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I'm expecting to be able to release a new version of Gamestar this weekend. This version has all of the functionality I originally intended for the project.

I know that a lot of people prefer to write their own game engines. With Gamestar, I'm looking to create a new kind of entrant into the games industry, the "casual entrepreneur". A casual entrepreneur is someone who puts effort into realizing a vision in their leisure time.

The indie games industry is very vast. However it boils down to two contrasting directions of emphasis: originality and content. Those who emphasize originality are typically programmers who want to experience a novel system. They write their own engines for this purpose. Those who emphasize content generally use maker tools which provide a pre-made game style and "placeholders" for the content. Content makers frequently have great story-telling skill, but little in the way of artistic ability or programming knowledge. A lot of them tinker with RPG Maker but more often than not find their way to visual novel software once the tedium of relentless DQ-style grinds wears in. Artisans use Adobe Flash (artisans use Adobe, period).

Hardcore gamers tend to want a mix of both original content and novel mechanics. These are the G4 crowd, the people who are content to center their lives around the play of videogames. I have a cousin who is like this: he takes fun very seriously and thinks people should try to have more of it. He has a wide variety of game tastes but mostly favors JRPGs. He buys games at a range of prices, mostly based on their scarcity and reviews. He enjoys anime and will pass over realism in its favor. All the high quality XBox Live content has obtained his dollar, and ditto for PSN.

When we talk, we tend to think in terms of national markets. This is a mistake, in that the internet is global. As such, it may well be worth marketing at a low price point in the name of evading the influence of the currency exchange system. I won't go into how UNJUST the currency exchange is -- it's pretty much the reason for world poverty today and that's all you need to know. But it is certainly not the entrepreneur's friend, and especially not the software developer's. Pricing low is a good way to penetrate foreign markets (although when developing in impoverished countries, the reverse rule of pricing HIGH applies).

I'd like to see Gamestar used by programmers, but I realize that's unlikely because programmers seem to enjoy working with code. I wrote a high level language translator for NES assembly, to help romhackers break encryption codes used to compress game data, and the romhacking gurus rejected it. They preferred to conduct their craft completely in assembly. To me this means that most people who program for a living (as the romhacking peeps do) must be capable of abstracting their thoughts at levels comparable to that of mathematicians. I realize they can probably see a complete program in their head before the write it, or are at least patient enough to psuedocode the entire thing before writing. Regardless I get the impression that it is no major issue for them to jump into pretty much any program and begin understaniding it. I won't go so far as to say they are the people the large software houses rely on to write their tools (because every game seems to rely on a custom-built editor and data storage system), but they are definitely the people called in to write the architectures the tools are built on. The point is that they aren't likely to rely on tools to program game logic, so that seems to me a bit of an ace in the hole regarding their acceptance of Gamestar. But if they did, they would probably find Gamestar a refreshing change of pace that allowed them to realize ideas faster. The problem from my point of view is providing architecture enough. However I do plan to implement a rational AI option sometime in the next year or so, so that might catch their interest.

Overall the visual novelists are probably the strongest market for the software. I see the potential for a vibrant and experimental community that rekindles the experimentalism of the SNES and PSX eras while not renigging on quality. A lot of visual novelists would like to make an ambitious game but they lack the means to persuade a programmer to write it for them. Programmers tend to hang with programmers and novelists hang with novelists. They would get along better but they diverge widely over personal and behavioral boundaries.

The hardcore gamer crowd is the great unknown. They have potential -- most of the big name designers in the industry come from this group -- but will they exercise it?

There are other groups -- Rainbow Six players, Team Fortress fans, card gamers and EverQuesters -- along with people who simply do not see games as a part of their lifestyle (and let's not forget puzzlers and sports persons). However entry into these markets requires enormous start-up capital and as such, isn't even a viable choice for indie players: these gamers are the backbone of the big publisher phenom and expect a cutting edge experience whenever they play. However these gamers also appreciate human bonds and will grant their business to those who reach out directly to them. Genre crossing can also make a difference.

It is my hope that not only will existing indie developers come to rely to Gamestar to develop their games, but also that the indie community itself will grow. To that end I've tried to avoid every pitfall I've discerned in the existing game creator market. Still it's a high-stakes gamble on my part to give them this opportunity. We'll see how it goes.