First Blog (Going Indie)

Well, I guess everyone has to have a first one of these, huh? Well, here's mine.

Hi, I'm Tony Barnes and game making is ingrained in my DNA. I know a lot of people say that, but I'm pretty sure it is for me. I've been making games since the age of 12 and been doing it professionally for 20+ years. (You can try doing the math, but you'll still be off).

Over the years, I've been at many different companies of many different sizes and worked on many different projects, but the one thing that's constant is that feeling you get when you're having fun and the feeling you get when someone else is having fun with the thing you helped create. There's nothing like it in the world (with the exception of when your newborn child looks up at you with those "you are the world" eyes). You feel so good to have brought some joy to someone that you're willing to forget the pain and suffering and want to do it again and again.

That is, until the last time, which was SO PAINFUL, that it not only destroyed one of the things that shaped my childhood (Star Wars), but it practically destroyed my will to make games. Yes, the very thing I was put on this planet to do!

So, a change had to be made and luckily a change for the good. I realized, I've been making games for so long and used to do them all by myself, why not? Well, because you can't make a living doing it... or at least, I thought.

Come to find out, you can make a living doing "the indie thing", especially if you manage your projects properly, watch your expenditures, set your goals realistically and focus-focus-focus. Oddly enough, these are the same things that would make a "mega AAA game" successful too, but they're even more important in "indie land", but I digress...

Anyway, so, yes... I've gone native. Throwing off the shackles of evil sweatshops and idiot frat-boy infested publishers and I'm working super-hard, doing tons of the activities I used to (art, as well as design, music, etc) and loving it...for the most part. I joined up with some old friends at Reflexive Entertainment and we're hard at work on an innovative and most-importantly FUN game for XBLA.

Subsequent posts will go into detail about indie development vs. mainstream development and check back as I wax romantic about how the new indie equates to my old maverick 8-bit days.

In the meantime, check out my upcoming indie game AXIOM OVERDRIVE for XBLA.

-Twitch