The Humble AIR Bundle

This post can be found on the new blog at The Humble AIR Bundle

I'd like to say straight off the bat that this bundle does not exist. It's just an idea I have been playing with in my mind.

Adobe recently announced that they will no longer be releasing updates for AIR for Linux. This saddens me, mainly because the reason I switched from working with .Net to Flash was the "multi-platformness" - the ability to compile once and have your game or application run on any operating system (it has a proper name, but it's still on the tip of my tongue).

A few games in previous Humble Indie Bundles were actually Flash games (even if the players don't notice it); Samorost 2, Machinarium, and Trauma. Even though Flash can't make the most powerful of games, it's fairly obvious that Flash games are at least playable.

AIR increases the functionality of Flash, and adds mobile devices to the available platforms, all with very little additional changes made to your existing game or application.


I'm sure if a small group of Flash game developers teamed up "Humble Bundle style" they could release a bundle with multi-platform, DRM-free AIR games, with proceeds either going towards charities, or perhaps towards the open source developers working on the AIR binaries for Linux. In either case, the bundle would provide positive publicity for AIR.


I don't have the influence or resources to do this, but do you?

[CLOSED] Pay what you want for five [edit: six] awesome games!

The Humble Indie Bundle is now closed.
For further information, see the Wolfire Games Website, or the follow up post

The Humble Indie Bundle

When World of Goo was released on the Wii (via WiiWare) I bought it nearly immediately, and it is definitely one of my favorite games of all time (still doesn't beat Portal, sorry, but it comes close)


I found this out a bit late, but luckily, not too late.

For a limited time, you can buy the following games:

• World of Goo
• Aquaria
• Gish
• Lugaru HD
• Penumbra Overture
• Samorost 2

Normally it would cost $80 if you bought them directly, but now you can choose what price you want to pay for these games, weather it be one penny or the full $80. All money received will be split between the developers, and in addition, two charity organizations, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play Charity.

All games are available for all three major platforms, Windows, MAC, and Linux (yeay!)

Not only that, but since the total number of donations exceeded $1,000,000 (that's one million US Dollars) Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, and Penumbra will be releasing the sources of their games with the GNU Public license!

But hurry, if I understand correctly, the entire deal ends in 3 days and 19 hours from the time of this writing (there's a timer on their site if you don't feel like doing the math)

For more information, see their site, or this "rap informational video"


So go out and spread the word!

A Game a Week #1 - Temperature

Sammo over on the Kirupa Forums has started a new "game" (I'm really not sure what to call it) on creating games.

I'll just quote him...

Welcome to the first A Game a Week, this is an experiment inspired by 2D Boy's Experimental Gameplay Project. The idea is simple, you have one week to make a Flash game, from concept to production. You are not required to enter, it is not a contest, it is just for fun and for practice. Most importantly though; it is not a contest.

The rules are very few and very simple. The rules are:

You must include the FLA (or AS or even FXG if you're feeling fly) file.

That is all.

This week's theme is Temperature, and the deadline is May 18, 2010.


For more details, visit the official Kirupa thread:
http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2553233#post2553233


If I have enough time among all my work, I will try to get a submission in, but I tend to procrastinate, so any work will likely be done on the 17th. ;)

Wii Internet Channel with FlashLite 3.1 confirmed!

In my last post regarding Flash on the Wii, I was still looking for a reliable source to confirm that the new browser definitely had support for FlashLite, and it wasn't just a lousy rumor.

I was overjoyed to read the following message in my Wii Message board:

From Nintendo:
The Internet Channel, which allows everyone to easily access and enjoy the Internet, has been updated.

The main updates are as follows:
* Change from Adobe Flash version 7 to Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 (This corresponds to Adobe Flash version 8)
* The Internet Channel is now available to download for 0 Wii Points.

Press start at the bottom right of the screen and you will be able to download the updated Internet Channel from the Wii Shop Channel.

If you previously used 500 Wii Points to download the Internet Channel to your Wii console, at the end of October we will be offering you the opportunity to download, for 0 Wii Points, one NES game of your choice (valued at 500 Wii Points) from the Virtual Console catalog. Details of this download offer will be provided via the Wii Message Board or on Nintendo.com soon.

Nintendo

So, now all I have to do is decide which NES game I would like to download... Hmmm...

On a related note, I find it funny that Nintendo offers one NES game for up to 500 points instead of offering any software for 500 points or just putting 500 points onto your account. In an article I read recently, certain distributors (or something or the other) received rewards for putting offline Wii users online. After 10 rewards, they were granted full access to download and and all NES games they wished.

So why only NES games? My guess is that Virtual Console NES game sales aren't really doing that great compared to many of the WiiWare and newer Virtual Console games, so Nintendo is really pushing to make a greater profit and get those games distributed.

Of course, that's just my educated guess, and I could be wrong...


Time to start developing Wii Friendly games. :)