DISCUSS: Indie Games Year in Review

By: Derek Yu

On: December 20th, 2006

One of the great features of this site is our comments system. I don’t see any reason to ever go back to having a forum again, really. I like that you guys are all really active and opinionated and funny (when you’re not being dicks).

That said, I’d like to try something out. I’d like to write a nice “Year in Review” for indie gaming. Something that succinctly summarizes all the important events of the year and analyzes the trends. I think it’d be entertaining and valuable for the community to have.

However, there are a few problems with me doing all the work myself. For one thing, I’m lazy. For another thing, no matter how much research I do, I’m going to miss something.

Let’s utilize our comments system and I want to pose the questions to you:

1. “What happened in the indie game community that was important to you this year?”

2. “What were some notable games you played that were released this year?”

3. “What the hell did YOU do this year that was related to indie games?”

Some things that immediately come to mind are XNA, IGF (of course), and Manifesto Games finally going public. XBox Live Arcade was also very prominent this year.

My idea is to get a discussion going and then cull all the wonderful nuggets of joy into a feature. Notable quotes may be used in said feature. I want to talk about it all, from kisses to disses.

So yeah, this is the internet. What do you think? Let’s do this shit and see if it works out.

DISCUSS. (All such posts must end with the word “DISCUSS.”)

Posted in Community, Features

Tim

The upcoming release in Aquaria, finalist in four IGF categories. The rest is a haze, really… ;)
konjak

I am konjak, eater of destruction.

On a side note, my opinion remained steadfast of Clickteam not actually knowing what a game is when they released the timidly improved MMF 2 (yes, I am too lazy to learn any real “coding” watchamajig, so I guess I can’t complain).

I should get around to playing more indie games, but I liked Darkside Adventures.

Me, I’ve had 36 and 3 projects started and abandoned since Noitu. It’s all fun!
MattC

NHP. DISCUSS.

Oh, and Line Rider seemed to be pretty big. It got picked up for release on the DS and Wii. And as I type this you seem to have posted a story about it.

DISCUSS.
Xander

This is where I wish I’d written a diary of some kind to remind me what came out and when. Way too much to really keep track of, so most notable for me are the games that decided they’d like to hand my own ass to me, so Satan Sam 2, Trilby’s Notes and 1213 all get a mention there. I loved Noitu as well, especially for the boss fights. It’s been a while but that was damn good indeed.

What did -I- do? Well, as I’ve always said the only real involvment I have in indie gaming is playing, enjoying and being annoyed that I could never make something like this. In that aspect; I’ve pined over Alien Shooter 2 as it lays finished and yet unreleased. I mourned the loss of Tigsource, and then rejoiced when it finally returned. I stopped with the AlecXander handle because Derek was working with an Alec on Aquaria and I figured I was just confusing things (best to keep things simple anyway).

I think what was important to me about indie gaming this year was Sonic the Hedgehog. A game created by a legendary company, on the most advanced console technology available, priced at some almost extortionate amounts (Â£50 RRP in england means we’d have been paying almost $100 for it in-store). And yet, just how many games this year have we had that have completely floored it in almost every aspect? Whether it’s Noitu’s Boss battles or Knytt’s exploration or Satan Sam’s redonculously hectic action… we’ve got them beat. And I love it

Also, I loved that ‘I’m OK’ somehow managed to mix scalpel-sharp satiricism with pissing on brains. Does gaming get any better than this?

DISCUSS
Teeth

1. â€œWhat happened in the indie game community that was important to you this year?â€

Developer-community-wise, easily XNA. I’m closer than I ever have been to finishing a home project. It’s awesome and people are getting behind it and sharing code and stuff.
TIGS coming back was good for the community-community. The indiegamer forums are so damn dry and not the place for general public to talk about indie games. haven’t tried any community aspects of sites like gametunnel, I think tigs has a bit of rebellious charm to it though.

2. â€œWhat were some notable games you played that were released this year?â€

Within A Deep Forest and Knytt are probably my highlights. I barely bought any PC shareware games this year, only been playing freeware ones.

3. â€œWhat the hell did YOU do this year that was related to indie games?â€

Posted/pimped around a lot of links to posts on TIGS and Tim’s blog. Got several people playing Knytt until the small hours and blaming me for it the next day. Started writing a kickass awesome 2D game in XNA. Bought XBLA games.
Teeth

oops

DISCUSS
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

1) Most important thing was TIGsource rising from it’s grave and discovering Tim’s Indygamer Blogspot.

2) Gamma Bros, CounterClockWise, Mr Robot (hopefully), Poyo, The Cleaner and all the ones I forgot.

3) I started a podcast.
Sergio

CAVE STORY!

It’ll be around forever, heh heh heh.
Derek

It seems like a lot of indie news sites popped up this year, and indie coverage on mainstream sites increased also.

