PC Gaming is not dead, as much as it’s debated about…and the best Game of The Year 2010 was not Starcraft II, or Black Ops, or Civ 5. The best Game of the Year was Minecraft, and it’s not even finished yet. It proves that the indie model of small teams, low budgets, cheap prices, word-of-mouth, and startling creativity is once again the true center of PC gaming.

Minecraft is providing bulks of inspiration for Indie developers world wide. It’s simple “dated” graphics, sandbox style game, wide accessibility, has become a global cultural phenomenon in as little as a year.

Yes, it proves, a lot, for game development, we need fresh new creative ideas, and having insane rendering methods like parallex bump mapping or specular models make no impact on the project’s success. “Gaming on the Cloud” is also the next true frontier. Steam is doing it, Facebook social games has it, and mobile gaming from iOS and Android markets. Minecraft is a game on the cloud, all you need is a web connection, a “$100 netbook”, and you can hook up with the millions of players from around the world..or still enjoy it offline.

“why make a game to cater to your target audience? why not make a game that I myself would want to play? and then cross your fingers that everyone else out there wants to play it too?”
- Mojang Specifications

simple but still an interesting game concept…not a mechanic we havn’t seen before though.

but i love it! it’s awesomeeee. so dope!

do u know what this is?
im actually gonna go make a few of my own now too hahas..

it’s all about epic mountains and waterfalls and hovering sky gardens ^^!

being developed by Wild Games Studios, slated for release only at the end of next year (end 2011).. =l
i wonder how big the team actually is..some pretty sweet environment work..ilikeilike.
gotta keep notes on this title! be sure to give it a look see

preview trailer can be found at the studio’s game site: http://www.dhailasadventures.com/

and it was really emotional(?) and very inspiring to me when i found a couple cs game servers actually running the map at that very moment…5 years later and people were still actually playing on my level! it brought back so many memories and it was very gratifying to watch them play on the level, and seeing how gameplay continued to unfold with the level’s design. i had joined the most packed server, with 11 players on each team for a total of 22, it was a blast to watch them play and comment about their experience!

i wish i could have recorded an in-game video of it in action, but blast my pc having slight issues and very low on disk space..so the next best thing i did was to take some photos!!

it’s little things like this that keeps me motivated to continue pursuing my passion and dream of being involved in game production in one way or another..

“photos” from today’s trip: ^_^

just what about this 1-man-developed “game” is so intriguing that has millions worldwide addicted?

i decided to give the game a whirl on my own finally, the free version “Classic” is readily available for play in any web browser. In this free version, players simply join a multiplayer game with other people, and build anything they can conjure up in their imaginations, with 1×1 cubes. It’s like Kindergarten and Building Blocks all over again. And that’s it.

the world loves that.

apparently as you can see from this Statistics chart available at the main website.

Last 24 Hours: 7280 Sales.

at €9.95 a piece, or about $16USD a piece, thats already $116,480USD. For just the past 24hours. And because it’s managed, updated, monitored, developed, debugged, all by 1 person, all that money goes straight to him. No publisher to split it with.

what gives? @___@
share your thoughts, why do you play it?

guess which part is real, and what is digital

watch first, then check out the “making of” after…

the stuff coming outta VFS (Vancouver Film School) simply shadows out any of the work coming out of my school..at least in the 4 or 5 years i’ve been at my school, and visiting the winter/spring show events, i don’t recall seeing any kind of work as intense as the work by VFS students. Same degree program, but seems to be a whole different ball game at VFS.

either ways, these are my favorite reels and probably the most inspiring ones. it’s nice to see what another student that went through the same degree program but just at another school can achieve in the same time frame.

cheers and press on.

here’s another really good inspiration for aspiring game developers.

proven yet again and over again, and very strongly with MineCraft, you dont need good art to make a million dollar game.

all it takes is an idea, and then executing it.

Minecraft has been generating more and more news, accordingly, this independantly developed “game” has sold over 200,000 copies, and caused Paypal to freeze the developer’s account due to “suspricious activity”.

In September 2010, Paypal froze Notch’s account due to “a suspicious withdrawal or deposit”. At the time, Notch said there was about €600,000 in the account (about 750,000 US dollars). As of September 12, 2010, the account has been unlocked.

A recent update released for Minecraft which returned over 1000 additional sales instantly within 24hours…and has been steadily continuing to rise.

Games like Minecraft makes me think about Farmville..another absurdly successful game. Game art? Average..Game Design? Outstanding. 80million players for Farmville.

Check it out, there’s a free version of Minecraft too.
Minecraft
Read more about Minecraft and the developer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft

and then, race it.

Racing like the way of Mario-Kart style “battle races”, you get special bonuses during races to take down your friends and boost yourself into the lead. The race tracks themselves are equally whimsical, with random obstacles sprawled all around the environment, shifting bridges, big air jumps…andd after you’re done playing, dive head on into the game’s seemingly-equally-robust racetrack editor! Build the track of your dreams, then share it online with your friends and loved ones, and take them on in your very own “home turf”!

This might just turn out to the competitor of Mario Kart! Only time can tell, ModnationRacers releases May 25th, 2010, on the Playstation 3.