it. There do seem to still be a few bugs in the new site. The 'All Downloads" link in the top left of section pages is broken (or else it's a new page being worked on). And the RSS feeds they link to are hosted at images.apple.com (the one I was previously subscribed to is at www.apple.com).

Top indie games of 2006 and Vancouver represents

dustin — 2006-12-31T21:50:08-05:00

GameTunnel released their 2006 TOP 10 Games of the Year, focusing on independently produced computer games.

Vancouver based indies took spot number 9 with FizzBall (a fun take on Arkanoid), and spot number 2 for Eets (a combo of Lemmings and the Incredible Machine). That's 20% for lotus land.

I bought the number 3 game Titan Attacks when it came out this year, and beat it. It's an awesome retro Space Invaders game, and runs on Mac OS X. The only other mac game on there is FizzBall. That's a matching 20% support for Mac, with a few more maybe getting ported later.

Ancient Lux is out

dustin — 2006-12-08T20:35:51-05:00

Ancient Empires Lux is now publicly available, and the news is drifting out over the internets. I'm happy with it, and other people seem to be as well =).

It's been about 8 months since the previous American History Lux was released. Not all of that time was spent on Ancient Empires, and I think that's a pretty good timeline. Making software always ends up taking a lot longer then expected, as any dev can tell you.

During development there was a bit of 'discussion' about using a Yin-Yang symbol, and what it represented. In response I started a Yin-Yang thread in the Sillysoft forums, and I am enjoying the responses.

Ancient Lux teaser screenshots

dustin — 2006-11-30T07:36:40-05:00

Here are a few screenshots from Sillysoft's upcoming game Ancient Empires Lux.

Memory Lux - RISK Variant

dustin — 2006-10-20T05:42:46-04:00

Tonight's Luxtoberfest contest was Memory Lux. This is a game variant where every player has the same color. You have to click around at the beginning to find out what you own, and you can only kill somebody if you know where all their countries are. It makes for a pretty hilarious game.

Here's a screenshot from Memory Lux in action:

Luxtoberfest updates

dustin — 2006-10-12T06:51:17-04:00

The month of Luxtoberfest has been humming along nicely, taking up most of my attention. Here are the event turn-outs so far:

Tournament	People	Games Played
High Seeds TOC	24	16
Rookies TOC	47	35
Veterans TOC	23	16
Ladies TOC	7	5
Asia-Pacific TOC	1	0
European TOC	17	12
Americas TOC	40	27
Twitch Weekend	112	165

TOC means Tournament of Champions BTW. All of the medals given out are on the 2006 fest awards page.

Here's a video capture I made of a Twitch game, starting from when I got killed off:

Luxtoberfest III begins!

dustin — 2006-10-01T14:56:25-04:00

Luxtoberfest III begins today. It's a month long contest featuring a variety of tournaments and the annual Lux Awards (not to be confused with the Lux Style Awards). This is the big deal in Luxland. This year will be more massive then ever with 17 different events planned. I am super hyped!

Lux Delux goes Lux Deluxe

dustin — 2006-09-17T23:08:28-04:00

Lux Delux got a redesign in version 5.5. People kept asking for a map preview in the "new game" window, so it was added. Along with more plugin buttons, networking and game improvements. The train of Lux updates is an example of ongoing iterative software development. It just keeps getting more awesome!

PS: Just in time for Luxtoberfest III.

Develop your brain

dustin — 2006-09-06T02:16:34-04:00

Indie game developer Cliff 'cliffski' Harris has written a great design postmortem recounting the development of his new "life simulation" game Kudos. It's a fun read, with screenshots to boot. A snippet:

Back then, I decided to call the game 'milo' partly after my 2nd cat, named in turn after Milo Minderbinder You will control milo's life, and more specifically milo's brain. At this point, the game is slightly a reflection of how miserable and depressed I was after watching Donnie Darko whilst drunk. If you actually enjoy this film, rather than it making you want to slash your wrists, your clearly in way better mental shape than me. The game has a slightly bizarre and dark feel to it in my mental design doc at this stage, you may notice the readouts for 'depression' and 'aggression'. This is not a happy game. I idly wonder about coding the AI for making your character become psychotic, or suicidal. I consider milo having his own blog. I wonder how close I can get him to passing a turing test. I decide that's enough wine for tonight.

