Indie

And in perfect timing with my previous post about story and games – I go and find an indie developer who gets it right. GravityBone is a great little distraction for … well.. a very short period of time…

I won’t go all “blogosphere” and bleat on about how good this game is. I’m not one for over hyping things… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc etc

This needs to be a full game right now.

Unfortunately, it appears Bob has finally snapped, it was bound to happen. Spending five bloody years making a Nintendo DS game is bound to have a negative impact on anyones brain.

For those who don’t know, Bob is a bedroom coder who’s been working on (admittedly) a fucking awesome looking Nintendo DS homebrew game for 5 years in pretty much solitary confinement. A one man project, it really does look pretty cool, (if you’re into that sort of thing)

He’s now attempting to get recognition from Nintendo to actually publish the game officially, instead of contacting an already established publisher (which I’m sure some will be interested in the project) he’s decided to attempt to contact Nintendo directly.

Unfortunately, Nintendo however have fucking big spam filters for such eventuality. They sadly don’t have internet connections and most likely don’t know what the hell bobs game is. They also don’t really like people using homebrew applications to create a game, because they have no creative control, – and they’re really really big on creative control.

-or-

They know *precisely* what Bob’s game is and know how fucking vast it is. Now, vast to some people sounds joyous, but to games publishers it sounds nasty. Vast means bugs, means play testing, means content.

And the content could be questionable, in such a huge game, what’s to say there isn’t a sister-shagging sub-plot, (like most JRPG’s) or the abilities to run over NPC’s in a taxi. That’s not nintendo’s bag baby, and especially not on the NDS.

Nintendo aren’t going to bug test a game. They expect the publishers to do this, All the big N do is accept projects for a LOT check when you become a registered developer (Which costs lots and lots of cash) – The real pity however is that I have a NDS development kit about 5 meters away from me. Awww..

Anyway, hopefully Bob will come to his senses and realise that ‘insane man’ tactics of 100 day protests and stuff is the realm of forum dickheads and shows a massive lack of professionalism, something that’ll make Nintendo even more resolute not to listen. The best bet is to play the publisher game, accept that they’ll take a cut and then be happy in the knowledge that a one man project for the Nintendo DS will still make a fucking tonne of cash if it’s any good. (If it’s not pirated to fuck that is) – with a finished project, a couple of interested publishers and a stern will and nerves, you can easily negotiate a 30-40% profit share of the game.

What IS “bob’s game?”.