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Heran Bago
Aug 18, 2006




Indie Spring Sale!
Look at all these loving deals.




What's an Indie game? Why should I play one?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSXofLK5hFQ
Solja Boy recommends indie games like Braid "for people who smoke or people drink like if you drink beer and you get drunk or you smoke weed and you get high and you just... anything, like you just get be gettin' hosed up."

Indie games are games that are not usually made by big corporate developers and don't usually make big corporate money. They benefit from not having to deliver brown first person mass appeal but the narrow budget makes them often limited in scope.

That said there is still quite a variety within the "indie" genre that it hardly makes sense to put all these titles into one genre. Indie games can be flash based, java based, or just a .exe you download from some shady website. It's common for indie games to use sprites or 2D vectors, why so many cheap games look like Flash games or NES games, but they are not limited in graphic style either. Visuals and sound can be a strength when done right and are easy to overlook when only a handful of people made the whole game



Like what games?


Get your indie game bingo cards ready.




Minecraft is a game where you build obsessive wonders, try to survive, play with friends, or do some combination of these three things. Wouldn't you know, we have threads and servers for it! This game sold a whole lot of copies and helped make independent games more mainstream. Its developer Mojang is also renown by no one for other hit titles like Scrolls and that gamejam thing.




Fez is an indie game where you are a 2D guy who realizes the world is 3D. It's featured in Indie Game: The Movie, a pretty good documentary that I'd recommend. I have been looking forward to this for a while but I'm not about to get an Xbox just for this and Spelunky HD.




Envirobear 2000 is a free PC bear driving game. It's not exactly the latest Gran Turismo but it's thrilling and challenging.




Journey is a game where you go on a journey. Sometimes people help you on a journey and sometimes you help other people. It's fairly well known by now but it's a hot Playstation Network console exclusive indie game.




Flower is another Playstation Network exclusive by thatgamecompany where you are flowers and wind. You collect flowers, make more wind, and become a big flower snake thing. It's also been around for quite a while but I think it's a classic example of what indie games are all about. Sometimes you are just Katamari Damacy with flower petals and that's something EA for example just doesn't do.




Dinner Date is not a good game. It is a game where you get stood up at a nice dinner. It's not like Dear Esther where you look around and get a story told at you. Well it kind of is.




Octodad is a physics/frustion-based dad simulator. You play Octodad and try to maintain your disguise while taking care of your family and fighting a crazed sushi chef. The sequel, Octodad 2: The Dadliest Catch (pictured), is pretty far in development.



Passage is a game that I'm reluctant to spoil for anyone who hasn't played it. It's a short simple little game of life thing. It's so games-as-art that you could hang it in a museum, which is what's going on in the top picture.



Sometimes Indie games are free and then a paid HD version comes out. Spelunky (HD), Eversion (HD), (Super) House of Dead Ninjas, (Super) Meat Boy, N(+), and Cave Story(+) are all examples of this. You can basically try a slimmed down version of those indie games without paying for them!





Let's talk about indie games and which ones are good and which ones are not good.

Heran Bago fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 15:23

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Heran Bago
Aug 18, 2006




What's New in Indie Games


Indie Spring Sale!
http://savygamer.co.uk/2013/03/22/s...%28SavyGamer%29




"A Bird Story is an indie adventure short, about a simple narrative taking place between the mix of a boy’s memories, dream, and imagination."

Freebird games posted:

Okay folks, the real thing this time. :p A Bird Story (the first spiritual successor of To the Moon) is now officially announced! A simple, surreal short about a boy and a bird with a broken wing
Not to be confused with To the Moon 2: http://www.freebirdgames.com/images/ttm2.jpg

Heran Bago fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 15:22

TheFoulBard
Sep 21, 2012

What you said? Captain Planet fuck you up.

Do fanmade games of other series count as indie games?

When does an indie game just turn into a game?

If someone came up to a prolific indie game developer and gave them a bunch of money to make more games in indie style, would that make them not indie games anymore?

Heran Bago
Aug 18, 2006




TheFoulBard posted:

Do fanmade games of other series count as indie games?

When does an indie game just turn into a game?

If someone came up to a prolific indie game developer and gave them a bunch of money to make more games in indie style, would that make them not indie games anymore?

I'm tempted to say fan games built on an existing IP are not independent games but I would say most original fan/doujin games (Touhous, Carpe Fulgar stuff) count. But then we have stuff like the Sonic fan game on Greenlight. I don't know and I'm not an authority but I consider these all games!

Unless the person with the money is someone like Activision or Ubisoft then sure they're still indie. I think AAA devs should have indie branches like in the music and movie business. I totally stole that idea from Extra Credits though.

Lazy Programming
Oct 3, 2010

Filled with sage wisdom


You seem to be more in the know about indie games than me, any recommendations for indie games so pretentious I'd need a hazmat suit to deal with the smugness radiating from them?

Cyra
Nov 1, 2006

Shake it tails



It was neat to see indie games breakthrough into mainstream appeal but nowadays it seems all you need to do to be indie is make an "8-bit" flash game or otherwise reference 8-bit games a whole bunch in your simplistic but not 8-bit game. "Indie" has kinda pigeonholed itself into some sort of almost self-parody genre. Like, if it's not folk music and sepiatone, it's 8-bit with tons of references to other better 8-bit games.

My latest favorite sub-genre in Indie are the awful 3D horror games like Anna. Those are all the rage right now, last time I checked at least half of Steam Greenlight was those.

Some indie titles are really good, but the market is now so oversaturated with me too developers that it's becoming like zombies where it's like ugh enough already. Do something new. Which is ironic considering indie is all about offering something different from the norm.

I dunno, that's just my observations off the cuff, not trying to threadshit. Limbo was pretty rad.

Cantorsdust
Aug 9, 2008

Infinitely many points, but zero length.

Heran Bago posted:

What's New in Indie Games




Bientôt l’été is a two-player walking on the beach separation simulator or something. It sounds so indie and I am totally picking it up next steam sale.

I have this from before Steam. It is... a thing.

First you start off by walking on the beach. Except you're not actually on a beach, but on a holodeck's version of a beach, and there's crazy stars and poo poo in the sky. You walk along and pick up phrases, things like "I miss you" or "Perhaps the weather will get nicer" or "I could stare at you for hours" or whatever. The beach itself is quiet, with just the sun, sand, and surf. Off in the distance is a beach house of random size. After you're done walking and collecting phrases, you go inside the house.

Then, the game matches you up with someone else, and you're both seated at a cafe table. During this time, you can move pieces on a chessboard, light up and smoke a cigarette puff by puff, or pour and drink a glass of wine, sip by sip. You're not actually playing chess, as far as I can tell, but moving the pieces lets you choose from the phrases you picked up earlier. You and your partner take turns moving, and you can do one thing per move. So you wind up in these bizarre pseudoconversations with a stranger, while saying the most intimate, odd poo poo like "I could stare at your naked body for hours" or whatever. I always felt awkward picking those phrases, since I'm talking to a complete stranger. I would usually try to string together jokes on whatever my partner last said, pick simpler phrases, or smoke or drink.

Edit: My conclusion--buy it for no more than $10 if you like odd experiences. I would be surprised if you get more than a few hours out of it, but it is kind of fun trying to string a conversation together from the limited pieces you're given.

Cantorsdust fucked around with this message at Mar 7, 2013 around 03:00

WendigoJohnson
Sep 4, 2012
HEY, IT'S ME, WENDIGOFAGGOT, HERE TO ONCE AGAIN SHIT UP ALL THE NINTENDO THREADS WITH IDIOTIC SPECULATION THAT I TRY TO PRESENT AS COMMON SENSE. NINTENDO SHOULD RELEASE A GOLD PLATED REPRODUCTION OF THE VIRTUAL BOY BECAUSE DUHH THEY WOULD BE STUPID NOT TO!!!!!

Lazy Programming posted:

You seem to be more in the know about indie games than me, any recommendations for indie games so pretentious I'd need a hazmat suit to deal with the smugness radiating from them?

I'd say Braid, because the creator will get really loving mad at you if you're the wrong type of person who plays his game. Which in itself is pretty undeserving because he had to hire someone else to finish the game so it didn't look like poo poo.

Heran Bago
Aug 18, 2006




Lazy Programming posted:

You seem to be more in the know about indie games than me, any recommendations for indie games so pretentious I'd need a hazmat suit to deal with the smugness radiating from them?