Map of the Week bling-bling

dustin — 2006-08-16T22:51:15-04:00

Online Lux has included a variety of awards for winners for a while now. However, the regular weekly ones have only been given out to the top 3 ranked players or the top 3 map of the week players. Most of the hundreds of Lux players didn't have any, since it's quite hard to get into the top 3.

This week I introduced a expanded set of medals awarded to all game winners on the Map of the Week. It comes in 3 levels, for added scale, and to encourage MOTW games with lots of humans. I also put up a new awards page where you can see the most recent awards given out. The weeklies all come in on sundays, and now the new MOTW badges will fill up the week!

Sillysoft Education Plan

dustin — 2006-07-29T04:53:44-04:00

I'm starting a special education deal, with 2 main programs:

1. Schools can get American History Lux for free.

2. CS, math, and engineering students and departments can get free Lux Delux registrations.

Full details on the program are here: http://sillysoft.net/schools/

The rational behind this is described (and commented on) in this IndieGamer thread that I started.

Casuality Seattle Post-Conference Report

dustin — 2006-07-03T18:43:34-04:00

Here are some thoughts on the Casuality Seattle conference that I attended last week:

The sessions were pretty good on the whole. A few really great ones, with most of them having at least some useful tidbits to take home. Of course, there were a few duds in there as well (please don't just read your slides to me - I know how to read myself thanks).

The best part of the conference was meeting people - in the halls, at the parties, and at pre-arraigned business meetings (which I should have set up more of). The casual games industry seems to be blessed with a ton of friendly and helpful people. I'd love to see this culture last as the industry matures, but I'm not that hopeful. I was told by one person who works at a big portal that they're already feeling pressure from the execs to be more cut-throat in dealings.

It was especially great meeting people in person whom I had some internet dealings with beforehand. Shout out to everyone from the IndieGamer Forum crew who made it out.

At every conference I've been to they start out by giving you a bag filled with info and swag. Without fail, the bag (which is swag itself) is shitty, and eventually ends up in the garbage. The Casuality bag was no exception. I think this is such a wasted opportunity. Nice bags are hard to come by, if you sponsor a nice bag you stand to gain some good publicity as people bring it to various places. Sponsor a shitty bag and you end up with very little gain.

I didn't take many pictures, just a few of slides that I liked:

Casuality Seattle

dustin — 2006-06-26T16:25:49-04:00

I'll be in Seattle this week for the Casuality Conference, put on by the Casual Games Association. I'll be bringing American History Lux to show to some people. One of the reasons AHL exists is to dip my toes into the burgeoning 'casual games' industry, so attending this conference is a no brainer. Also, their moto is "keeping the industry fun!" which I can relate to =).

Since I'll be bringing my laptop with me while traveling I took this opportunity to burn some backup CDs to leave behind. Shit does happen after all. When's the last time you backed up your important files?

Magnificent Montage of Maps and More!

dustin — 2006-06-12T04:17:06-04:00

I put up a webpage with a montage of Lux map images. It's a great overview of all the different maps available (plus there are some AIs and Map Generator plugins on there). For the extreme view I also put the images of all 212 top rated plugins on one page (bandwidth heavy).

All of those maps (and most of the AIs) were created by Luxers and submitted to Sillysoft. This wealth of user generated content has been a big part of what has made Lux a success. Many thanks to all the Lux plugin creators out there.

GameTunnel Monthly Round-Up

dustin — 2006-06-01T19:30:39-04:00

American History Lux was included in GameTunnel's monthly indie game round-up. Every month they get 10 or so of the best new indie games and have a panel of reviewers examine them all. It's a great way of keeping up-to-date with what's new in the indie games scene. I read it every month. Here's the monthly round-up RSS feed if you want to subscribe.

American History Lux got an average score of 7, which they label as 'Above Average'. I'll take it. The Editor's Choice this month went to Eets, an innovative (windows-only) puzzle game, that was created by another Vancouver based developer. Go Vancouver Go!

