Roll Call

[CousinGilgamesh]

I guess I should have done this when I joined, but I'm going to do it now.

Name: Daniel DeKlotz
Company: Harmonic games (for now)
Website: www.csc.calpoly.edu/~ddeklotz and http://harmonicgames.blogspot.com
Occupation:
-Student at Cal Poly (studying computer science and philosophy)
-Individual game development when I have the time (I do all my own art, programming, design, music, etc.)
Location: San Luis Obispo, California

I'm a 3rd year at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and I make games when I have time. I've been really busy for the last 6 months (with an internship at Microsoft this last summer Summer and then a really more-than-full load of advanced real-time-rendering classes and such last quarter), and I finally have time to devote to game development again. I plan on spending the next 9 months on my next project [with school on the side =)], then studying abroad in Tokyo for 3 months, and then graduating 6 months later to go full-time indie. I also plan on being really poor for a long time after college.

In my game projects, I tend to favor experimental games and cross-generic games. I never make games that easily fit into one genre or model. I am interested in exploring the unexplored parts of game design.

[gunswordfist]

Since we are starting the forums fresh again, it's probably a good idea to do roll call like the original dexterity boards did...

Name: Mike Boeh
Company: Retro64, Inc.
URL: http://www.retro64.com
Occupation: Full Time Indie Game Developer/Publisher
Location: Chicago Suburbs

Background:
I have been a full time indie for about 4 years now (man how time flies!). Originally, the company concept was to make 3d remakes of classic arcade games. But since everyone seems to be doing that now, we are changing slowly but surely. Games we have developed include: Bugatron, Z-Ball, Best Friends, WarHeads SE. We have also published Platypus, Party Bowling, and Marbles Deluxe. I love constantly tweaking the site and experimenting in ways to improve sales.

Name: gunswordfist
Company: (It's non-existant)
Occupation: *secret*
Location: Somewhere in the U.S. of A.
Hobbies: gaming, eating, watching tv show, cartoons and anime

I joined here 3 days ago because I just got done playing Legend Of Zelda and it inspired me to try to work faster towards an indie career. So it's great to be here guys! Any DMC, MGS or Max Payne fans here????

[Zollo]

Name: Carolina Moya
Occupation: Freelancing and working on a game project.
URL: *will update this shortly
Location: NYC
Hobbies: Gaming, Movies,Animations, Comics, Paintings (traditional&Digital)

I have a BA in Computer Arts from S.V.A but my love is for 2D. I worked at a company called Game lab for like 4 years. It was an awesome experience. I learned a lot, loved the people and enjoyed making art for creative projects. I have so many interests. I like illustration, comics, animation and then some. Making games can involve all of those so it's perfect! I'm glad to be a part of the forum. It seems like an amazing resource for all my questions. I hope I can contribute as well.

[PlasticOstrich]

Name: Lisa
Company: Baby Eish Games
Site: http://www.babyeishgames.com
Occupation: Game Developer, freelance writer, tarot card reader, and "household executive" (apparently, that's the politically correct term for housewife).
Location: Cape Town, South Africa (but originally from NYC)

After watching Tom Hanks in "Big" as a kid, I wanted to be a toy tester. This is about as close as it gets.

[Matthew Doucette]

Name: Matthew Doucette
Company: Xona Games
Occupation: Video Game Developer (aka everything)
Location: Canada
Hobbies: Video games, board games, puzzles, Rubik's Cube, Weightlifting, Basketball, etc...

Currently working on Duality: ZF: http://dualityzf.com/

[Niels.Stephan]

Name: Niels Stephan
Company: Self employed
Occupation: Game translator (ENG>GER)
Location: Germany

I am a freelance translator with more than 8 years in English-to-German localization for the gaming industry. I was working on games for all major systems in various genres in the past.
Feel free to contact me if you want your game localized into German. I'm always interested in talking about projects.

[BlackBoxBETA]

Name: Jon Skinner
Company: Self Employed
Occupation: Web community admin
Location: UK

Hey, I'm a self-styled graphics and web designer now working on personal projects instead of working for the "man". I love to design and draw, and although I'm not that hot at any programming I'm always happy to heklp out with any graphics that are needed. In my free time I play Bass guitar and race nitro cars.

My current project is a beta testing community site aimed at providing a resoure of motivated testers with real incentive to provide detailed/quality feedback. The site will also host beta files/publicity stuffz/game servers etc so feel free to give me a shout if you'd like some testing or use of our services.

Looking forward to being part of the community here

[m3xican]

Name: Davide Coppola
Company: Curve Studios
Occupation: game programmer
Location: England -> London
Homepage: http://www.m3xbox.com
Twitter: vivaladav

I'm Italian, but after I got my (useless) MSc in computer science last year I moved to London to join the game industry.