Braid is one of the most common suggestions here but seriously try reading and understanding the flavor text. If you've already played the game and ignored them that makes it easy. Indie Game: The Movie adds some nice elements to this. You can watch Phill Fish watch the youtube clip of Solja Boy playing the Braid and he gets all huffy because so many of the people who bought his game don't understand!

Dear Esther is pretty up there too. It is trying really hard, and I actually dug it.

While most folks adore it anyone who doesn't just thinks it's super pretentious. A sprite-based RPG maker game not by Japanese people, To The Moon. For what my opinion is worth it's a great game well worth the price of admission.


The word "pretentious" comes up a lot with indie games and I think it's a really vague generic insult for a piece of media. Most modern games have pretensions.

FZeroRacer
Apr 8, 2009


Lazy Programming posted:

You seem to be more in the know about indie games than me, any recommendations for indie games so pretentious I'd need a hazmat suit to deal with the smugness radiating from them?

Despite how well-liked it seems to be, I could not stand Gemini Rue. It had a neat start and just threw most of what I liked about it right at the end.

beanbrew
Jan 3, 2011

the way is not in the sky

the way is in the heart




Thirty Flights of Loving is a really cool experiment in nonverbal storytelling. It's one of my favorite games.

I love pretty much everything from Blendo.

TheFoulBard
Sep 21, 2012

What you said? Captain Planet fuck you up.

Just throwing one of my favorite gaems into the mix;



FTL: Faster Than Light, the hard as balls Kickstarter success story. Control a rebel space poo poo on the run from the Alliance of evilness. As you fight your way to the final boss, find new soldiers to join the fight, upgrade your ship, and fight fires, get kicked in the theoretical testicles and enjoy.

TheFoulBard fucked around with this message at Mar 7, 2013 around 03:16

FZeroRacer
Apr 8, 2009


On the topic of To The Moon, the next game in the series is being announced tomorrow per post on the game's facebook page.

PleasingFungus
Oct 10, 2012

It'll come back eventually.

...probably.


Worth recommending Kentucky Route Zero, which already has its own thread, and Christine Love's games, Digital: A Love Story, Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story, and Analogue: A Hate Story. They're not remarkably interactive, but they tell an excellent story. (Both Digital and DTIPBIJAYS are free!)

Anything by thecatamites is probably fantastic. (Space Funeral and Murder Dog IV: Trial of Murder Dog) are probably his best known games.)

Also, I make games from time to time, so I'm technically an indie dev? If you really want, you can google my username, but be aware that my stuff isn't as polished as most of the games people are talking about in this game.

Miketopus
Jan 24, 2010

Absolutely. If we put little wheels on the bottoms of our shoes, we could just roll around everywhere...


Two words: Lone Survivor.

It's sort of like Silent Hill in atmosphere, but somehow it's even more abstract. The game, story, and soundtrack were all done by one guy, and somehow it manages to be great in all three areas. Well, gameplay can be a bit awkward, but the game exists for the story and atmosphere. The soundtrack is also one of my new favorites.

Velveteen
Sep 17, 2011

I'm the type of pony everypony should know

PleasingFungus posted:

Christine Love's games, Digital: A Love Story, Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story, and Analogue: A Hate Story. They're not remarkably interactive, but they tell an excellent story. (Both Digital and DTIPBIJAYS are free!)

Those are amazing.

One game that I like is Aquaria. Its basically a story about a fish person being the last of her kind exploring the depths of the oceans and the other civilizations that fell before hers. Its slightly non linear although you are forced to learn certain powers before being able to traverse certain areas. There are quite a bit of secrets, bosses, equipment, foods, etc. The sea life is accurate and the music is great.

Rhontos
Oct 19, 2011



Here's to hoping that this thread will last longer that the last. I think I might do an effort post of IGF finalists if that's alright. There are a lot of cool games on that list that have gotten hardly any attention.

Also,

FZeroRacer posted:

On the topic of To The Moon, the next game in the series is being announced tomorrow per post on the game's facebook page.
so excited.

Blast of Confetti
Apr 21, 2008


For anyone who doesn't know about Nerdcubed, he's a poster child for ADD who's too cheap to buy a USB controller despite making a living doing YouTube LPs. Apart from that, he also does a segment called Three Free Games Friday. It's where I've gotten my last couple of indie games and I think he's up to week 18 now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL3OJbjtAoQ

Most of them are just five minute timewasters, but those are just as indie as the pretentious bullshit that can barely be called a game.

