A(3)

Monomi Park logo (Credit: http://www.monomipark.com/)

Monomi Park are a 5 man Indie team, their only game being Slime Rancher. Whilst I have only played 1.0.0 onwards, I know a bit about previous versions thanks to the games wikia (http://slimerancher.wikia.com/wiki/Slime_Rancher_Wikia). I love how they developed the game from a simple and happy farming game (The game’s twist being you use a super-powered high tech vacuum cleaner for the farming), into a game with beautifully told story that slowly develops as you adventure through the “Far, Far Range” (Which appears to be the name of the planet upon which the game is set). The story is tale of how the farm’s previous owner had to choose between his love of exploring the unknown or his love for a fellow Slime Rancher. Whilst your character discovers this story by exploring parts of the Range, she receives regular “Star mails” (E-mails) from a friend back on earth, and it slowly becomes obvious that they were very close and maybe even in love.

This heart-felt story combined with the happy demeanor of the slimes, creates a relaxing atmosphere to play in.

A Slime Rancher wallpaper (Credit: http://www.slimerancher.com/)

Looking at the Games Versions, it seems to me that they focus on providing gameplay improvements for players (New areas, game balancing and optimization), then polish up these improvements with story and character afterwards. I like this “Game first” approach as the story takes so so long to unveil that the gameplay takes centre stage a lot throughout the game, with the story providing motivation and backstory as you go.

The happy demeanor doesn’t just belong to the slimes however, as you can tell from flavour text on items and update notes that they care about the project without taking themselves too seriously (their descriptions on http://www.monomipark.com/#crew are a good read).

Side note: I was stuck between the Developers of "Slime Rancher" and "Dust: an Elysian Tail"
I went with Monomi Park as "Slime Rancher" is more recent than "Dust: an Elysian Tail"

B(1)

Has the term “Indie” become meaningless?

I don’t think so, no. In all honesty, I think it’s started to carry a bit of weight. As the years go by, more and more players are being let down by Triple A developers and are migrating to Indie games, which tend to value the community and players more than their Triple A cousins even claim to. Personally responding to Player comments, improving the game through player feedback and conversing with the community is far from uncommon when it comes to Indie development, and players value that a lot. Rather than the term losing meaning, it has instead seemingly become a standard, a bar that Indie developers need to reach and overcome. Being “Indie” seems to come with a responsibility to commune with the community over various media forms and to engage the players both in and out of the games they develop.

To summarize, I believe that “Indie” has become a highly positive word that attracts Gamers but places a responsibility on Developers.

Refrences

Monomi Park, Home, www.monomipark,com, 26/10/17

Monomi Park, Home, www.slimerancher.com, 26/10/17