calling all (cyber)space cowboys

On this project’s forums, there’s a Bounties board. There, I post tasks related to The GDE that anyone can volunteer to complete.  Right now, the tasks are relatively painless and easy, and you don’t even have to register to complete them since guests can reply to topics. But I do encourage registration.

For starters, here are two bounties you could help out with:

• higher monitor resolution survey
• share this project!

HALP GUYS!

So it’s been about a week since I’ve launched the project. In the meantime, I’ve been promoting the various aspects of it on a few forums and monitoring traffic. So far, it’s been really slow. Here’s a rundown of the various aspects:

forums

Only one registered user so far besides me. However, I have had as many as 23 guests visit in one day, which is pretty good for the limited advertising and promoting I’ve done. But the problem is registration (an important aspect for any fledgling forums). Anyway, I urge you to visit the forums, register, and become an active collaborator. But if you’re wondering what the forums is for to begin with, then read the next report…

main site / wiki

According to my site statistics, the wiki hasn’t been getting hardly any hits at all. Either the statistics are inaccurate or something’s wrong here. The referral links from visitors (links they clicked to get to it) are not coming from the other project aspects (twitter, forums, this blog), but rather from one plug I made on the main site’s host forums. I expected that people visiting the forums would click on the other project links to find out more about it, but no one has unfortunately.

Anyhow, the main site / wiki is where the current documentation for The GDE is housed, and it has all the necessary info to get you up to speed on The GDE concept. Don’t hesitate to peruse the many topics and notes contained therein. But, if you’re looking for a more structured and traditional approach to getting your feet wet with The GDE concept…

presentation

Even less people have viewed the presentation, which is meant as a sort of fun, lighthearted yet informative introduction to the concept. The only referral links to this are from the same source as the wiki’s referrals. If you’re reading this now by chance, then may I suggest viewing the presentation so that you can gain a better understanding of what this project is about? After viewing it, maybe you can offer me some suggestions on how to improve it. Because I know it could use less text and more visuals. =P

twitter

I have two followers thus far, and one is someone I know. I haven’t been sending any tweets yet because it seems kind of pointless without at least a handful of followers (i.e. I can’t attract a following by just posting short tweets!) The purpose of The GDE’s twitter account is to post micro-updates that aren’t substantive enough to blog about, to post links for any updates project-wide, to keep in contact with GDE collaborators and network The GDE. But I need some more followers before I cant start tweeting and networking. So, if you’re at least remotely interested in this project, then by all means become a follower, even if you don’t plan on contributing.

conclusion

Ultimately, the success of The GDE as it is now depends on you since this is a bottom-up, grassroots project built around collaboration and absence of money. Right now I’m just one guy with an idea about how independent video games could be developed differently. I know there exists an ensemble of like-minded others out there willing to help shape a concept they can relate to and bring it to fruition.