Flash Famous ... and then ?

You may wonder why I'm restricting myself on the Nintendo DS -- where a mere handful of players are going to enjoy my work -- rather than embracing Flash and reach millions (?) of gamers, possibly earning even just €.O1 from each of them, getting famous, got hired by a serious gaming studio and then getting rich. Especially when there are now powerful environment suited to chip-tunes-and-pixel-art such as the Flashpunk and flixel libraries.

If you do, I don't expect that whatever I could tell you about the magic of coding on the DS could enlighten you ... Instead, I'll say this: every single person I watch playing a drafty version of my little game is bringing me so much more joy than a pile of €.01 ... and the DS is just perfect for that. It has intuitive control, and I can carry it along with me everywhere.

Friends, friends of friends, nephews, step-brothers, colleagues and even EU project partners. They tried it. They failed or succeeded. We laughed. They asked questions and I answered them with as much enthusiasm as I did spoke of micro-engine programming during my PhD. Kids hanging around in my family are proudly showing their own drawing of Bilou.

That's not to say there will never be a flash version of Bilou. But if there is one, I think it will mostly be a short-cut demo that will be designed to draw attention to the polished product available for Nintendo DS (natively or on emulator, btw). Whether it will be even more retro by then doesn't care a bit.