A collection of interviews and musings regarding gaming and Free Software projects by Cheese of Cheesetalks.net.
In Beecember last year, I released a bee-themed management simulator called Hive Time. For this project, I was in a position to commit to pay-what-you-want pricing. Now that the game's been out for a while and its lifetime sales curve feels established, I wanted to take some time to reflect on how that's gone.
A couple of weeks ago, Valve shipped a beta update to the Steam client, which reframes Steam Play (previously a cosmetic flag that indicated games where one store purchase gave access to the game on multiple platforms) as a feature which allows games to be played on multiple platforms. The distinction probably sounds small, but the move from something-that-developers-do to…
Over the past month, I've been siphoning time and thoughts away from developer, modder and Doom aficionado JP Lebreton. In this interview, we chat about Doom, modding, NPCs in first person shooters, and JP's in-development mod Mr Friendly, which reframes Doom's cast of demonic monsters as friends who could use a hand with gathering ingredients for dinner, who need an intermediary to help avoid…
Last month, I was invited to help judge this year's Linux Game Jam. After being a participant last year and having a bunch of positive outcomes from my submission, I was both excited and honoured to accept the role. Beyond judging, I also tried to give some actionable feedback on every submission and have pulled together some stats and insights from all of them, which you can find scattered across…
Continuing belatedly with an "annual" feature I started at the end of 2015, here are a bunch of shorter-form thoughts on some games I completed play throughs of in 2016 (this list doesn't include games I'd previously finished or episodic titles that are still in development and will be seen cumulatively a single game).
Last October, I put myself, two laptops and two pairs of crazy noise cancelling headphones on a plane and exhibited a text based game at Australia's largest gaming convention. In this article, I will be reflecting on my experiences with exhibiting In the Snowy Winter's Wake at PAX Australia, covering my application, additional work on the game, how it was received, what insights I've been able to…
The original trilogy of Star Wars films, and a number of Star Wars games have been formative for me, and have not only sown some of the initial seeds of my own tastes, but also helped me to understand and have perspective on those tastes. In this article, I will be reflecting on my impressions from the Star Wars games I've personally played, looking at correlations of "good" and "bad" traits…
Earlier this year, I was invited to port the remastered re-release of classic point and click adventure Day of the Tentacle to GNU/Linux. With a successful release now behind me, I wanted to take some time to explore the experiences and learnings I've gained both from working on DotT Remastered and from developing my own software on Linux.
Last year, I had the pleasure of participating in the inaugural AdventureJam event, a two week challenge to create "adventure games" that brought over one hundred developers together and resulted in 71 submissions (plus a bunch more games that didn't manage to meet the submission deadline or weren't submitted properly). Two weeks ago, AdventureJam 2016 was announced, and now seems like a good time…
When I first heard about The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy, its crowdfunding campaign was already two thirds over and looking like it would have trouble reaching its target. Knowing that it would help OKAM Studio further development of the F/OSS Godot Engine, I hopped onboard, figuring that the game itself would be a bonus and a nice diversion if/when it was released. Looking…
One of the things I was hoping to support with my Patreon campaign was writing about games. While I did manage to publish several Cheese Talks articles last year, only one of them was specifically about a game, and covered one I'd previously written about. To make up a little for the lack of game focused articles, here are a bunch of thoughts on some games I played through in 2015 (this list…
A few weeks back, Ryan C. Gordon invited people to share their first programming experiences with him. Looking through the responses, I noticed some commonalities that seemed interesting and decided to put together this series of visualisations as a for-fun companion piece.
Earlier this year, hot on the heels of my first Another World article, I had the opportunity to speak with the game's creator Éric Chahi about Another World, its inception, and its legacy. As with any notable work that has been around for a quarter of a century, there is already a huge amount of discourse surrounding Another World. I hope that by covering a mix of technical, personal and trivia…
It's not often that I get excited about seeing "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" in my in-box, but today's announcement that Assault Android Cactus (AAC) has a set release date just three weeks away put a grin on my face. In this article, I'm going to reflect a little on the kind of Early Access experience that AAC has provided. After release, I plan to write some more about the final game and its…
During April I participated in Adventure Jam and created a short point and click adventure called Above The Waves using the Free/Open Source SLUDGE engine. In this article, we'll look at the tools contained within the SLUDGE Development Kit, the SLUDGE language, and some example code techniques. Alongside the article, I've also published an example game with sources.
