A) Choose one of the indie designers / developers and outline why there work and approach is of interest to you.
Jason Rohrer’s work is very different and you can see the level of progression he has made through his work. From shooting geometrical shapes on a grid to hand-drawn life stories Rohrer’s work is always changing and has unique ideas that have never been done before. He uses wide ranges of inspiration to create ideas for his games which he sometimes posts on his personal website. Using simple programs like MS paint and gimp he has created story games, apps and multiplayer games
One of his games interests be in particular, called ‘Sleep is Death’. This was his seventh game produced. The concept is very unique. Kids play and make stories with their imagination. Recently sandbox games have become more popular (Garry’s mod for example) which allow people to make their own games within a game. I’m in love with this idea as the possibilities are endless and make memories. Of course, this is always way more fun with other people. Rohrer included these different elements to make a story based sandbox game where players get to decide what the story is, what visuals to include and how well they role play.
His newest game idea; One hour One Life, is also a very different idea that I will definitely be following and taking inspiration from.
‘Header’ For Sleep Is Death, by Jason Rohrer
B) What do you think could be the most exciting indie projects that are in development
The most exciting project to me is the development of a game called ‘Stonehearth’, founded by Tom and Tony Cannon. Originally, the demo was used to start a Kickstarter which originally asked for $150,000, however they ended up making $751,920 and gaining 22,844 backers. overwhelmed by their support, they make sure to post weekly development blogs to let players know of the updates they are working on.
Started in 2013 it is still being updated and pushing the boundaries now in 2017. controlling villagers became popular after the make of ‘virtual villagers’ in 2011. To this day, people still play this classic game as it comes out on different platforms. I think this was an inspiration to many games including Stonehearth.
The developers of stonehearth have however taken many different ideas to make their game modern and exciting. one of the most interesting concepts to me is that you can create your own buildings and control your military. The game is very in depth and lets you control the whole creation of your town/village. At the very start of it’s creation; the developers talked about wanting to incorporate a multiplayer aspect that has never been done before with this kind of game. On 21/11 the weekly blog was about testing their multiplayer idea, and included a video of some of the developers being able to play in the same world. however there was still a lot of problems for actual players regarding this, but i’m very excited whenever I see updates have been made.
‘Stonehearth’ By Radiant
sources:
https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/stonehearth-steam-grid-icons/7611
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehearth