Watch it - Tom Francis on Heat Signiture

Rohrer's Passage - 'play' it!

There was a time when it seemed Jason Rohrer was the only interesting name in indie gaming. Just the fact that he existed was interesting - living off the kindness of strangers and making games that were actually about something.

That time was only about five years ago actually. Now we're openly criticising his work, and Roher is just one of many indie luminaries. Some are loved, some loathed, some don't kick up too much of a fuss.

One interesting voice is that of Tom Francis. That's the man behind last year's excellent stealth-action game Gunpoint. More interestingly he has a long history in games journalism and as a result he knows how to communicate his passion. He could be just what indie gaming needs.

Gunpoint by Tom Francis

Tom Francis used to write for PC Gamer magazine. During development of Gunpoint he blogged about the process. Now he's working on the follow-up, Heat Signiture and he's doing more of the same, although Heat Signiture is still in the very early stages of development.

I heard about Francis when Gunpoint came out. Since then he's quit his job and gone into development full time. You can listen to a great intereview with him on Tone Control.

But Francis's Youtube channel is even more interesting. There you can see early footage of the game up and running. What's really got me excited though is his ability to talk. In the video below Tom Francis talks about his ideas and the prosess of turning those ideas into something real, without prompt or pause, for twenty minutes.

And all 20 of those minutes are interesting.