What obsessions plague our top independent game designers today? What theories keep them up at night? What possibilities blow their minds, challenge their presumptions and make them sound like a bunch of philosophical hippies after two bottles of ice wine and carton of black bean hummus?
Kellee Santiago (fl0w), Jon Mak (Everyday Shooter) and Pekko Koskinen (LudoCraft) told us of their obsessions during our first session of GDC’s Independent Games Summit. And these simple ideas that make their minds spin forced us rethink games a bit as well.
Sexy Videogameland has some interesting musings up on independent games, along with yet another challenge: “describe a game so trendy it hurts, so independent, so individual, that it makes sense to no one but you – because everyone else is an Extreme Mountain Dew-chugging juvenile with Electronic Arts’ dick in their mouth.” I really like seeing off-the-wall delights that independent developers turn out, but there are plenty that can come off like a bad dream combining post-modern philosophy and a low-rent version of MoMA. Alexander explains her stance, using fl0w as an example:
… At risk of showing my unsophistication here, I must admit some of them make me feel like the hayseed who wanders into MoMA and stares, perplexed, at the often odd experiments on exhibit. Like, I know that Jenova Chen’s fl0w is great. But, you know, I didn’t really get it. It’s simple; there’s not much to get ….
I’ve played it, I guess it’s fun enough, And as beautiful as the above Flower trailer is (“it’s Flower, not Fl0w-er!”) I just don’t know what it’s about. Perhaps my overstimulated little brain is just habituated to more… stimulation, and I guess if I were a truly enlightened, spiritual individual I could just chill with fl0w.
Just like their big league relatives, indie games run the gamut – but there’s something irritating about indie pretentiousness when the goods don’t live up to the idea, be it music, film, or gaming.
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