Highest call volume

Hello!

Today is the highest call volume of the year.  The new company @Dormousegames gets created in a couple days.  Which means signing paperwork to form the company and collecting a check.

Regular blog posts will resume soon.  In the mean time check out Daniel Cooks thoughts on Randomness as a mastery element of game design.

Artist(s) wanted

Happy Holidays everyone,

As announced at December Boston Post Mortem, Dormouse Games is starting up this coming year.  We have angel funding and the paper work gets signed in January.  To get a jump on building the business we need artists portfolios and resumes.  2d, or 3d artists (who want to output to 2d) for platformer, puzzle games and possibly card games down the line.  We're willing to look at talented first timers, or experienced folks looking for a start-up indie company.

We have contract work available, with the potential to become full time.  Two games need art and a company logo.  So send us resumes if you are interested, or connect us with worthy folks who want a shot at breaking in.  contact@dormousegames.com

Thanks!

Eric and Jeremy

Dormouse Games

War for the Overworld

You would not be mistaken to think that War for the Overworld sounds kind of familiar.  Particularly if you had played Dungeon Keeper II.  Some fans realized that a DK 3 was never coming along, and went ahead and started their own version.  They have been working on this game for years, and getting some traction.  Especially over on Kickstarter. It's a UK project, so if your based in the U.S. you have to jump through some hoops to contribute.

Peter Molyneux backs their effort.  I am super excited to see this project get funded.  So please back it if you can.  And if not tweet, or share the kickstarter with someone who can.  Thanks!

Violence is a game design cliche.

Starting a game development company during times when the industry is being accused of selling violence to minors may seem like a silly idea.  Despite all the hype, 'we' already know the answer.  There is no correlation between video games and real world violence.  By 'we' I mean 'our industries lobby' the Entertainment Software Association.

That being said try and make a game that is not about violence.  At this point it is simply more creative to make a game that is not about guns, violence, and killing then it is to go back to those tired tropes yet again.  Of the few hundred games released in 2012 how many were first person shooters, or based on killing things?  All of the ones I played...  Xcom, Orcs Must Die 2, Torchlight 2.

"Normality is a lack of creativity".  FPS is pretty well done these days.  Lets demonstrate some creativity and come up with games that don't rely so heavily on violence to solve problems.

A Fieldrunners 2 key found its way into my possession about a week ago.  So after writing a post about creating fewer violent video games, it's time to go shoot some clones with turrets.

Happy Holidays

Welcome back.  I hope your holidays were fun!
Tomorrow we're going to talk about Violence in Video Games.

The best place to incorporate...

Have you considered where the best location to Incorporate is?  Lowest cost, most benefits?  Where do most other companies incorporate.  The answer might surprise you.  Its Delaware!  Wait, what?  Really?  

Yup.  Of all the places you could create a company one of the most popular is Delaware.  Anyone starting a new LLC should seriously consider incorporating in that state.  If for no other reason than all the 'services' in the state which do nothing but register companies.  It’s the local cottage industry.  

Don’t believe me?  Planet Money Podcast recently was talking about creating shell companies to learn how certain people can create tax shelters.  The podcast is an interesting look at the darker side of incorporation and worth checking out if you're curious.  Don't forget to follow up with "What can we do with our shell companies?" and "How to hide money from your spouse."

What Underwear reveals about kickstarter.

Here is a great article on Business Insider.  Anyone considering a kickstarter campaign should give it a read.  It’s about underwear.  Also the problems that success brings.  But it also highlights one reason why game development works better on crowd funding than other products.  


In the case of Flint and Tinder, they have to produce 23,000 pairs of underwear, when they intended to make 3000.  In the case of Scrumble Ship Dirkson has to produce a single game (which gets copied many times).  Software is extremely easy to copy.  Physical goods are not.  Granted the manufacturing process makes it easier for fewer people to do more work, but even the most advanced manufacturing techniques can’t beat Ctrl C, Ctrl V.

Kickstarter can be a dangerous thing whether the project succeeds or fails.  Failing to plan for success can be as detrimental as failing to plan for failure. But know that as long as your swag is digital you have it better then Flint and Tinder.

Mr Ghost may be the best ARG ever.

There's kind of a good sized industry out there for ghost hunting. My guilty pleasure was watching Ghost Hunters. The show was enjoyable, I admit it. Having some small amount of training in Electric Circuits, I've always wondered if those EMF things really worked. Apparently there's an app for that.

Thoughts on High Grounds.

Spry Fox, the creator of Triple Town, has a new deck building game out.  It's a pretty good game and has gotten a good review from PAReport.  With Scrolls coming along slowly and methodically, online collectible card games should have a good couple of years coming up.  Here are some of my thoughts on what it means to have a deck building or collectible card game in a digital medium.

Breaking in by walking in.

Are you breaking into the game dev industry in the Boston area?  Working hard on prototypes but not making any headway?  You need to be attending some of these events.  I've been to a good number of Boston Indies and Boston Post Mortem events.  This year I would like to add WIG attendance.  The networking at these events is top notch.  You can find mentors, contractors, employee's, good advice and most importantly feedback on your game.  The topics are almost always worth learning about.  Even if the law isn't your cup of tea.

Pick an event and go!

Angel Investors or Inspiration is where you find it.

Eric Fritz came to me with a problem.  He has been working with two angel investors for a year attempting to create a profitable game.  He made a game for them.  They kept saying metrics, he kept saying fun.  The focus on metrics, and attempting to repeat Zynga’s success, didn't go as well as they would have liked. That company has been wound down, but they offered to give my friend funds to start his own company.  This is how we founded Dormouse Games.