Previously I was working on a open-source game called "Mars, land of no mercy", but unfortunately I neved had enough spare time to finish it, so at the moment the project is freezed.

Now I'm working on a indie game in my spare time (almost every night), but it's still in a ealry stage, I hope to have some news to post soon.

[Complex Games]

Looking forward to joining the discussion on Indiegamer. We have been around since 2002 but have just recently joined this community.

We are close to releasing our first game, Pirates Ahoy! We are also looking to release some iPhone games.

Name: Noah Decter-Jackson
Company: Complex Games
Occupation: Game Designer
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Homepage: http://www.complexgames.com
Twitter: complexgames

[Sue]

Name : Sue Moseley
Company: Moseley Multimedia Ltd
Position: Director

Hi everyone. A little about myself:

I have been working in the e-Learning development field for the last decade or so, but have been getting rather tired of late with the feasting/fasting cycle of income; so I've decided to change to something that has the potential to bring money in 'while I sleep' at a hopefully more consistent rate than I've been used to. I also want to have a lot more fun - e-learning is just not a lot of fun anymore - long story - I won't bore you with the details.

I'm coming to the last couple of months of studying for an MScIT with Liverpool University, which has given me a lot to think about; in particular, what I'd really like to be doing for a living, and I've decided it's casual games.

I've already got an idea for my first game, which is going to be a hidden object/adventure game, built in Flash (only because I'm already familiar with it). I can't wait to get stuck in - just have to get the MSc out of the way first.

I expect I'll be hanging round this site quite a lot.

[gutripper]

Name: Paul Turbett
Company : Black Lab Games
Occupation : Game Developer
Website : www.blacklabgames.com.au
Blog : www.blacklabgames.com.au/blog
Background : I guess my Linked-in profile is a good summary

Hi, just found this thread and thought I'd add my name to the list.

I started making games as a hobby in the mid-80s, and it's all I've ever wanted to do. I've started a few small companies over the years (the first was in 1991), and recently worked for other peoples companies, as the local industry in my home town (Perth, Western Australia) has grown.

I'm pretty excited about the possibilities for independent development, now that games as a hobby are becoming more mainstream, and the barriers between creators and players are breaking down (in theory, at least ).

[luciddeveloper]

Name: Jeremy Maughan
Occupation : Web Developer
Location: Provo, Utah USA
Blog : http://solarfrontier.blogspot.com/
Background : Been a web developer for over 10 years. I know a bunch of programming languages and love everything and anything on the web. I have worked on a few browser games in the past and figured I should really make one of my own.
Hobbies: Photography, Magic the Gathering, programming, design, reading and playing games.

I am excited to find a place where others have the same passions that I do.

[Twitchfactor]

Wow, never noticed this thread before... even though I don't spend as much time here as I used to, here are my vitals:

NAME: Tony Barnes
COMPANY: Currently Electronic Arts
OCCUPATION: Design Director
LOCATION: OC, CA. USA

BACKGROUND: I've been in the videogame business longer than many have been alive. Starting in the 80's, when I was 12, I worked on Vic-20's, C64's, TRS-80's, Apple's, Amiga's, Atari 8/16-bits, making "one-man-band" games (or "indie" games as you kids call them nowadays), where I programmed, art, design, music, etc... the whole works. Eventually, I joined the ranks of professionals, working for such companies as; Electronic Arts, Crystal Dynamics, THQ, Collective, Rockstar, Psygnosis and even Reflexive (unfortunately). Some of my bigger contributions to have been; The Strike Series (Desert, Jungle, Urban, Soviet, Nuclear), Madden Football, Legacy of Kain, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Midnight Club Racing, Star Wars: Episode III, Zoetrope/Cyberpaint, AMOS/STOS programming languages, etc.

HOBBIES: Cars (the faster and meaner, the better), my family, music (composing, remixing), video editing (trailers primarily), game making (not what I LIKE to do, not what I LOVE to do, what I was BORN to do!)

[supershigi]

NAME: Laura Shigihara
WEBSITE: www.mybluedream.com
OCCUPATION: Composer/Game Designer
LOCATION: CA

BACKGROUND: I've been working as a freelance VGM sound designer and composer for the past 5 years. I've done soundtracks for about 15 published titles so far, my most recent project being Plants vs. Zombies. I've also been independently developing a Super Nintendo style rpg for the past couple of years. And of course, I've been playing video games since the original NES ^_^

HOBBIES: video games (my favorites: Chrono Trigger, Megaman 2-5, Starcraft, Yoshi's Island, Secret of Mana, etc.), hiking, dancing, making music and singing, baking, Shotokan, drawing, trying out new restaurants, going on adventures...

