You've had plenty of the theoretical mumbo jumbo, but exactly what should that positive mental attitude be applied to? In this new 2-part series, I lift the lid on the tools and services that I use for both developing a game and then publishing it. They're not necessarily the "best" options that the industry has to offer (and they're certainly not the "only" ones), but they are the ones that have steered me through the past 6 years. If you're hoping to emulate my work, you might want to hit the ground running with these insights...

Icons
Whatever you use to develop your games, you'll want to stamp your own mark on them once they're done. Creating and integrating your own icons is a good place to start, but it's not always as easy as it sounds. Programs made in Blitz, for instance, inherit the same childish "rocket" symbol - and you'll need to poke around with a tool called Resource Hacker to replace it. Don't worry, it's not as sinister as it sounds! It's simply a program that allows you to access and explore a computer's more elusive files. In this case, the "runtime.dll" file from your installation of Blitz - which grants you access to the default icon and allows you to replace it with your own. As for making your own icon in the first place, you could do worse than a program called Imagicon which was made in Blitz itself and can be downloaded for free. It allows you to load in a regular bitmap or JPG and then have it transformed into an icon of any specification (which is much preferable to drawing your own pixel by pixel!). These files can then be distributed with the corresponding game to uphold a professional image and a consistent brand...

Installation
Distributing a game isn't as simple as throwing around the raw files. To avoid confusion on the user end (and to keep the file size down), it's best to wrap the files up in a self-extracting executable. WinZip is adequate enough for casually passing things between friends or from one computer to another, but the outside world will expect a professional installation process. As ever, there are many products that serve this purpose - but they don't come much more straightforward than Click Team's Install Maker, which is free to download too. Here you can specify which files need to be installed - complete with all the introductory text and images that make the user feel comfortable. You should use your information page to draw attention to any of the game's nuances or special requirements (not to mention all the usual legal disclaimers and copyright notices that will come back to haunt pirates in court!). Before you think about creating this final build, you should take the time to put together a "clean" installation of the game first. For me, this involves piling the entire production into a zip archive and then deleting all of the unnecessary files that were collected throughout its lifetime. You'd be surprised how many there are! This is especially good for removing "Thumbs.db" files, which are irrelevant to the end user and yet tend to be plentiful and rather large. This clean list of files can then be extracted to a separate directory, and it's from here that you should compile your installation build. It also goes without saying that you should load up this version of the game one last time to ensure that all saved games have been deleted and the options have been restored to their default settings. However you leave it, that's how the public will find it...

Physical Distribution
When you first start making games, having them professionally published seems to be the dream. However, once you've gotten over the initial thrill of holding a boxed product in your hands, you may begin to resent the bureaucracy involved. The sluggish process, measly royalties, and sudden loss of creative input can soon disillusion those with a passionate vision. Fortunately, the developments of the 21st century have taken the power out of their hands and placed it into yours! Enterprising companies like CafePress use the Internet to allow anybody to publish anything. Skip past the tacky mugs and lunchboxes, and you'll see that this even extends to CD's of all kinds. You simply send them a master of the CD in question, upload all of the box art, and leave them to put it all together as and when orders come in - with 100% of the profits going to you! As my detractors will tell you, this DIY method is no substitute for credible mainstream publishing - but until those offers are on the table, you may not have a choice. Personally, I couldn't be happier with the situation I find myself in. I pocket more per sale than any other game developer on the planet, I have the creative freedom to release what I want how I want, and I can have the finished product in people's homes within 2 weeks of it being completed! The obvious catch is that nothing happens unless I make it happen, so those "sales" aren't quite as plentiful as they would otherwise be. Outside of stores, there are no impulse purchases - so you don't sell a single copy of a game unless people are falling over themselves to get one...

Online Distribution
The 21st century has not only made it easier to publish your efforts but it has also cultivated new ways of doing it! Thanks to the emergence of broadband, online sales of both music and games have finally started to match their physical counterparts. You'll need to have a foot in each camp if you want make a success of your publishing. Most customers will always be inclined to own a tangible product in its purest form, but you need an easy-access alternative for those that can't (or simply don't want to) have something delivered. The method of choice is a process called "wrapping", whereby the full game is accompanied by a shop front that locks out after a certain number of uses and requires the user to register at full price to continue. This shielded version of the game can then be distributed with abandon, allowing guaranteed customers to buy and prospective customers to try! As ever, there are many companies and products around to serve you in this process. Although it has its detractors, I find it hard to beat SoftWrap for pure ease of use. You simply head for their site, give it an executable to secure, fill out the details of the game, and then you're free to get on with putting it out there. Similar companies such as RegNow and TryMedia are a little more fussy, and make the wrapping process more arduous and complicated than it needs to be (assuming they even take your game on in the first place)...

