Red Thumb Games Newsletter

For those wishing to keep posted of Red Thumb Games happenings (specifically Shelled! progress), I will no longer be blogging on GarageGames and instead have set up a RTG newsletter that you can sign up for. Though it will be sent out far less frequently than the rate that blog entries were made, and won't contain behind-the-scenes developments, when it is sent out there will things that are truly newsworthy, i.e. the availability of a demo or new distribution channel or some such.

There are a few reasons for this change. Blogging was a great way to muscle my way into this community and make the contacts I needed, but now that those contacts are established, further blogging is actually having the opposite effect due to over-exposure. It was a way for me to keep tabs on my own progress as a "developers notebook," but I'm far enough along that I don't need to track progress to that level of detail anymore, and can record any thought processes I have on game development privately on my hard drive and compile them at the end of a year for the benefit of others. And finally, it was a way for me to get feedback on the game, but the feedback I got was infrequent and of nominal critical quality, and not a good return for the amount of time I invested in blogging.

So, if you're interested in Shelled, or dig the idea of zombie ballerinas and giant eyeball aliens, then sign up for the RTG newsletter under the "news" link of the website -- I promise infrequent updates, a high signal to noise ratio, and I'll go easy on the hype :)

As for a general update, IGC was great and everything that could be said about it already has. Last year I went to IGC empty handed; this year I brought a playable game (Shelled). That is an accomplishment in and of itself and I am proud to have made it that far. It has been more work than I ever thought.

For Shelled, there's still much tweaking, tuning, and yes, even gutting to be done before it will be ready to be called even a alpha. I cringed at some of the unfinished areas and bugs in the game, but know that every other developer with an incomplete game felt the same, and especially appreciated Jay Moore's comment at the end thanking everyone who brought a game for "putting themselves out there" by bringing one. It was hard to do. But with some press mentions of the game and even a retail publisher's interest in making an offer on the game (which I pushed back on until the game is more ready), I was of course very glad that I "put myself out there" for the show. I look forward to next year by not having just a pre-alpha game there, but a final published build.

As a final note, my day to day involvement in this community is about to drop off for two reasons. One, I will be focusing all of my efforts in the final sprint to get this game done and to standards that I am proud of. Two, I am uprooting from Oregon and moving to Mexico to live cheaply while I push to finish this game. Many struggling filmmakers have gone the Mexican route to get their dream off the ground, and I am taking a similar approach. With a laptop and a remote team, an occasional internet connection (and some bottled water) is all I need. I am just hoping that the completion of Shelled does not run over budget, or I will be selling maracas instead of games.

That's all from here. Sign up for the newsletter, and feel free to email me at if you have questions about anything, if you just want to say hi, or if you are a fledgling indie looking for feedback or help. I am more than happy to lend a hand.

Josh