Goodbye: An Indie Departure

Hey, this has sort of been on my mind for months. Well, I have been at this Indie Games scene since 2007 when Xbox Launched their Xbox Indie Games. I was stoked, became a fan. I was immediately hooked on a game called The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. which turned out to be developed by someone in my area, James Silva Lead Developer at Ska Studios. I loved the way the game moved, it felt like I was playing a AAA Game. Sort of felt like DMC in a 2D Perspective.

Later in 2008, I began to stream through my Mac Mini, with a whole bunch of Indie Games I had purchased. I kept it going for a while, merged over to Twitch.tv and started a YouTube account. I was then asked to join a tiny-big journalist website that catered just to Xbox Indie Games. The site was called XboxHornet. I was doing almost daily to bi-daily videos of the most recent of Xbox Live Indie Games, even if that meant I purchased them. I had some tokens thrown to me here and there, but I did my fair share of purchasing. I can tell you now, I had received a lot of requests for plenty of games since I had started with Xbox Hornet. They were a great start to get my work and my strong interest in the Indie Game Community out there. When I was streaming, I started the channel name as Vintage Video Games TV (VVGtv), because I played some retro games here and there and some indie games.

Indie Games have always this pull on me, maybe it was because they reminded me of the games I grew up on, you know, those retro games. Many of the Indies I played were side-scrollers, shmups, and platformers. Most of them carried a 8-bit to 16-bit vibe, accompanied my modern chiptune music.

Much later in 2010, I started my website here on VVGtv. I started with “Fight for your Love for Xbox Live Indie Games”. This was a campaign to help support Xbox Live Indie Games. VVGtv took off from then, and we had a few writers on the site. The first was a gent, that some of you may remember, Derek Strickland, whose reviews were expansive and were down to every detail. Derek later moved on the bigger and better things, he was a godsend to VVGtv and the Indie Game community.

As the last 3 years moved on, I met some great people, including one of the greatest bloggers I have ever had the chance to read her reviews. I hated her at first, was jealous of her thunder. The name, she was Indie Gamer Chick! She learned a lot about Indie Games and their process after that. It was a rough start, even for me. There were some words said. I am happy to see that Indie Gamer Chick being so successful, between her entrance to the scene and now. Kyle Lock (@Daizoren), host of our Indie Spotlight, joined the team of VVGtv. It left just Kyle and myself running both the site and the VVGtv YouTube together, between video and written content. I am more than grateful that I had him as a friend and a colleague. I appreciate everything he has done for all of us. I hope he knows that. Kyle also has his on YouTube Gaming Channel. Where you can find a wide array of gameplay videos with a lot of witty commentary, plenty of Let’s Plays, and Horror Reaction Compilations.

As I come to my last paragraph. I wanted to say thank you to the Indie Game community. I am taking a leave, it might be permanent. The reason why I am leaving, I have a new child on the way, and my job I have been at for more than a year has made me very happy. I have moved up in the company within a year of being there. I feel like I have a purpose now. As I leave you now as someone who has played most of the Indie Games I can. I hope I got to you. I must go now, I will still be around. On twitter, @MasterBlud. I will also be streaming on my Twitch Channel here and there, make sure to subscribe. As these are the only things that will keep my semi-involved with all of you, I hope to still talk to a lot of you.

PS – Any who, I wanted to put our Amazon Baby Registry right here, if those who would like to send something for the baby. By the way, I am having a boy and his name will be Lucas James Donnelly. If you do not wish to use the baby registry and would like to help out towards the baby shower or some other form you can PAYPAL directly to vintagevideogamestv@gmail.com or CLICK HERE.

-Love

Master Blud

aka Ryan Donnelly