How many indie games have you played?There is not one Indie amongst my favourite games of all time. They are all AAA. MGS, FF, Persona, classic Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Portal.
We need more A and AA games
There is not one Indie amongst my favourite games of all time. They are all AAA. MGS, FF, Persona, classic Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Portal.
Oh sorry, I have to choose a side ?
Sorry if this qualifies as "thread moaning", but I have really no idea why this is a discussion.
There is not one Indie amongst my favourite games of all time. They are all AAA. MGS, FF, Persona, classic Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Portal.
Funny thing is I feel like most the A and AA these days are coming out of indie devs or smaller dev teams in general.. specially on the PC front.
Stuff like Dayz, Next Car Game, Divinity: Original Sin
Middle ground stuff is here its just a lot of it is coming from places like kickstarter and early access games.
There are also a number of games that are made by independent developers like Divinity: Dragon Commander that look great graphically. The problem seems to be that the term 'indie' is only associated with 2d retro games, rather than independently-developed games.
Indie games, like AAA games, fill a niche. I don't get the blanket hate for either type of game. The only way to go is to enjoy them both.
You dont have to chose a side, and you dont get the point of the discussion that I just explained again 2 posts above you and in the lengthy OP. Feel free to move along.
The problem is that most people dont hear about the games that are most fun or could potentially be most fun. Its not a problem of "just play whatever is fun to you", its a problem of all the things mentioned in the OP that lead to a huge chunk of great games being ignored.
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I'm the happiest I've ever been with gaming, and I owe it to indies.
Very trueThis thread was made right after I started the monthly Indie threads, also as a point to make people aware of the Indie discussion. And yeah, you do have a point about the title, which I explained in the first few paragraphs of the OP. Indies offer something big budget games dont,
just play good games.
I don't give a crap about what people think. Hell, I play CoD and Battlefield for the single player and never touch multiplayerThe only thing I hate is indie game hipster snobs. I don't give a crap about the label a game has. When I was in my teens and twenties, I would have cared. So much of what people that age is consuming the right media because you want to have a cultivated image to other people. You tell people you listen to the coolest indie music and indie films. But when you get to your thirties you stop giving a crap. I can tell people I like Angry Birds, Madden and Call of Duty because I no longer care what my media "says" about me. I like a lot of indie games but I won't pretend to like one to seem cool. If you genuine think Papers Please is a fun game instead of it making you look cool for playing, that is great but if you are doing it for an "image" you will realize you are wasting your time in your 30's because no one really gives a crap.
If you understand [how FTL is fun], then help me out here. Because I really don't see any what anyone would like about it, and yet people do so I'm obviously missing something....
Where did you get the impression that people play indies to foster some kind of hipster image? At least in threads and forums I frequent, I've never got that impression
Criticize a indie game you get back "Go play Call of Duty". If you spent anytime on a gaming forum you know that has been said many times. That is stupid snobbery.
Ah I see. I always saw that as the indie equivalent of "It's all 2D pixel platformers!". I.e. those people are probably trolls and shouldn't be given much mind. If someone's only response to criticism is "Go play CoD" then they're really contributing nothing to the discussion in any shape or formCriticize a indie game you get back "Go play Call of Duty". If you spent anytime on a gaming forum you know that has been said many times. That is stupid snobbery.
You just reminded me why I started the monthly Indie Game threads. I suffered the same fatigue as you did and randomly played a game that made me feel awe and wonder like the first games did that I played as a kid.
Most people complaining about gaming fatigue or feeling that they are "getting too old", really need to try looking in different places.
Fuck AAA games and fuck indy games.
I'm into A and AA games. Gimme your mid-range titles motherfuckeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr.
Oh snap, Derrick's hereFinally someone gets it. Some of the more ambitious games I've seen over the years have come from titles that would technically be called mid-range. Indie games can't do it because they don't have the budget and AAA devs can't do it because their games cost way too much to risk having any depth.
How many indie games have you played?
