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Preview of the 2005 Independent Games Festival
cyrus_zuo writes "In an effort to bring more exposure to the many fine titles entered into the Independent Games Festival (IGF) this year DIY Games teamed up with Game Tunnel to bring you a brief look at all 81 games entered into the 2005 IGF. An article on each site covers one half of the games, giving you a chance to look at each title and to make your own decision as to which games deserve to be finalists at this coming year's IGF."
This seems quite Burtonesque.
I wish these articles would indicate what OSs the games run on. Does anyone know if any of these can run on Linux (or work with Wine)?
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Am I a frickin retard or do both of the links go to the exact same page? How on earth did these people earn the title of "editors"?
Here's the game tunnel link: http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-10.html
Haha, just downloaded N because it looked like one of the dumber things on that list, but its actually quite fun. Shows me ...
Three recent trends lend credibility to the image of those modest studios (indies) developing games: 1) the fact that many such developers are are coming from industry proper; 2) the actual nomenclature "Indie" being a positive term; and 3) small studios' newfound ability to create games that are visually appealing.
:) So, if you haven't already, check out the DIY and Game Tunnel coverage of the 81 IGF entrants. You may find that precious diamond in the rough.
First: An interesting but not-well-known fact is that many members of the indie gaming community come from a background of well-known companies. Take, for example, the Moonpod team, which had experience at Gremlin and Infogrames before starting out on their own. Monkeystone is headed by none other than id's John Romero. I would argue that games industry experience is not a prerequisite for the development of a good game; but the recent movement of folks from big gaming companies to their own studios makes independents more credible. Put simply: if folks who have worked on shipped, big-budget games are now part of the indie community, there must be something to the indie community.
Second: The actual term used for smaller studios (Independents or Indies) is an important one. You could call many of the products in this category "Shareware Games," but there's a horribly negative connotation to that term. "Indie Games" evokes the notion of a small, dedicated team of professionals crafting out something new and interesting. By contrast, the term "Shareware Games" evokes the notion of some dude in his basement churning out a buggy arcade clone that looks like it was written for the Intellivision. To parahrase someone, (I want to say Chris Barrie): A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but may be less appealing if it were called "sewage-weed." The adoption of the "Indie" label has helped legitimize games made by smaller studios.
Fifth (20 years from now, we'll be those old farts still making Python references to people born in twenty-oh-one): Independents can make games that look good. It may be because indies now have access to tools that would have made Pixar cry during its formative years. (Maya, for example, can be had for about $2k, and is even free for personal use.) It may also be because there's great talent now available. Either way, I think indie titles, taken as a whole, have become visually appealing. During the '90s, shareware titles had a bad reputation for being ugly, because they lagged so far behind the cutting-edge. These days, titles like Starscape, Dark Horizons: Lore, and Wik & The Fable of Souls are (IMO) looking pretty good. And, while indie titles may not be as spectacular as those developed by a major studio, (our own Inago Rage focuses on bright colors, but doesn't quite outdo Tron 2.0, for example), decent sales suggest that gamers like what Independents are doing.
However, given the dearth of posts in this thread, I still believe we have a long way to go.
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We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
And thats an indie football game (american football to you europeans/australians) that is supposed to be coming out eventually. It has all the NFL rule sets, the CFL, and lets you customize the rules as well. It may not look good, and you need to creat every single CFL team yourself (liscensing is expensive) but so far it is looking good. I didn't see it on those lists, but it was previewed back in PC Gamer a while ago.
I just hope it plays better then Madden. Actually, anything plays better then Madden. According to my brother, Madden 2005 is now "real football" where ESPN Football 2005 is "football lite". Somehow I doubt that EA actually tried to upgrade their games beyond a new GM mode and a few graphical upgrades again, new rosters etc. Reminds me of the NHL series. Just but NHL 2000 in a bargin bin and download the updated rosters. All you need.
Wait, this post went on a major tangent, back on subject, Indie games are great. If you havn't already (which you probably have) play Torus Trooper (google it) my favourite current indie/freeware game.
Which ones are for linux?
I wish there were more free games for linux.
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