I’ll definitely mention the Arsecast on there.

Defcon should probably be mentioned.

Teeth, how is XNA? Have there been any notable titled released for it, yet?
Alec

I made a game.
Teeth

Derek: Compared to working with DX or OGL in C++, XNA’s like a dream come true. Then again I haven’t tried Game Maker or Torque X, and those both sound great too. As for released titles, only one (that Eraser game) that I know of that’s complete and been released.

Did Armadillo Run come out this year? That was great.
http://tomus.bloguje.cz Tomus

1) From my view as a game journalist, the most important thing that happened was that DEFCON was finished. We can argue whether it is an indie game or not, because it’s been reviewed many times in normal review sections of paper and web magazines, it had coverage comparable to every commercial title. But still, it was taken as a flagship of indie scene by the reviewers – and that’s quite an achievement. It had indie look and feel – and managed to turn much attention to indie games scene. I just hope Subversion will be the same success…

DISCUSS
http://tomus.bloguje.cz Tomus

2) I’ve played so much excellent indie games this year! I’ll try not to spam this forum, but I just can’t help myself. Steam Brigade – great idea and even better presentation. Tradewinds Legends: Unlikely Heroes – I’ve spent 12 hours playing this little game and almost died of hunger and thirst. Wild Earth – never had so much fun playing a game with my sisters watching. DEFCON – of course, the ambient sounds and people voices in comparation with abstract graphics and cold speech of numbers “Moscow – 10 million dead” made my almost cry. Kudos – in a way limited, but very well though out social simulator. Motorama – at least someone got the idea to make an Elastomania-clone. B.I.R.D. – small arcade game, but very, very addictive. And it’s Czech production, so my patriotism won’t let me criticise it ;-). De Blob – when someone said “freeware Katamari Damacy” I didn’t believe. ‘Till I played it… And many others…
DISCUSS
http://tomus.bloguje.cz Tomus

3) I’ve written maybe around a 1500 reviews for a website about freeware games Hrej!. We’ve published many indie games on cover DVD of Level magazine and I’ve been writing the two pages freeware section and two pages indie section in the magazine itself. I’ve been judging the games in the Becherovka Game contest and Czech Game-Maker contest . I’ve been interviewed by Czech Television about czech indie games scene and Five Magical Amulets. And last but not least, I’ve been writing about indie games even on my blog.
DISCUSS
Aaron H.

I think one of the biggest things to happen this year is that casual games stopped being indie.

Casual games have reached the mainstream, they’re on cell phones, game-boy DS, Wii, and XBox360. They made it to Steam for godsakes. I don’t think this is a bad thing; Indie never wanted them anyway. Of course the astute observer will note that the homebrew scene for the DS is one of the best ever for the gameboy line, the Wii promises to allow smaller developers into the mainstream, and XNA does the same for the X-Box.

Maybe Indie just raised the bar; Indie goes pop? That’s what people in the scene have been working towards for years — The IGF, indiegamer.com, GameTunnel, Garage Games, Manifesto Games, (A whole host of others) and of course, the incomparable TIGS — maybe it’s working.
Teeth

Aaron H. I totally agree with that, indie doesn’t have to mean emo, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be as popular as AAA development :D
Shabadage

Hey Tomus! I remember you from when Level picked up my horribly shitty 6 hour puzzle game a while back. (maybe it was over a year ago). Issue 127 sounds about right.

Anyway, XNA is a huge step in a pretty much totally new direction for gaming consoles. I’m still completely convinced there’s some “magic step” between XNA and XLA. Then again, I don’t have an X360 so I can’t be sure.

But yes, more rambles and such. I shall return to my normal TIGSourcing duties once I finish up the TDC Xmas Compo.
http://www.TScreative.net BMcC

Yeah, I too am busy with a project and the holidays and such.

I STILL LOVE YOU, TIGSOURCE
trav

My favourite discovery of this year (although the game may have been around for longer) was dwarf fortress, a rogulike management sim / dungeon crawler that featured a persistant world where actions in one game were observable in the next.
ChrisSketch

I have to agree with trav. Dwarf Fortress owned me for at least a month. Nearly missed deadlines for at least a few school assignments.
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

I *so* wanted to get into Dwarf Fortress but it was just a little too inaccessable for me. I really admire games which manage to build those kinds of autonomous systems into them.
trav

Arsecast, in case you re-read threads, did you find the wiki and the chat room? It took a fair bit of help for me to master it as well, fortunately the people who play are really friendly.
http://www.arsecast.com The Arsecast Host

I did, but even so it was hugely confusing. I think the ascii interface just added another layer of complexity with having to look things up loads at the start. Maybe once it gets a proper GUI I’ll have another look at it because as I say, it’s something that like Exile on the BBC, I admire immensely, but don’t actually find enjoyable.