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Game Tunnel's Indie Games of the Year 2006

Posted by Zonk on from the what-else-is-there-to-do-this-weekend? dept.

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 .

6 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. My favorite game of 2006 by dangitman · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's that one where you snort cocaine from a hooker's breast. Very addictive gameplay, and great graphics. I don't play it that often though, because the ongoing fees and medical expenses are a real bitch.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  2. indie or just small scale by angrymilkman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hmmmmm those games all look pretty professional, at least concerning graphics. What is defined as indie currently because these games are certainly not the work of a few individuals working in their basement on a game in my opinion. For me indie development are games like geometry wars or armadillorun. E.g. one person developed games with less than 10 months development time. Are small scale game developers just branding themselves as "indie" just to take advantage of the current indie hype?

    --
    ...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
    1. Re:indie or just small scale by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:indie or just small scale by ghowland · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Do you sell indie games? Because this doesnt sound like the voice of experience.

      When youre selling indie, you distribute (really market, you may only have 1 place that handles the CC transactions which is the true distribution point, but they promote affiliation generally) through EVERYONE you can, even places that take 30% of your sales usually, because even if only 5 people buy your game from that site you still made 5*70% of what you're asking that you likely would not have made selling it only on your own site.

      So that means you push info about your game everywhere, allow everyone to sell it for you that you can, making it pretty much 100% sure that a site like Game Tunnel will be able to have an affiliate link to somewhere that sells your game.

      Will Game Tunnel reject games that they cant affiliate? Why dont you ask them or post that as their listed requirements instead of making a guess.

      Game Tunnel also reviews freeware games, so it sounds to me like your guess is wrong.

  3. minions of mirth by cathector · · Score: 4, Interesting

    another notable is Minions of Mirth. It's a respectable MMORPG written by one programmer in one year. While it's not open-source, you can host your own servers, develop mods, and he's done a nice job of publishing details about the back-end.

    1. Re:minions of mirth by Da3vid · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have played MoM extensively. The entire "staff" of the game consists of 2 people. Their accomplishments are... amazing. I'll go ahead and admit my bias upfront: I'm also a community volunteer for the game. I'm a guardian, moderator and developer. It is definitely better than old school EQ in my opinion (I played from just past launch til mid-Kunark era), but is much more community and player driven than WoW. A lot of player input is taken and adapted into the game... a lot of mods that people have made for their own uses have been incorporated into the main servers. There's all kinds of cool little things in there... lets see... its officially supported on both OSX and Windows, but I know we have some Linux players too. Hm... no monthly fees! One time payment. You can play a single player version off-line as well as the MMO aspect online. Through quests, you can unlock monster templates you can play (ie, you can be a bear character, or even as high as a dragon!) And you can multiclass into as many as 3 classes... and you can even play a fair amount of the game for free. It is MORE than enough to decide if its worth buying or not
      hmm, guess thats the basics of what I think are some of the most interesting bullet points :) Then again, I admit my bias ;) But maybe my bias says something too. I started as a player, bought the game quickly, played and played... was enlisted to help with moderation, and then volunteering for game development as well. I wouldn't commit, devote myself to and support something that was shy of greatness.