[marque_pierre]

Name: Marque Pierre Sondergaard
Company: Imagination Technologies
Occupation: Business Development & Marketing
Location: London, UK
Hobbies: gaming, art, psychology, business strategy, cinematography & visual storytelling,

I have loved gaming deeply since I saw that big old Atari Gauntlet arcade machine on that fateful summer day in 1985. After jealously watching the Commodore 64 enthusiasts from the sidelines I finally joined the revolution with my beloved Commodore Amiga 500. Taught myself to program Assembler on it - what other options did you have back then, if you wanted something on screen? But Deluxe Paint was much more the place where I felt at home. I got involved with various outfits on the demo scene and explored the joys of pixel art through those outlets.

Since then, I decided against pursuing games - to be fair it never actually crossed my mind that it could be a job as such - and have worked in quite a few different business roles.

In 2002 I went back to university and retooled via a Bachelor degree in Games Art and Design from University of Teesside. I went on to study games on postgrad level at Liverpool John Moores University as well.

I have been involved in about a million mod teams and small indie games efforts. Some I have put together myself, others I have joined.

On a professional level in the games industry, I have done testing and art, and now I do business development and marketing for a graphics hardware company towards the games industry.

I love games and I love making games. I suspect that will never change. After all, the joy of creating - to point to something and say "I made this!" - how do you beat that?

[GnadeGames]

Name: Mike Gnade
Company: Graduate Games
URL: http://www.graduategames.com and http://www.indiegamemag.com
Occupation: PartTime Indie Game Developer + Part Time Indie Game Mag Editor + Full Time Boring Desk Job
Location: Outside Philly, PA

I started making games when I was 12-13ish. I never really finished anything, but it was a fun hobby. I rediscovered my passion for game programming and producing while I was in graduate school in 2005 (hence the studio name). Since then, I have released 2 casual-type family games and started the Indie Game Magazine in 2008. The Indie Game Magazine has done really well it's first year and has greatly surpassed the revenue of my 2 games. We're not giving up on game development though and recently refocused and restarted a project we were passionate about when we formed the company.

Since 2005, I've learned a ton from these forums and hope to shift to full time indie by the end of 2010.

that's good for now.

[Sue]

The Indie Game Magazine has done really well it's first year and has greatly surpassed the revenue of my 2 games.

When I try and access your site in Internet Explorer I get a message saying the site cannot be opened, operation aborted (even though I can see it in the background). When I click OK on the feedback box it takes me to a blank page. It works fine in Firefox. You should check this out, if people can't access your games that could be why you've had less revenue from thme than than your magazine.

[ChrisP]

That's great that IGM is doing well for you - I honestly wasn't sure that it'd be viable. I'm very glad to be proven wrong! Best of luck with growing it further.

[GnadeGames]

When I try and access your site in Internet Explorer I get a message saying the site cannot be opened, operation aborted (even though I can see it in the background). When I click OK on the feedback box it takes me to a blank page. It works fine in Firefox. You should check this out, if people can't access your games that could be why you've had less revenue from thme than than your magazine.

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it.

[lightassassin]

Name: Benjamin Jarvinen
Company: Currently unnamed
URL: Coming eventually
Occupation: Customer Service / Student / Part Time indie
Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Background:
Currently working my way through uni studying Applied Computer Science, majoring in Software Engineering and minoring in Games design. Spend all my spare time working on my own projects with my brother (he's 2d/3d artist).

Hoping to get up and running within the next year to grow our business to the point where it becomes the fulltime job, which no doubt will take a few years (joys of being young). Been lurking here for awhile and just wanted to jump into the community and try contribute.

[CraigStroenker]

I am Craig Stroenker, right now I am in school, so I haven't progressed much and because of my daytime work. But 1 more year and Im done.

[Another Soundscape]

Name: Mattias Häggström Gerdt
Company: Morsel Games / freelance
URL: http://anosou.com/ http://playmorsel.com/
Occupation: Freelancing composer/game designer, part of Morsel Games
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Background:
Been doing music all my life, got into the indie scene in 2008 when I got to score a few Xbox Live Indie Game titles (then called Community Games). It has followed that path since. I've scored roughly 10 games including Dream Build Play finalists Artoon and Kaleidoscope. I also contributed tracks to Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix together with OverClocked ReMix ( http://ocremix.org ) where I'm also a remixer and part of the staff.

Game music is basically my passion in every way. I compose, arrange, write essays, study and try to enlighten people about it. Indie games in general have very varying quality of music and even if some music is fantastic, it lacks the fits-like-a-glove quality of professional game/film music. My goal is to really, REALLY make music that fits to make every game I work on a more engaging experience.

[Sos]

Name: Mikołaj Kamiński
Company: ghbrvlowabrvfladberogvlwrvfwlo games
URL: http://ghbrvlowabrvfladberogvlwrvfwlo.pl/
Occupation: Uberlord
Location: Poland

Background:
IRL I am actually an english teacher in pirmary school, but i guess no one cares, so now about my dev bg.