Lux Memorial Day Charity Fundraiser

dustin — 2006-05-29T07:19:53-04:00

In honor of Memorial Day, Sillysoft is having a charity fundraiser. 100 percent of the proceeds of American History Lux this week will be donated to the Carter Center, with the stated goals to "wage peace, fight disease, and build hope."

The economics of software distribution make this an easily doable promotion. Duplicating bits is effectively free, so I can 'give out' a huge number of copies without it really costing anything. Although there is the opportunity cost of shaking out a bunch of orders when the proceeds won't end up at Sillysoft. It's a worthy cause though, so I am happy to do it.

Sillysoft interview with Shane Neville

dustin — 2006-05-19T17:42:37-04:00

Here's an interview with me about Sillysoft and Lux that was recently published.

It was done by Shane Neville, one of the presenters of the DIY Distribution session that I went to a little while ago. Shane has a pretty interesting blog that I have enjoyed poking around, so I'm happy to be on it. When I saw this wicked awesome T shirt he posted about a while ago I immediately ordered myself one.

Also, I feel the need to link to Cliffski, because I found this deliciously funny:

He lives in Canada (fantastic place), and he's smiling in his blog profile picture.
I live in the UK, and I'm brandishing a dagger in mine.
That tells you everything you need to know about the quality of life in those two countries.

American History Lux is finally out!

dustin — 2006-04-12T06:21:16-04:00

American History Lux just officially launched. Woohoo!

Compared to the original schedule it is way late coming out. Mostly this was due my bad planning/slacking off. I'm very happy with the final product though, so it's all good in the end. I just sent out the Sillysoft newsletter. In the next day or two I'll do the submissions to all the normal download sites, and send out a press release. After that, I'll get to test out all the casual game portals for real.

You should all feel free to pass the link on to everyone you know. American History Lux! Woohoo!

DIY Distribution

dustin — 2006-04-07T00:22:57-04:00

I just got back from a presentation on DIY Distribution put on by New Media BC. It was a good session. Very entertaining, and some good information. It ended up covering a pretty wide range of topics relating to distribution in various ways. The take-aways as I see them:

You MUST be willing to give stuff away for free. This is already accepted gospel in the shareware industry, with free demos abounding. Lots of devs also put up totally free web versions of their games, and that's something I'm going to be trying out with AHL. There's so much more that could be done here. Audio, making of information (concept art, original interface designs, design docs), desktop backgrounds, etc.

Play to people's narcissism. Basically pointing out how a core component of myspace and a lot of the new web stuff out there is giving people the ability to show themselves off. People love to show themselves off, and if you give them the ability to create content to do so it will be used intensively. I've done this a little bit in the user pages created for every online Luxer. It's not totally customizable, but it does show off all the awards that people have won, thus giving them an incentive to play more to beef up their page. And I have seen people linking to their user page from their blogs, which is probably the end result I should be really trying to push.

DIY means you've got to go out there, find the press people, and hammer them. I've seen this in action as well. A large portion of the Lux reviews that have been written were a direct result of me directly contacting the sites out there. In general the web is huge, there's a large chance that people are not going to find you amidst everything. It's up to you to go out and find the areas that would be interested in your stuff and give them all the information you can. Of course, spamming is a big no-no, and will get people to immediately shut you out. But if you're a real contributing member of the communities you're targeting then bring the useful info you have and it can help it spread.

I snapped some quick photos of the presenters. On the left you see Shane Neville, currently working for Nokia, but with a history selling DIY videos of BMX stunts. On the right is Brooke Burgess, the dude behind the long-form narrative comic book inspired Broken Saints. Brooke brought a frantic energy to the presentation that made it all entertaining. There's another take-away: you've got to be truly passionate to spread your ideas.

Advice for Independent Games Festival Finalists

dustin — 2006-02-18T07:43:20-05:00

Last year Lux was one of finalists selected for the 2005 Independent Games Festival. I got to go to GDC and show Lux off to everyone there. Even though no awards were actually won by me, it was awesome.

