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indie(Radio) and indie(Magazine) second releases

Indie Magazine 2Issue two of indie(Magazine) was published Sunday. This second release, a week after the first, uses a much improved design created by Jack Brockley.

The magazine has a brief news section, an interview with Flashpunk user Rolpege (which also appears in the radio show), and a Flashpunk competition round-up. On the GameMaker side there are short reviews of Work In Progress games including Barnov’s Phantasmaburbia, a Japanese-style Role Playing Game, and Ex Vitro.  There’s also a very basic GML tutorial (vk = virtual keyboard) and something very similar to this on the new YoYo Games homepage.

Refreshingly there are also a large number of different contributors.  The design looks to have had much more time spent on it than previously though I don’t think the lime green hyperlink colour quite works.

Download indie(Magazine) issue 2 [left click only]: High Quality (2.3MB) Low Quality (1MB)

The second indie(Radio) broadcast took place on Saturday. In the 22 minute show host Bret is joined by Flashpunk user Rolpege and Greg Lobanov (Banov). Once again I felt the content was rather rushed through and greater depth and preparation for the show would have improved its overall quality (for example having actually played Super Snake HD).

[audio:http://www.upurload.com/files/9ae79f6d14bdebee46fcc9a534868084.mp3]

Both the radio show and magazine focus mainly on GameMaker and Flashpunk and should produce their third output this coming weekend.

What do you think?

6 Comments

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    • Everything, it all seemed rather rushed. Maybe this thought is just because of my experiences with GMTalk which was a longer, far less regular, show.

      You have guests on the show but they don’t speak for very long at all.

    • I have to agree with Philip. I have a preference for long form shows with in-depth discussions, and I realize that might not be typical. Between the two shows I’ve heard, almost every interesting topic seems maddeningly brief. 22 minutes isn’t really enough time to cover all the topics you do. Almost any one of them could make for 10-20 minutes of good discussion on their own.

      This show missteps from the start. I’m not a fan of the “table of contents” given at the beginning. It’s a bit lengthy and superfluous.

      The first interview comes off more like a generic questionnaire than a conversation. I don’t feel like you are engaged with your subject, and you aren’t inserting enough yourself into it. There are a few moments where you humanize the discussion, but they are rare. This person is obviously interesting, but it’s up to the interviewer to bring that to the surface. This is a featured segment, and it should have some more heft to it.

      I’m also not sure the featured interview should be the first segment. Some introductory banter between the presenters is a good way to ease into the show and can give the show some currency to place it in time and give the audience something to relate to. You could use the tail end of this to introduce your interview subject and let us know why you and the audience should be interested in them.

      The news segment is much easier to listen to. I feel like I’m hearing a real person thinking and speaking to me. One of the stories read by Henry was given in a somewhat cold news presenter style, but the commentary on the story helped punctuate it and keep it real.

      The first game review is an interview in itself. That’s an interesting dynamic, and I like the bits were the critique explores design choices with the author. We’re all game makers, and that’s the sort of stuff that is going to appeal to us. It might be hard to be give an objective opinion with the author in the room, but I encourage to try it when you can. This was a highlight of the show and all too brief.

      The second review just about reaches the right tone. Again, very brief and one tiny part of it is little more than a bullet point list of graded features. The reviews see the most improvement when more than one person are commenting on the game.

      The debate is worthy of a show of its own. It seems to be the lengthiest segment. I think it would be improved by the introduction of a moderator to help frame the discussion, guide it, and prompt the participants where it is needed.

      As a general critique of the entire show, I like a breezier style that doesn’t put as much effort into compartmentalizing things into isolated magazine-like segments with blunt introductions and musical segues. The show loses momentum when it transitions between topics and a more conversational style would allow it to flow better. I like the effort you guys are making to give the show some polish or “professionalism”, but I think maybe too much effort is going there and not enough is spent on the content.

      Introducing the credits exemplifies this stodgy style. You could probably simply thank the audience and list the credits in the time you spend introducing them. I would certainly put the credits after any other messages to the audience. Most people will stop listening when the credits start and never hear anything placed after them.

      I don’t want to discourage you guys. This is a very good effort and I hope I haven’t been too brutal.

    • Thanks for the extensive feedback xot. I’ll make sure everyone on the team reads this, as it is important for us so we can improve our show.

      The idea of flowing between segments instead of having music sounds interesting, we might try that this week.

      I’d like to point out that the indie(Function); team had a meeting this Monday and some of these concerns were addressed. Especially the interview one. I’ve made sure to make the interviews more of a conversation and less Q&A.

      About the news, we want to make it much more opinionated than what you would read online. We want to give viewpoints on the news: if it’s a good decision, how it could effect things, and the pros/cons of it.

      I would LOVE to do more game review + interview segments. It was a BLAST talking to Banov about his game with him, on voice chat. Just a spectacular experience, talking to an indie game developer about his game.

      The debate is something we would really like to expand, just we usually run out of ideas and have to make it shorter than what we wished it to be.

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