Top Indie Game Development Blogs
Are you interested in game development? Are you just starting to make games (like us) and want to find out as much as you can about how to design, build and promote your game? Well then it's time to put on your reading pants and get stuck in! Presenting my list of the very best game development blogs around:
The Best of the Best
Make It Big In Games
Top notch articles from Jeff Tunnell about the business of making & selling games. Exceedingly high average quality of posts. A must-subscribe.
As an Indie game developer that is going to spend your own money to make a game, it is extremely important to decide which market you want to tackle, and that really comes down to what game you want to make. I believe it is incredibly important to only make games that you are passionate about. All game development gets hard, and when the going gets hard, the only thing that will get you through it is passion. Read full post
Lost Garden
Superb writing on art & design in games, with the fantastic bonus of giving away actual art resources you can use in your own games! Infrequent posts but totally worthwhile.
Out of all this discussion about graphics, never lose sight of the big picture. The single most important thing is for you to finish your game. Iterating towards completion is the root of all practical knowledge about game development. Putting a complete game in the hands of player is how you'll learn to make your future games shake the world to its core.
If you are telling yourself "Oh, I can't complete my game because I don't have an artist," be honest with yourself. You are making excuses. Graphics are not an impediment to making a great game. Do what ever it takes to finish your game. Read full post
The Bottom Feeder
Jeff Vogel has been making old-school single player RPGs since 1994 but only started blogging this year. A treasure trove of insight for indie game developers already, and will only get better.
I am going to give full sales results for our game Geneforge 4: Rebellion. I am not the first Indie developer to reveal this sort of information. However, most public sales figures come from projects that were either blockbusters or disastrous. But our games have never landed in either pool. I have been doing this for a living for almost fifteen years. I make good money, but I'm not a rich guy. At the same time, I have been unusually successful in this business, if for nothing else that I HAVE done it for a living for a long time. Read full post
The Forge
Interesting business-themed articles, particularly about charging models for MMOs, microtransactions & virtual goods.
Despite my obvious affection for virtual asset sales in a free-to-play model, I don’t think the decision to go free-to-play or subscription (or one of a myriad of other business models for MMOs) is that simple. It’s not purely about whether you’re reaching a larger audience and I don’t believe it’s a given that you’ll make more money, overall, with the free-to-play model. I think it’s largely dependent on the game you make and the audience that ends up developing for it. Read full post
Untold Entertainment Blog
Covers a variety of topics but what I really love are the rants (example below). Love the epic rants. More please!
You wouldn’t wax philosphical about how you’ll dilute the intellectual property or how the fanbase will criticize you for selling out. You’re running an advertising-based world, and as far as advertising goes, Coke is the holy grail. You will relax your muscles and allow the Coca-Cola corporation to ram its fistfuls of hot, sweaty cash wherever it so chooses. Read full post
game poetry
Great all-rounder blog covering business & technical advice with a slant towards Flash games.
The ultimate question for a sponsor is, “How much traffic will this game drive to my site?” The quality of your game is ultimately only important with regard to its potential distribution/viral spread, and its viral spread is only important with regard to how many clicks this will generate. But the CTR is crucial as well. A game with 1 million plays and a 5% CTR is not as valuable to a sponsor as a game with 600,000 plays and a 10% CTR.
So show your sponsor what kind of CTR your game can drive. Put in some placeholder branding. Show where the links will be. If you’re willing to offer some exclusive content, show the sponsor — make one version with the content unlocked, and another version with it locked and what the link back to the sponsor’s site to play this content will look like. Don’t wait for a sponsor to request these things. Read full post
Worth A Look
MochiLand: Mochi Media run this community blog that showcases top flash games and content written by game developers themselves. Example
DESIGNER NOTES: Writings by one of the designers on Civ 3 and 4 – I particularly like the longer posts. Example
Photon Storm: Focused on flash game development and marketing. Definitely check out the example. Example
8-Bit Rocket: Covers a bit of a wide variety of things (from Atari retro to Flash to Silverlight), perhaps too wide! Example
Flash Truth: Flash games, particularly the business side of things; some great stuff. Example
Emanuele Feronato: Flash games & more. A little too much filler but I found the 'numbers' posts to be excellent. Example
Streaming Colour Dev Blog: Some great posts about (not) making money in the iPhone space. Example
Ludus Novus: Really, really like the column he's writing for GameSetWatch, follow the blog to find out when they are posted. Example
Freelance Flash Games News: A mixed bag of flash gamedev related stuff. Example
Gaming Your Way: Frequent gamedev tips & other nuggets. Example
Made That Cool Game
2D Boy Blog: Creators of World of Goo.
