Well... this is where business goals come into it.

In a way, I don't consider us "indy" - to me indy development is all about making a *non* commercial game - not trying to make any real money on it. We are trying to do this as a long-term, sustainable business model - making good/great games, which turn a profit (etc).

One of my pet hates about the AppStore is *saturation*. Its too easy to become a developer - there are too many games, games get blown away after no time (etc). You have to be really lucky to make a real hit - and a lot of titles just come and go...

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In my opinion, WiiWare has just about the perfect balance. The hardest part (as I mentioned above) is getting accepted by Nintendo as a WiiWare developer. They definitely would not allow anyone (or any team) to become a dev - I personally have around 10 commercial titles to my name, and across our team we have 20-30 years of commercial experience (across 5-6 people).

So... you have to fight a bit, and prove yourself to them to get in. Once you do, it pretty much all comes down to your team - your skills, design ideas and so on.

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Ironically, (and I may talk more about this later) we had the exact opposite experience with Steam. I wouldn't recommend Steam to anyone, based on my experience with them.

BTW - first review is in, and its a 8.5!!

http://thehanafudatimes.com/?p=4863

Its actually pretty close to how I would review Flowerworks, and the sort of score I would give it.

i agree with the review, especially on the difficulty. even on easy, the later levels are unforgiving.

congrats on the game, shams!

The video on the hanafuda times looks pretty crazy :)

Congrats!

nintendolife.com gave flowerworks an 8 :D

http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/reviews/2009/12/flowerworks

strangely, the reviewer is a little sympathetic for the gnomes :b

An excellent review, hats off to the reviewer ;)

I posted some comments in that thread...

If we can get a couple more scores in the 8's, I'll be a very happy shams :)

Well Shams, I already told you I was going to get your game... simply for answering my question... But now I am even more excited. I read both reviews earlier and was about to post them in here, people always seem to beat me to the punch on vgchartz

Nice reviews, I hope we start seeing some reviews coming in from the big sites soon.

The game has a real skill to it - I have played it heaps (obviously :P), and can blast through most levels now. The key is simply the focus on combos - and trying to line up that one extra combo with every pollen drop. The fireworks cascade (and mix), so just one extra hit can make a huge difference.

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Todays tidbit of information about the game:

The main character, "Follie" was designed by Luke Feldman (aka 'Skaffs') an artist I worked with at a previous studio. Follie wasn't even started until halfway through the project - and we went through 10 (or so) iterations and designs until we got her right.

I have the highest regard for Skaffs, and suggest people can check out his site: http://www.skaffs.com/