Ularg
Mar 2, 2010


I can't even start to mention how many of these games I've gotten from indie bundles and steam sales. Aquaria was by far one of the most beautiful but really didn't push me to finish it. We should also include the Games Dev challenge submissions because they are always awesome and less pretentious than a "She stood you up" simulator.

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

It costs you four hundred thousand dollars to change this avatar...for twelve seconds.

TheFoulBard posted:

Just throwing one of my favorite gaems into the mix;



FTL: Faster Than Light, the hard as balls Kickstarter success story. Control a rebel space poo poo on the run from the Alliance of evilness. As you fight your way to the final boss, find new soldiers to join the fight, upgrade your ship, and fight fires, get kicked in the theoretical testicles and enjoy.
No John, you are the Federations.

FTL is totally worth it though.

Another indie game that is totally worth it is Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, a Japanese indie game where you play the merchant in an RPG world. You buy and sell items, improve your shop, haggle with customers, learn their likes and dislikes to be able to charge the "perfect price", craft stuff, go on mediocre Zelda-like randomly generated dungeoncrawls to collect loot and crafting materials, and get entertained by a pretty alright, mostly lighthearted and goofy story.

It's actually TWO indie things in one, the original company, Easy Game Station(misleading, Recettear is not easy!) is like 4 dudes who before the big breakout on Steam at least, were living in the same apartment, and it also led to the creation of Carpe Fulgur, a two-man translation team made up of SA goons Spacedrake and Robin. They did an outstanding job translating Recettear, intelligently converting otherwise completely impervious Japanese jokes into great English ones, and made a massive underdog success story with their hard work. I think they said they expected Recettear to sell 10,000 copies, but it sold A LOT MORE than that. It sold over 100,000 copies by 2010, so surely it must have sold quite a bit more by now.

Keep in mind you can mute the Japanese voices. Which is a game-saver for some.

edit: I just realized this video has endgame spoilers, so don't watch it past the halfway point or so if you care about not spoiling yourself on what characters you get later on to fight with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ_4Hvbgn3E&hd=1

Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at Mar 7, 2013 around 12:04

TheFoulBard
Sep 21, 2012

What you said? Captain Planet fuck you up.

Captain Invictus posted:

Another indie game that is totally worth it is Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, a Japanese indie game where you play the merchant in an RPG world. You buy and sell items, improve your shop, haggle with customers, learn their likes and dislikes to be able to charge the "perfect price", craft stuff, go on mediocre Zelda-like randomly generated dungeoncrawls to collect loot and crafting materials, and get entertained by a pretty alright, mostly lighthearted and goofy story.

I had no idea what Recettear was until I watched a friend's stream of it and fell in love instantly. It's cute and adorable and fun and dang it, I wanna play more of it.

One thing to say about FTL and Recettear; I'm tired of a games' difficulty being determined by the RNG. Meat Boy is hard as gently caress, but when you mess up, it's all your fault. Gambling is fun, video games are fun, but when the core of the game is gambling, it gets frustrating. The only game I've ever abused saves with is Recettear. With that being said, prepare yourself for a world of waiting around for an old man so you can charge him astronomical prices for a goddamned candy apple.

CAPITALISM, HO!

cat doter
Jul 27, 2006
Teenage Mutant Ninja Cripple

Is there a good way to check out all the cool secrets of Fez without just reading through a gamefaqs page? I was playing the game a few weeks ago trying to figure out the secrets but I don't really have the time to brute force that stuff.

The Penitent Man
Aug 8, 2012


WTF is this bear poo poo I downloaded?

I want to punch you in the face so bad right now, OP.

HMC
May 18, 2009



I've only played a handful of his games, but Stephen Lavelle of Increpare has a really diverse portfolio of experimental games. They usually have a compelling mechanic even if they're not exactly "fun" in the way we traditionally expect video games to be. Slave of God is what I'd expect a game adaptation of Enter The Void to be. In Salome you have to maneuver a ball around a simple terrain obstacle, but you play as the ball from the first person. In A Single Breath is similarly simple yet maddeningly complex.

Jazzuo is some kind of evil trainwreck genius, making games like surprise sex and Dildo Tank, but I'll be damned if I can't endorse Sexy Hiking strongly enough.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

The whisper-quiet, spinning, spike railing.


