The Blood of the Indies

In Charlie Murder, the whole band gets Windows Phones on the fictional t2f (short for ta2fön) network.  There’s a bunch of stuff you can use your phone for, like email (some of it rote, some of it interesting), camera phone, and squid-themed microblogging site squ.iddl.us.  I thought it was a fun way to give your characters a bit of an info hub, and I’ve been a big fan of Windows Phone ever since my Samsung Focus and its marvelous bulging battery bomb (that’s another story). Also, we have a game on Windows Phone, and we definitely make a buck or two whenever someone buys it, so that’s cool. Yet still, I felt the need to tweet this:

In the comments in Joystiq’s rad Charlie Murder preview write up, there were a few begrudging Microsoft for what was (erroneously) interpreted as some sort of paid off order from up high to include the phone in the game.  This is obviously entirely untrue; if anyone’s guilty of some sort of slimy promotion, I guess that would be me, as I’d like to get more people interested in a pretty solid other alternative to iPhone (and, again, we’ve got Z0MB1ES on dat ph0ne!!!1)

But I think this illuminates an underlying issue, namely that of Microsoft’s misunderstood role as indie games publisher, and how that ties to the trending media narrative on Microsoft being “bad for indies.”  Where do we stand on all this?  Read on:

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9 Comments March 29, 2013

Good Morning Gato #74 – A Prior Engagement

You might have found that last Friday’s Good Morning Gato was notibly absent. We do have a good excuse though. We were at PAX! This was our second time exhibiting at PAX Prime and a quite eventful one it was!
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5 Comments September 2, 2011

Good Morning Gato #62 – In The End I Am Free

This past weekend was a hectic one for Gato and her sister, Neko. A dog was to be added to the happy family, but not if Gato could help it. After a flurry of claws, blood and revenge (the dog and cats themselves unharmed), it was not to be. In the end, Gato was free, and that’s all that mattered to her.
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1 Comment May 27, 2011

Good Morning Gato #60 – Spring Kitten

The oppressive heat wave has finally lifted leaving us with a week of true spring weather bliss! Obviously, Gato enjoys the mild weather and can now be found chilling in the sun porch, looking outside the screen door and being a lazy cat on the living room floor. Spring is actually here!
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5 Comments May 13, 2011

Good Morning Gato #37 – Ocular Glow

Her eyes glow with a piercing power that’s so warm, so consuming and so eerily welcoming that nobody can resist their attraction. Be attracted, give in and follow Gato’s mystical cat-eye glow into this week’s edition of Good Morning Gato.
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3 Comments November 12, 2010