It all depends on what you want to do.

Well, as you pointed I will be coder, artist, musician, sound designer, writer and likely the beta tester so I can't afford to work on a big project. I think that excludes 3D and complex games as RPG's and so. To be honest I don't mind spending a lot of time studying a complex language if it will pay the price and gifts me with the skills to afford big things, but for my first works I think it's better to don't overdo it.

I'll give a look to pygame and gamemaker, I guess but making a mod for HL2 using source is not a bad idea, either.

I'm interested in start working on some ideas I have for a few games and notgames but my problem is I don't have absolutely any clue on how start doing it. I don't know which tools should I use, which program languages should I start learning, which program should I use to make graphics, I do not even know how you desing a game (don't know if I should start using word and writing how I want the game to be, and if there is a proper order I have to follow in writing this).

As I said, I'm completely clueless. Can anyone lend me a hand?

Thanks a lot Jorge!

Thank you for gifting us with your game .

Interaction with other things is something I've wanted to have in the game but it's just hard to get right. I don't want the comet to talk or write to others, I'd like some kind of wordless communication. I'm working on something like this now, hopefully it will be good enough to put into an update.

Oh, don't mind me. I really was just saying the first things that came up to my mind, I didn't truly give it a deep thought. What I was trying to point is that the game is nice, but -maybe because it is so nice- It really makes you desire "I want more!". More things to do, more ways to interact, more mechanics, I don't know what it should be, but it is clear for me that I want more interaction .

Yeah I guess so... not in style or ideas so much as in his attitude towards games which I find very encouraging. He's kind of a notgame-creator, right? He should go "indie" though; Katamari would be so much better without the time limit on the levels and I'm sure that was put in by some suit (or other game designers).

In Noby Noby Boy he quite abandoned the goal-oriented scheme. It is true that in the last place you have to stretch yourself to make Girl go further, but the game really makes clear that the most important thing in it is to have fun.

We chose to release Vanitas for the iPhone to test this theory. But I have a feeling that, while the audience may be more diverse, the desire for -relatively deep- entertainment is not wide-spread. When distributing through PC, it's almost impossible to reach non-gamers. But among the gamer audience, there's a small niche that is very interested in the kinds of apps we want to make. And in the end, it seems that that small niche of the PC gamers audience is a lot bigger than the small niche of interested non-gamers in the diverse iPhone audience. This is just guesswork based on superficial observation. I'd like to hear examples that contradict this.

Now I have read this I'm thinking the magnitude of this problem is bigger than I thought. It seems like we don't really have a place, I mean, we are somewhat between games and art. Or maybe we are just art but still people see all this too related to games because of its origins. Maybe we should start wondering about of in what "circles" we want to be and start to make moves in that direction. If the objective is to let all this be known by audiences interested in aesthethics and artistic expression something should be done.

One of my teachers is a person very concerned and interested in this. She likes a wide amount of kinds of artistic expression and she didn't knew what was being done in the interactive medium. When I told her she seemed very excited and wanted to check it out.

I know it is maybe too soon, but this makes me think on all the people that would find all this attemps and projects interesting and they are not enoying it just because we haven't reached them yet.

I just have been trying it for a while. I discovered 3 planets

I really like the concept, specially the how the controls work, orbiting around places and letting yourself wander around. The music is really engaging and really encourages you to explore and have a nice time. It is also very curious to see space depicted this way, it is usually represented as a cold, lonely and empty place, but since I was a child I always have tought there have to be some really amazing things out there and Kometen really brings up this idea ^_^

I'd like more interaction, though. It's nice to find special "characters" going around the same way as you, but I found myself wanting to comunicate or interact with them apart from the fact of just finding them. For example, it would be nice to see some space shuttles inviting you to follow them to show you something, or just asking you to guide them to a certain place. The games inspires freedom, carefreeness and fun, and I'd like to have fun with other characters in the game too. Also, maybe it would be nice doing something in planets. What about colecting items that let you paint over planets? I'd like to make my own drawings too! I see the game (or notgame) as a huge interestellar playground but I'd like more toys to play around with .

Oh! And I'd like to ask something. Have you been inspired by Keita Takahashi's works (Katamari Damacy, Noby Noby Boy)? I think his games have a similar spirit to yours.

Great work, Erik. Keep it up!

Michaël, I HIGHLY and wholeheartedly recommend you to give a look to this anime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzV2wChxzH0 . It is called Mushishi. Also, I think it would be also very interesting to you if you check out some Studio Ghibli films like Mononoke Hime (although I think you have already watched this, seeing the similarity it has with The Endless Forest) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

Japanese representations of nature are soooo incredible.

EDIT: I didn't see you wanted a technical approach to the theme.

I'm still practicing in the controller role so I would prefer not to play untill I can make something good, but I'm aviable to be your player just when you want

It should be released today for the people who preordered for 9$. I'd be interested in trying the game with you.

Thank you, really

Would you, by any chance, have any recommendations on which tools or tutorials should I work with?

I assume you know a game usually played on forums, we have to build a story. Every post has to continue the story from the previous and be open to the next user of the forum. You can make sense or, as the description of the forum says, you can't. You have full liberty to say whatever you want as long as it continues the story, but for avoiding anyone of us writing too much let's follow the following rules:

1.- Ten lines maximum per post.
2.- If you have already participated, you have to wait to three other people to participate, to do so yourself again.

I start:

The corpse was still fresh and the two youngsters were still trying to guess what happened the earlier moment. Michael was about to start crying, and Jason was too shocked to show any emotion. Michael still had the bloody baseball bat in his hands. His father used to hit him, and he was used to it, he had that assimilated as a normal part of his life, but when he tried to harm Michael, he couldn't help it but keep mashing his father's head with the thing that used to be, until that moment, a toy to play with fis best friend. Michael put and end to the silence:

-Jason, did you really had to do it?

It's nice to hear you saying that. It talks about how much you want the interactive medium to turn into something else (I mean, you are not thinking egoistically, If anyone can contribute to the cause, let's welcome him). Also I meant to be your project as long as you and Auriea had de idea, but I didn't wanted to mean you were the rulers, supervisors or any other hierarchial figure over Notgames. If you see my post I said "I feel a huge power in the notgames initiative, like between all, developers and public, we can do something, we can create all that we wanted games to be but couldn't be" meaning we have to be together in this.

It's also nice to see how focused you are. Seems like you all are really trying your best shot with the Notgames initiative, and that's not only nice, but totally necessary.

I am a philosophy student myself and I have decided I want to make interactive and artistic expresivity my focus. I think all this needs praxis but also a conceptualization and a theory behind it that supports everything from behind as cinema, music or literature have it. I have also some concept design and ideas I find interesting but I don't have yet the knowledge or the tools to materialize them, but I want to have them someday.

Let's all of us do our best!

I'm really excited about this, this morning I entered your blog and I got frightened by the fact that you were closing the blog, then I saw this and understood you were not closing the book, but ending the chapter!

I feel a huge power in the notgames initiative, like between all, developers and public, we can do something, we can create all that we wanted games to be but couldn't be.

Oh, and since this an introduction topic, I'm Welks/Jorge from your former blog/forum, nice to meet you (again  ).