It was the first GDC/IGF I had ever been to, and I went in without very much knowledge about what was going down or how I should prepare. As this year's GDC rolls around next month I thought it would be cool to write up some of my experiences/advice for any IGF finalists. So here's a random collection of thoughts, memories and tips:

Business cards are a must. I think I ended up distributing somewhere between 100-200 to people. I also took to laying out a sheath of business cards on my booth. This was good because it was less handing out for me and it covered times when I was away from the booth. Some nominees went all out and brought little plastic business card holders for theirs as well as another card holder saying 'leave a card'.

In fact, you can pretty much decorate your booth as much as you want to. Some people printed up info sheets about their games and were distributing them as mini press packs. Probably a good thing to have if you want more press (and you're crazy if you don't). The booths they gave us had enough room to attach some small posters. Putting such things up makes a booth stand out more amongst a row of 10 of them. I had no Lux posters, but was happy to put up an "Indies Unite!" flyer for gametunnel.

The setup might not be the same this year (as GDC switches cities again), but they will probably reuse the same booth segments, since I saw them in pictures from 2004 as well. Last year they gave us booths along with a monitor, keyboard and a mouse. We had to bring along a computer to hook up and display our game. I only had my laptop with me. I unhooked it whenever I left the building. There were a few booths where the computer was hooked up all night and available for people to check out during off hours. There wasn't really any locks on the setup, so I wouldn't do that with a computer that was irreplaceable (like my lonely laptop).

Something to note is that there will very likely be times when you are away from your booth. There are lots of interesting sessions going on every day at GDC, and you can't go while tending the booth. I was the only Sillysoft Games representative there, which made this worse. Bringing as many people as possible with you is helpful, so you can switch off booth manning duties.

Lux has a few rules you have to learn the first time you play, and nobody who stops at an IGF booth wants to go through a tutorial. So sometimes I would pass some time by just playing Lux myself. Usually you'll get some people who stop and watch while you demonstrate and show off some of the cool parts. After a bit you can introduce yourself to the watchers as the creator and network or whatnot.

Whenever near people around the IGF and at GDC, don't be shy in introducing yourself. If there are specific people you'd like to talk to then try to seek them out and make contact. I made a point of going through the list of exhibitors in the expo section and then walking around and talking to every one that I was interested in. The press people had a "press" ribbon on their badge, so I tried to give demos to as many of them as I could if they were nearby the Lux booth.

As I write this, I wish I had a nice picture that included my booth from last year to post along with this text. So I guess I also advise you to take some nice pictures of your setup for posterity.

So there's my stream of consciousness on the topic. Hopefully somebody will find it useful. Good luck in the IGF!

2005 Sillysoft Games Year in Review

dustin — 2006-01-03T08:00:27-05:00

2005 was an explosive year for Lux. It was the first full year with a Windows version, and with me working for Sillysoft full time. I got to show off Lux at GDC in March as an IGF finalist, where I also met a bunch of other games industry people. I got some solid press hits spread through the year, and search engine rankings have increased a lot since last year.

Overall sales were more then double 2004, plus Lux was moved to the higher $24.95 price point. So revenue was up even more. The number of online players increased significantly during 2005. There have been some growing pains, but that's par for the course. Map of the Week has been growing online use of non-classic maps, and the second annual Luxtoberfest went well.

Thoughts on 2006:
The development of American History Lux has been ongoing (albeit slower then desired) and it's going to be released in early 2006. The goal is to get it distributed by all the biggest games websites across the net. I've been seriously considering growing Sillysoft by finding another full time programmer or few to form a small development team. This would help immensely with the development of new products (I have one in mind) and provide more push to Sillysoft. I don't want to destroy the awesome flexibility that my current situation provides me though. I've been debating between living with some roommates and setting up a separate office environment, or finding a place for myself to serve as a home and office. I'll see how the chips fall after I've been in Vancouver for a bit.

IndieGamesCon 2005 write-up

dustin — 2005-10-13T02:11:45-04:00

I didn't attend this year's IndieGamesCon. I really enjoyed it last year, but Luxtoberfest is on and I have been traveling so much recently...

There hasn't been as much news about it online as I expected (yet? it was last weekend). The most useful info I have found is contained in 3 "Things I learned at IGC" posts by "Mr.Phil". The one from day 3 has the most info, followed by day 2, and day 1 sets the scene.

My write-ups of last year's IGC can be seen here, here, and here.