Free indie games "magazine" launches
by Vladimir Cole 
{ Sep 6th 2006 at 2:44AM }
A new online magazine launched. Before we say something nice about it, a gripe:
What's up with formerly usable websites deciding to bundle their content in user unfriendly PDF and chop it up in such a way that it must be printed in order to be understood and enjoyed? Instead of creating friendly layouts that are legible online, some websites instead perversely encourage readers to print out all of these web pages. What gives? It's annoying for us, and lethal for our leafy cohabitants. Plus, those of us who rely on RSS for our news usually can't even get at all the content once it's been stuffed into a PDF. Argh!
Awful and abusive format choice aside, we welcome and congratulate the staff of Game Tunnel Magazine on a successful inaugural issue. There are some nice touches here: the scoring system for game reviews sports refreshing simplicity. The breadth and depth of the magazine also impress.
Still, as with all first efforts, there are some rough edges. For instance, the nifty game scoring system is grafted like a Frankenlimb to rather pedestrian, wordy game reviews. The scores would work better at the end of snappier, more pithy reviews. (Advice for fixing this issue: less IGN-style writing, more Pitchforkmedia.)
Game Tunnel's best feature is its mere existence: more writing on and about indie games can only bring much-needed positive attention.
[Via EFYtimes]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
GamerG @ Sep 6th 2006 3:13AM
Its not so bad, you can print it off and read it on the train/bus etc
I'll give it a go cheers for the heads up!
Game Tunnel Mag News On My Blog! @ Sep 6th 2006 3:16AM
I blogged about this a while back, but then i'm an indie dev. Nice to see Joystiq giving it some publicity, well done.
Dave @ Sep 6th 2006 3:22AM
Does it come with a free bucket hat? Indieness ftw
epobirs @ Sep 6th 2006 3:22AM
Now if the PSP had a PDF reader, the possibilities would be many.
Microsoft sponsors a number of magazine for its developer community. A magazine for XNA work on the 360 is something I'd really like to see. I kind of miss those days 25 years ago when you could learn by typing in BASIC game listings. It would be cool for the current generation to have a magazine with some of that feel.
Anybody else remember Pac Invaders, the impossible game listing? This was in an early issue of ANTIC magazine, named for one of the co-processors int he Atari 800. Atari BASIC had a limit of how many characters could be in a line of code. One way to get around that was to use all of the supported abbreviations. The problem was, if you printed out the program listings, every command was listed in its full version, which meant several lines of code could not be entered as listed. Since they were only publishing every other month at that point, it was a long time before an issue arrived with an explanation to restore sanity.
PS3 PAL delayed until March2007 On My Blog! @ Sep 6th 2006 4:30AM
Oh and joystiq - don't forget that all important "PAL PS3 Delayed" story, just a tip off to my favourite gaming blog ;)
Cabcru @ Sep 6th 2006 5:01AM
I guess it's in PDF format because if it wasn't, it'd merely be yet another gaming website in a huge, writhing sea of wannabe-journalists spoutings. In PDF, it can pretend it's 'weally-weal big boy magathine!'.
Chipacobra @ Sep 6th 2006 8:49AM
Great stuff, my only complaint about the design is that the cover is really bland. they should have gone with some of the really striking imagery from the previews section like the stuff in Buccaneer, DefCon or Mr. Robot.
The previews were the best part - we rarely hear much about indie games that have been released, let alone upcoming ones.
OtakuCODE @ Sep 6th 2006 9:12AM
People complain about advertising... incessantly and without thought. One of the positive motivations of advertising is simply informative - to let the public know a new product is available and a bit of what it does. This magazine gives the indie gaming scene what it has lacked for too long - advertising. The motivation to use PDF is probably either, as was said earlier, to distinguish themselves from being 'yet another game site' as well as possibly an appeal to dead-trees publishers. If they went to a real paper format, I'd certainly buy it if they kept their spirit and didn't just try to be 'The Indie PC Gamer' with all glitz and glam and no substance.
Shank @ Sep 6th 2006 10:35AM
Wait, so the complaint is that it is in PDF? I would take a pdf file over an article broken up over 10 different web pages like 1up does any day. The PDF is one download, can be viewed offline, and is easily printed for an easier read.
John H. @ Sep 6th 2006 11:01PM
Seconded, on the PDF rant. (Please forgive me, Gamer's Quarter guys!) It's on the web people, you can do a lot more, and a lot more easily, with a website than you can with a PDF. It's better for all things except layout (and even that's not really true these days) and printing. (And really, who prints those PDFs?)