A few years ago the fake Peter Molyneux Twitter feed, Peter Molydeux, started a push to produce some of its ideas. The gimmick of the account is that it posts bizarre game ideas that sound vaguely like actual Peter Molyneux game ideas, like "an FPS, from the perspective of a bullet." Some of the games produced for the project ended up being pretty interesting, like a Braid-esque puzzle-platformer whose momentum continues after the game is paused, and a Gauntlet-esque run-and-gun game where your gun must be plugged into a wall outlet to fire. Some of them are downright unplayable, but they're all pretty funny. There's an ongoing list here.

Speaking of which, Braid is on a short list of indie darlings in my mind.

voltron lion force
Sep 15, 2010
Probation
Can't post for 42 hours!


FZeroRacer posted:

Despite how well-liked it seems to be, I could not stand Gemini Rue. It had a neat start and just threw most of what I liked about it right at the end.

I did like it, but its pretty rough around the edges and comes off as too derivative. Resonance and Primordia are much better IMO.

geri_khan
May 16, 2009

Fucking blocks... I'm gonna climb the shit outta you!


I feel like the LP of [MODE] should be mentioned in this thread.

A FMV game from the Windows 3.1 days, it was never released due to disastrous initial reviews and has languished in near-complete obscurity since.

You play the part of an anonymous party crasher at a high-art event full of weirdos and performers. There's art collecters, actors, mostly-insane artistes, the media, a compere who's like The Joker as played by Jon Stewart, and women who put sheets on each other. You interact with them not by choosing dialogue - you never see exactly what the party crasher says - but by setting the tone of your responses from aggressive, passive and positive though the use of the "Mood bar." There are technical issues a plenty and some dodgy acting, and whether it's ironic or not the game plays pretentiousness to the hilt.

It's far from perfect but I think it's probably better than those initial reviews made it look. There's a lot of variety in how the game can go, with what looks like quite a few possible paths, and the first of supergreatfriend's streams ended with the party crasher meeting a childrens' party entertainer who told an incredibly long-winded story as a prelude to dancing and sex. Hours later the crasher surfaced to find the end of the game had already happened without them and there was nothing to do except sheepishly leave the premises.

Anyway, supergreatfriend is LPing it, by running streams and letting the viewers vote on how the party crasher acts. Also the original creator of the game has shown up in the thread and is fun to read. The game only runs on Windows 3.1 but if you actually feel like installing that the creator (spaxter) has made a download of [MODE] available in the thread somewhere.

ArfJason
Sep 5, 2011



Holy poo poo I wish there were more of this, in sort of disconnected vignettes. Like LSD for psx.
Also I see the MolyJam still hasn't fully recovered from their file loss. A shame, I wanted to try those.

ArfJason fucked around with this message at Mar 7, 2013 around 19:07

Fergus Mac Roich
Nov 5, 2008



I'd definitely like to recommend Year Walk for iOS. It's an adventure game based around Swedish mythology. It has a sinister atmosphere, enough to make me think of it as a horror game.

Alex WS
Nov 18, 2012
YO, MAN! I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S UP WITH YOU GUYS BUT I WAS A TEENAGER LIKE THREE DAYS AGO AND I KNOW HOW THEY ACT, DUDE. SO GET THAT GHETTO-TALKING SHIT OUT OF MY SPIDER-MAN MOVIES!

Cyra posted:

It was neat to see indie games breakthrough into mainstream appeal but nowadays it seems all you need to do to be indie is make an "8-bit" flash game or otherwise reference 8-bit games a whole bunch in your simplistic but not 8-bit game. "Indie" has kinda pigeonholed itself into some sort of almost self-parody genre. Like, if it's not folk music and sepiatone, it's 8-bit with tons of references to other better 8-bit games.

My latest favorite sub-genre in Indie are the awful 3D horror games like Anna. Those are all the rage right now, last time I checked at least half of Steam Greenlight was those.

Some indie titles are really good, but the market is now so oversaturated with me too developers that it's becoming like zombies where it's like ugh enough already. Do something new. Which is ironic considering indie is all about offering something different from the norm.

I dunno, that's just my observations off the cuff, not trying to threadshit. Limbo was pretty rad.
I agree with everything you say here.

