http://www.untoldentertainment.com/blog/2009/04/01/kahoots-to-be-offered-in-esperanto/

i just translated some game copy into Esperanto using an online translator. Then a bunch of Esperanto purists hopped on the blog and, in Esperanto, criticized me for my poor use of the language and asked me (in Esperanto) whether or not it was a joke.

End result? i’m seriously considering releasing Kahoots in Esperanto!

i really appreciate Kado Kado because all of the games look like they belong together. i don’t know if they were all built by the same developer, or whether they were acquired, but if they were acquired, kudos to Kado Kado for making some smart on-brand picks. And you see that loyalty calendar at the top right of their site? That’s one of the elements of the Daily Challenge feature we’ve drafted for Interrupting Cow Trivia.

As for your company name, just give up and change it to InFarts. More and more, i’m favouring ridiculous names for their memorability and marketing value. (“Interrupting Cow Trivia”, anyone? ;)

- Ryan

Since I have begun development at InfiArts (I’m thinking of ‘two wording it’ what do you think? Apparently it looks too much like ‘in farts’ which I guess is fair…I’m blabbering, aren’t I?) I was looking at keeping a portal. I mean, it doesn’t just need to be flash. Take a look at the work of Jeff Vogel, or 2DBoy (wow, talk about two completely different genres/people) they both originally hosted their games on their site.

Sure, they then fed it to various portals (With Jeff’s being aimed at the more serious, middle aged gamer demographic, so needless to say, lacking xbox and wii versions :P) but their initial display was on their own site.

When I was doing research behind wether or not it could be done – I came across a wonderful example which was extremely hard to find: http://www.kadokado.com/

It was originally a french portal, that has recently been translated to english. Not well marketed, i imagine just word of mouth stuff – but it exists, it gets a lot of market attention (of it’s demographic) and was the single reason for me deciding I could work on getting and making a portal/brand name of my own.

It was also my main reason for eventually deciding on flash.

i don’t care if there are five million new portals this time next year – all that matters are the good ones. Strong brand, niche market, good customer service.

Although, if i were being picky (and i am), the site is ass-ugly, and the guy stole the Number Munchers IP and started making money from it, which makes him a complete dirtbag in my books.

- Ryan

perhaps try Superb! Quality games released like a year apart, works for the big guys… or build a browser MMO for a group thats not yet endulged with games :)

It has a central focus (games to help you learn maths), a visual style that is clearly aimed at children, and a few recurring characters. It’s certainly targeting a niche; would you say it has a brand too?

Why don’t YOU make your own!

It’s definitely on my Bucket List. i do very much like your idea of featuring developers. It hearkens back to the days when Atari started crediting their designers on game boxes. That’s why we’ve all heard of David Crane (Pitfall, Ghostbusters, A Boy and His Blob).

- Ryan

Better yet a portal which, instead of hosting and playing the game, directed traffic to the developer’s site would be all kinds of awesome. There would be all kinds of benefits for both parties in that situation, the downside would be that people wouldn’t fall in love with the portal anymore. However the portal would require much less bandwidth to function, therefore need less add revenue to stay afloat.

Agreed that Nitrome has a killer brand. But they achieve a lot of brand synchronicity because the colourful pixel art in their branding is repeated throughout their games.

One interviewer asked me if i was going to do everything in clay. That would definitely help the brand out – the brands in clay, all the games are in clay … then you could see a game and instantly know it was us. But i don’t really want to be pigeonholed like that – i want to be free to explore various styles and genres – even at the expense of the brand.

- Ryan

When we launched our own flash portal (http://www.gambrinousgames.com) we decided to things a little differently too. Mainly by publishing only a very low amount of games (we started with 5 and publish 1 or 2 new ones a week), each with a mini review and screenshot (slightly unbelievable that so few portals even do this), and all of great quality. More info on how & why on our blog:
http://blog.gambrinous.com/2009/04/19/introducing-gambrinousgamescom/

I think the best examples of building a great, distinctive ‘brand’ with a flash portal are Nitrome (http://nitrome.com) and the Casual Collective (http://www.casualcollective.com/). Both do this by only hosting the games they develop themselves, all of excellent quality and consistent visual style.

Any others like that? Any others that manage it without building all the games themselves?