Kevin and I are both proponents of the tradition of carrying around multiple sketchbooks and scraps of paper, to jot down ideas and inspirations for future review.

Evoking an idea often requires a prompt commitment of ink to paper, or text to keyboard, or it can be lost into the noise of modern life.

I’ve found it fun to give whatever sketchbook I’m using at the time to other indie game designers when we’re hanging out together. I’ll usually ask these fine ladies and gentlemen to take a page and draw whatever they want. Here are some of the hidden treasures contained within my current primary sketchbook.

Link to Full Set.

It features scribbles, elegant and crude, from Erin Robinson, Phil Fish, Adam Saltsman, Brandon McCartin, Kyle Pulver, Petri Purho, Jason Rohrer, and of course, sketch work from Kevin and myself.

So I’ve just finished a little iPhone game with my friends Alec Holowka and Danny B. It’s a simple physics-based color smashing kind of thing, with lots of explosions.

Get it in the App Store

Screens

This is a cute little essay on indie games, created by taking this NYTimes essay, and substituting ‘indie game’ for ’short story’.

The independent video game is always ducking for cover. The Triple-A game buys up the land, cuts down the trees, puts up the condos. The independent video game scampers across a lawn, squeezes under a fence.

I think it works really well! It’s funny how an essay about another medium verbalizes my fuzzy thoughts about the indie game scene so neatly, although maybe it works better for creators of short-form games like Cactus, Nifflas, Rohrer, and Messhof, than with games like Bit Blot’s Aquaria.

I don’t know what Braid would be… maybe a novella?

Found via kottke.