Show HN: Indiedevs.net – A place for indie game developers

by pulse65535 • 5 years ago

82 35 5 years ago

pulse655355• 5 years ago

If you are a creative individual of any type but especially if you are an indie game developer, you are more than welcome to our forums.

It's supposed to be a comfortable and clutter free environment for developers to hang out and exchange ideas. The site just launched recently so there is not much content on it. If you are interested in generating some, we will see you there! :-)

julianlam• 5 years ago

Why not NodeBB, Vanilla, Flarum? Etc.

pulse655355• 5 years ago

The real answer is I'm nostalgic for phpBB. :) I also think it stood the test of time. It may feel clunky at times but it's familiar to most of us that grew up around the early 00s.

nice_byte• 5 years ago

i opened an account. miss forums very much.

vimy2• 5 years ago

There used to be a successful forum like this. I don’t remember the url though, it was a decade ago. Don’t know if it still exists. The guy from Positech Games used to post there frequently. There was also a guy from Finland with a blog called gameproducer or something. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

agd• 5 years ago

Perhaps this? https://forums.tigsource.com/

Lots of indies post there.

pulse655355• 5 years ago

The problem with TIG is that it seems to be fractured on the admin level, and it seems to be in a death spiral right now. The front page hasn't been updated in years. I used to be an active member there and loved it. The site I made is very much inspired by it.

tarr11• 5 years ago

Famous tigsource Minecraft post

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=95koo9rn3ne...

Balooga• 5 years ago

Could it have been this one? http://forums.indiegamer.com/

> "When the original Dexterity Forums closed in 2004, Indie Gamer was born and a diverse community has grown out of a passion for creating great games. "

grujicd• 5 years ago

Yup, that's the one. I was there at that time. I was not very active, but it was valuable nevertheless. Apart from Cliffski (who still has a very successful indie career and insightful blog), I mostly remember princec, who built Java based games which performed like native ones but didn't have much commercial success at the time. Looks like his puppygames is still rolling, so he finally made it work!

jan_Inkepa2• 5 years ago

Interestingly, IIRC the more freewheeling TIGSource, mentioned in another reply to the parent comment, was created in response to the indiegamer community being too doctrinairally business-/casual-games-oriented in its outlook.

The TIGS website was started by Jordan Magnuson (aka flamingpear) and announced to the world on the IndieGamer.com forums in January '05. Initially the site caused consternation among independent developers for its irreverent style and unabashed criticism of the "match three" clones that were prevalent in the "independent" game community. The site rapidly grew in readership, and quickly gained a cult status.

( https://tig.fandom.com/wiki/TIGSource )

ggambetta• 5 years ago

I spent about 10 years very involved in that forum :) Met some of the people at Casual Connect in Seattle, and randomly elsewhere throughout the years. Cliffski is still going at it, Steven Zhao is now running a very successful VR space franchise (Sandbox VR), I've dipped in and out of games (Google -> Improbable -> Google). I remember getting into extensive debates about C++ vs Java with princec. That forum has a special place in my heart <3

vimy2• 5 years ago

Yes, that’s it! :D Learned a lot from that place.

ddtaylor• 5 years ago

Reminds me of Blizcoder

asddubs• 5 years ago

my advice is to try and create a website that has useful resources, and attach the forum to that. It's going to be tough to grow a forum that isn't attached to anything else that draws people in these days

and try to keep the number of forums as small as possible, especially at first, so activity isn't spread out over 12 dead categories

pulse655355• 5 years ago

Decent advice. I originally intended for a homesite, but as I was considering what to put on I realized I would have to conjure up a lot of content for it to be worth it. For now I think it's simply easier to just have a forum, if the demand grows for a homesite I can always add that at some point.

I've actually already cut down the number of forums to what I feel are the manageable and topical ones, I think it should work for now. It's all improvised anyway, I'll see what the demand is over time and remove or add subforums as appropriate. I'm open to community feedback as well.

Rd6n62• 5 years ago

I’m hesitant to participate in more game dev communities unless the people in that community are unusually serious about their projects. That seems somewhat rare unfortunately.