But honestly there are very few indie games I'd ever say could stack up in terms of influence and just overall appeal to see a spot on a list of best of all time. Maybe they're not timeless, like MGS, Portal, etc. are, but many many of them are just good fun games that really deserve to be played. And there are some that have that extra something, that hard-to-describe quality, be it visual or narrative or gameplay, that make them excellent top-notch experiences.
That's on my to play list. Unfortunately I've never played a game of that genre before so I might not appreciate it as much as people who are steeped in the NES and SNES games of old. I've tried it and it certainly had charm and I've read this review which talks about the guy who developed it:i have only one, it's cave story. but yes, it's not on my top ten
I would easily include Dwarf Fortress, SpaceChem and Frozen Synapse among my favourite games of all time. If we are talking GOTY 2013, there would be plenty more Indies on my list that you might not even have heard of. I really think its just a matter of how many Indies you have played, because its basically an outright impossible task for most people to work through the thousands of decent indies every year to find the 50 great ones among hundreds of good ones.
Every year sees plenty of Indies that would deserve to pop up on GOTY lists, but they dont because you simply dont know about them. Most of the people that actually DO play lots of Indies would probably agree that there are plenty of worthwhile and great experiences to be had that are equally as influential and important to them personally as the big budget games.
Not that I've become disillusioned by the mainstream, but I've definitely noticed as I've got older, the indie/experimental side of the industry has appealed to me more and more.
I'm wondering if there is a correlation between age & interest in indie games? Since from what I've observed, the majority of younger gamers tend to dismiss that spectrum more easily and stick to the more console orientated big-hitters, or at least, tend to be less open-minded. I could be totally wrong about this, but it's made me curious in the past.
What about a game like Distance, which is made by a small team and is an acrobatic arcade racer through open futuristic environments? Or XenoRaptor, which is by one guy and is a frantic action shooter with depth in customizing your loadout and cool varied weaponry? Or Tower of Guns, which is an old-school steampunk first person shooter/roguelike hybrid?The problem with discussing "indie" is that there's zeitgeist indie, which is usually twee platformers and games without gameplay, and literal indie, which is anything from people on TIGSource sharing postcard games to Spiderweb Software RPGs.
If we're talking about literal indie, then yes, I can load up a Spiderweb RPG and have a better experience than a Bethesda game. I can guarantee that Larian -- now an indie studio withoit a publisher -- is about to release a GOTY-level product. Historically, a huge portion of the best PC games from each decade, including this one, game from literally independent developers.
But if we're talking about it essentially as a genre, basically a lot of people with GameMaker or Unity shouting WE ARE INDIE DEVELOPERS at the top of their lungs, that's a different discussion. Jon Blow, and people like him, do very little for me. Recreating childhood experiences with newfangled gimmicks seems to be what many people mean when they say "I don't like indie games" and I guess I agree with that. I find stuff like Limbo to be just as offensively uninteresting as the Medal of Honor reboot.
"usually twee platformers and games without gameplay."
What about a game like Distance, which is made by a small team and is an acrobatic arcade racer through open futuristic environments? Or XenoRaptor, which is by one guy and is a frantic action shooter with depth in customizing your loadout and cool varied weaponry? Or Tower of Guns, which is an old-school steampunk first person shooter/roguelike hybrid?
There are dozens of examples that show that many indies aren't "usually twee platformers and games without gameplay."
Ever since Olli Olli came put I am having a really difficult time playing anything else. Vita + Indies is a dream combo. The pick up and play nature and sleep and resume feature is a great fit for Indies.
Seriously people need to check out Olli Olli. The price ia a little more than I would have hoped ( should have been $9.99), but it is one of those games where you can lose yourself in it and get into a zone. there is a lot levels and daily challenges and it has a surpising amount of depth.
i can barely bring myself to play big budget games anymore just because of bloat. an indie title can (and usually must) focus on one thing and do it as well as possible, large studio games try to fill themselves out to fit a certain amount of playtime and stuff enough different activities to appeal to whatever broad demographic they've decided to target. i tried to play assassin's creed 4 a few weeks ago and lasted about 4 hours before i realized that nothing i was doing was inherently fun and then fired up spelunky.
knowing specifically what they want to do and doing it well is a limitation and a luxury for indie games, and it's why i love them.
