November Indie Game Round-Up

cyrus_zuo writes with this month's round-up of independent game reviews. Leading the pack is World of Goo, a popular puzzle game in which you build structures to get blobs of goo from one place to another. "WoG could have zero personality and still be a good game, but on top of the tremendous technical execution, you are presented with a quirky and odd world that teems with character. WoG has a style all its own and the flair and dynamics of the world just add to the pleasure of losing time with the game." Also scoring high were action RPG Mount & Blade and the third release in the Strong Bad series.

Comments

Strong Bad is Indie?

[AKAImBatman]

I'm not really sure why Strong Bad is referred to as "Indie". Telltale Games is the new kid on the block, but they are a fully staffed and funded studio. Not really the type of company you would think of as small-time "Indie" developers. Given the fact that they made their name by continuing a popular LucasArts franchise (Sam & Max), I'm even less inclined to think of them as independent.

Or is "Indie" destined to be the shareware company of tomorrow? (Anyone remember when Apogee and Epic were the small guys?)

Re:Strong Bad is Indie?

[Kjella]

I honestly have no idea and don't really care, unless you're allergic to being mainstream. What they do have is very fun, fairly cheap and Linux friendly games. Strong Bad season 1 requires the native DirectX installed, Sam&Max season 1 works out of the box, 2x01 requires an update and entire season 2 needs Windows version set to Vista but they all work flawlessly. To put it quite simply, if my WINE experience was this good with all games I wouldn't need native games. They're not exactly grand epics but I've had a lot of laughs from some of the situtations/dialog.

Dear gods, what's happened to our Slashdot?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I will come back later when you have the user interface all figured out. I can't use it like it is.

Re:Dear gods, what's happened to our Slashdot?

[AKAImBatman]

Click here to fix the front page. (If you've been tricked into using that God-awful "beta" front page.) I haven't found a solution for the user page yet. Which is driving me up a *bleep*ing wall. I don't even understand what the new user page is trying to show me or why.

Yes, that's the last comment I posted. I already know that. How about something useful like, I dunno, the list of comments? Nope. Gotta click the right tab for that. Even that interface has been borked.

Please, Taco! Don't make changes just to make changes! The old site worked. Rather than make it work better, you're slowly making things worse and worse. With the forced addition of IDLE, you're even making it embarrassing to come here! (Don't forget to shut IDLE off in your preferences. That's the only category I have ever explicitly banned from the front page view. )

Please stop before Slashdot becomes completely unusable!

Re:Dear god, fix the frontpage

[Randle_Revar]

Please!
If I wanted to see just the headline and the number of comments, I would be on Fark.

Re:the new Indie

[ustolemyname]

Besides, the days of one or two people with next to no money producing a commercially viable game are pretty much gone.

This argument may be of some merit in the PC gaming scene, but is somewhat ignorant of the emerging game market: cellphones. In this end of the gaming spectrum it is hard for me to even imagine more than a small handful of people working on a title. There's the guy who had the original idea, a few programmers, and a graphic designer if you feel the need. Yet with so few resources, it will be done in a month. Two people working on games on the scale of Crysis, WoW, etc? Yeah, forget about it. But two buddies can still team up in this modern world and make a buck having some fun.

Re:the new Indie

[bazald]

Independent game development studios are not part of company that publishes games. Since they must go to a publisher to sell their games, they are considered to be independent. Independent game development studios are a subset of third party game development studios.

Indie game development studios are small groups that are often poorly funded if they are funded at all. They generally try to make small games that garner attention by being different in a way that seems novel and interesting. Unlike regular independ game development studios, they rarely attempt to make AAA titles. Still, they are a subset of independent game development studios.

The days of one or two people with next to no money attempting to produce a commercially viable game are still very much alive. Some of them are even successful.

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