- Simple premise, maximal fun.

It very difficult to make a fun simple game. It's much easier to make a fun complex game :)

Unless you make a clone of course.

I found that video -- turns out it was a GDC talk that spoke about cameras in side-scrollers. Its a really excellent video.

Just to comment on something said a lot earlier. I made a map for counter strike 1.6 way back in the day. I was pumped to release it and see if it would get any exposure. 4 downloads! I'm sure those downloads were my friends too. I learned a valuable lesson. more than 10 years later I decided to see if one could still download my map, sure enough I could. downloads were more than 15,000. Don't be discouraged by the small exposure your games will get upon release. Only gaming studios have the funds to advertise to speed up the process. But for them they better have a winning title or else they lose out big time with all the money invested in development and advertisement.

And promote promote promote. Don't get tired of promoting your projects if you believe in them. Then again... If they're not very fun games than there is only one thing you can do, make a fun game.