Recently I came across this great opportunity, but it forced me to make a tough decision. I hope you will understand, and will keep supporting Koonsolo as you did before.

As you might know I started Koonsolo because I love creating games. Mystic Mine was the first game that I created entirely by myself, and I planned the same for the next one. But doing the programming, graphics and marketing all by myself is very hard and time consuming.

As I was working on my upcoming game, I got a request from another indie game company to work on a project together. This project isn’t a game, but a tool to create games. It will allow anyone without programming or artistic skills to create cool video games. And it’s powerful enough that when you do know how to program, you can write your own code. Or if you are an artist, you can include your own graphics.

I’ve been programming games since I was a kid, so this is the ideal opportunity to share my technical knowledge, and make it available to anyone. Doing this together with another company allows me to focus on the development and the things I’m really good at.

Because this game creation tool is going to be released first, it also means that my next game won’t be released in the near future. I hope you can understand my decision, and I certainly hope that you’re interested in creating your own games using my tool .

If you have any questions or remarks, just leave a comment below.

Thanks!

Koen.

The book is aimed at a beginning to intermediate Blender user. If you know a bit about the Blender interface, you will definitely have no trouble reading and understanding this book.

The contents of the book is mainly split up into 3 sections, and each covers a project from start to finish. In these projects you will create a futuristic handgun, a steam punk spacecraft and a transforming robot. With each project the learning curve increases, so it starts off pretty easy but builds up from there. I really like the hands-on approach of this book, which makes sure you will not get bored with too much theoretical stuff.

For an intermediate reader like me the book has some cool things to offer, like the modeling of rotating cables and wires, and the use of external renders like YafaRay and LuxRender. It’s clear from the book that they have a lot extra to offer, so I’m definitely going to check them out.

One negative part is that the book doesn’t contain color images, and as far as I can see the images in the ebook also are in gray-tone. This is pretty unfortunate since you’re not able to see the true end result of each project. The Packt Publishing website offers a download of the book’s supporting materials, so if you want you can still play with the end results and see how cool they really look.

To whet your appetite a bit, here’s a video of the last project showing the lighting setup in LuxRender:

If you’re interested, definitely check out the book at the Packt Publishing website. They even offer a sample chapter that you can download for free.

Do you remember playing with toy cranes, dump trucks or wheel loaders when you were a kid? I certainly remember having great time with those! Recently I bought some CATTERPILAR toys for my son to play with (dump truck, excavator and crane), and it just amazes me how much appeal it got.

Strangely enough there aren’t many computer games which let you control these heavy equipment machines. There are some realistic simulations, but nothing really fun.

Therefore Koonsolo is going to release a series of games where you control bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, wheel loaders, cranes and other heavy machinery. We will call it our ‘Big Machine Games‘. Don’t expect realistic simulations, because it’s going to be fun, entertaining, and something completely unique, just like any other Koonsolo game. It’s the perfect excuse to relive the fun you had as a kid, but this time packaged in a challenging game.

And as a matter of fact, we’re already working on the first game in the Big Machine Games linup. It’s our Big Bulldozer Game, a fun and challenging puzzle game.

Wish me luck!

Becoming a fan or following Koonsolo means a lot to us, so for those who support us that way, I’m going to offer something extra. Next month I’ll give away free copies of Mystic Mine. (Or if you already bought it from our website, a $19.95 Gift Card). A few winners will be picked out from those who are a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, YouTube or Vimeo. So make sure you subscribe before the deadline to secure your spot.

So don’t wait and subscribe now! Just click on the following links:

Recently I got interviewed by Linux Gaming News about my indie game Mystic Mine, and one of the questions was how many Linux copies I sold. I looked into it and saw that I sell the most copies for Mac OS X, then for Linux, and the least for Windows. I didn’t make much of it, because as an indie game developer it’s easier to get noticed on Mac OS X or Linux than on Windows. And selling games is all about exposure. But after people started to ask questions on this, I looked further into it, and what I discovered really surprised me.

Before releasing Mystic Mine, I honestly had no idea if it was going to sell on Linux. I expected it to sell well on Mac OS X and Windows, because other indies have already reported this, but on Linux, I had absolutely no idea. My initial thoughs were that Linux users are used to getting quality stuff for free, so I didn’t expect them to pay for software. So would they pay for games? Probably not. But now I know how wrong that assumption was. Just look at my findings below.

I released Mystic Mine the 3rd of February 2009, so currently there is 7 months of statistical data. Let’s first take a look at the web visitors I got during that period:

So I got 40.29% visitors using Windows, 36.30% using Mac and 22.58% using Linux. Nothing special with these figures, because it’s easier to get Mac or Linux exposure, but there are still a lot more Windows users.

But if you look at my sales, that’s quite a different story:

• Mac OS X: 42.72%
• Linux: 33.98%
• Windows: 23.30%

Linux represents 1/3rd of my total sales, which is quite a lot if you compare that to the number of Linux visitors I get. And now comes the cool part. Below are the conversion rates per OS for my Mystic Mine game. Conversion rate means the number of sales I get per visitor (Remark that indie game developers normally work with sales per demo download, not per web visitor):

• Linux: 0.43%
• Mac OS X: 0.39%
• Windows:  0.19%

As you can see Linux is way up there, which is quite a surprise to say the least. For every 232 Linux visitors I get on my website, one of them buys my game. If you compare that to windows users, I need 526 of them to get a sale. For Mac OS X it’s 256. So who would have thought that Linux users are the most eager to buy an indie game? Certainly not me.

Of course these statistics are for my game only. Therefore I would love to see some other indie game developers release their sales statistics on this, because if they get the same results as me, Linux is a more viable gaming platform than anyone currently assumes.

• The multiplayer game now tracks the overall scores for all played levels. This means that you can organize a tournament with your friends, and at the end see who won the most games.
• Mystic Mine is now running faster, so slower machines are now better supported.
• The first levels of adventure mode are now even more fun.

If you bought the game and want to receive the latest version, just mail me at koen@koonsolo.com and I will reactivate your download. And for those who don’t have the full game yet,  play the new demo and have fun!

I received feedback from players who sometimes organize little ‘Mystic Mine Tournaments’ among their friends. But in the current multiplayer game you only see the scores of the last game. A totals score board would be a great help to keep track of who won the most games etc. This way you can see at the end who the ultimate Mystic Miner is . I’ll keep you updated on the progress of this new version, and will definitely let you know when it becomes available.

If you have more suggestions for small improvements, now is the time to let me know. Because I could still include it into this update. Just comment below or mail me at koen@koonsolo.com.