Saturday, October 3, 2009
How I became interested in the indie
Thought I'll just share about how I came to be interested in indie games. I had my try in indie games about 4, 5 years back and it really did not happen for any other reason that I was becoming increasingly bored with commercial games.About that time was when all the major commerical game companies were being absorbed. Ultima, on my my fav games, was takenover by EA. In short, the commercial scene was starting to change to ones more commonly associated to media these days, strong ogliopolies. With that shift more games started to become cookie cutter.
I wouldnt say commercial games arent fun, but somehow there is an absense of ambition and invention to them. In more recent years, I see successful indie or mod games, those that break the mould, become changed into commerical pieces. Hence the invention originates at the 'amateur' level due to the high costs of marketing and production.
For those interested in DoTA, observe how Demigods is also an entirely commercial reproduction (it didnt fly because there was really nothing much added to it). Counterstrike, of course, is a commercial classic now. Anyone knows Portal? That was a mod too.
Check out Portal's cool vid here.
I digress. So my interest in indie was sparked by a lack of innovation in commercial products. The early games I played was Dwarf Fortress and Nethack - really cool ACSII games. I would say ome of the contemporary games I feel particularly endearing would be Auditorium: If you haven't tried it before I urge you to try it.
I am also continually amazed by the amount of innovation that goes into indie games. For instance, I am not a specific fan of platformers but Edmund's Time Fcuk drew me in. The mix of weird, smart dialogue with strange pin-button men - Whoo hoo!
It is this interest in games, as well as, my hope for innovation that I wish the indie scene would continue to do well. Let's play on!