Game Tunnel's Indie Games of the Year 2006

cyrus_zuo writes "Creating off-beat, original, and carefully crafted games is the heritage of Independent Game developers, and the Top 10 Independent Games of 2006 does its ancestry proud. Each of the 10 games selected this year is a winner in its own right, an undiscovered gem just waiting to be found. So dim the lights and warm up your modem, as Game Tunnel presents The Top 10 Independent Games of 2006." The annual Independent Games Festival will also be giving a nod to indie games from 2006, and via features you can have a look behind the scenes at some of Game Tunnel's winners. Check out the entries on Kudos , Gumboy Crazy Adventures , and Virtual Villagers .

Comments

Re:indie or just small scale

[Anonymous Coward]

The game "Kudos" was developed by one guy over a mere eight months. The graphics are mostly static, save small touches like snow and rain - I don't think you can get more indie than that, by your above definition.

Re:2010

[omeomi]

Is id considered independent?

I'd say so...I mean, they're very small, and not under the thumb of any major publisher...they pretty much do whatever they want. They just happen to be an incredibly successful indie company...

Re:2010

[Osty]

I'd say so...I mean, they're very small, and not under the thumb of any major publisher...they pretty much do whatever they want. They just happen to be an incredibly successful indie company...

I'd disagree. Indie games are published either directly by the developer or by other smaller publishing houses. Id games are published by Activision, which is definitely "mainstream". If id went back to the Apogee days, I'd consider them indie. As it is, they're just another third-party developer building games for mainstream publishers (although id has rightly earned a lot of lee-way in their development -- id decides what they want to do and Activision publishes it, rather than having Activision tell id that they have to do a Quake 5).

By that definition, Valve could almost be considered "indie", though they're closer to a mainstream publisher these days (publishing other developers' games on Steam).

Re:A gumboy and his blob, perhaps?

[LilGuy]

No one remembers that game anymore. Just the other day I was mentioning to my friend that I hope they release that for the Wii, and he had never heard of it before. That game RULED!