Tragically, the term "indie" seems to have devolved into a simple genre for many people, with very specific rules and expectations. Like you mentioned; 8-bit aesthetics or 8-bit references is a common ingredient. Low-key graphics is another; sparse environments and a simple color palette. The music is usually very basic and moody. It's almost as if game developers consciously apply these features to adhere to peoples expectations, otherwise their games won't be indie enough, and instead simply be cheap, simple games. It's like the term is now a validation card for cheaply produced games. You can cut a bunch of corners and use some questionable game design choices as long as the game adheres to some basic rules. "That game looks like something my Nintendo 64 could run..." "No, you don't understand, it's supposed to be like that, it's INDIE." This common conscious has produced a bunch of generic games that really just coast on the breakthrough success of the earlier games.

I also think an important note is to differentiate between indie games, and games that are simply delivered via the same channels as indie games: XBLA, Steam, PSN, Nintendo eStore. I think the term indie should only apply if the game is made by a small group of people, and when the intent is to create a unique experience. As opposed to a game produced by an established studio primarily to make money. Everything by EA, Ubi, Activision and other big studios are categorically dismissed. Borderline examples would be games like The Cave; made by a decently sized developer, and is a pretty "safe" and unprovocative game that wouldn't seem to out of place on EA's portfolio.

Quest For Glory II
Dec 17, 2003



Play all Locomalito games because they are great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S40sbLQj7yw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSSqXTOgNvI

Pladdicus
Aug 13, 2010


Alex WS posted:

I agree with everything you say here.

Tragically, the term "indie" seems to have devolved into a simple genre for many people, with very specific rules and expectations. Like you mentioned; 8-bit aesthetics or 8-bit references is a common ingredient. Low-key graphics is another; sparse environments and a simple color palette. The music is usually very basic and moody. It's almost as if game developers consciously apply these features to adhere to peoples expectations, otherwise their games won't be indie enough, and instead simply be cheap, simple games. It's like the term is now a validation card for cheaply produced games. You can cut a bunch of corners and use some questionable game design choices as long as the game adheres to some basic rules. "That game looks like something my Nintendo 64 could run..." "No, you don't understand, it's supposed to be like that, it's INDIE." This common conscious has produced a bunch of generic games that really just coast on the breakthrough success of the earlier games.

I also think an important note is to differentiate between indie games, and games that are simply delivered via the same channels as indie games: XBLA, Steam, PSN, Nintendo eStore. I think the term indie should only apply if the game is made by a small group of people, and when the intent is to create a unique experience. As opposed to a game produced by an established studio primarily to make money. Everything by EA, Ubi, Activision and other big studios are categorically dismissed. Borderline examples would be games like The Cave; made by a decently sized developer, and is a pretty "safe" and unprovocative game that wouldn't seem to out of place on EA's portfolio.

I disagree 110% and I think the indie culture is literally vicious towards crappy titles like that, Passage which came at the spearhead of that (hit and miss in my mind) gets a lot of scorn for painting that picture pretty widely among the indie crowd.

That said there is a crappy pretention hanging over the 'scene', but your dealing with people who primarily present themselves as independent artists, that's almost unavoidable in the mainstream. There's a wider acknowledgement to larger indie projects and things done without a publisher as being indie but I won't deny there's a disconnect between what 'indie games' are and what independent developers actually make.

I sincerely don't think we've gone so far as to put it as asimple equation of poor production values and interesting/strange concept

Alex WS
Nov 18, 2012
YO, MAN! I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S UP WITH YOU GUYS BUT I WAS A TEENAGER LIKE THREE DAYS AGO AND I KNOW HOW THEY ACT, DUDE. SO GET THAT GHETTO-TALKING SHIT OUT OF MY SPIDER-MAN MOVIES!

When I meant how the indie term had devolved, I meant in the minds of the consumers. And while I can admit to generalising, I'm fully aware that it only applies to a part of the consumers. But what are you really disagreeing with me in? I didn't say that the entire indie "scene" made generic indie-like games. Just that the term has lost some of its meaning and is often applied to all sorts of games, often to the bigger publishers delight, as the term currently has a lot of appeal with gamers. I never meant to imply that indie developers are okay with this, and you can't deny that many average games get a validation boost by painting the indie moniker on its chest - despite it not being appropriate in the slightest. A requirement for me to consider a game "indie", is that it has a unique idea. It's hardly an independent project if it only leeches on the success of others (see: all Minecraft clones).