Online Promotion
As soon as somebody ventures anywhere near the realms of entertainment, they inevitably dream of playing to millions of adoring fans. The harsh reality (especially at this level) is that it's difficult to acquire a thousand customers - let alone a million! Although there are hundreds of millions of gamers on the planet, not a single one of them will part with their money unless you give them a reason to. Even on the Internet, every player has to be hard earned - and an entire industry is built around tipping the odds in your favour. There are thousands of "shareware" libraries on the web, which collect PC software of all kinds and catalogue them for the general public. Ideally, you would benefit from being listed on every single one of them - but 99% are so poorly attended that it's not even worth filling out the form! If I could only submit to one site (and I usually feel that way), it would be C-Net's Download.com network. As the lucrative domain name suggests, it's the most popular and professional resource of them all - where games can achieve thousands of downloads effortlessly (creeping towards hundreds of thousands with positive feedback). Best of all, a basic listing has been made free in recent years - so this grand opportunity is open to almost anybody! The only problem is that with great power comes great responsibility, so you'll have to jump through dozens of bureaucratic hoops to get accepted. You may find a more receptive host at the official showcase of your chosen programming language. Any product worth its salt will have one, and it's here that you can expose your work to a small but appreciative audience of peers...

Press Promotion
As surely as online games should be backed up by a boxed product, your online presence should be backed up by exposure in the printed press. In the 21st century, it's tempting to assume that magazines have been antiquated by websites - but the truth is that they will always offer quality over quantity. Although they may only get tens of thousands of readers, those readers tend to be sincere players being informed by qualified journalists - the endorsement of whom far outweighs that of a few amateur kids! My own career is a fine example. Although my days in the sun may be long gone, I did enjoy a brief reign as the most well-publicized independent on the scene - and regularly appeared in publications of all kinds. Doing so was key to raising my profile above all the other wannabe's that lived in the fantasy world of the Internet, and it became a firm seal of approval on everything I did. It's more difficult than ever now that mainstream expectations cloud the judgement of onlookers everywhere, but it's not impossible. The first lesson to learn is that you can't wait for them to come to you! Pick up every magazine that could conceivably be interested in your work, and look out for threads of discussion that you might contribute to. Write a dedicated letter to the editor (or a particular journalist) with these angles in mind, and be sure to include a complimentary copy of your latest and greatest work. Assuming the package reaches its destination, your job is done and you can look forward to a little more word-of-mouth - if not a full blown mention in the magazine or a demo on the coverdisc. And if you're still not being written about, you may want to consider doing the writing yourself! The more professional gaming magazines will regularly feature articles by industry insiders, and your more articulate views deserve to be among them. This time, e-mail is a more appropriate tack. Simply visit the publication's website, ascertain the editor's contact address, and send your proposed article as an attachment. Once you're writing and being written about, your presence will be ubiquitous and you can look forward to the credible exposure that brings...

Website
Your very own website should, of course, be at the heart of the publishing process. You'd think this would be the most straightforward part too, but it's surprisingly easy to fumble! For a start, if you're remotely serious about embarking on a career, you need to get professional. Avoid "free" websites like the plague and become the master of your own destiny with your own domain name. Naturally, there are countless opportunities to acquire one - but the only one I can speak for is Freeola's "Get Dotted" service. For an utterly insignificant sum of money, you can be the undisturbed master of your own webspace year after year. And once you've got it, you might like to hunt down a program that makes it easier to work with. I got started with a free product called CoffeCup FTP and I've been uploading files effortlessly ever since! As for the web pages themselves, you're once again spoilt for choice - but if you find Microsoft FrontPage installed along with Office, you've already got everything you need. It's as simple as writing a text document, and yet all the HTML is waiting on the sidelines for you to tinker with as you become more ambitious. It's not for me to tell you exactly how to run your site, but you would do well to follow my example of substance. Some developers find it acceptable to simply offer a download and a couple of screenshots, but the key to my success has always been offering much, much more! Not only more information about the games themselves, but additional insights into my methods courtesy of countless articles and posts. It's no exaggeration that half of my visitors come for that side of things alone, and you would do well to offer an equally deep experience. And whatever visitors you do get should be made fans for life via a mailing list! Even the most loyal follower won't be glued to your website 24 hours a day, so you sometimes need to go to them with a regular newsletter that tunes them back in. I'm fortunate enough to have a great one built into my CafePress operation, but prior to that I got by alright with a free service called Cool List. Used in conjunction with other networking phenomena like MySpace, you can take the name of every human being that ever shows an interest in your work and save it for a rainy day...

Business
What many people don't realize about my job is that making the games is literally only half the story. Behind the scenes, I'm essentially a self-employed businessman - and I wouldn't be operating year after year if I didn't take that role seriously! If you're ever fortunate enough to see some regular cheques coming in, you'll have to take it seriously too. Since these words are being read worldwide, I can't get bogged down in financial or legal issues that may not even apply in your part of the world - but the basics should be universal. As soon as you're making a living off it, you should register as a self-employed "sole trader" or as a company of some description if others are involved. From that day forth, it's then essential that you keep a record of every incoming and outgoing payment for each month (storing receipts and invoices every step of the way). All of a sudden, buying a new computer is a "business expense" and you'll need to file it correctly if you want to claim it as such! Balancing these books needn't involve computers, but since you're already literate you might as well make life easier with a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. Here you can store each payment and expense in a table format - complete with cunning little equations that automatically calculate the totals and profits. These monthly entries should then culminate in an all-encompassing annual breakdown, which calculates the overall totals of turnover, expense, and remaining profit. Those magic numbers can then be submitted to the taxman when the powers that be ask to know what you're up to...

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