March 24th, 2011
Sorry for the delay on this, but the slides for my Death of an Indie Studio talk are now up on Slideshare.
They may not make a ton of sense if you weren’t there, since I used the slides as visuals to highlight or counterpoint what I was saying. I plan to do the talk again at Boston Post Mortem at some point, and when I do, I’ll either get it recorded or update my notes to high enough quality that I can post them.
February 17th, 2011
It’s time again for PAX East! I’ll be on three panels (one of which is actually a one-Macguffin show). Hope to see folks there!
Death of an Indie Studio
Wyvern Theatre
Friday, 3:00pm – 4:00pm
This year, Boston area indie studio Macguffin Games closed its doors. In three years, Scott Macmillan took the studio from a one-man shop to a 4-person startup with paid employees, launched two games (one of them for Facebook), and then finally shut the whole thing down with no regrets. At this talk, he’ll discuss the big lessons he learned, what worked and what didn’t, and take lots of questions from the audience.
Just Because You Have an Idea, You Are Not a Game Designer
Wyvern Theatre
Saturday, 10:30am – 11:30am
Many of us have worked with some amazing designers over the years, and they are much more than walking idea factories. Passion for concepts is great, but don’t confuse passion for skill. In this panel we’ll talk about the characteristics that make a good game designer, and specific skills we look for when hiring on new talent. We’ll also spend some time to point out the differences between good ideas for projects, theoretically good ideas, and bad ideas that you think are good.
Panelists include: Ichiro Lambe [President, Dejobaan Games], Chris Oltyan [Producer, Dire Wolf Digital], Eitan Glinert [President, Fire Hose Games], Scott Macmillan [President, Macguffin Games]
Start Your Own Damned Company
Cat Theatre
Sunday, 4:30pm – 5:30pm
Sometimes, people have great ideas for games. We’re happy for you, we are. But you know what? Our studio isn’t gonna help you realize your vision, and chances are no other company will. It’s shocking, but the reason we dove headfirst into the start-up ocean full of shattered dreams and razor blades was because WE ACTUALLY HAVE A GREAT IDEA FOR A GAME TOO! If you really feel passionately about your idea and want nothing more than to see it live then go make it your own damn self, we’re busy. But we’ll throw you a bone with this helpful panel full of tidbits on how to get started. Let us regale you with tales of wonder and woe, led by our fearless moderator Ichiro Lambe. Only the brave will survive, no refunds.
Panelists include: Chris Oltyan [Producer, Dire Wolf Digital], Eitan Glinert [President, Fire Hose Games], Scott Macmillan [President, Macguffin Games], Ichiro Lambe [President, Dejobaan Games], Damian Isla [Director of Technology, Moonshot Games]
January 24th, 2011
… but not quite living in the same way.
In essence, Macguffin as it was previously – a four-person full time team of developers – is no more. But after looking at ways to wind things down, and taking some time to evaluate what I want to do with my spare time once I have a job, I’ve decided to keep Macguffin around for my future gaming projects.
One of the big things I’ve learned in doing the past three or so years of game development is that I really do love creating games, doing the coding and game design. Since shutting things down and starting to look for a job, I’ve begun coding and designing again on my own – and I’ve been having a blast. Regardless of where I land I fully plan to keep working on games and blogging about it. Who knows, perhaps I’ll even have something for the market someday.
Right now I do not have plans to return directly to All Heroes Die. I say this for Therlun’s benefit (I know you’re out there!). The two big problems with AHD are the limitations of BlitzMax, and the sheer scope of the endeavor. Neither of those gets solved by me working on it nights. The most likely path forward is that at some point I do a game inspired by chunks of AHD, or redo the game with a slimmed down design in another language.
In the meantime, I’ve been working in Unity using C#, and may have some upcoming posts about how that’s been. It’s also near time for the IGDA to begin its elections, and if I can get some help, I plan to cover the candidates again. More on that shortly.
December 3rd, 2010
So, Macguffin Games is going out of business.
Although we gave it a great try with Mustache Mercenaries, we weren’t able to turn things around fast enough to keep the company going. We knew that was a risk when we started, and I’m not unhappy at all with what we accomplished with the time we had. I’m thinking about doing some post mortem blog posts over the next couple weeks, and if I do, I’ll delve into some of what went right and wrong.
We’ll be leaving the Mustache Mercenaries servers up for now, but they’ll most likely come down in the next week or two. So play now!
In regards to the Kickstarter – thank you to everyone that contributed. In the end, even if we had hit our goal, that alone would not have been enough. In order to keep the company going, we needed a couple things to break our way on the business side. Sadly, they did not.
I started Macguffin Games because I love game development and although this company is going away, the people that brought it to life are not. We’re still here and will still be making games. On my part, I’m looking forward to having more time to devote to various game projects, as well as to the excellent Boston indie community. The experience of starting the company and of working on All Heroes Die and Mustache Mercenaries has been an amazing one; I have learned more in three years of doing this than I would have in 10 working at my old job. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.
So, to our friends, two things. One – thank you. You’ve all been fantastic, and we wouldn’t have accomplished what we did without you. Two – don’t be sad. There is more and better to come for all of us.
In the meantime, don’t worry about Macguffin Games. It was, after all, only a plot device.
November 23rd, 2010
Hey folks,
We now have our first limited-time only item in the store, the amazing Turkey Cannon! Available for for the paltry price of 35 coal.
It’s a fowl wind that blows turkeys your way. Feather or not you like it, the Turkey Cannon is here!
November 22nd, 2010
We recorded a little Mustache Mercenaries video to announce the release of the beta. Hope you enjoy.
November 19th, 2010
Alright, we got another new Mustache Mercenaries build in today. Got a bunch of content in and a bunch of long-awaited fixes, as well as a new feature. We’re pretty psyched.
Thanks! Have a great weekend everyone, and email us at <email redacted because of spammers!> if you have any issues.
November 18th, 2010
As of Tuesday night, the new build is up! It features a completely redesigned store and a number of smaller fixes. We’re also looking at doing another build tomorrow with some more minor updates and fixes.
In other news, we’ve launched a Kickstarter for Mustache Mercenaries. We’ve tried to set it up with a number of interesting prizes, such as a sew-on patch for the Research Society for Rampant Robots, authentic Mrs. Macguffin Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, Limited Edition in-game items, and even having the Macguffin team take a weekend and make you a game! Please go check it out.
November 12th, 2010
Hey folks!
We’ve been working hard on a revamp to the in-game store for Mustache Mercenaries, as well as putting in a number of small fixes and changes. We plan to have the build up some time on Monday, at the latest Tuesday if something huge blows up. We’ll keep you posted.
November 3rd, 2010
We’ve gone live with a new build of Mustache Mercenaries on Facebook. Here’s what we’ve got:
Friends Bar!
Now you’ll be able to see a random selection of friends that are also playing Mustache Mercenaries on Facebook. Not incredibly exciting in and of itself, we grant you that. But! We’ll be enhancing this as we go, and it leads directly to…
Dueling!
You can now duel your friends. Each duel costs you one point of Energy, and you can duel your friends once every six hours.
This is a first pass on dueling so we can get your feedback. We are planning on a bunch of additions to it in the future, including the addition of NPC allies on one or both sides of the fight based on differences in the power level of the robots.
Lots of bug fixes and tweaks!
We’ve also done a ton of work to make tweaks and fixes. Such as:
As always, please let us know if you find bugs or have comments and suggestions – we’re all ears, folks.