Tl;dr
I love indie games, I just have a problem with how many average games and game developers exploit gamers current fascination with the market.

take_it_slow
Jul 7, 2011


You have to burn the rope is good, as are the games it inspired.
A couple of the games that I really genuinely enjoy are Revenge of the Sunfish and Sexy Hiking

The first is very representative of anybodies first experience with game maker, and includes a lot of cool concepts. The second has one of the most amazing learning curves in any game I've played, as well as a very interesting control scheme.

Nathilus
Apr 4, 2002


Ularg posted:

I can't even start to mention how many of these games I've gotten from indie bundles and steam sales. Aquaria was by far one of the most beautiful but really didn't push me to finish it.

You should finish it. It keeps throwing cool new stuff at you till the very end, and the ending itself is pretty drat good. The last boss hits a dozen sweet spots for good last boss design as well. For a game put together by two people, the whole thing is just excellently crafted.

jvempire
May 10, 2009


There definitely is something to talk about when defining what an indiegame is. Here is Derek Yu's (Spelunky, Spelunky HD, Aquaria) take on what it means to be indie: http://www.tigsource.com/2013/02/18...mment-803741108

Derek Yu posted:

I think you're misusing the word "crowdsourced", which implies that the games are actually being designed/built by the crowd. "Crowd-funded" is a better term.

But I personally define "indie" as:

1. "Independent", as in no publisher.
2. Small studio (roughly 20 members or less).

I choose that definition because it's the most useful one. Someone who is looking to become an "indie" game developer is interested in what is possible under those constraints and how those types of studios operate. It excludes companies like Valve and Double Fine, which are too large to be covered on TIGSource. It also excludes "feels indie"-type games that are not self-published (Shank and Journey, for example).

Under that definition you still run into gray areas, but hey, just because we don't know when "red" turns into "purple" doesn't mean the words aren't useful. Just think about someone who wants to make a game with a small team and self-publish it... what should they type into Google for inspiration, advice, community, etc.? "Indie" is still as good a word as any, imo.

Lutha Mahtin
Oct 10, 2010

Here I post;
I can do no other.


Some of us were liberal arts majors and actually enjoyed the postmodern wanking in Braid, alright?

Kellsterik
Mar 30, 2012


I just played through Thirty Flights of Loving after seeing it in this thread and i'm still putting it together in my mind. My take on what happened is, you met Anita and Borges at the wedding by chance, having been seated together, and developed a strong appreciation for real alcohol as you and Anita were drinking. The title partly refers to your drunken romp down the flights of stairs with Anita. It turns out that your new friends are smuggling Midnight Hobo and you've been looking for a chance for adventure like this all your life so you join them. But eventually, after several (maybe thirty or so) flights into the Prohibition country of Nuevos Aires, you're caught independently by the authorities and offered a deal to be spared if you turn in your friends. Apparently having no choice, you go through with it, tipping off the authorities during the next run and leading to the car crash and everything going horribly wrong thanks to you. Anita is pointing the gun but can't bring herself to shoot you because she still loves you in the most painful way, you take Borges who's delirious and thinks you're rescuing him, and take him through the airport wondering whether you can still get out of this one only to arrive in front of the police, not shooting because they're waiting for you. Maybe this is a stretch but I like to think the Bernoulli quote on the wall "All birds need to fly are the right-shaped wings, the right pressure, and the right angle" refers to the protagonist's previously mundane wedding-going life until encountering the perfect opportunity to have the adventure they'd been waiting for.

What did other people think? Am I just completely ignorant?

SovietSteel
Sep 11, 2010


Actually, if you listen closely you can hear Anita's gun click while she points it at you so just replace love with blind with rage. Unless that only happens if you're like me and took all the ammo. I can't comment too much on the story because I couldn't make any sense of it, but I loved the tiny details they included just about everywhere. There's not too many games that let me get drunk, eat oranges, take 40 pounds of ammo, then push a man around on a cart.

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Heran Bago
Aug 18, 2006




To the Moon sequel announced. Everyone get hyped for an injured bird!



"A Bird Story is an indie adventure short, about a simple narrative taking place between the mix of a boy’s memories, dream, and imagination."

Freebird games posted:

Okay folks, the real thing this time. :p A Bird Story (the first spiritual successor of To the Moon) is now officially announced! A simple, surreal short about a boy and a bird with a broken wing

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