What makes the indie scene so magical? Discuss for $4!

The answer seems fairly obvious given the direction that the AAA sector is currently taking. In recent years, they are the games that are actually fun to play, that you want to buy, and that actually offer something new and refreshing in the medium. All very impressive stuff most usually have a tiny fraction of the budget of a even medium-sized AAA project.

So while in practice indies should rarely be better in many ways, given the limited resources and scope, by exploring ideas left untouched by big studios, and simply not just not being some money-grubbing, they still manage to win us over and provide experiences you can't get anywhere else, putting genuine passion into ever detail that isn't driven by focus groups, trends, and committees.

The indie game scene is so special in many forms as it gives creative opportunity to developers to showcase their true talents and skills they have which go unnoticed in the whole clutter of gaming. I feel indie games need to be given more awareness on as it is always the top 5 popular FPS games taking the crown.

The talents come in many shapes whether its from a story based game, real-life experience that might help other gamers in situations, a cool 2D slide-scroll format or even a big horror indie style game. The indie scene caters for all different kinds of ideas compiled together.

I feel that indie games give so much meaningfulness in the small or big teams that these developers spend countless hours trying to make their idea become a reality and thats why I adore it so much.

I first got into indies at EGX (sorry to mention the ex, JustAbout 😅). But there always seemed to be huge queues at the big releases, and we just went to have a fun time, not necessarily to play specific titles. We’d have a go on anything with a reasonably short queue. So naturally we ended up spending a lot of time in the indie section, chatting with developers, trying different things. That’s where the love for indie grew.

I love that indie games tend to be more experimental and close to the auteur’s vision due to the smaller teams. There’s seems to be such a drive to differentiate and stand out, to do things that haven’t been done before and bring their idea to life.

It can take some time and investment to fiind good indie games but every so often you find some proper gems.

ill share some of my favourites and why they are great

On ps4 - Furi

Downloaded it on a whim. and was blown away by the artistic design and mainly the music. like the way the music synced up with the fighting was amazing and the challenges of the fights werent easy but you kept coming back to them. Which made you love the music even more.

On pc - Tremulous

this is hands down one of the greatest games ive played. Built off the back of quake 3 arena. the concept is its a multiplayer game. one team aliens and the other humans. you build bases and attack each other in first person. ive never had an experience like it again. you evolve your characters as you make successful kills and win by destroying bases

both games you could tell the love and attention that had gone into them, even though they wernt 100% polished. and the ongoing support from the developers and community for tremulous was insanse despite not even being that popluar.

i love to continue finding these things

I've been reading Masters of Doom and Doom Guy: Life in First Person recently about how Doom was made, Id as a company, and how it transformed the videogame landscape. You may have heard the two Johns: Carmack and Romero and their amazing work on these games.

id in 1993In the past I've always thought Doom was made by a big production company, paid to have made these games which was why they were so well regarded. But as I've grown up, I've realised that the most prolific games are actually made by small 'Indie' Teams.

Keeping a small tight knit team allows for a more focussed game and 'truer' to the artistic vision the creatives in the team. And I believe this is why Indie games are special as the message and design of the game is clearer. Looking into the downfall of id and post-Romero leaving the company, Carmack remarks that id grew too big and became inefficient at what did. Carmack (post Meta) also disliked the bloated culture when he was working on Oculus.

I think when you have a publisher backing a game, they are looking at casting the widest net possible which means looking at market trends, and what is the popular game mode. For the teams I've used above id and Team Silent: they were making games for genres still in their infancy. A huge risk that did not have any evidence that it'll pay off but they were willing to trust their design and ideals to make it still.