I've been talking about starting my own game company for quite some time and it reached the point where I need to just make it happen. There were a lot of barriers in my life preventing this seemingly ambitious task, but in the end it was a matter of priorities and my dreams won out.
A lot of things are happening at once right now, though most of them are boring business stuff that I won't bore you with. What I need from all of you is constant feedback and beta testing. Why does this have a flame tag? Because I want you to be honest with your feedback.
You can watch the progress of the company as it grows here. Right now the site is total shit and the text is poorly written, but that will change over the next month or so. It's good enough to get the basic point across, so why wait when i can start getting feedback now?
When Liar's Dice is finished I will post another thread with start times to try out the games. Right now the interface is total shit and if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.
Once the HTML version is done the 3d flash version that lets you use your phone as an optional controller will be released (shake your phone to roll your dice, use it to bet so multiple players can use one screen, walk around and see x-box like avatars of other players in a simlife like house, etc). I'll be throwing google analytics on to track basically everything to see how people react to stuff.
So what are you waiting for? Take a look (keeping in mind this isn't as pre-alpha as you can get) and tell me what you think of the overall idea. Try a game of liar's dice and throw out some suggestions to make the interface better. Tell me ways you think would be best to attach this to facebook so people can compete against friends. Got some industry contacts that can help me out by offering advice? Please do so! I'm already going to be asking some of the folks from Turbine Games and Zynga for advice, as feedback from people who have success under their belt is invaluable - the more the better.
tldr; go to http://boardgame.at/ and give me some feedback Ghost of Forums Past fucked around with this message on 03-13-2012 at 10:23 AM.
edit:
More progress: Got another great developer on-board, a good marketing guy, a game designer with games already fully designed (which means that we can just hit the ground running), access to as many additional game designers as we can handle, and a bunch of business mentors. Still need a UX expert (badly). Ghost of Forums Past fucked around with this message on 03-13-2012 at 10:22 AM.
quote:
Tarquinn's account was hax0red to write:
Why the Austrian domain?
"Where the boardgame is at"
But mainly it's a placeholder until I get the trademark thing taken care of. I plan on doing some old fashioned A B testing to see what domain gets the best hits.
*Edit: This is a little bit of an ambitious move, as there is always a chance the trademark search will show this is wasted effort. That said, it's a risk of minimal cost and trivial time with the reward of being able to hit the ground running once all my ducks are in a row. diadem fucked around with this message on 03-19-2012 at 06:51 AM.
Apocoplay - Bring your game to everyone's table
Decide on the next big game. Vote on the one you like, we make it, you play it. It's that simple.
How it works:
1 Vote
Hobbyist developers come to us with board games or phone games they want developed. That's where you come in and vote on favorites.
2 Play
Play the game online with your friends for free, for the first 20 hours each month.* Submit feedback and be part the game as it is created. Earn points, as well as special recognition for being a top contributor.
Physical prototypes of the boardgames will be available immediately for an additional charge, using Apocoplay's onsite 3d printers.
3 Bring it home
When the game gets popular, we launch it into a professional and finished form.
*Play unlimited for $X.XX a month. Earn points as you play. Points or money can be used to buy additional customization for your avatar.
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Addy said:
Give me a job!
I'll need as much feedback and help as I can get as this thing gets developed!
We are still in bootstrapping mode, however, so i can only pay you in beef jerky, thanks, and free games at the moment.
diadem fucked around with this message on 03-20-2012 at 11:09 PM.
bottleneck: one of our core staff members has jury duty
quote:
This insanity brought to you by Tarquinn:
Not trying to be snarky or anything, but have you thought about starting a blog? You obviously care a lot about sharing your experiences and EC isn't really a big or overly interested audience.
Oh, most defiantly. In fact, public exposure even at a pre-alpha stage is pretty critical for the business model I'm following. The more valid metrics i can pull from the public in regards to what they are willing to spend their money on before I use my own resources (time, money, etc) the better.
Expect a news section on the site on Sunday 
. I'm starting with EC because that's how ConnectiCon started.
Also, there are a couple things I have to wait to be finished finished on the legal side that until I start talking about this on a larger scale. diadem fucked around with this message on 03-21-2012 at 05:38 AM.
There's always one. 
edit: 'till then, here's a picture of what the walking commute would look like when I get off the T (subway) diadem fucked around with this message on 03-22-2012 at 08:55 AM.
quote:
Tarquinn's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
That's a nice vista.
