17th
SHIFT Radio with Matthew Wegner
Matt talked about Blurst, Fun-Motion, Flashbang’s history, and the future of indie games on the SHIFT podcast today.
I loved hearing the whole talk; it was great hearing more about Flashbang’s evolution (I’d previously only heard bits and pieces from Steve Swink at MIGS ‘07) and hearing about their philosophy.
It’s good to hear they’re looking at a subscription model for their site. I personally like subscription systems for games (I’ve been with GameTap since day 1, after all).
One personal take-away I got from his pondering my random thoughts during the interview was that it got me thinking about how I can throw in serendipitous fun into my game designs. I’m still trying to more fully learn the lesson of Minotaur China Shop, which challenged our typical models of how punishment and reward should work in a game.
Also, at the end he talks about playing Nile Online, which is a game I’ve been playing for months and which has rekindled my love for mmo trade-style games.
