FuncWorks, LLC

GameMarx EP90 – Dreamer, Builder, Player – David Johnston

Mike — Sat, 19 May 2012 21:22:05 +0000

Mike, Dylan, and Cicelie are joined this week by David Johnston of Smudged Cat Games and discuss working with publishers as an indie, Dream Build Play titles in development, and recent Kickstarter scams, bans, and EA support.

Show Notes:

Kickstarter News:

Kickstarter Projects:

Tomorrow on GameMarx: David Johnston of Smudget Cat Games

Mike — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:05:10 +0000

No it’s not Thursday, and no that’s not an error. The podcast this week will be on Saturday at 10 AM EST (3 PM GMT).

Our guest this week will be David Johnston of Smudget Cat Games. David is not only a veteran game developer of Xbox Box Live Indie Games, but also Xbox Live Arcade with The Adventures of Shuggy, a game that started as an entry into Dream Build Play. Shuggy has become an unstoppable juggernaut with the recent announcement that the game will be coming to steam June 13th! “Unstoppable juggernaut” may seem like an exaggeration to some, but for many indie game developers it’s the step that could lead to the Big Break™.

The podcast is recorded live at 10 AM Est. Saturday morning. Join us at http://GameMarx.com/live and chat with the show cast and other viewers. If you miss the show don’t worry, it will be posted to theGameMarx YouTube Channel and the GameMarx Podcast.

GameMarx EP89 – Level Design

Mike — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:27:11 +0000

The crew this week covers updates to Captain Dubstep as the Dream Build Play deadline nears, including Metroid style level design and Mike's experience at being a pixel artist.

Show Notes:

Kickstarter Projects Mentioned:

GameMarx EP88 – If I Were On An Indie Label, You Could Call Me Mainstream

Mike — Sat, 05 May 2012 17:11:44 +0000

This week we discuss the EA "indie bundle" and what it means to be indie, then we cover several free (or almost free) tools we've used in making games, and end on the good, bad, and ugly of Kickstarter.

Show Notes:

Toold Mentioned:

Inkscape

Kickstarter Projects Mentioned:

GameMarx EP87 – When Wubs Collide

Mike — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:16:32 +0000

This week Mike and Dylan discuss collision detection in Captain Dubstep and how best to organize game code and Mike covers his impression of FL Studio. We also discuss which TV shows are worth watching beyond a second season and Mass Effect 2 DLC.

Show Notes:

KickStarter:

Sgt. Conker Is Dead, Long Live Sgt. Conker

Mike — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:00:53 +0000

Sgt. Conker is under new management.

If you’re not familiar with Sgt. Conker it used to be an excellent site for XNA news and tutorials on XNA. Like many things, time moves on, people move on, and sites get left behind. So it was with Sgt. Conker until James “madninjaskillz” Johnston stepped in and took over. By force. With guns. And a hamster. It’s how he rolls.

The site is back with a good write up on the state of XNA (and caught the attention one developer). Of course, what everyone really wants to know is will the insider cracks and jokes at the expense of the XNA MVPs return as well?

Is Sunburn Going Native?

Mike — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:29:07 +0000

If you listened to the podcast this week, you noticed we did things a bit different for our sponsored segment. Instead of discussing features of the XNA game framework, we speculated what it would be like if Sunburn was a cross platform framework. Currently, Sunburn is cross device, supporting PC, Xbox 360, and WP7. The landscape of Indie games is rapidly expanding, and a developers are looking to maximize time and money invested in their chosen framework. Support for iOS devices, Mac, and even Linux is critical and the successful game development frameworks will be the ones that support all devices seamlessly.

This is a rumor post. I have no facts I can link to, so I'm going to clearly outline what is the rumor and what is Mike's speculation. The rumor is that the big brained freaks at Synapse Gaming have created their own C# compiler. It's a little fuzzy if it's a true compiler (meaning it spits out object code for a linker) or uses a C# to C++ step and then uses the native compiler of the target platform to get the final binary. The distinction is academic however, the result will be developers can use C# and Sunburn to reach multiple platforms and devices.

Now my speculation is that this means Sunburn will be able to target not only PC, Xbox, WP7, but also add WinRT (Windows 8) as a native Metro application. This I see as the first stop as WinRT runs DirectX and XNA can be thought of as a managed layer on top of DirectX. I also expect native PC games as well - no longer will your game install require the cumbersome pre-requisite of the XNA framework.

From here it gets interesting. If the Sunburn compiler maps to OpenGL then the doors are open to iOS, Mac, and Linux. Given the evolution of MonoGame this doesn't sound that far fetched. Bastion is an XNA/C# game ported Chrome by using MonoGame as a middle step so this isn't a new process even for the frameworks involved.

One thing is clear - even though Microsoft seems ready to abandon managed game development, the community is not!

GameMarx EP86 – Robotic Product Design

Mike — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:38:09 +0000

John Posey and Chris Goodrich of Products for Robots joins the show to talk game development costs, Kickstarter, and My Little Pony. Okay, it was mostly just Mike talking about MPL.

Products for Robots: Website
Twitter: John | Chris

Show Notes:

Official Rules for Xbox LIVE Rewards Sweepstakes

Microsoft's Xbox division loses $229 million

Dream.Build.Play dev diary 1

The Effect of Short-Term Sales on Quantity Sold - A Case Study on Zeboyd's Deal of the Day

Season 4, Ep. 10 - Crowdfunding

Warballoon breaks down Kickstarter expenditure

Join Scott and Mark in their Epic new SpaceVenture

Facebook - Rune Sequel

Kickstarter:

MICROMON: A Monster Capture Game for Mobile Devices

Hast Du Eier?

Dragonbites "Smokin Bunnies"

Kitaru

Sword Of Justice

Boot Hill Heroes - Wild West Retro RPG with 1-4 Player Co-op

Deepworld: A Cloud-Based Multiplayer Crafting Adventure

Grim Dawn

Tonight on GameMarx: John Posey of Products for Robots

Mike — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:51:53 +0000

Tonight’s guest is John Posey, part of the dynamic duo that is Products for Robots.

Product for Robots is best known for their game Metacell, described as “a match 3 twitch puzzle shooter with a hard scifi story-line following the paladin Dominic Moore, a highly regarded warrior for a galactic empire, the Imperium, who is on a mission of the greatest importance: to save the universe from the Metacell.”

TL;DR? It’s like Puzzle Quest IN SPACE!

Recently Product for Robots launched a Kickstarter for an ambitious Metacell 2 project. Funding was unsuccessful and tonight we’ll discuss (read: speculate) some of the reasons why.

The podcast is recorded live at 10 PM Est. Friday night. Join us at http://GameMarx.com/live and chat with the show cast and other viewers. If you miss the show don’t worry, it will be posted to the GameMarx YouTube Channel and the GameMarx Podcast.

GameMarx EP85 – Through Time and Bass

Mike — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:22:35 +0000

We kick off this week with an update on Captain Dubstep, highlight some news, then catch up on all the Kickstarter video game action we missed the last few weeks.

Show Notes:

Kickstarter: