Top Indie Games Of 2003 Discussed

Mr.Wiggin writes "Specialist indie site GameTunnel recently announced its top ten indie games of 2003. Each game was scored by its regular review panel, and the list highlights the growing craftsmanship and quality being brought to the niche low budget independent games scene. There are also awards for specific genres, such as best graphics, best sound, most original concept, best adventure, etc. Why should we be concerned by low budget offerings like this - isn't it just the usual cliched crop of puzzle games? Thankfully, no, since these are the elite cream of the indie crop. Some say indie games are the home of innovation and the birthplace of future star developers (remember id, anyone?). It is also one of the few remaining mediums where we (the gaming public) actually get listened to and can often make a difference."

Comments

Puzzle Pirates

[Apreche]

Why isn't Puzzle Pirates on the list? How about Star Chamber? And why did Samurai make the list? It's just a computerized version of an already existing board game, not very original if you ask me.

Notrium

[cozman]

One of the best on there, and I've played tons of them, is free and highly recommended by me: Notrium At first it seems sort of hard, especially if you don't play as a human but it doesnt take long to learn and you can beat it in a short period of time, perfect for anyone playing a long and involved game like KotOR that needs to take a break but doesn't feel like actually doing anything productive.

Re:Notrium

[Pluvius]

You should try Wazzal, another game by the same author, if you haven't yet. It's kind of like Star Control 2, and has decent production values for a freeware game.

The best freeware game I've ever played is in much the same style, though there's also a first-person adventure element reminiscent of ICOM games (e.g. Deja Vu, Shadowgate). It's called Starfight VI: Gatekeepers, and the fact that such a small development group created it for free is nothing short of amazing.

Rob

Uh

[jvmatthe]

So: 2D shooter, 2D shooter, 3D shooter, puzzle game, 3D shooter, isometric adventure, isometric shooter, hex strategy, adventure, adventure with lots of shooting.

Maybe it was just me, but seemed as though a good number of those games were just "shooters" of some sort, concerned with kill-or-be-killed gaming. Not that that's not fun...I like blowing the snot out of my enemies as much as the next alpha male...but I mean, how much are we going to trumpet the originality of games that are basically Xevious/Raiden or Robotron/Smash TV with lots of added stuff or a different perspective?

Sure, I'm generalizing, but these games aren't "novel" like that "falling down the stairs" game was a while back. If this is the "best of 2003", then sounds like a pretty hum-drum year.

Feel free to flame. I'm sure you've already started typing your angry reply.

Re:Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

This one looks quite "original" dungeon scroll. Fight your way through dungeons of evil creatures by arranging letters to create magic words. So original it kind of sounds mad, but surely you need that kind of craziness to push the boundaries and find some new genres. I'm not saying this succeeds in doing that, but at least they are trying (unlike 99% of high street developers).

Re:Uh

[bear pimp]

So, 3rd Person Action Adventure, 3rd Person Action Adventure, 3rd Person Action Adventure, 3rd Person Action Adventure, 3rd Person Action Adventure. Welcome to the world of consoles. Is it necessary for indie games to break the mold? Is originality really the key here for them to succeed? The overall winner is an interesting example: Yes it's a shooter, but I rank it one of my favourite games of the year (on any platform and for any price). Namely because it adds some interesting elements (ship building and resource gathering) to this medium. I suppose it has been done before, but not looking this good and this polished. A lot of its appeal must be to do with getting jaded with consoles in my old age though! Plus I love shooters! Many of the other popular games on the list aren't 100% original (what is) but they are looking at genres the mainstream has abandoned. Some of us who love these genres can only get a fix from these games. It also proves that interesting ideas can work within older game frameworks. So, yes, not wholly original, but different, and I would say a great year promising a bright future.

Re: Stairs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he means this. Called "Stair Dismount". Has a followup game called "Truck Dismount".

Interesting coincidence - Small Rockets

[Anonymous Coward]

Small Rockets, the company that did the game in 9th place, Ultra Assault was another one of the European games companies that went down the pan this year.

Well, I say went down the pan - what actually happened was that three days after the team finished the PC Sinbad game (having spent many months working their arses off on it) they were rewarded by all being laid off. The two Directors are now the only remaining employees, presumably keeping the profits for the continuing sales o the games we all worked so hard on for themselves. Of course, they claim that Small Rockets is still alive and well, so as not to damage relations with any of their business partners despite the fact that they only have the MD (who can program) and the other director, the MD's girlfriend. Yup, that's no art, no sound, no mission design...

