A) Choose one of the indie designers/developers and outline why their work and approach is of interest to you.

Jason Rohrer, an American game designer and writer, has so far developed eleven games; the twelfth coming soon. My reason for choosing to research this designer was by me coming across his sixth game, Sleep Is Death. This is a two-player storytelling game. The first player, the storyteller, “… build(s) a world using art they’ve drawn themselves or stock assets that came with the game…” and the second player, “…is the lead actor in an improvised stage-play the two parties are now going to put on together. The actor makes a decision, to speak to someone, hit someone, walk somewhere, or anything else they can imagine and type, and the storyteller then has to react by moving objects, drawing objects, deploying new music, and so on.” (Smith, 2016) Similar to last week’s questions on interactive narrative, the free-roam of story and imagination highly peaks my interest and classes this as a unique game for me. Rohrer likes to tap into the emotions and minds of his players; evoking everyday feelings and thoughts in cleverly, digital forms in order to aid player exploration into these everyday elements. His mindset and beliefs go against the large game companies for they produce “soulless” games and this is clearly evident in his emotionally-artistic and philosophical games. I do love outstanding graphics and intense game-play that a lot of big games have, but a good story-line is key in a game being considered a great game. This also means that games, as wonderfully demonstrated and proven by Rohrer, do not need outstanding graphics and intense game-play – brilliant designers like Rohrer are able to make people like me deeply appreciate games like Sleep Is Death or Passage as he solidifies the connection between game and player. In SID, there is nothing more connection-inducing as a game world and story created between two people and that is one beautiful aspect of the mind of Rohrer.

B) Discuss an application/example of the indie game concept outside of what we consider the traditional video games industry.

One example that clearly breaks indie games away from the traditional video games industry is its ability to allow designers and artists a platform to express themselves and produce games, without having to be a part of/sponsored by big game companies. Statistics have shown that 2017 has been a big year in indie game releases, that being 6434 games released on Steam so far in 2017 compared to the 5033 game releases on Steam in 2016 (SteamSpy, 2017). With the stereotypical two/three person team, there is a greater amount of creative freedom as opposed to the hundreds, even thousands, of people working at Ubisoft, for example. This freedom allows for indie games and designers, such as ConcernedApe’s with “Stardew Valley” and 2D Boy’s with “World of Goo”, to produce unique, fun, creative and artistic games, with personal love and care poured into every detail. Similar (sort of) to parenthood, creating and birthing a game takes years of nurture, attention and patience and its this that divides it from the traditional video games industry. Indie games have the power to flow with the times and the ever-changing thoughts of their designers unlike the limited and stifled workings of big titled games. This break from the traditional industry does not go without saying it is a lot more difficult to gather a massive network of followers and recognition but the beauty beats that of which the traditional industry does not always possess: soul.

 

References

Galyonkin, S. (2017). GAMES RELEASED IN PREVIOUS MONTHS. [online] Steamspy.com. Available at: http://steamspy.com/year/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Smith, G. (2016). Have You Played… Sleep Is Death?. [online] Rock Paper Shotgun. Available at: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/09/have-you-played-sleep-is-death/#more-385509 [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Bibliographys

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Galyonkin, S. (2017). GAMES RELEASED IN PREVIOUS MONTHS. [online] Steamspy.com. Available at: http://steamspy.com/year/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Graft, K. (2016). Q&A: The state of the indie game industry from the view of an indie publisher. [online] Gamasutra.com. Available at: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/277942/QA_The_state_of_the_indie_game_industry_from_the_view_of_an_indie_publisher.php [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Morris, A. (2017). How Indie Games Have Revitalized the Video Game Industry | Page 2 of 3 | AllBusiness.com. [online] AllBusiness.com. Available at: https://www.allbusiness.com/indie-games-video-game-industry-101485-1.html/2 [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Rohrer, J. (2010). Sleep Is Death (Geisterfahrer). [online] Sleepisdeath.net. Available at: http://sleepisdeath.net/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Rohrer, J. (2017). Jason Rohrer. [online] Hcsoftware.sourceforge.net. Available at: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Sinclair, B. (2017). A different kind of indiepocalypse. [online] GamesIndustry.biz. Available at: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-10-31-a-different-kind-of-indiepocalypse [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Smith, G. (2016). Have You Played… Sleep Is Death?. [online] Rock Paper Shotgun. Available at: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/09/have-you-played-sleep-is-death/#more-385509 [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Stuart, K. (2016). The digital apocalypse: how the games industry is rising again. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/video-game-industry-changing-virtual-studios [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].

Worldofgoo.com. (2017). World of Goo. [online] Available at: https://worldofgoo.com/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].