Independent games are becoming an increasingly larger part of the video game industry.
This can be mostly attributed to various distribution platforms becoming progressively more prominent, such as Steam, PSN, XBLM and WiiWare, which allow developers to make games without the outlandish costs normally associated with traditional retail titles. This results in highly-original games consumers are more willing to dole out their hard-earned dollars for due to the lower prices and, as of late, greater value.
These small-scale games have become relatively better and better titles that still manage to maintain their indie appeal and indie costs but garner incredible praise and impressive sales numbers.
To honor the achievements of such games and their developers, the fine folks behind the annual Game Developers Conference also decided to start up the Independent Games Festival, an event that has become one of the highlights of the aforementioned GDC.
In its 12th iteration, the IGF has continued to grow, erupting from a respectable 42 entries in 2002 to the mind-blowing 306 contestants who entered this year where seven main category competitors and 10 student showcase winners will be awarded a total of $50,000.
Categories range from Excellent in Visual Art to Best Web Browser Game to the Innovation Award, all of which culminate in the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Former award winners you might recognize include “Blueberry Garden” (Seumas McNally Grand Prize 2009), “World of Goo” (Technical Excellence 2008) and “Braid” (Innovation Award 2006).
On Tuesday, the accepted entries for IGF 2010 were announced and posted on the event’s Web site. The list includes the developer, a synopsis and links to screenshots and gameplay videos of the game. This slab of information usually includes a link somewhere to the developer’s Web site, where the games can often be sampled or purchased (or, if you’re lucky, wholly consumed for the low, low price of jack diddly).
In an odd state of affairs, the incredible amount of entries allows two opposing qualities to coincide; it’s fortunate there are just so many games to peruse, but it’s unfortunate I’ll never get any schoolwork done with all this free gaming so readily available.
This also poses a problem in that I’ll never be able to fairly cover every one of these titles, which, honestly, is better left to the IGF’s judging panel. So instead of doing that, I’ll pick out some highlights of games I’ve played based on interesting descriptions and recommendations.
“Auditorium”:
This game is nothing new to those of you who frequent Reddit (in fact, I’m fairly sure this game was on the front page for at least two consecutive weeks last year due to constant resubmissions).
“Auditorium” is a Flash-based game that makes your eyes and ears feel like they’ve all fallen into a big pot of beautiful.
The premise of the game is simple: Use various elements to redirect colored streams into gauges that activate music. The beautiful part comes into play as every gauge you fill brings in another layer of instruments and the streams of color mesh with one another to make absolute art.
“Gratuitous Space Battles”:
Positech Games sells this as an RTS that does away with resource gathering and “gets straight to the meat and potatoes,” which they definitely get right. It might be because I’m a sucker for sci-fi, but I thought the demo was fantastic. It looks great and plays great and the ship customizations actually felt like they had real consequences if done improperly (or greatly rewarded if done right).
“Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!”:
The title may be slightly misogynistic, but this game is actually pretty fun. It’s definitely not new to the indie game scene, but I never got around to giving it a whirl until now with the demo. It’s pretty much a board game in a thinly-veiled guise of some sort of puzzler but also very funny and oddly addicting.
“Igneous”:
On the Web site, the description says Igneous falls under the gaming genre of “Melt Your Face,” and I definitely have to agree. These DigiPen students definitely found something worthwhile as this game feels like that old TI-83+ game “Falldown,” except better.
If that title doesn’t ring a very middle school-ish bell, then think about it as if Samus in Morph Ball form and Captain Falcon had a fiery, illicit lovechild, and you might have an idea of what this game is like. It’s one of the few games I would consider a speed platformer.
That should get you started into some of the IGF entries. That’s not to say these are the cream of the crop, but I’m fairly confident these are at least in the top 50 percent in terms of quality.
Some games I ignored because I felt they were poorly aping other previously released titles (“Break a Leg”), looked not very fun at all (“Attack of the 50ft Robot!”) or seemed too dependent on a lame gimmick (“ARGH: Augmented Reality Ghost Hunter”). Of course, I could be totally wrong, but that’s for you to find out and for me to regret.
Also, I see many TVs being broken because of Peanut Gallery’s “Minor Battle.”
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