I have been making games since 1999. My first steps were made on C64 assembler. I love compos, especially the speedhack "make game in x hours" ones.
Also I love making music.
I guess that's it.

[TomQS]

Hello everyone, allow me to introduce myself. I have recently found this forums and would like to join the community.

Name: Tom Vrda
Homepage: www.qsoftz.com
Occupation: Senior developer currently working in automotive industry
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Games published: Add-Venture - risk clone for Windows Mobile, 2006


Background:
I have been programming since the 90's, and have worked in various corporate setups, from programming embedded systems to GUI development in PyGtk.
I'm really sick and tired of my day-jobs and am currently in the process of gathering all the little bits together and going indie full time.

These forums are a source of a lot of motivation and inspiration for me.

See you around
Tom

[virious]

Name: Lukasz Lukasik
Company: Bionic Nose
URL: http://www.bionicnose.net
Occupation: Game programmer
Location: Poland

Hello, this is my first post here . Currently I'm working at "Two Worlds II" as a game programmer and I have about 3 years of working experience (~12 years of coding in my life ). Even though I'm employeed, I'm trying to hit into the indie business and I hope I will find needed information thanks to all your help guys and gals .

[j.klugmann]

Hi there! =)

My name is Jesse Klugmann and i'm a young hobby-gamedeveloper.My interests are graphics programming,game programming,philosophy and the internet.I'm also a member of the german Chaos Computer Club.I am developing 2 engines since three years and now i'm starting my first commercial game project for the Xbox360 and the PC.I have also some experiences with AI and the .Net-Framework.I have no position in a company, because i'm a student.In my freetime i work for a local software developer company.

Greetings, Jesse Klugmann

PS: Please forgive me my bad english! :P

[speeder]

Name: Maurício Gomes (actually, it is way longer, this part is what matters)
Company: Awesome Games Factory
Site: www.agfgames.com
Occupation: Starving student
Location: São Paulo, Brazil.


I am a Game Design student (stupid idea taking that course), I am finishing my degree (or trying), and I need to figure a way to move out of my country, I fear that I won't survive (literally... I witnessed already 2 firefights from my bedroom window, in two different cities that I lived, among other bad stuff) to release all the games I want if I stay.

Currently I am trying to make my first commercial release, without money... But I think that I can still do it Even if it is insanely hard.

[borneogamer]

Name: Jonathan Ho
Company: To Be Done
Site: To Be Done
Occupation: Just Quit
Location: Sabah, Malaysia


I just quit my day job to pursue my life-long dream, start a game company. I like all kinds of games, but most especially the RPG/Simulation type like Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher, Princess Maker, etc.

Working on my first demo and an HTML 5 game engine...

[Dri]

Name: Adrien Debesson
Company: D2P Games
Occupation: Part time student, part time game developer
Location: Montreal, Canada

Background:

I started developing games really early as a kid with RPG Maker 2000, my specialty was starting a project, work on it for a week, then restart everything with even more ambition. It's not a good way to finish things but it's a good way to learn
After this I jumped into programming and C++ because "everyone know it's better". My productivity goes worse than ever before, instead of half-finishing games I was half-finishing engines. But it was super-interesting and I learned a ton of things.

One year ago I've started an independent game company with two friends, D2P Games. We released our first game, Reckless Squad two weeks ago and are now moving to new projects

Hobbies:
Video games of course, but also movies, books, music, etc.
I love drawing too and dedicate a fair amount of time practicing, as it helps me in my game developer job.


PS: I hope my english is good enough (I'm living in Canada but I'm french), feel free to correct me, I need input to improve

[Substance20]

Substance20
Name: Michael Lee
Company: None (solo)
Occupation: Former 2D artist/art director
Location: Philippines

Background:

Graduated with a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts - Advertising. Had a short stint as a layout artist for a fashion and modeling magazine before getting chance to work at Anino Games as a 2D artist. Became a lead artist and eventually Art Director after almost 3 years, mostly working on hidden object games, before deciding to quit and pursue entrepreneurship. The very last game I worked on was Dream Inn: The Driftwood, published by Crown ADAM.

Ironically the very first game I was assigned to while in Anino was SteveZ's "Enlighten", which was the working title before it became Enlightenus (Steve, if you're looking at this, I was the guy that drew the lineart-heavy concept work and also did the touchups for the rendered scenes--a different person did the painted ones. That was the company's very first hidden object game back in 2008 and so we had no idea what we were doing--lol.). So, yes, I know at least two guys who visit these forums.

I am currently making an indie shoot-'em-up using Game Maker 8.0, using what little software engineering background I have.

Pleased to meet everybody.