Posts Tagged 'indie games'

Indie Devs vs New Games Journalism [Feedback Loop]

The last year has seen the rise of the independent developer as hero. Does this growing consideration of the developer challenge an eight-year-running trend in game journalism?

The explosion of commercially accessible independent games on platforms like Steam or XBLA have introduced us to a new successful and far more accessible generation of game developers. These new indie game dev stars have induced a change in the approach of some game reviewers. A change brought to the forefront in Walter Garrett Mitchell’s piece on The Escapist, “Alfred Hitchcock Would Make Good Games.”

Mitchell’s focus on the developer is entirely unlike the experience-focused New Games Journalism style proposed in 2004 by Kieron Gillen. That experiential style has more recently been popularized by Zero Punctuation, the rest of The Escapist, @Play, and a variety of other reviews that approached games based on how they played, instead of how people created them.

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Indie Devs vs New Games Journalism [Feedback Loop]

The last year has seen the rise of the independent developer as hero. Does this growing consideration of the developer challenge an eight-year-running trend in game journalism?

The explosion of commercially accessible independent games on platforms like Steam or XBLA have introduced us to a new successful and far more accessible generation of game developers. These new indie game dev stars have induced a change in the approach of some game reviewers. A change brought to the forefront in Walter Garrett Mitchell’s piece on The Escapist, “Alfred Hitchcock Would Make Good Games.”

Mitchell’s focus on the developer is entirely unlike the experience-focused New Games Journalism style proposed in 2004 by Kieron Gillen. That experiential style has more recently been popularized by Zero Punctuation, the rest of The Escapist, @Play, and a variety of other reviews that approached games based on how they played, instead of how people created them.

/ 6 Comments

Basketbelle is being a kid on the playground

I was never very good at basketball. I played on the junior varsity team in middle school, and I scored exactly three points in three years. It’s fair to say I am a terrible basketball player: can’t shoot, can’t pass,

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Basketbelle is being a kid on the playground

I was never very good at basketball. I played on the junior varsity team in middle school, and I scored exactly three points in three years. It’s fair to say I am a terrible basketball player: can’t shoot, can’t pass,

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Thomas was Alone Leads Indies Up and to the Right

The titular character in Thomas was Alone is a medium sized block — a veritable “every square” of pixelated protagonists.  Clad in a sporty red chassis and the ability to jump a respectable distance, he begins as a newly awakened

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Thomas was Alone Leads Indies Up and to the Right

The titular character in Thomas was Alone is a medium sized block — a veritable “every square” of pixelated protagonists.  Clad in a sporty red chassis and the ability to jump a respectable distance, he begins as a newly awakened

/ One Comment

Art Game Thunderdome: The Great Gatsby

It was a cool name with no meaning: Art Game Thunderdome. I had thought the fact that my short-lived video series dealt with hypothetical art games in a rough and tumble manner might justify the title…but ultimately the name was

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Art Game Thunderdome: The Great Gatsby

It was a cool name with no meaning: Art Game Thunderdome. I had thought the fact that my short-lived video series dealt with hypothetical art games in a rough and tumble manner might justify the title…but ultimately the name was

/ 7 Comments

The Next Step: Towns is Everything Minecraft Isn't

The first time the spiders attacked, I wasn’t prepared.  A legion of black chittering death-bringers led by the red commander that loomed over the rest had decided that my small agricultural hamlet had had it too easy for too long.

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The Next Step: Towns is Everything Minecraft Isn't

The first time the spiders attacked, I wasn’t prepared.  A legion of black chittering death-bringers led by the red commander that loomed over the rest had decided that my small agricultural hamlet had had it too easy for too long.

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Dog walk, dog listen, dog lost

Ruins is a 2011 PC game developed by Cardboard Computer and can be downloaded here. Self-pity runs deep through the cerebellum, rots the spinal cord to a few strands of disintegrating rubber, destroys everything outside of mind – other people, other

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Dog walk, dog listen, dog lost

Ruins is a 2011 PC game developed by Cardboard Computer and can be downloaded here. Self-pity runs deep through the cerebellum, rots the spinal cord to a few strands of disintegrating rubber, destroys everything outside of mind – other people, other

/ 2 Comments

Review: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters

This is the sort of review to begin with a description of myself, the reader: I am a 24-32 year old white, heterosexual male who comes from a very liberal background (I live in the Portland, Oregon of the East,

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Review: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters

This is the sort of review to begin with a description of myself, the reader: I am a 24-32 year old white, heterosexual male who comes from a very liberal background (I live in the Portland, Oregon of the East,

/ 12 Comments

Unmanned – A talk with Molleindustria about the politics of war games

The day I watched Collateral Murder was the day I stopped playing Battlefield. Collateral Murder is a video depicting the bloodshed of over a dozen people in an Iraq after camera equipment held by Reuters photojournalists was ‘mistaken’ for AK47s

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Unmanned – A talk with Molleindustria about the politics of war games

The day I watched Collateral Murder was the day I stopped playing Battlefield. Collateral Murder is a video depicting the bloodshed of over a dozen people in an Iraq after camera equipment held by Reuters photojournalists was ‘mistaken’ for AK47s

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1916: World War I with dinosaurs and demons

It may surprise you that 1916: Der Unbekannte Krieg (‘The War You Never Knew’) is not the first game to add dinosaurs into a game about one of the world wars. As the second game I’ve seen in the dinosaurs+world wars genre (which I hope one day is a real thing), 1916 is taking a significantly less silly approach than Dino D-Day. As a ‘first person avoider’ game, 1916 places you in the shoes of a terrified soldier trying desperately to locate the nearest ladder out of the trenches. Why is our protagonist’s goal to find what would normally be the quickest way to get shot during WWI?

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1916: World War I with dinosaurs and demons

It may surprise you that 1916: Der Unbekannte Krieg (‘The War You Never Knew’) is not the first game to add dinosaurs into a game about one of the world wars. As the second game I’ve seen in the dinosaurs+world wars genre (which I hope one day is a real thing), 1916 is taking a significantly less silly approach than Dino D-Day. As a ‘first person avoider’ game, 1916 places you in the shoes of a terrified soldier trying desperately to locate the nearest ladder out of the trenches. Why is our protagonist’s goal to find what would normally be the quickest way to get shot during WWI?

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Limbo Developer's Next Project Will Be "More Weird"

What could be weirder than a grayscale platformer starring a child who can die in ways almost as disturbing as the nightmare fuel of Heart of Darkness? We’ll find out soon enough as the folks Playdead have been hard at

/ Comments Off on Limbo Developer's Next Project Will Be "More Weird"

Limbo Developer's Next Project Will Be "More Weird"

What could be weirder than a grayscale platformer starring a child who can die in ways almost as disturbing as the nightmare fuel of Heart of Darkness? We’ll find out soon enough as the folks Playdead have been hard at

/ Comments Off on Limbo Developer's Next Project Will Be "More Weird"