So today is the beginning of Indie Games Con 2007. We’ll be starting the event today with associates and friends around Eugene and the world. This is going to be short because its the beginning but check back as we’ll be sure to have many images and a lot of cool info from the event.

Tomorrow really kicks the event off with Alex Seropian, the initial founder and the President and CEO of Bungie. Who went on to start Wideload Games. After that its good times hanging out and getting to know people in the industry. Check this link for a full schedule of the events and stay tuned.

I’ll be back!

The people over at HermitWorks Entertainment have announced a playable preview of Space Trader. Because I’m tired and its getting later in the day I’ll just post some snippets from the Press Release below:

“HermitWorks Entertainment Announces playable preview of Space Trader™

Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada (August 8, 2007) - HermitWorks Entertainment, an independent game developer, has announced today the playable preview of their action-trading game Space Trader is now available to the public. Space Trader’s innovative game design lets players experience fast paced trading with intense combat.

About Space Trader
Players assume the role of Space Trader in an alternate future universe. Their goal is to make as much money possible within a time limit. Players make money by leasing cargo ships, traveling to planets and trading with merchants. Merchants trade anything from iron ore to organs, finding successful trade routes between these merchants is the skill of the Space Trader. On the planets surface shady informants reveal the location of black markets while legitimate merchants are extorted by underground gangs. Players can turn a blind eye to these transgressions or hunt down the gangs for rewards and return stability to the markets.

Pricing And Availability
The playable preview of Space Trader for Windows is available at http://www.playspacetrader.com .

The full version of Space Trader is available for Windows and can be purchased at http://www.playspacetrader.com for $19.95 (USD).”

Now that you all know, you should play the demo. Strange, I don’t have anything else witty or funny (at least in my mind) to add to this post. Guess it’ll just be informative.

You guessed it, GGE has hit the 15,000 users mark, just a couple short weeks after reaching 4,000 games. The user tally includes over 2,500 developers. That should be an exciting number for those looking to find people to work with on their game project. It’s also an exciting number for gamers, as they have a chance to play an assortment of innovative titles that are fully developed or in-progress. Developers also have a chance to reach a broad audience of gamers, which, if my elementary school education holds up, approaches 12,500 users. And that doesn’t even include visitors who aren’t signed up to the site.

Don’t worry. With the help of our army of developers and gamers, we’ll snag those visitors eventually too.

GarageGames, Great Games Experiment, and My GM Game are proud to sponsor the first Game Development Competition.

Beginning on Wednesday, July 18th game developers will be able to submit their games into the competition which runs for two months until Tuesday, September 18th.  The contest theme is comedy, so developers are encouraged to get their humor in gear and integrate the funny into the game.  Personally, I like a game with humor in it so this should be fun.

You can find more information about the competition including rules and guidelines on the contest site.  All game entries must be posted on GGE so be sure to check back often to get a glimpse of the new games that are competing. 

Prizes and Voting

At the close of the competition 10 finalists (chosen by a group of judges) from each category will be chosen and thrown into a public vote to determine that category winner.  That means its up to you guys who wins!  Categories include RPG, RTS, Puzzle, and more.  For the full list head here. 

Finally, winners of each category are matched against each other for another vote to determine the Grand Prize Winner.  The Grand Prize Winner will receive the entire Torque Suite (TGB, TGE, TGEA), winners from each category will receive a Torque Game Engine license from GarageGames.  The Combustion Ent Choice Award will receive 1 Year Free Domain Name sponsored by mygmgame.com. 

Hopefully we’ll see a lot of entries and a lot of cool games from this on GGE.  I’ll be voting, hopefully laughing (let’s see if you’ve got what it takes), and enjoying new games, and you should too. 

Get your gaming development tools ready and make those games funny.

Remember!!!

-Dr Wiley

To honor our rockin’ new orange GGE t-shirts, We’ve gone ahead and released our first GGE application on the new Facebook platform.

This app is true gamer bling, with quick and easy integration of our Gamelist Central into your Facebook profile

If you don’t have a Facebook profile yet, I strongly suggest you fire one up

Head here to add the GGE Gamelist application to your profile.

If you don’t have a GGE account yet, then I just died a little bit inside, but head here to get started

There’s plenty of cool stuff coming down the pipe so don’t miss the party!!!

–Sean

Earlier today, Iamthefox became the 10,000th user to sign up for the GreatGamesExperiment. To celebrate, we’ve decided to give Iamthefox his choice of any 2 games from the GarageGames Game Store!

