'So you want to be an indie games developer?'

19:30, Nov 20th by Michael French at developmag.com

A gang of indie developers have bandied together for a multi-blog-spanning project that offers advice to aspiring games makers.

Introversion (Uplink, Darwinia, Defcon) and Cliff Harris (Democracy) are just two of those that have taken part in the 'So you want to be an indie games developer?' project, put together by Dan Marshall, the creator of indie game Gibbage

The set of mini-essays takes its queues from a recent run of entries on blogs by UK games journalists (called 'So you want to be a games journalist?'), but rather than wax lyrical and/or preach, the indie devs are hellbent on offering realistic advice and guidance - and in total the pieces offer a unique barometer of what's going on in the indie games development scene.

While educator and previous Team 17 staffer Phil Carlisle points out on his entry that it's not a field to work in should you be out to make money, Introversion's entry says it's "one of the best times in the past few years" to be an indie developer.

The three-man team adds: "The industry is changing and the budding independent is, if not the only flavour of the month, certainly becoming one. Why is this? We have quite a few theories about this at Introversion. Partly we feel that there is a renewed interest, shall we say nostalgia, for those early days of game programming, when everything was unique and innovative."

More from each of the contributors can be found at the following links:

Gibbage.co.uk
Cliffski’s Mumblings
GameProducer.net
Lemmy and Binky
Reality Fakers
Zoombapup
Introversion
They Came From Hollywood
Bonebroke