Best Of Member Blogs: From The IGF To Boys And Horses

Showcasing highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our weblog writers take a look at submitting to the IGF, whether players should read instructions, the role of testers and more. Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. Our favorite blog post of the week will earn its author a lifetime subscription to Gamasutra's sister publication, Game Developer magazine. (All magazine recipients outside of the United States or Canada will receive lifetime electronic subscriptions.) We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. Here are the top member blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Member Blogs - Lessons Learned While Submitting To IGF (Daniel Silber) With the 2010 Independent Games Festival just having concluded its call for submissions, indie developer Daniel Silber shares his experiences preparing for the competition -- including some simple but handy tips for other indie devs. For his effort, Daniel will receive a lifetime subscription to Gamasutra sister publication Game Developer magazine. - The New Monuments of Man (Enrique Dryere) Will the great human monuments of the future be not pyramids or metropolises, but MMOs and virtual worlds? Enrique Dryere explains his somewhat unorthodox view. - Is It Wrong To Expect Gamers To Read a Game's Instructions? (Eric Adams) It is likely that most gamers, once they have reached a certain level of gaming fluency, no longer bother to read instructions before playing. Should they? Should designers assume they have? Eric Adams offers his opinion, and a lengthy comment thread hosts a debate among Gamasutra readers. - Ueda and A Boy and His Blob and A Girl and A Horse (Bryan Ma) What do A Boy and His Blog, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus have in common? Bryan Ma takes a look at character interaction, design simplicity, and aesthetic minimalism across the three games to draw some connections. - Who REALLY Says Your Product Is Done? Not Who You Think (Mac Senour) They may not be the ones who announce it, but gameplay testers -- often the lowest-paid employees on the team -- are the ones who determine when your game is actually done. Industry veteran Mac Senour offers some relevant anecdotes from his career.