Why make games? Steve Meretzky, formerly of Infocom and currently of Blue Fang games, gives us all a reason to be in his speech “The Most Perfect Video Game”, presented at the Boston Postmortem:

POV-Ray has some very powerful commands for rendering realistic plasmas and explosions, but not very many people know how to use them well. This tutorial will show you how.

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This image was 3D modeled in AC3D using the box modeling method. The textures were hand-painted (no photographs) in Corel Photopaint. The final image was rendered with Poser using image-based lighting.

David Edery, Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live Arcade, just posted an excellent article on developing compelling game demos for downloadable titles.

The best advice in his article? The trial is not just the first five minutes of your game. David recommends showing players the best parts of your game–not just the first part–to peak their interest.

If your game has an incredible mode that fires up anyone who plays it, but that mode is only encountered in the final third portion of the game, think about ways you can expose a slice of that mode during the trial experience. There’s no law that says a trial must begin at the start of a game. And there’s no law that says you should be forced to “level up” in a trial to the point at which you can finally enjoy the most fun aspects of a game.

Read the full article: How to Increase Trial, Improve Conversion Rate, and Sell More Games

“In God we trust… all others bring data.”
– Dr. W. Edwards Deming