And I don't agree that if an indie game is great it will get ignored. There are a bunch of amazing indie games that do get a lot of showcase.
Now if you're talking about "underrated gems", then there are plenty of them both indie and AAA, so even though I agree I still don't get the divide that you're trying to create.
If this is a thread about bringing people's attention to indie games, then I'm all for it, but I think the monthly threads we have here do a way better job of it, by showing that every month there is a threadful of great games worthy of interest.
I personnally don't get it when people try to promote something by downplaying something different.
"Indie>AAA". I don't see why you start your love letter by muddying it with a hate message. It just lessens your point imo, and it's all the more annoying because in the end I agree with what you're trying to do.
I know the feeling. I have that with Spelunky. I hardly play anything else at the moment.
Ever since Olli Olli came put I am having a really difficult time playing anything else. Vita + Indies is a dream combo. The pick up and play nature and sleep and resume feature is a great fit for Indies.
Seriously people need to check out Olli Olli. The price ia a little more than I would have hoped ( should have been $9.99), but it is one of those games where you can lose yourself in it and get into a zone. there is a lot levels and daily challenges and it has a surpising amount of depth.
Criticize a indie game you get back "Go play Call of Duty". If you spent anytime on a gaming forum you know that has been said many times. That is stupid snobbery.
Ah I see. I always saw that as the indie equivalent of "It's all 2D pixel platformers!". I.e. those people are probably trolls and shouldn't be given much mind. If someone's only response to criticism is "Go play CoD" then they're really contributing nothing to the discussion in any shape or form
There is not one Indie amongst my favourite games of all time. They are all AAA. MGS, FF, Persona, classic Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Portal.
Ubisoft has gone back to the mid-range well. Gunslinger, Blood Dragon, and Might and Magic X all fit the bill.
I hope it is successful for them, so other publishers get on board. I don't think there is a good future in these studio-killing, make or break releases.
I was going to say not all indies are retro style games, but then I read the rest of your postI like those retro style games and all, but they can't get too much time and attention from me. Usually i finish them without getting everything and never touch it again.
Recently though some of these independent developers have been coming with mid-level stuff that really impressed and interested me waaaaay more than any overhyped AAA title out there. So yeah, i guess i can say i like the indie stuff a bit more now.
Too bad the big names want to kill mid-level game for gigantic budget AAA titles that really don't offer anything, because IMO mid level gaming is where the inovation and cool stuff is at most of the time.
There are as many bad indie games as bad AAA games but people never talk about the bad indie games because even the better indie games barely got enough recognition. Like someone previously said: just play good games, there is no "indie>AAA" unless you're out there comparing a good game vs bad game, it's a ridicilous claim.
There is Journey but I'd hardly call it indie as it was co-developed with Sony Santa Monica and funded by SCE.
We're not saying one's good or one's bad. We're just saying indie games offer experiences that big budget AAA games don't, examine themes they won't, and are just overall more diverse and original. Sure there are crappy indie games, but there are also great indies games worth playing that don't get the attention they deserveThere are as many bad indie games as bad AAA games but people never talk about the bad indie games because even the better indie games barely got enough recognition. Like someone previously said: just play good games, there is no "indie>AAA" unless you're out there comparing a good game vs bad game, it's a ridicilous claim.
There is Journey but I'd hardly call it indie as it was co-developed with Sony Santa Monica and funded by SCE.
There is not one Indie amongst my favourite games of all time. They are all AAA. MGS, FF, Persona, classic Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, Portal.
What kinds of games do you like, and what indies have you played? Maybe you just haven't played the kinds that suit the genres you likeThis.
I've played a bunch of indie games. 95% of the time, they're nothing more than good, creative ideas.
I'll take 60 hours of the beautiful piracy of Assassin's Creed 4 over the clunky controls and trite story of Gone Home.