Is really fun to discover, when talking privately to fellow programmers, that most of the successful indie developers are not what is commonly considered “a good programmer”.
For me,a good programmer is the one that gets the job done. In time, without (not many) bugs, etc. Language or ultra-knowledge of all latest tecniques does not matter.
Not the one who makes the best C++ ultra-polymorphic engine 😉 but often people are like that, and then they find out that they can’t port their code to other platform like Mac Os X because they used a particular class/structure/library etc.
I won’t make the names because I want to respect their privacy. But is not a secret to anyone that Platypus was made with Blitzbasic and was in the top 10 of the best casual games portal around… so you really don’t have to be an expert programmer to be successful in this industry.

Today I uploaded the first expansion for my game Magic Stones, “The Bonelord”.
Is still BETA version even if I think there shouldn’t be any serious bugs 🙂

If you want to try, check those links:
http://www.winterwolves.net/games/MagicStonesTrial.zip (mac)
http://www.winterwolves.net/games/MagicStonesTrial.exe (win)

you’re welcome to report any bugs or give feedback!

I read on indiegamer forum the “sad” news of my friend Cliff being fired from his daily job. That sucked for him I suppose, but I am glad that someone as talented as him now joined the indie developers world.
I supposed now he will have mixed feeling, but if things will go well for him (which I hope), I’m sure he will be more than happy of the indie lifestyle!

…if things go bad, he can alwasy try to relocate in New Zealand, since he’s british he should have big chances of getting in there 😉

I was talking with Emmanuel (funpause owner) yesterday about the importance of having a forum. He objected that since he makes prevalently casual games, he thinks that his customers would find a forum quite useless.
Instead for software houses like mine who makes complex games, definitely not casual (like UBM or Magic Stones) having a forums can really help.
Help both you and other players/customers.
You first as developer: as you may know if you’re a programmer, there’s always a very well hidden bug somewhere in the code, and more people can test and easily report it (like in a forum). I fixed many bugs thanks to comments of people in forums. I also post there if “that bug XX was already fixed in version 1.31” so even other people who have same problem can just take a look and find a solution for their problem.

Yes it happened again!!! I can’t stop playing it!! the improvements over the previous game are incredible!! even if is more difficult to play. The shards thing is quite annoying to be honest, I kept dying in a zone called “Weiling Caves” and every time I tried to search it back, I just died again! 🙂
Luckily after 72h of real time they disappear…
In the meanwhile, Magic Stones is featured on Apple.com and I’m very pleased of that 🙂 not only casual games need recognition!!