https://gcms.regione.emilia-romagna.it/templatecms/down.asp?id=1052293&state=notlive
this is the current situation in my region. Not bad as I thought, even if the HDSL offer is prohibitive for small companies like mine. I really hope the new elected president of Emilia Romagna, dr. Errani, will mantain his promises to fully cover the region by end of 2006.
In my new house that is under the Town of “Albareto” (province of Parma), I actually can have only ISDN connection that is not exactly the best one available… 🙂
I was thinking about buying a satellite connection, but I’ll just wait some months to see if maybe ADSL will become available in my town (even if my house is far away from the town center, just behind a mountain – I like being an heremite!).

I have almost finished the “victory screen” of Magic Stones 🙂 this screen shows up when you either win or you are defeated in the battle. It also shows you your improvements in mastering the various runes (spells) of the game, as well as your current artifacts status (they can deteriorate and break) and also new ones you got (only if you were exploring a dungeon).
Finally, you also see how much experience you made in the battle. You can make experience even if you lose the battle, but not if you retire/flee from the battlefield!

Yes, I finished the battle system between druids in Magic Stones! 🙂 I’m quite happy with it, the opponent druids are not brilliant but surely not completely stupid (and anyone who tried programming AI in a battle game know what I’m talking about!).
Now I “just” need to add the dungeon exploration mode, and some stuff there and there (like the victory/defeat screen, the item management, etc).
What it started like just another clone of card games turned out into something completely different and much much bigger (and better, in my opinion). That’s the cool thing of being an indie, no deadlines to respect ! (well, almost no deadlines..!)

Here in Italy we have absurd temperatures… average of 33°C with 60% humidity minimum 🙁
No need to say that is impossible to work with computer in such conditions…! so I guess I’ll have to take a forced break from my job until the heat stops… I don’t want absolutely to buy an A/C for that!

On indieforum site my friend cliffsky asked an interesting question about market saturation.
Many people agreed that there’s no need to worry about them in indie market. I believe it so, even if I am not too enthusiastic about it. I believe it all depends on what COMPETITION you have.
Say you make another of those align 3 color game… unless it has a good graphics or at least some innovative ideas (very hard), you’re likely to sell close to zero 😛
Same thing applies for all kind of games. If you make a basketball management game, and there’s little competition, you might continue to sell it for 10 years. But if after 2 months another similar game comes out which beats yours 10 a zero, you’ll sell much less.
Still, my first game USM was basically a soccer management game like the Championship manager series with only one advantage over it: the speed of execution. That was enough and is still enough to get some sales every month, after 2 years… 😉