Gamasutra Expert Blogs: From Indie Highlights To Cutscene Essentials

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about diverse topics, including the Indie Game Winter Uprising, avoiding project crunch, and what is missing from modern cutscenes.] In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs - The Indie Games Winter Uprising - Developers Seeking To Improve The Image Of XBLIG (Robert Boyd) Hoping to shed some light on the best Xbox Live Indie titles, Robert Boyd introduces the Indie Games Winter Uprising, which highlights the interesting and quality games available on the platform. - Tapping The Theme (Randy O'Connor) Randy O'Connor suggests games tailor the theme of their game to suit its gameplay. Rather than combining gameplay with an illogical visual aesthetic, games should employ themes that suit the player's actions. - No Project Crunch! (Michael Carr) Time-consuming project crunch is often considered a necessary evil in the game industry, though Michael Carr notes from experience that using a more evenly paced development cycle not only reduces the stress from constantly working late, but also helps improve overall productivity. - Xbox Indie Might Be Worth Another Look (Megan Fox) Despite some recent backlash against the Xbox Live Indie Games platform, Megan Fox examines the virtues of the service, and explains why it might deserve more attention from independent developers. - What's Missing From Cutscenes? (Pascal Langdale) Pascal Langdale takes a look at the qualities of cinema, television, and video game cutscenes, analyzing the differences that make the more traditional media easier to relate to than a computer-generated counterpart.