I need a new laptop, but I need money.
Posted: September 27, 2011 Filed under: General Stuffs 19 Comments »Short Version:
My laptop bust and I need a new one or I can’t make games. Can’t afford a new one so please give me money in exchange for artwork that I’ll make when I get the new laptop. here’s what I have to offer:
- £100 high res, detailed line art of anything you please.
- £200 high res, coloured art of anything you please.
- £300 low poly 3D character or object, your choice again.
- £1,179 (insta-solve my problem) I make a small game especially for you, of your design. obviously this has limits, something that’s the around level of my prototypes or completed LD games.
Long Version:
So my present laptop has served me well over the years, but it’s been on it’s last legs for some time now, and yesterday it finally decided it had done enough. I can now use it to write this, and browse the net, but nothing more. It’s time to let his thing sleep, I need a new laptop.
but, I can’t afford a new laptop.
That’s a serious problem, I can’t afford to pay rent or bills either, and I can only afford to eat for so long, but I was hoping this laptop would last long enough for me to make something that would sell well enough to cover all that. (and it *almost* did, my current project Swift*Stitch is so near beta I can taste it, but alas it still needs a few weeks before it’s ready for release). without a working laptop, I can’t work. I can’t work on any of my projects or stand any chance of landing contract/freelance work, it pretty much leaves me dead in the water.
So I’m writing this. by my calculations, I need £1,779 for a new laptop and windows (for those curious, I am hoping for a macbook pro with a hi-res screen and windows 7 home). And after putting thought to how I could get that money together, here’s what I’ve got:
- Ad Revenue: As some of you know, I’ve not collected the ad revenue I’ve earned on kongregate. I’m not comfortable profiting directly from adverts, and I said I wouldn’t collect the money unless I needed it. well now I need money, so that’s £600 total to add to my pot. (yep, that means you’ll never hear me say “I managed to get by without accepting ad revenue, therefore you may gloat now :P)
- My savings: I have none, I’ve £98 in the bank right now, I’d rather not touch this so I can afford to eat for the next few months. I’ve not got anything I can sell to raise money besides my PS3. I don’t expect I’ll get a significant amount for it but if I can’t reach my target through the options listed below, I’ll happily trade it in. playing games is only going to taunt me if I can’t make them.
- Buy it and pay with instalments: Already applied for this, got rejected. 🙁
- Asking people for money: This is out of the question to me right now, I got in this mess myself after all, and I’ve relied on the charity and kindness of others just to survive this long without anything really selling anyway. frankly it feels like crap and I’m not going to ask for money unless it’s in exchange for something.
- Crowdfunding (kickstarter-type stuff): this is tricky, because I don’t really have anything to offer 100s of people, it’s been suggested I put Lottie’s Dungeon or swift*stitch as a reward for people who fund the game, but I’d rather not. partly because once I’ve got my laptop, I want to be able to sell those to cover all the rent and bills I owe. and also because whilst I am the one making those games, I’m not the only person invested in them, I have musicians who have put a lot of time into making music for those games (and done a great job). They deserve to get paid for their work, and I’m not about to trade the (brilliant) work that they have done for a laptop that they aren’t ever going to use. so if crowdfunding, I’d need something else to offer. (if you can think of something, feel free to make a suggestion, otherwise that leaves:)
- Commissioned work: Somebody gives me money, and in exchange I make something especially for them. this is my preferred choice, I don’t need to offer stuff to 100s of people, just a handful. it means that handful individually will be handing over more money per person, but I give them something worth much more in return.
- £100 high res, detailed line art of anything you please.
- £200 high res, coloured art of anything you please.
- £300 low poly 3D character or object, your choice again.
- £1,179 (insta-solve my problem) I make a small game especially for you, of your design. obviously this has limits, something that’s the around level of my prototypes or completed LD games.
I don't like advertising.
Posted: January 6, 2011 Filed under: General Stuffs 24 Comments »ok, a disclaimer first of all, since it’s my experience this can become a very hot topic very quickly, and people feel they need to defend themselves. I AM NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD NOT ADVERTISE OR ACCEPT MONEY FROM ADVERTISING. If that’s how you feed yourself and the people you support, and keep a roof over your head, I’m not about to say that you should give up that security, I know all too well it’s shit being broke, and I know that there are people in my family even who rely on income from marketing stuff. I’m not about to tell my sister and her boyfriend that their unborn kid would be better off if it’s dad were to quit his job and find something else to do.
Unity Tutorials, BCS talk at Glasgow Caledonian
Posted: October 27, 2010 Filed under: General Stuffs | Tags: talks, tutorials, unity 6 Comments »So I recently gave a talk at the Glasgow Caledonian University, which was more or less built on my world of love talk, but with a few extras and tweaks. if you want slides and my planned text, view this post in full to check that out if you like 🙂
Also I did a couple of Unity3D masterclasses, and some folks asked for some unity tutorials so as promised, here you are you guys 🙂
- unity3dstudent.com (Site by Will Goldstone, who wrote the book on unity)
- Infinite Ammo Tutorials (Alec Holowka knows his stuff)
- Introduction to JavaScript (good for beginner programmers)
- Unity user manual (might seem obvious but too many people overlook it)
- Unity script reference (covers everything plus it has example code)
also worth checking out:
- Unity Answers (someone has probably had your problem and solved it before)
- Unify Community wiki (lots of handy stuff)
- Unity Chat – irc.freenode.net/unity3d (friendly people who are helpful)
- Unity Forums (kind of a no brainer to check out this place :p)
- Google (plenty of other people are doing unity stuff, you might find it useful)
Ok, I think I’m all linked out for now, I hope that’s helpful, and of course if you are looking for help and cant find it, email me and I’ll try and point you in the right direction 🙂
next up is the talk, view this post in full to see it 🙂
Indie Kombat
Posted: September 1, 2010 Filed under: General Stuffs | Tags: indiekombat Leave a comment »
So this is happening this month: indiekombat.com
Making Games is EASY, and I won apparently
Posted: July 14, 2010 Filed under: General Stuffs 20 Comments »
So a few things to report here, firstly I was asked to write an article for Develop magazine and they kindly made it the cover article for this month’s issue which was super nice. the article is pretty much about getting started making games on a cheap budget, and how to keep going, you can read it online here (pages 18-19)
I was also sort of interviewd with a few other cool folks for an article in a previous issue which is now available right on their blog type features thing: its mostly people talking about what it’s like being indie and indie issues and this is the link to that.
And as I mentioned in my last post, I was a speaker at the World of Love conference last month, I understand videos will be uploaded of the talks at some point (I suspect the new footage of Subversion and Eskil Steenberg’s tools will be the hottest things on the internet once they are) and I’ll link that here when it’s available. (even though I was pretty shakey and probably not so understandable).
the talk was titled ‘computer games are awesome, but you suck because you haven’t made one yet, you lazy bastard.‘ and I spoke about how it puzzles me that some people who want to make games don’t, and list off a few reasons why they should. I’ll post what I planned to say after the jump so view this post in full if you want to read it. 🙂