Congrats to Iamthefox, and to the first 9,999 users, for helping make GGE a success! Along with 10,000+ users, GGE is also steadily closing in on 4,000 games. We’ll keep you updated on further milestones as the site and community continues to build.

So there’s been a lot of action going on lately around GGE.  Let’s get started with all the goodies.

First the Navbar has been redesigned and added a Gamelist section header.  Now it’s easier to get those gamelists set up — and there’s more features with the Gamelists coming soon, very cool stuff.  Keep your eyes peeled.  

Speaking of Gamelists, you may have noticed the featured gamelist on the front page.  It changes daily, so if you want to be on the coveted front page all you have to do is create a good gamelist with comments and we’ll sniff you out and get you your moment.  

One of the newest cool features that has been integrated into the site recently is the News Feed in your account page.  Now you can see what’s happening with your friends, the games that you’ve bookmarked, groups, and multiple other areas of the site all in one easy to find location.  You can even subscribe to the news feed as it churns out an RSS feed.  Get updates from anywhere!

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Finally, one little update that should make everyone’s lives a bit easier.  The help tab has made it’s way back to the navbar!  In the form of a question mark you can have most of your answers about GGE solved very quickly.  And don’t worry, we’re working on making the help docs even more comprehensive with tips and tricks to get your games out there and how to navigate the site in general.  Oh yeah, the home tab is now a house!  Yup, that’s about all I got for now.  Have a good weekend everyone.

The Great Games Experiment is a great place to come and play, but it is also a very useful tool. Developers can use this site to promote their games, find contacts, and interact with the very gamers that are most interested in their games. So, we would like to highlight one of the many features that can help you get your game out there: Any game page can also be used as a subdomain. Your subdomain is simply “gametitle.greatgamesexperiment.com.” You can use this to link people to the game page quickly and easily, and it looks a bit more professional than the normal www.greatgamesexperiment.com/game/gametitle. For instance, you could use this domain on a business card or on any printed materials that you send out with your game.

The GGE game pages offer you a home for your game. There are so many different ways you can configure the page that nearly all the information and media that you would like people to see, can be seen. We are currently working on a help document to give a little more information on how GGE can be used as development/promotional tool, and a good one at that. Many sites host games with no face behind them, we have some of those too, but are dedicated to providing a space for those who wish to get their name and games out there to do so.

An example so you don’t forget, the url: http://monkeyisland2.greatgamesexperiment.com will bring you directly to the Monkey Island 2 game page. Quick and easy.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Ahhh, it’s good to have another Friday roll around and even better to have a blog. It’s been a busy busy week for the makers of GGE. Lots of new additions with more to come soon. So let’s dive into what’s been going on around the site.

Firstly, we’ve got the new sharing of badges for games and users. It’s now easier than ever to grab those game and user badges and post them on your own blogs, forums, and other websites.
Full story here.

You may now notice that when you click “Play Now” for any given game, that you are taken to a view that looks different than before.

You can now rate the game right while you’re playing it! Also included are quick links to the game related pages.

The new Recommendation Engine also provides you with games that others have enjoyed. Read the full announcement here.

Gamelists are here with a vengeance. It’s now easier to create the lists and share them. Head to Gamelist Central to get started. Once you’ve got your list made you can view other people’s lists that contain the same game. In addition modules have been added to the bottom of game profiles so you can easily find similar games and gamers that also like that game.

Finally, there has been a complete face lift in the look of the different sections on the site. Check out the games section to see what I’m talking about. Fancy!

Finally, just wanted to drive a little traffic over to a blog that we’ve found written by Weefz about the Great Games Experiment. Check it out!

And that about wraps it up. Enjoy your weekend.

As one of the new GarageGames interns, I’ve decided that it is time for me to step out into the light and start spreading the love. You may have noticed the recent addition of the “share” feature for nearly every aspect of GGE. This tool allows you to show off some of the coolest elements of the site. Post your favorite games, your badge or even the badges of your favorite gamers and developers with a simple copy and paste and instantly add serious flavor to your blog or personal website. The share tool is designed to help you express yourself. Tell others about which games you find the most interesting or fun, support your favorite Indie developer or just show off your own badge.

Sharing also enhances the gamelist function. For instance, if you have your gamelist posted on your website, but wanted to feature a particular game, the share tool would allow you to post a badge for a single game instantly, with all of its stats (views, rating, number of times rated, etc.). A pretty good example of how the share tool can be used to accentuate a website is The Gaming Realm’s blog. So, check out the share function and start sharing GGE with the world.