2009 September

Do you like playing fantastic independent video games? We sure do! It can be tricky to make an indie game, though; you need to find enough time to make the actual game without cutting into the time required to pay rent and buy groceries/beer. It’s a tricky problem!

Kickstarter

Several indies are turning to Kickstarter, a website that allows creators to directly ask the public to financially support the creation of their ideas. It works like this: A creator posts a project, some dollar amount they’re asking for, and a timeframe in which they need the money secured. If you want to support the project, you pledge some cash. If they reach their goal, your money goes to them. If not, your money stays in your pocket. Simple and beautiful.

We Did This; You Should Too!

It’s one thing to say, “oh cool, other people should totally do this“, and quite another thing altogether to say “we did this and so should you“.  So Blurst threw down $250 each on Flywrench and Liferaft Episode 1.  You should do the same to help them out.  Support indie game development!

This great IndieGames.com post mentions a number of other projects trying out Kickstarter:

- Flywrench (Remake): Messhof – $3220 of $5000
- Thunder Blunders: Nini White – $100 of $25000
- Liferaft Episode 1: Greg Wohlwend (aeiowu) – $1587 of $5000
- Video Game Set in Iran: Borut – $1712 of $15000
- FREEQ: The Singularity – $260 of $12300
- Saturated Dreamers: Paul Eres – $525 of $195
- Resonance: VinceTwelve – $576 of $150
- Home Base: Gerson Luca – $0 of $100
- Remainder: Gerson Luca – $0 of $1000
- The Zombie Game Experiment William Weaver – $20 of $14700
- Kingdom Death: Adam Poots – $0 of $10,000
- Dadaists Gone Wild 2: Alec Stamos – $0 of $200

Marian Donations

Our good friend Alec Holowka is also funding one of his game projects, Marian, through public donations. Go check out the Marian teaser post for more details!

(Flickr photo by comedy_nose).

As Ben mentioned earlier most of us have been out in Texas for GDC Austin. The primary focus of this conference is, unfortunately, MMOs and since we aren’t making Cretaceous Worlds or NumNums Online much of the content for this conference was superfluous. However, Matthew and Steve, along with Simon Carless (Gamasutra/IGF), Adam Saltsman(Semi Secret/Flixel), and Brandon Boyer (Offworld), hosted an amazing Independent Games Summit, the first to be hosted at GDC Austin.

The Independent Games Summit lasted for only two of the days we were in Austin. The rest of the time was spent with our Indie brethren from around the world. These people are amazing artists, designers, and developers and very good friends of ours. It’s always motivating and inspirational to spend time with the Indies and I hope we will funnel much of it into the future of Blurst.

We’re flying back to Arizona today, but that’s not the end of our adventures. Steve and Matthew are heading to Japan for the Tokyo Game Show on Tuesday! Don’t worry though, even with all of this excitement, we’ll have the next Blurst game out on time on November 1st. Keep an eye on the flickr stream for more photos from the trip! Photos of the trip are up on flickr, check ‘em out!

While we were away our Art Director, Ben, made an impressive game design prototype that we may or may not end up using for a Blurst game sometime in the future. Check it out!

While the rest of the studio is in Austin this week for the 2009 Austin GDC, I’m hanging back doing art experiments that might inspire upcoming games. I’ll also be listening to sweet game soundtracks, watching assorted Godzilla movies, and if you play your cards right; performing various high speed dances. All on the webcam! So go the webcam page where it will be pointed at my screens for the week and watch the game art manifest.

I don’t have a whole lot of specific ideas in my head at the moment, so I’ll be perusing this really cool thread on the forums about game ideas that some of you guys want to see on Blurst.

Also, I’ll be making some Jetpack Brontosaurus wallpapers later this week. If there’s wallpaper from another game you really want, drop into the webcam chat and let me know. I’ve also got a really cool Blurst-related project I’ll be rocking out at some point, so stay tuned. As if all of this wasn’t enough, I might have a guest at some point as well…this week is going to be really fun! *sick high five*

Let’s face it; there’s nothing you want more in the whole world than Time Donkey Wallpapers. So here they are, courtesy of your jovial Uncle Blurst.

Time Donkey launched today!  But that’s not all.  We have other new stuff:

Facebook Page

As you’ve probably noticed, we added a sidebar to our design with widgets for various social sites.  Our Facebook fan page is the most important of these additions!  We posted the story of Time Donkey on Facebook over the last few days.  You should become a Blurst fan for the latest news, links, and even coupons for…

Game Sales!

We are now selling downloadable versions of our games!  Buying a download version gets you fullscreen, an un-timed sandbox mode, and a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart knowing that you’re supporting Blurst.  You should buy our games because we need money to keep making them.  Thanks!

We will be launching more download versions of our other games very soon:  Blush, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, etc, until our full catalog is available for purchase.

Community Forums

Your free Blurst account is now a forum account!  Head on over to the Blurst forums to chat about our games, other games, and whatever other cool thing you bump into on the Internet.  We’ve heard there are lots of things on this Internet.

More Soon…

More stuff is coming this week, and we have some really neat features planned by the end of the month.  Stay tuned!

The Day of Donkey is upon us!  (Head to our Facebook page for the rest of the story).

Our latest 8-week game, Time Donkey, is now available. BAM!

And, holy crap, this is our 9th game released on Blurst. Woah.

Go Play Time Donkey! See you guys on the leaderboards.