The office itself is on the 14th floor by the water and has a panoramic view of the financial district of Boston on one side while overlooking the ocean on the other. The actual address is One Marina Park Drive, Boston MA.
Amenities include use of conference space, very high end printer for presentations to a list companies, small photo/film studio, a foosball table, and more. The most important resource, however, is the networking with the top talent of the Boston entrepreneurial community.
Note that this is just a temporary space, though a very generous one.
I now have support from Microsoft including free software licenses (Visual Studio Ultimate, Windows Server, SQL, etc), hosting, and more. diadem fucked around with this message on 03-22-2012 at 09:45 PM.
Blocking: Was unable to gain additional contacts at this events because I was working late at my main job yesterday. I will probably join "MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge" so it won't be a total loss.
Progress: I was given a lead to contact some people at Zynga for advice.
On the topic of nice views, the training area that Microsoft provided for the event wasn't too shabby either.
Pic's from today's event at Microsoft:
Getting off the elevator...
View from the windows
Closer look downstairs
Progress: Got $100 credit at elance. Thanks again Microsoft Bizspark! For context, I'm paying $150 for the logo package.
Progress: Got $100 credit at odesk. Also thanks to Microsoft Bizspark. diadem fucked around with this message on 03-22-2012 at 11:19 PM.
quote:
Blindy. wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
I'm jealous of you right now.
If you are interested in doing something like this yourself, Stanford is hosting a free online class that is open to the public. The only catch is that registration ends today.
http://venture-lab.org/
http://eesley.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-lies-ahead.html
quote:
Progress: I was given a lead to contact some people at Zynga for advice.[/QB]
I will save you time and tell you what they will say.
"Find something popular. Copy it, then sell it as your own because you have some popular games. Watch as your version skyrockets with little work."
Seriously, though -- that looks like a great space for an office! My office, unfortunately, doesn't have a window. But hey, I work for a software company and don't have to sit in a cubicle all day. This makes me happy.
quote:
diadem thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
View from the windows
This kinda makes me regret going to Cape Cod instead of Boston, the day I was in the area. Tarquinn fucked around with this message on 03-24-2012 at 11:34 AM.
Progress: Contacted Hetzner (my current host) to see if I could use the Bizspark licenses to convert my CentOS server to Windows.
(tech stuff) The current plan is to use this for rapid development using entity framework to test/prove viability. Should this be successful probable long solution would most likely be to utilize RavenDB so I could have cheap constant power with dedicated servers and hybid expandability into the cloud should I get a sudden reddit-syle boost in traffic. (This solution actually happening depends on how real life usage of traffic and bottlenecks actually pans out).
quote:
Tarquinn wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
This kinda makes me regret going to Cape Cod instead of Boston, the day I was in the area.
Oy, screw opportunity cost. Did you enjoy Cape Cod? diadem fucked around with this message on 03-25-2012 at 10:25 AM.
diadem fucked around with this message on 03-25-2012 at 01:39 PM.
View of the Logan:
View of the Harbor:
View of the city (from my cube's window)
(closed blinds)
(closer view)
The goal is to get TFS, SQL Server 2008, and two IIS instances up as soon as possible. Oh, and a Minecraft and Terraria instance 
.
Once the infrastructure is up I'll work on polishing the about us page and hammering out Liar's Dice.
On top of that, the big goal for tomorrow is to get the incorporation and trademark process underway. Once that happens we can get a merchant account and prove viability.
Progress: We are looking into acquiring an online ccg that has 160,000 users.
Progress: Got various mentors.
Progress: Got a producer on-board who worked on some projects you may have heard of like Rurouni Kenshin.
blocking: still waiting from legal for incorporation diadem fucked around with this message on 03-28-2012 at 08:24 PM.
Progress: Got a well known google engineer as a mentor
. Since everything's VM based we can easily tweak stuff based on resource usage.TFS will be a boon because it's absolutely critical for proper collaboration between devs
Progress: Legal stuff is making headway
Progress: Got my application for masshcallenge ready (as a rough draft) but I'm working my ass off to do market research. I need to excel in this if I want to have a chance at winning a prize. If anyone has information on case studies of marketing social and mobile apps, speak up!
Progress: Another one of my co-founders is gathering more top end industry contacts. diadem fucked around with this message on 03-29-2012 at 06:58 PM.
diadem fucked around with this message on 03-30-2012 at 02:19 PM.
For now, here's the corporate side of our site, in progress.
