Checked out the last two sessions of the IGS, first of which was Brent Fox and Steve Taylor from Ninjabee/Wahoo on whether you as a studio should be accepting (and actively pursuing) contract work, or should be spending more time staying indie. They basically scripted their lecture into a lively argument, bickering back and forth in an informative and humorous manner about the ups and downs of contracting and indie development. It was an interesting way to present a topic.

While waiting for the next lecture I bumped into Russell Carroll from Game Tunnel, although he's more involved with Reflexive these days, telling me how burnt out he had gotten with Game Tunnel. I'm sure some of you may have wondered where GT's monthly Indie Roundup went to, well Russ pulled the plug on that because he just couldn't take the time to do it anymore now that Reflexive has him so busy. He said he'd pay someone to do it though so if you're a fan of Game Tunnel, like to play games and write well, let me know and I'll put you in touch with him.

So then Dylan Cuthbert came up and gave a rather extensive postmortem on the PIXELJUNK series of games. One of the interesting tid bits I pulled out was his suggestion that you don't release a demo of the game until several weeks have passed since the initial launch, as a way to screen crap out of your feedback, because the only feedback you get is from people who bought the game and thus dedicated some serious time to play it before responding negatively or positively. It just saves you from getting tons of negative feedback from people who only played the demo for like 5 seconds before deciding the game utterly sucks to them.

After the IGS was over for the day I hoofed it back to the hotel to drop off my stuff and grab my jacket, cause it was getting chilly fast - then walked back past the convention center to Buca de Beppo for dinner with the rest of the IGDA chapter leaders. I spent most of my time talking with Neil Kirby from Lucent about guns, bikes and hot cars. Neil is now the proud owner of a 2005 Lotus Elise - the lucky bastard. Yes, I was in awe and he shared his road carving stories.

Alright, it's mad early but I'm crazy tired. Time to wrap this day and sleep till the morrow - see ya bright and early...