E McNeill
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Good at Heart: In Defense of the Indie Community

By emcneill on May 14, 2013

Last Friday, Penny Arcade Report posted an article that detailed the issues that indie dev Kurt Bieg had with the indie game community. It was pretty disheartening, especially since it clashed so vividly with my own experience. The indie community has been an enormously positive force in my life, and so, as before, I want [...]

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Why I Am Making Games

By emcneill on May 7, 2013

At the 2013 Indie Game Summit, indie dev Noel Llopis asked the audience “Why are you making games?” It was a good question, and so simple that it had never occurred to me before. Noel’s accompanying speech rang true: “…Once you go indie, it becomes really important. Even though I’ve now been indie for 6 [...]

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The Agony of Rereading a Younger Self

By emcneill on May 2, 2013

…You don’t want to revisit the thing. I mean, readers are always disappointed when you talk about your work. You have to say to them, ‘Look, you’re talking about work you may love … I’m talking about work that I loathe …’ It’s nothing to do with me any more. Really, it has nothing to [...]

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Awe of the Indies

By emcneill on Mar 11, 2013

Four months ago, I went indie. Since then, I’ve been dealing with some light anxiety about my work and my place in the game development community. To some extent, this is totally normal; after all, I bet my life savings on my ability to succeed in a perpetually overcrowded market. But my anxiety goes beyond [...]

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Kickstarter and Failure: The Futility of Doing Things Right

By emcneill on Mar 4, 2013

Meet Aaron: Aaron San Filippo is an indie game developer. More importantly, he’s a nice guy. He gives a lot back to the community, writing articles and doing interviews, and he’s always been polite and positive in Twitter or email conversation. We’d all be better off with more people like him. He and his brother are making a [...]

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Heading Off the Indie Backlash

By emcneill on Feb 26, 2013

A blog post by Sara Gross made something of a splash yesterday by blasting indies for elitism. “After the indie community’s reaction to the preview of Bungie’s Destiny game, I am absolutely ashamed to be called an indie. FUCKING ASHAMED. Seriously, indies! What the fuck is wrong with all of you?” As evidence, the article [...]

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Designing a New eSport

By emcneill on Jan 25, 2013

(The subject of this article, Bombball, is playable online. Check it out!) At GDC 2012, I had the pleasure of playing a game called Hokra at a party. I had never heard of it before, but I watched a game from across the room, and it looked like some easy fun. And it was! Playing [...]

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Bombball Prototyping

By emcneill on Jan 19, 2013

My OUYA dev console arrived last week, and almost immediately afterwards I heard about the Kill Screen CREATE game jam. Since deadlines do wonders for my productivity, and since I knew I eventually wanted to make something for the OUYA anyway, I decided to give it a shot. I started late, unfortunately. It’s billed as [...]

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Postmortem: Farmpunk

By emcneill on Jan 16, 2013

You can play Farmpunk here. I created Farmpunk for the 2012 Indie Speed Run, a 48-hour game jam / competition. It was my first game jam ever, and I worked solo. Development was kind of a mess. What Went Right: 1) The idea. I was given the random variables of “Construction” and “Seeds”. In the [...]

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Launching A New Life

By emcneill on Jan 8, 2013

Hi. I’m E McNeill, and I am an indie game designer. I’ve been making that claim for a while, but only now do I feel like I can really mean it wholeheartedly. About a month ago I finally took the plunge. I went indie full-time. Of course, I’ve been doing my own work in games [...]

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Recent Posts

  • Good at Heart: In Defense of the Indie Community

    Last Friday, Penny Arcade Report posted an article that detailed the issues that indie dev Kurt Bieg had ...

  • Why I Am Making Games

    At the 2013 Indie Game Summit, indie dev Noel Llopis asked the audience "Why are you making games?" It wa...

  • The Agony of Rereading a Younger Self

    ...You don’t want to revisit the thing. I mean, readers are always disappointed when you talk about your ...

  • Awe of the Indies

    Four months ago, I went indie. Since then, I've been dealing with some light anxiety about my work and my...

  • Kickstarter and Failure: The Futility of Doing Things Right

    Meet Aaron: Aaron San Filippo is an indie game developer. More importantly, he's a nice guy. He gives a l...

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  • March 2012 (1)
  • February 2012 (2)

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