Jolt Country

Hey there.

So, one of the "pay what you want" bundles is setup by a man with the handle Gnome (from www.gnomeslair.com) which is a great indie games site. The current Bundle in a Box is called the "Deep Space" version. You get the following games:

- Space Giraffe
- Death Ray Manta
- The Wreckless
- Dark Scavenger
- Armalyte
- War Mac 2000
- Squid Yes Not So Octopus
- SYNSO: Squid Harder
- Squid and Let Die
- FISHFISHBANGBANG
- Ambiomat
- War Twat

If you beat the average, you get Sol: Exodus, Miner Wars Areana, RobotRiot and some Armalyte Extras.

Now, this is all pretty cool and I would post a message about it anyway. However, they are doing something pretty nifty when you buy the bundle.

They have something called an Indie Developer Grant -- part of your purchase goes to a prize to help get one of about 15 games developed. You can vote on which game you'd like that to be.

I have one of the games in the running. It is going to be a CRPG/text game hybrid called Cyberganked. My goal is to make a CRPG without any of the awkward dialogue, people, storylines and quests that you commonly see in modern and old CRPG games. I'm also doing the entire thing in CGA graphics. The last time I checked I had like 5 votes, so I think writing about it here can't hurt.

The write-up for Cyberganked, including a screenshot, is right here: http://blog.bundle-in-a-box.com/?p=141 . (You can vote when you get the e-mail link to download the games.)

Thanks, and enjoy the bundle.

Not that I have the money to spare to give to any kind of bundle or charity or kickstarter these days, I have some misgivings about this. On one hand, I really enjoyed the gnomeslair before dude was hired by that other site (which I never remember to check out... I need to look up if they have a RSS feed somewhere) so I can understand wanting to support his projects. I can also see entering something like this as a form of publicity that may be more important than the money involved.

That said, the bundle itself is comprised of games that I would not pay money for (with at least one instance of a game developer whom I wouldn't want *my* money going to). According to this screenshot, the average Humble bundle payment is between $7-$9. Considering that bundle probably had one or two great games, let's guess that this bundle will average at $4. That's $10 per $400 worth of bundles sold, and I just don't see this bundle selling thousands of units.

Anyhow, my intent here is not to disparage the bundle itself. I just figure that if you are interested in crowdsourcing or whatever, it'd probably be a good idea to consider other options.

Yeah, I'll do a Kickstarter for a couple grand or something as I get closer to finishing it, so I can hire beta testers.

The Bundle in a Box went to the dude making the game Maia, according to Gnome today:

http://blog.bundle-in-a-box.com/?p=207

ICJ wrote:
The write-up for Cyberganked, including a screenshot, is right here: http://blog.bundle-in-a-box.com/?p=141 . (You can vote when you get the e-mail link to download the games.)

Thanks, and enjoy the bundle.

Rob that looks friggan hilarious! I love the class names in your party lol! Are they actual classes in the game with their own sets of special traits, abilities and idiosyncrasies? I've always wanted to do something similar that parodies modern culture, politics, religion, ideologies, and stereotypes with all of it defined and classified in an RPG context. One of the many projects that never made it past the pen and paper notebook stage.

Garth's Equipment Shop wrote:Rob that looks friggan hilarious! I love the class names in your party lol! Are they actual classes in the game with their own sets of special traits, abilities and idiosyncrasies? I've always wanted to do something similar that parodies modern culture, politics, religion, ideologies, and stereotypes with all of it defined and classified in an RPG context. One of the many projects that never made it past the pen and paper notebook stage.

Thanks, Garth. Yeah, I want all classes to be able to do different things -- not just the doctor class being able to perform surgeries, but I'd like the "magician" class to be the Derren Brown-style performer and maybe make it so the only class good with guns is the ex-military one.

I do think that it's amazing that RPGs don't ask you your political ideology. But that is OK, this game can be the first.

The Bundle in a Box is OVER. If you have games there that you need keys for, I'd recommend downloading them before the site goes kablooey in a month.

http://bundle-in-a-box.com/

I thought the BiaB had the most interesting games, the best prices and the best perk in the developer grant. Of course, none of that mattered because #GAMESJOURNO is going to suck Fez Meatbraid's cock every chance they get.

More details in their last blog entry:

http://blog.bundle-in-a-box.com/