As a follow up to my previous article on Another World (also known as Out of This World in some regions), I'm currently researching the ways that players have experienced and connected with the game over the past 23 years. I have put together a questionnaire to help encourage people to share their thoughts, memories, feelings and stories. It consists of 11 yes-no questions and 15 open questions,…
Last month, the third annual 7 Day FPS Challenge brought developers of all skill levels and backgrounds together to try their hands at making first person games within a week. This year, I not only had the pleasure of participating again, but I also spent some time talking to other Linux using participants and wrote this article, which was first published in December 2014 on GamingOnLinux.com as…
Last month, I had the pleasure of conducting a live interview with Lee Petty on behalf of Game Club, relaying questions from listeners in IRC about Stacking, Lee's history, and Double Fine.
In 1991 I first played Another World (also known as Outer World and Out of This World in some regions), a game that would have a greater and more lasting impact on me than any other. On the surface, it seems clear that Another World is a product of its time, and does not align well to some modern dominant design sensibilities. At the time though, it was pushing the envelope with its use of…
This weekend, I had the pleasure of conducting a live interview with Tim Schafer on behalf of Game Club, relaying questions from listeners in IRC about Broken Age, Tim's history, and Double Fine..
For the all communities that I take a lead role in, I use a fairly similar approach. Following recent discussions, I felt it might be worthwhile to cobble together my notes, discussions and emails in an attempt to distill something which might define my style or approach to this sort of thing. Most of this article will be from the perspective of running my local Linux User Group, but it is my hope…
With Valve's content distribution/social/DRM platform, Steam, having supported all three major desktop platforms for nearly a year now, I've been intending to write something about the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for some time. In this article I will be looking at what value the survey has for gamers and the gaming industry, some things to look out for when interpreting the results, and some…
This weekend,I had the pleasure of conducting a live interview with Tasha Harris on behalf of Game Club, relaying questions from listeners in IRC about the game and Tasha's history.
Earlier this year at PAX Australia, I had a brief look at Assault Android Cactus (AAC), a one to four player local coop "bullet hell" game featuring a cast of feminine android protagonists. With Assault Android Cactus now available on Steam Early Access and via a Humble Store Widget on AssaultAndroidCactus.com (Includes DRM free Steam key, and optional Deluxe edition bonuses), I thought I'd share…
Last month, the second annual 7 Day FPS Challenge brought developers of all skill levels and backgrounds together to try their hands at making first person games within a week. This year, I not only had the pleasure of participating again, but I also spent some time talking to other Linux using participants and wrote this article, which was first published in August 2013 on GamingOnLinux.com as…
After a super long wait, the Humble Visualisations have been given a complete front and back end overhaul! The amount of data first shown at page load is now limited to details of the current bundle, the aggregate values for all bundles of that type, and the aggregate values for all bundles ever. The big feature of note is the new "Chart Playground", which individual bundle stats can be…
Following a recent conversation with the organisers of Atomhawk Design and Lantern Interactive's Kickstarter campaign for The Realm about why Linux support included in a stretch goal a third above the primary target might not be in their best interests, I decided it might be worth putting some of these thoughts out to where they might be of use to or evoke discussion from others.
Last week, I had the enormous pleasure of conducting (or curating?) a live interview with Ron Gilbert on behalf of Game Club, relaying questions from as many as 90 eager listeners in IRC about The Cave and Ron's career.
In the month after my third Humble Bundle article first went live, I continued to follow up on outstanding leads, work on an additional visualisation (it is HUGE), monitor the performance of the Humble Indie Bundle 7, and even work towards building a community project to expand the usefulness of the research I've done. You can read more on those in the sections below.
Following discussion in assorted forums and IRC channels, PCGamingWiki.com contributor soeb and myself have started a wiki enhancement project which aims to provide additional details on Humble Bundle titles on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Last week, I squeezed in a quick chat with Greg Rice and Nathan Martz of Double Fine. In this interview, we talk about Double Fine's adventures in PC cross-platform gaming across the past year, ranging from their record breaking crowdfunding success with the Double Fine Adventure ( DFA ) through to next week's simultaneous Linux, Mac and Windows launch of The Cave .
Humble Bundle's success has raised the profile of DRM related issues, raised awareness of indie games and developers, and improved industry visibility to Linux and Mac OS as viable gaming platforms, causing many customers to view the Humble Bundle as reliable, consistent sources of activism in these areas. In this article, I explore at the history of cross-platform support in Humble Bundle…
People have been asking me for my opinion of the Humble THQ Bundle. I guess I should probably go on record as saying I'm disappointed at the absence of what had previously been core tenets of Humble Bundle promotions (most notably the cross-platform and DRM-free aspects).
After some unintentional delays, I've managed to get around to publishing an interview I started a while back with lodle and INtense from Desura, as well as three key Desurium contributors. In this interview, we talk about the process of open sourcing the Desura client, the hurdles overcome so far, and what the future might hold for Desurium.
