Kybernesis have just started a funding project on IndieGoGo.
If you’re interested in leaving your mark within Kybernesis’ first game, you can head over there and contribute now!
Rewards vary from a thank you in the credits and beta access to a recurring major character based on the contributer!
So head on over to the I/O project page over at IndieGogo and help make the Hacker Cyberpunk game called I/O a reality!
Microsoft has obviously been inspired by the success of the music business on how to fight piracy…. Oh wait! The music business is the main example on how NOT to fight piracy. Check out the news over @ BBC news
Microsoft might be big enough to pull this one off though, but I have a feeling they’ve just lost those 1 million customers that got a permanent ban unless they buy a new unmodified console to play on.
Why does several businesses out there insisit on fighting piracy head on? Instead of working around it?
Look at steam, I know dozens of has-been pirates that now buys the games instead, over steam. Of course, if it’s not on steam, they might end up downloading it unless the game is available for digital purchase online.
I was of the impression that Xbox live also was one of the good ways to stop piracy. Make games easily available online to download unto your console. I am sure most of the games from Xbox live is not subject to piracy, though I don’t know the statistics….
The most ironic thing is that the ban is only for Xbox live, which means they cut them off from the only thing that probably keep them from pirating ALL games…
They can still play offline, so what’s keeping them from still pirating games to play offline? Heh….
And I can actually understand why someone would want to pirate the store-games.
First of all; people like to be able to buy their games online without having to go to a store.
The Xbox games usually cost ALOT for any average gamer, which would also end in piracy.
And there has been so much crap games out there at times, that you feel really ripped off when you had to pay $60 for a game that just sucked.
Discs are fragile things, they can handle some beating, true, but I know myself that I like to have a digital backup of it anyway. Just in case.
I have a feeling this initiative from Microsoft isn’t gonna end in a good way….
Unity did it, and now Epic has done it too!
A little over a week ago, Unity decided to make their indie license for their 3D engine developer tool, Unity3D free. This was great news for us indie developers, and I have already decided to use Unity on our games instead of Torque!
But then! Epic announced a few days ago that their Unreal 3 engine Developer Kit can also be downloaded for free!
Granted, they still require 25% royalties on all revenue over $5000, but the possibility that we indies now have to use the AAA U3 engine is bound to generate some great new games out there.
I like the development of the Gamedev business lately. What’s next? CryEngine for free?
This is kind of bad news for Torque though, since they recently decided to not make a separate indie license with their new Torque 3D engine, but instead offers it for $1000 for everyone. Which means they will most likely lose ALOT of indies to Unity or Epic.
Unless they use the opportunity and release a free indie license in the coming weeks, which might be a smart move as it looks now.
Also, Unity has just partnered up with online video education site, Noesis to offer education on the use of Unity3.
Which is something I’ve always found lacking in the past, easy accessible education on the different 3D engines out there.
Hopefully this trend will continue too, so we get more education on the different engines online.
I’m not sure what I would do without Akismet. My Akismet stats today could tell me that: Akismet has caught 1,797 spam for you since you first installed it.
And I just deleted 300 spam comments today… Yikes!
Which brings a question to my mind…. Do the spammers *really* think that a post filled with bullshit and tons of links will attract people to actually click those links?
I mean, since they’re still doing it every bloody da, someone *has* to be stupid enough to actually click those links right?
I just don’t get their strategy.
Little has happened since new years… Too much procrastinating with things like buying an apartment, surgery on my achilles and such. *sigh*
One would think that the time off my day-job because of the surgery, but guess what! Being home sick and being required to have my leg elevated at all times just kills all motivation 
This friday, I am going to China though, yep! I am going there for 4 weeks! 
And I will be training Kung Fu at the International Kung Fu Centre[^] in Deng Feng! I am sure I will have alot more energy when I get back and tons of motivation to get the game going again. So that’s my light at the end of the tunnel right now.
Anyways, enough about me 
We applied for funding before new years, which we didn’t get. We’re applying again with a, hopefully, better application again this spring. And also we’re now getting some help with the finances and maybe to help establish Kybernesis as a “real” company.
The game is going slooowly at the moment, but we have managed to get some art and modelling together(Read: the others have) and I might have found a candidate to join us as a programmer.
So everything isn’t all that dark.
Also, since the gamedevelopment seems to have stopped on our main project because of lack of funding(and procrastination ) we’ve been discussing a possible side-project as we gather some more funds. Facebook games! You know, those annoying games that you get invited to every day!
I used to hate those invites until one day a few months back I thought, “Hey! Maybe there’s something to these facebook games”, so I started to check them out instead of blocking them.
Granted, 90% of the games are just a variation of the same game(Read: Mafia Wars, Vampire wars, Dungeon wars, Whatnot wars ), but some are actually quite well made! Such as Battle stations[^] and even Dungeon Wars and the other Zynga games have some interesting quirk. Dungeon wars has “3D” quests which is nice to see. Battle Stations have great graphics, a way to actually join a clan, and not just your own passive clan, and do clan wars.