I'm not entirely sure how they're offering support to all their new customers either, now that they have no offices and nobody who actually worked on the games left...

Ah well. The games are good.

http://www.smallrockets.com/

disagreement in terms

[*weasel]

abstract it to that level and nothing is original. i mean, at that level The Lord of the Rings is just a FedEx quest and The Matrix was a 'blue key, blue door' shooter.

in general, there is genre innovation and gameplay innovation. genre innovation is something like stair dismount, or tetris (when it was released). this is very difficult and very rare. if this is your sole qualification for 'innovation', you're going to be disappointed an awful lot.

gameplay innovation is more like the sims, pikmin, or gta. it's the refinement of a fairly well-known genre with a fresh focus. the sims is just an isometric sim in your abstraction. but the -play- is so wildly different from any other previous title in the genre, you can't help but hail it as a great innovative achievement.

Of course, I haven't played half of those games, and the ones I am familiar with i'd be dubious about calling 'innovative', I just think you're being a little overly strict in your definition of game innovation.

and frankly, at this point in the indy game industry, just getting a fun game finished and out there is deserving of an award, even if it is inappropriately titled for the achievement ;p

Re:disagreement in terms

[ziggles]

"and frankly, at this point in the indy game industry, just getting a fun game finished and out there is deserving of an award, even if it is inappropriately titled for the achievement ;p"

Probably true. But their attitude seems to be that they're making games that are better than the "mainstream" and we're all fools for not taking notice. Pretty silly.

Re:disagreement in terms

[*weasel]

as is the attitude in all 'indy' art forms. indy music, indy film, and now indy gaming -- all suggest the mainstream just isn't 'as good'.

Because their market is smaller, the costs and therefore the risk is lower - indy artists can afford to vary more. Furthermore, they get most of their attention for 'new' ideas. Even if the ideas aren't very good, their community and market celebrates 'new', and so innovation itself (despite actual resultant value) is the goal.

mainstream publishers put too much cash into projects to try to 'innovate' the way indy artists can. regardless of subjective artistic merit, if an innovative game doesn't sell, the publisher is punished -- so why should they be revolutionary?

anyway, despite their pretention - indy artists are actually right. most mainstream 'innovation' will actually arrive due to inspiration from the indy product. but not because the indy artists or games are always better, but because of their market realities. they can afford to throw more proverbial shit at the wall to see what sticks.

and again, i qualify the 'value' of a game the only objective way one can: by the number of people who are willing to buy the game.

art is only good if people appreciate it. and there's no other objective way to measure how much people appreciate something, than how much they're willing to spend on it.

Spewtris!

[Washizu]

I recently wrote a game using Perl and the Tk module. It's a tetrisesque game with an awesome variant (I don't want to spoil the surprise), and it has been known to induce motion sickness.

I included the source code and a windows binary (compiled using perl2exe).

Give Spewtris a try!

Don't mind my redundant sig...

Variety?

[dchamp]

Would have been nice to see a little variety - as otthers mentioned, there are a lot of similar games here - and some that are just new versions of older games.
How about Live For Speed? It's a great independent race sim game.

The "indie" intangible

[h0mer]

I don't know how to put this very well, so my post may not make sense. That being said, there seems to be a similarity between indie games and indie music.

If I were itching to play a FPS, would I rather play Half-Life 2 (hypothetically) or a indie FPS created by a 3-man team? Personally, I'd choose to play HL2, and I think 9 out of 10 people would make the same choice.

Likewise, if I were itching to listen to some rock, would I rather listen to some Led Zeppelin or some indie band that sounds a little bit like Led Zeppelin? Again, the mainstream choice would probably win.

What I'm getting at is, indie developers should strive to innovate like the previously mentioned Puzzle Pirates and Stair Dismount. The same goes with indie music where bands who do something interesting get recognition. The band Cursive comes to mind for including a cello along with their guitar rock.

It's circular logic, but indie games that copy mainstream games have a problem. A new twist on the game concept is added, which may be very cool, however the entire package doesn't stack up to the original material. But if the entire package was/is great, the chances of being bought and published by a large company goes up.

I'm not even considering the presence of indie snobs who define themselves by being "indie", and automatically assume a game published by EA is the worst thing ever.