Kloonigames Blog: Creator of Crayon Physics Deluxe
Cliffski's Blog: Creator of Democracy / Kudos
Wolfire Blog: Creators of Lugaru / Overgrowth
Braid Blog: Creator of Braid
Suggest More!
I'm always on the lookout for quality game development blogs, so if you know some I haven't covered please leave a comment! Any that make it into my RSS reader and survive my next RSS-pruning massacre will be added into this post.
Update
Plenty of good gamedev blogs suggested in the comments. Check out these worthy additions to the list:
Michael James Williams: Very focused blog with excellent AS3 tutorials, including a full series showing how to make an avoider game.
Mr Sun Studios: Another blog focused on AS3 game tutorials, with a big backlog of articles.
Trent Polack: Excellent game design blog, in particular check out the game design round table posts.
Iain Lobb: Only just subscribed but it's pretty good so far- a mix of flash and general game design.
Tales of the Rampant Coyote: Excellent blog covering design & development of RPGs of all kind. Nicely focused!
Troy Gilbert: Another good one with plenty of reading in the archives.
That should satisfy your RSS cravings for a while!
25 Comments
I definitely would recommend Michael James Williams:
http://gamedev.michaeljameswilliams.com/
His avoider game tutorial is a must read for beginners (AS3).
Mr Sun Studios also have lots of great tutorials (Both AS2 and AS3):
http://www.mrsunstudios.com/
Hey guys! Thanks for the shout out on Make It Big In Games. I linked back to give you a little Google love.
Jeff Tunnell
I would recommend adding Tales of the Rampant Coyote
http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/ … must-read for RPG designers!
I'm sure that "Best 'til last" phrase applies here.
Thanks for the shout out mate, and I was surprised the example was actually something useful rather than the hate filled rants that make up the majority of our output.
Awesome list, thanks!
Who's that guy… Iain something?
http://blog.iainlobb.com
Nice list, thanks for putting it together! We've got a site which focuses on game industry job listings, and we especially love to highlight small or indie studios. We've recently had ads go up from companies like Giant Sparrow and thatgamecompany. Here's the blog: http://gamejobhunter.com/blog/
I think I've got some decent indie stuff on my blog, but I'm not as prolific as some of the other suggestions (though I'd like to be). Some great stuff in the archives about Flash, IMHO.
http://troygilbert.com/
Thanks for the suggestions guys, some great ones in the comments.
Here's another indie game development blog: http://www.catnapgames.com/blog
Check out the "Highlights" section for the most interesting bits.
[...] has a nice list of the top indie game dev blogs. He clearly meant to put Freelance Flash Games as the Best of the Best but he didn't want to [...]
8bitrocket.com too broad!
Oh, yeah, well, you are very right about that.
There used to be a store in our neightboorhood named "Some Things Fishy".
They sold: Tropical fish, imported candy, and soccer sporting goods. Basically all the things that the owner loved.
I like to think of 8bitrocket.com as the "Some Things Gamey" (sic) of indie game dev blogs.
Thanks for themention.
Well http://reviews.gamesafoot.com might be good.
I guess I'm not big enough to have people actually recommend me yet.
I will second the vote for rampantgames.com/blog/ Really nice and active RPG game dev. blog.
Also if anyone cares my blog is not directly related to game dev. but I post about my game dev. in it (it's my programming blog) http://codejustin.com
[...] Top Indie Game Development Blogs games blog development [...]
Thanks so much for the mention! Untold Entertainment is in very good company on this list. Great picks, everyone!
- Ryan
I'll third vote for rampantgames – it's good.
Here's one more (mine):
http://www.gameproducer.net (sales stats and more…)
This blog is by the creator of Jetpack: http://www.jetpackhq.com/blog
I just started a blog called 'Create and Sell your own games' at http://dev.koonsolo.com. There are already a few articles on there, which should give you an idea about the content ;).
Hey just found your blog ( after you commented on mine :P ) Good stuff.
Should add me: http://www.cheezeworld.com
[...] Top Indie Developer Blogs – We were delighted and honoured to find ourselves among such great sources on this list, which was posted by the buys at Gambrinous [...]
I'd like to recommend my blog which is about game development, running your own company, and positive thinking/motivation: http://greyaliengames.com/blog/
Thank you for sharing such a nice post…this post will helpful more to the game developers…
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Register at gamedevelopersummit dot com
Not so indy, but invaluable (written by the technical director of God of War):
http://realtimecollisiondetection.net/blog/