Boston Post Mortem 12/12/12

John Lanza and Daniel Rose – Legal Issues For Game Dev

Boston Post Mortem is always amazing, and definitely worth the trip to Waltham.  Eric and I made our first announcement, met some awesome folks, and generally had a great time.  Attendance was a little light, but there were plenty of artists, sound designers, and app developers looking for work.  The conversation about legal issues covered mostly Trademark, Copyright and Patent information.  With a bit about Equity Crowd funding at the beginning.

The big announcement?  Eric is the founder and I am the co-founder (more like part time adviser) of a start up!  We're looking for 2d artists (or 3d who can work in 2d).  There is contract work available for sound design, iOS and Android development.  If you are an artist, or know one who's out of work, link me to their portfolio.  Previous work in game design is a plus, but not a requirement.

More information about the company will be coming out soon.  Super exciting!

Indies and the Law

Or timeliest PA Report ever!

Not three hours after meeting with angel investors (woot!) to discuss an ongoing investment deal, Penny Arcade posted the most amazing article.  (actually they posted it before the meeting, I discovered it via twitter a couple hours after).  The article is a crash course on video game law.  Although not everything in it is specifically applicable to every situation, it is fantastic and helpful in the most common areas of legal trouble for indies.

The advice tracks fairly well to the 'stages of game design'.  There's something for the pre company pretotyping/prototyping stages.  There's advice for company formation, and intellectual property post company formation...  There's a lot of great information in there, go read it.   Then mine is for great twitter accounts to follow:

Ben Kuchera
New Media Rights (nonprofit)
Shaun Spalding

The History of the “Lowest Common Denominator” concept.

Years ago (2001-2007) I was heavily involved with the design and running of a Live Action Role Playing game called The Imperium LARP.  You can see what we worked on by pointing the Internet Wayback Machine to www.imperiumlarp.org.  While working on the project the creator drilled the idea of the LCD into our heads...  And made us better game designers because of it.

Metrics Driven Game Design

Zynga has defended the idea that designing a game heavily based on metrics input is a winning strategy.   Although no one likes the idea of what the output is after that process.  The popular trope around the indie game world is a general feeling of distaste for the kind of game that gets produced by putting in more numbers based feedback rather than human based feedback.

Is sticking with your day job a cardinal sin?

If you are attempting to raise funds with an angel investor, they want to see commitment.  It is expected that founders are going to be working full time.  Quitting the day job to work for the start-up is clichéd, because it’s expected, and because it sends a message to the investors.  Also because so many people do it.  The commitment of anyone not working full time for the start-up is questioned.  This may or may not really be the case, but that is the perception.

Paper prototyping... At work

My new day job is going well.  I'm really enjoying being in the operations side of Financial Services.  Six months in sales has taught me that I am not a sales guy.  Call volume was slow for my first two weeks, so I've had some time to paper prototype a card game.  Entrepreneurs always say you have to quit your day job, but there might be a case for not doing that under specific circumstances.  The game is intended to be an HTML5 online CCG.

Online CCG's are surprisingly fun, although there's room for improvement.  And I say that as a former M:tG pro tour hopeful.  I've been playing Clash of the Dragons on Kongregate.  The single player game seems like a bit of a grind, but if you want to draft you have to endure it or spend money.  I think the intent is to have a big PVP focus, but like most MMO's, I'm just playing the single player campaign.  There seems to be some needless complexity in terms of having a game world, player stats, and inventory.  After playing four or five other Kongregate card games, Clash is the best of the bunch in my opinion.

Ichiro Abroad

If you haven't had a chance to yet, pop over to this Gamasutra article and give it a read.  Some really great basic advice, subtle yet powerful.  Short post today due to high call volume in the call center.  The new full time gig is taking up a lot of time, and there may be a big announcement coming soon, which will take up all the rest of the time.  Also, if you just love Ichiro, here is his advice on going to GDC...  Even if you just go to the vicinity of GDC it might be worth it.

Sharing Dave's Social Mobile Protip

During the Smart Money in Gaming event, Dave Biscelgia (b shell ia) provided some great, and very specific advice for social, mobile start ups.  The first piece of advice, test internationally.  This strategy is called a soft launch.  The goal of which is not to generate tons of revenue, but rather to gather user data.  This data helps tune retention, figure out where problems exist in the app/game, and add polish to the product before the real launch in the U.S. market.

Also during the event Tier 5 was mentioned as a specific example of a location where cost to acquire users is extremely low, however conversion is really bad.  There are some terms in that sentence which are new to the blog.  We'll go into them a little more specifically in the near future.

Which Crowd Funding site should I use for my game?

Well if you're anything like Simon Roth, you use all of them.  Steam Greenlight, Kickstarter, and Indeigogo.  Why use just one?  Each game crowd funding site has strengths.  This is a pretty smart strategy.  Of course all projects should link to all others.

Greenlight Concepts
You can put anything up at any stage and use the site to gauge peoples interest in your idea.  Using the Greenlight concept page traffic can be driven from steam to your primary crowd funding site.

Kickstarter
The all or nothing popularity of Kickstarter has a good number of projects going here for initial funding.  Arguably more popular for game design at the moment, but unfortunately only one funding option.

Indiegogo
Different funding options (Fixed Funding and Flexible Funding) allow for more options when setting up a project's funding.

Simon also did something smart with the Indiegogo project.  Being from Manchester U.K. the kickstarter is denominated in pounds.  The Indiegogo however is in U.S. dollars.  Running one project in each currency means that he gets both U.K. and international (we U.S. folks) support.  Noticed the dollar amount on the Indiegogo campaign is set very low.  That's some good crowd funding strategy right there.