I am sure there are other interesting Facebook games out there too.
But I have found alot of the games lacking, so therefore we’re thinking of making a smaller game for Facebook as a sideproject. Incorporating all that we think is lacking in the current games ofc
I think it’s gonna be a fun experience, and will most definitely prepare us better with our main game.
I promise I will be alot more active on my blog when I get back from China!
So see you all in 5 weeks time!
First time I tried Vista was the week it was released, and it was horrible. I reinstalled back to XP after 2 weeks of trying Vista.
Recently though I have gotten myself a new PC through a deal at work, with Vista included. Since it’s 1 service pack and loads of updates later, I decided to try it out.
The PC was more than capable of running it with 64bit Intel Core2 Quad Q9300 CPU, 4GB mem and Geforce 9800GT.
In the beginning it was slow, hogged my memory like crazy and applications hung up to 5 minutes as “Not responsive”.
Okay, I said, let’s try to tweak it good then. So I set out on my mission to tweak Vista into a tolerable OS.
I followed several good guides on the net, and used the common sense I have worked up after tweaking several OS’ in the past.
I also activated the ReadyBoost with a 2gb USB key after several recommendations around the web.
The result?
It’s not that huge a memory-hog anymore, but applications still have a tendency to hang for up to 5 minutes as “Not responding”and the OS is overall very slow….
And for some reason, my mouse lags as hell!
So I ask again, why does everybody hate Vista?
My answer: It’s broken! It requires WAY too much resources to just run smoothly and even then it’s slow compared to other OS’. The freezing application issue is just annoying as hell, and nothing I do to fix it helps anything… Same with the mouse lag.
If there existed a solution to run any DirectX game on Linux, I would’ve changed my entire PC-farm to Linux without blinking. Most likely Mandriva or Fedora, but alas… Wine/Cedega etc. are still quite restricted on that area… *sigh*
Anyways, if anyone else is interested in tweaking Vista, I recommend the following guide over @ TweakHound[^].
I think it’s time to start writing on my blog again… Been way too long since last time.
Kybernesis is going very well, we’re 7 people working to get a prototype of our game up and running, we got some concept art to put up on our site soon, and we’re close to getting a working game prototype up and running.
Then we will start QA and iterate on our prototype to make a finished and polished game.
I finally found someone willing to help me with making and maintaining the website, so that’s one less responsibility on my shoulders
Our new site is in the works and will be up asap, complete with an announcement of the game we’re working on and some concept art.
We will put up some screenshots as soon as we have a working prototype too!
So things are definitely happening, and I can at this moment actually see the light at the end of the prototype-tunnel!
Cliff Harris over @ Positech Games[^] asked all the pirates out there what drove them to pirate his games.
Needless to say he started a nice little flamewar and his blog[^] crashed under the pressure of all the traffic. But he actually got loads of sensible(and insensible, I am sure) answers…
It’s absolutely worth the read, as there are som great insight into how pirate-gamers think, and why they *do* pirate games.
So head on over to his summary page from his little “project” and see why Pirates do pirate games. Talking to Pirates[^].
I guess I have entered a summer hiatus at the moment. Too much to do that don’t involve sitting in front of the computer, so naturally there’s some time between my posts currently.
And when I *do* sit in front of the computer(when it rains and stuff..) I usually work on our game or play Age of Conan. AoC is quite a fun game, but it has it’s lacks as do all MMO’s around today in my opinion.
I’m gonna write up a post about my views and thoughts around Age of Conan and today’s MMO-trend soonish, as soon as my hiatus is finished
I have joined the Vintage Game Club started by Michael Abbott over at Brainy Gamer[^]. And next week, we will start to play through Grim Fandango! I never got to finish that game, so it’s gonna be loads of fun.
You can find more info about The Vintage Game Club over at Brainy Gamer[^]. Even if you’re not interested in the Vintage Club, I suggest you go over there to check out his blog anyway. Cause he has some incredible insights about the more intellectual sides of gaming.
Oh and I will write up an official statement about the game we’re working on soon too, so stay tuned!
I am sad to say that I have been procrastinating even more lately, but that’s mostly because of lack of energy from fixing my back/neck, and a surgery I had to extend my Achilles tendon earlier this year.
Lately though, I have finally got back most of my energy and I am eager to start diving deep into TGE to see how to best make our planned game, but then my computer died…. Gah!!
Luckily it’s a known problem with HP lappies, so I’ll get it back in 2 weeks time or so… 2 weeks… yay!
Anyway, some updates.
As you might have guessed from what I wrote above, we have finally decided on a game engine; Torque Game Engine. With it’s nice low price for indie developers, I found it perfect for our studio, and the engine is way beyond my expectations too.
Our 3D-modeller, Ståle, have made a few models, and as soon as he makes some textures to put on them and I get some landscape going in TGE, we will see about making some early-stage screenshots to show off what we’re working with.
By that time we’ll announce what kind of project we’re working on too and post some more details about our ideas surrounding the concept.
So stay tuned for more information about our under-development game!