I've finally found time to sit down and chat with my good friend flibitijibibo about his recent porting activities and gaming community endeavours. In this, the third part of this interview, look at flibit's approaches to porting, his experiences with packaging games for the currently in-beta GNU/Linux Steam client, and some of his community activities. Part one and part two are also live.
I've finally found time to sit down and chat with my good friend flibitijibibo about his recent porting activities and gaming community endeavours. In part two of this interview, we look at the values and hurdles faced by porters and cross platform gaming in general. Part one and part three are also live.
I've finally found time to sit down and chat with my good friend flibitijibibo about his recent porting activities and gaming community endeavours. In this three part interview, we discuss cross platform porting, software development, and gaming communities. Part two and part three are also live.
Recently, I've been talking with Trent Gamblin from Nooskewl, developers of old-school Japanese style RPG Monster RPG 2. In this interview, we discuss Nooskewl's history of releasing games under the "Give it Your Own License, License", the responses they've received from their in-progress crowdfunding campaign to release the Monster RPG 2 source, and touch on the in-development action-RPG Baryon.
Recently, the Humble Bundle organisers surprised their community with a music-only promotion. Instead of the traditional arrangement of indie games and soundtracks, the Humble Music Bundle featured albums from artists with significant cult/geek appeal. What can the figures from this bundle tell us about how we should interpret the other bundles' statistics?
In day two of my summary of the Game Masters exhibition and events, I recap the press conference featuring Warren Spector, Rob Murray, Tim Schafer, and Conrad Bodman, and also give a sneak peek at the Game Masters exhibition itself, which will be opened to the public tomorrow.
This week, I've been given the opportunity to attend an exhibition and series of events put on by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image called Game Masters . In addition to an exhibition detailing and celebrating the works of influential game designers ( such as Peter Molyneux , Warren Spector , Hideo Kojima , Tim Schafer , Shigeru Miyamoto and more ), I'll be attending several side events,…
Recently, I've been talking with Norbert Varga from Digital Arrow, developer of the sci-fi racing platformer inMomentum, and the fantasy RPG Dilogus: The Winds of War, which is currently under development. In part one , we talked about how Digital Arrow develops games, what kind of impact inMomentum has had on them, and touch on Dilogus: The Winds of War. In this second part of our interview, we…
Recently, I've been talking with Norbert Varga from Digital Arrow, developer of the sci-fi racing platformer inMomentum, and the fantasy RPG Dilogus: The Winds of War, which is currently under development. In part one of this two part interview, we talk about how Digital Arrow develops games, what kind of impact inMomentum has had on them, and touch on Dilogus: The Winds of War. In part two ,…
Recently, I had the enormous pleasure of throwing some questions at Robert Kooima (RLK) about Neverball's history and what it's like to hand over a project to community driven development. In part one, we go over Neverball's origins and the growth of the Neverball community. Part two is also live.
Recently, I had the enormous pleasure of throwing some questions at Robert Kooima (RLK) about Neverball's history and what it's like to hand over a project to community driven development. In part two, RLK discusses his current role in Neverball development, the project's future. If you haven't already, feel free to peruse part one .
Lately, I ve been corresponding with Joel Kinnunen, Vice President of Finnish independent game development company Frozenbyte , who are currently recovering from the lauch of Trine 2 s native Linux client, and working hard on the as yet untitled upcoming Trine 2 expansion. In this second and final part, we take a look at Trine s story, Humble Bundles, Jack Claw, and Splot. If you haven t already,…
Lately, I ve been corresponding with Joel Kinnunen, Vice President of Finnish independent game development company Frozenbyte , who are currently recovering from the lauch of Trine 2 s native Linux client, and working hard on the as yet untitled upcoming Trine 2 expansion. In this two part interview, Joel and Senior Programmer Jukka Kokkonen share their thoughts on the Trine series, the in-house…
After receiving some extra quotes from a top Humble Bundle contributor, I decided to make a small update to the article, which covers the Humble Brony Bundle contributions, the "separate price" values for games in bundles, the impact of promotion frequency on revenue, and some thoughts on Linux averages.
The Humble Visualisations have been given another upgrade. The bundle frequency table now shows values for revenue divided by the distance between bundles to give an indication of frequency's impact upon revenue over time. Initial values and final values for "separate price" are now tracked and displayed for each bundle, and an additional Humble Bundle Game Value Over Time chart has been added.
This article was written to explore what statistics gathered from the Humble Indie Bundle promotions might indicate. Unlike the Humble Visualisations (a collection of additional statistics and graphs derived from those shown on the Humble Bundle website), this article contains information drawn from non-official sources as well as some Blatant Opinions. In addition to my own thoughts, I've also…