Actually making a commercially viable indie game takes incredible amounts of time, effort, and skill-building, but a lot of people think they can do it without that investment, and it ends up being more of a (highly rewarding) hobby. Talking to them isn’t the same as talking to somebody else who is also neck deep in their own serious project that has real stakes and real complexity

Game jams and small non commercial games are awesome though, that is a great hobby to have if that applies to any of you!

DizzyDoo• 5 years ago

Yeah, I have to agree. I've been a full-time indie game developer for six years now and I'm fortunate that my peer network consists of about 90% people in the same boat, they have a few shipped titles under their belts.

If I want to seriously talk about Steam's discovery algorithm or get some feedback, that can't really just be anyone. And if I want to talk about the game publicly its to get customers, not to show to other game developers.

Not everyone would think the same, and that's okay!

rmbyrro• 5 years ago

Making the same switch now. Any advice on a guide for starting in the right direction?

dqh2• 5 years ago

I just quit my job to pivot to full time indie game development - what serious indie game dev communities can you recommend, if any?

Rd6n62• 5 years ago

Unreal slackers has a good c++ channel. The others, I got invited to through good luck as I got to know people.

Some of the less hardcore channels still have smart, interesting, skilled, and hard working people in them btw, I met a lot of really cool people in them.

jan_Inkepa2• 5 years ago

My experience has been pretty different - though I guess games jams can have very different local flavours depending on where you participate. I found the people who cared enormously about games as games in seemingly trivially-themed game-jam communities, and the bigger/professional/more serious organisations can end up being swamped by professionalism/business considerations (But not always). Thats kinda how I got started, more than 10 years ago. Building up a network of like-minded/interesting/whatever friends I guess was for me critical in my artistic (and professional) development. And when the communities are disrupted, as in which covid, my work gets thrown into confusion. But different people find different environments conductive to making games (of different types), I know... .

panza• 5 years ago

Indie game developer here, 10+ years, multiple commercial titles - this rings true. I mostly spend time in communities where people are in a similar work situation, yet producing different products (programming, art, film etc).

This isn't to disparage intentional game dev communities. They certainly have their place. But often these communities are for hobbyists who want to share screenshots of their A* implementation in Godot (again, that's great), which isn't really useful to me these days.

UnpossibleJim• 5 years ago

Oh! I never thought of talking to indie film makers, but the cross over in process seems to be hugely similar. If you don't mind me asking, how have you found their reception to you? And, as cinema has become a large part of selling games (even indie ones) given that "sizzle reels" seem to account for a decent amount of interest, have these meet ups lead to collaboration?

winternett• 5 years ago

Amen.

As a music producer I've joined countless forums, FB groups, and game dev communities and not a single one of them has created any meaningful connections online for me. My own web site has done a far better job at connecting me with people that are really doing meaningful and motivated things in music, film, and game dev.

Because many of these communities turn into a competition for attention (even with the host site itself) and scams are rampant, I've backed off of doing anything but just posting my work without any calls to action at all. Business and my audience have been a lot less spammy and more focused since I pivoted to just posting my music without as much text as before.

sombremesa• 5 years ago

Actually making a commercially viable indie game takes incredible amounts of time, effort, and skill-building

Only if you don't invest in luck. Flappy bird, for example.

vgel• 5 years ago

Signed up and posted a bit :) Very nostalgic! If anyone on HN has fond memories of forums, you should make an account!

9387367• 5 years ago

Are you blocking Tor browser?

pulse655355• 5 years ago

Not that I'm aware, but I have very little knowledge about Tor.

me_smith• 5 years ago

Thanks for sharing. I just signed up. I’m a member of TIG as well but that community seems to be fading. I haven’t touched gamedev in some time but looking to be motivated again with a vibrant community.

stanislavb• 5 years ago

I love that this is a simple good old school forum type of a community.

xyst• 5 years ago

It's definitely been awhile since I have used a "phpBB" forum. Glad it's still being maintained

slava_kiose• 5 years ago

In my opinion, this is a great resource for game developers.

Show HN: Indiedevs.net – A place for indie game developers

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