News

Boyfriend Dungeon's Kickstarter: Week 1 Social Stats
Boyfriend Dungeon's Kickstarter: Week 1 Social Stats
A dive into the social numbers behind Boyfriend Dungeon's Kickstarter, which reached it's goal of $50k USD in just over 6 hours.
Aug. 29, 2018
How to make a good puzzle - An explorable explanation
How to make a good puzzle - An explorable explanation
The Rubik's Cube. Sudoku's. Video games. Puzzles are everywhere, but just how do you make a good puzzle—one that's fun, and satisfying to solve? I'll explain this with playable (!) levels from Sokoban in this interactive article.
Aug. 29, 2018
Dude, Where's My Money? Or “Divvying up the Loot” (part 2)
Dude, Where's My Money? Or “Divvying up the Loot” (part 2)
Now we're going to discuss the role of good Steam page design, dedicated community engagement, regional restrictions, third party distribution, distributors, and alternative open platform options.
Aug. 29, 2018
How Love Balls became a viral smash hit – and 7 ways to improve it
How Love Balls became a viral smash hit – and 7 ways to improve it
Love Balls is a minimalist physics game, where players have to draw lines on the screen in order to reunite two circular characters. It's reached the overall #1 slot on the App Store in over 60 countries! We dissected it to understand how they achieved it
Aug. 28, 2018
Video Game Deep Cuts: The Two-Bit GoldenEye Circus
Video Game Deep Cuts: The Two-Bit GoldenEye Circus
This week's highlights include a look at innovative 'alternative arcade' Two-Bit Circus, a retrospective on the creation of GoldenEye for the N64, and lots more besides.
Aug. 27, 2018
Make games and stay afloat: game marketing 101.
Make games and stay afloat: game marketing 101.
As if creating a game wasn’t challenging enough on its own, nowadays to survive, one has to cope with PR, marketing & analytics among the other things. With limited resources, it is all about simple yet effective basics. Let's name them.
Aug. 27, 2018
Character Physics with Inverse Dynamics
Character Physics with Inverse Dynamics
How do you build character physics? One way is with Inverse Dynamics -- similar to IK (Inverse Kinematics). What is Inverse Dynamics? What are the uses of Inverse Dynamics?
Aug. 27, 2018
Thoughts on Romance in System-Driven Games
Thoughts on Romance in System-Driven Games
Assorted thoughts on approaches to representing romance in system-driven games.
Aug. 27, 2018
Impromptu rock 'n' roll trip to Gamescom - the story of an indie studio looking for a publisher
Impromptu rock 'n' roll trip to Gamescom - the story of an indie studio looking for a publisher
This is the story of how we made an impulse decision to travel to Gamescom with the intention of finding a publisher for our game. It's about utilizing your network, having a clear pitch and nice trailer ... and being bold and taking risks!
Aug. 27, 2018
10 Tips for Spotting Key Scammers
10 Tips for Spotting Key Scammers
With every game launch, key scammers come out of the woodwork. These 10 tips will help you spot them, so you can be confident you’re sending keys to legitimate reviewers.
Aug. 27, 2018
The 10 Secrets to Indie Game Success (and Why They Do Not Exist)
The 10 Secrets to Indie Game Success (and Why They Do Not Exist)
We’re about to release Frozen Synapse 2. In some ways, it’s the culmination of 17 years of involvement with indie games in one form or another. This would seem like a good time to look back and write some kind of inspirational blog post...
Aug. 24, 2018
Google Play Open Beta: a Way for a Mobile Indie to Get Thousands of Organic Installs
Google Play Open Beta: a Way for a Mobile Indie to Get Thousands of Organic Installs
As many mobile developers are interested in the growth of organic traffic for their games, we decided to share our experience of open beta preparations, which allowed us to get positive results already at the earliest stage of the project life cycle.
Aug. 23, 2018