We showed up in the Austin American-Statesman for Tech Monday (out on the web this evening). Digg it. Spread the word. Check it out. Pretty good write-up.

UPDATE: I didn’t notice this, but there’s also a video clip. Interesting…

Told you it’d be released in April 2008… Just barely…

See you tomorrow…

This casual games traffic thing is pretty crazy. I had no idea Addicting Games had such a spotlight to focus. Here are some interesting numbers:

• 334,000 plays of the Olympic Torch Game on Addicting Games (within 48 hours of posting).
• 874 ratings, 367 reviews on Addicting Games (mostly complaining about the game being too short).
• 51,198 plays today on Addicting Games (since midnight PST), and that’s without being the biggest featured game on the homepage.
• #10 most popular game on Addicting Games of the last week.
• 54,000 visits to our homepage since the game was posted at Addicting Games. Nearly half of those visits came from sites that “borrowed” the game off of the Addicting Games website and reposted it on their own, primarily AGAME.
• 2,000 people have signed-up for our beta test (but only 500 of those actually entered a valid e-mail address). That’s about the same number of people who played the two games on our homepage.

Wow, I’m blown away. We never expected that much traffic to be sent our direction from this game. I hope the momentum keeps up for the next week or so… we’re getting close to unveiling the real deal.

Oh, and for those folks who saw my presentation on the Craft of Gamemaking: this is what I meant by “replay is a myth.”

So, we’re up to 148,000 plays on the Addicting Games website, making us the #2 most popular news-related game of the week (behind some game about taking pictures of chicks — unfair competition). We’re the #1 most popular game of the day with 57,000+ plays since midnight. We’re the featured game on the homepage. And we’re google hit #2 for “olympic torch relay game”, which goes to show how much weight Addicting Games has because the words “olympic”, “torch”, “relay” and “game” appear in about a million news articles and blogs posts right now.

The opinion of those who are playing it? Almost universally bad, usually along the lines of “I don’t get it” and “it’s too short” and “where’s level two?”, though some folks with positive comments along the lines of “it’s the message, stupid!” clearly get the point. Personally, I see even those negative comments as glowing compliments. It’s exactly what I would expect a relevant, disposable game made by an average guy (my business partner, who’s neither a programmer nor an artist) in less than a day. Actually, if you forget about the time it took to get the custom art, the actual game making process was more like a few hours. Tops. I could rebuild that game from scratch using Mockingbird in less than 10 minutes. Maybe less than 5 with practice.

In other words, the game was basically created as quickly as it could be imagined. About like me writing this blog post… I’m making it up as I go along. Now imagine thousands of folks doing the same thing on subjects that are relevant to themselves and their friends. And now imagine that feeding an even larger group that takes those games and mashes them up with their own content and tweaks, extending them with their own levels…

That, my friends, is the future of games, the future of the medium of games. That’s the long tail — the world of player-created games, of participatory games. That’s the true YouTube of games.

And that’s Mockingbird, The Game Making Game.

Wow, kinda out of nowhere we’re the featured game on the front page of Addicting Games. I never would have expected this… yesterday morning when the idea was pitched to us.

Olympic Torch Relay

Mockingbird is currently in a closed, private beta. We’ll be slowly inviting more people to join over the next few weeks. If you’re interested in a sneak peak, or you want us to let you know when it’s unveiled to the public, visit our homepage. Or those who know me personally can e-mail me personally and I’ll bump you to the front of the list…

I presented this evening at the ACC. I think it went well. I’m definitely out of practice. The slides probably won’t be interesting without the talking, but in case anyone is curious: The Craft of Gamemaking.

If you saw the presentation, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section.

No one likes working for “The Man.” I previously worked for “The Man” of our little industry, Electronic Arts. And then I was indie… and now, I work for “The Man” again.

Or, rather, I work for “The Bird.”

Last week, in a humble little legal procedure called “incorporation,” a quasi-real (but wholly legal) entity was formed in the Great State of Delaware. Its first act as a corporate entity was to hire myself and my business partner and appoint us officers of the corporation with all rights and obligations thereof.

So, I guess I’m officially employed now. Employed by the corporate entity that only exists on paper and in our imagination. At least I hold a controlling interest!

Our little guy was born last week, simultaneously incorporated in the halls of Delaware as he was given form in the notebooks of our concept artists. His image is lurking about the web (find it if you can!), but I’ll leave you with just the name for now: Mockingbird Games, Inc.

I guess it’s official, huh?