[Disc] Game Dev. Blogs

[ChaseNYC]

I have recently become more open to the concept of blogs, at first they were very teen-journal type things I was not particularly fond of. However, seeing some game development blogs from this site I have decided to make one for the game I have been working on. My reasons are mainly for documentation while being able to display to others step by step my process. While I have gathered some on my own what makes a good game development blog, I am curious to hear others perspectives on:

• Do you use the blog more for yourself or a showcase?
• What do you focus on with your writings?
• What is your main purpose? (id est for your own documentation, as promotion, et cetera)
• What are you key points for a "successful" game development blog?

Anyways, just thought I'd ask for some people's opinions, if you have more to say that doesn't fall under those points please enlighten as they are just some of my preliminary idea/questions.

Thanks in advance,
ChaseNYC

[cadin]

I keep a blog at The Pencil Farm. (Pay no attention to the fact that the last post is from early December ).

My main intention is just to provide a documentation of projects and ideas as I'm working on them. I also occassionally put thoughts about more general game design topics and reviews of other games. My intention is that others will read the blog, but for now I think it is mostly for myself.

It's really great as a way to force you to document your process (it can be helpful or at least amusing to look back on later). It's also a good way to keep your creativity and focus on track.

The one downside is having to come up with something to post on semi-regular basis. Good luck.

[random10122]

I have kept a blog in the past, as cadin says it is a great way to keep yourself motivated. However the downside is thinking of something to write often enough to keep people interested.

I suppose it is easy to think that people wont care about some small changes you made in an enemy routine or optimisations that were made to a scrolling engine... but in a lot of cases these can be interesting to fellow developers ;-)

Now i just keep notes on my own machine in a notepad file, you can be much more blunt and quicker but it still helps to keep the process documented and keep you on track.. Of course a blog has much more value than this though. For example, the last two days of my log:

code:

---

22 Jan 2007

-----------------

particles take into account different building heights

Changed initLevel so that box heights are read from the level array

Arrays are now copied instead of referenced into levels so changes can be made dynamically



21 Jan 2007

-----------------



added temporary menu

started score spawn

camera now moves in y axis!

---

[ChaseNYC]

Thanks for the feedback and insights. I am going to assert that considering my skill level and the lack of interest my game will create, I am going to mostly be making my blog for my own sake. I can't imagine anyone besides family and friends being interested. However, I would like to hear from more people. Also curious a little bit more detail about the format of people's posts, I looked over the pencil farm which gives me an idea of how you format your posts which seems to be somewhat how I would hope to have mine. Anyways hope to hear more!

Thanks,

ChaseNYC

[fil_razorback]

I write quite often on my developement blog :
http://partisan-tb.blogspot.com

It has more readers than I expected so from now on i'll write brief sum-ups in english in my entries because most of the readers...don't speak french.
This blog is mostly used for pimping and getting feedback on our work day by day. I think it's important to post at least twice per month and always to have some "media" in the entry (a music, a screenshot etc etc...).
Plain text doesn't interest my readers (the entries which get the more comments are those with pictures).

[ChaseNYC]

It has more readers than I expected

That's because the game looks so damn GOOD!

so from now on i'll write brief sum-ups in english in my entries because most of the readers...don't speak french.

Can I demand full translation, not brief? Seriously, the game looks so good, I want all the info I can get!

[lesli_felix]

I'd love a blog, but I barely have time to read others, let alone write my own.

The only ones I read are flash-dev related though.

Fil... J'essaye a amelioration mon francais, votre blog est une grande secours. Merci!

[Sietjp]

I only write a few articles from time to time and I was surprised to realize it takes a looot of time (not speaking fluently english add difficulty of course, looking on wikipedia, answers to be sure to use the right word...). Nevertheless, a blog doesn't need an article every day. I read interesting blogs with only 1 article a month.