Hi,
On indie game dev forum i have started topic regarding more common actions between indies to be stronger against larger publishers.
The points are:
* to make a common effort to promote one product instead of 100 one
* not to make useless competition to each other
* support each other in tech and not tech areas as we do now
* find a proper supporter (even CoronaLabs) to promote such product as a Corona community project
There are three general ideas:
---- A one thousand apps page
Why not make something like this http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ but with small icons of our apps that makes a cool looking map of the world with proper countries that define app category. Nothing more on the site, just bunch of icons just like pixel city.
I would image this world map like this one http://www.cdprojekt.pl/upl/2009_07/galleries/6600847.jpg but with simple pixel art background, icon apps instead of flags, and and very light background color for apps of the same developer.
It should look nice as a whole not just a page with link 
this background map could be generated as i described above with some simple grapics addons added here or there like a tree or wave.
We could add more provinces as time goes for more developers in the future but starting with lets say 100-200 apps from people inside our group.
Maybe in far far future historic events could be added as a part of promotion of particular apps (app has a new king = promotion, or a marriage between two provinces = cross promotion).
---- 100 in 1 app build by several indies
I think good way to start would be an adventure game with cute character that needs to find 20 items around the world. Every item can be found in a mini game (arcanoid, short plat former, puzzler, physics, find differences or what ever we made in the past) and some items unlocks other mini games. Sometimes there is a need to score max stars in one game to have more lives in the other or finish track faster to have more money somewhere else.
Like simple RPG system (instead of str, dex, int there would be time, lives, purely arcade stats) but fragmented into arcade games. Main character would a be a indie dev hero aka “indie jones” that is fighting with big corporate pigs and finally overwhelmed them. That is what we are going to do with this product. Every mini game is using common rpg system stats (lives, time, tries, etc) as a starting values and gives players some bonus when completed (including exp to develop it further).
Some games would be easy, some of them would be difficult and require much more lives to do it. Because its a community product would be problem to sale it directly, instead of it i would like an ad from revmob, when ads can be defined per placement with different ID, different placement for different developer with different ID. Ad display just before mini game starts. Anyway this is just example i thought about in the morning, that shows what is going about. General rule is 10 devs and 1 app.
---- Crafter - simple crafting 2D game based on MiniCraft
another option is MINIcraft app: 2D crafting, not building game with multiplayer via game center (up to 16 people) gather resources on map and craft stuff (without building blocks and fighting or any RPG system, just player life / armour), interaction with other players via devices system from spy vs spy with very simply particle system that can inflict damage. Devices crafting system based on technology tree from civilization or Alchemy (more then 300 items to craft, very narrow technology curve) with ancient, medieval, industrial and modern epochs. Each brings new devices and triples number of resources to build stuff -> force multiplayer.
Start with basic app like minicraft, add stuff to build huge tech tree with very advanced devices at the end (like nuclear reactor), bunch of mini games based on different devices mini mechanics similar to redstone in minecraft or whole technology brunches like alchemy (from medieval) or steam punk (from industrial) or cyberpunk (from modern).
Start with basic minicraft game (max week time), make API to add tech trees, new resources (perlin noise map generation), new crafting receipts, new devices etc, everything based on very simple rules. Everything in pixel art retro style. Its all about discovering new things in tech tree, gather resources faster then competitors until ultimate device is build using spy vs spy technics. Devices can fire a particle, can grow a tree automatically, can chop down massive tree, can teleport players, can be a mine field, can be anything based on very simple 2D tile engine.
This is great project for such community cooperation. Notch made Minicraft in 48 hours and sources are available, most of things are quite simple to do (i made several advanced map generation projects with Perlin noise). The only thing which is not easy is game center integration for multiplayer Lets just call it Crafter. … some themes are paid some free, or general crafting is 20% faster on premium mode.
Regards,
Tom [import]uid: 111283 topic_id: 32444 reply_id: 332444[/import]