Indie is about small teams working on tight artistic visions. You have the
freedom to explore crazy ideas. What's great about indies is that they don't have the
same money at stake so that gives them the flexibility to really really try new things. Indie video games are
really helping, I think, to push the boundaries of game design.
Indies are pretty much the saviors of video games.
In the beginning video games were actually independent ventures. They
started out in people's basements and garages. These were one and two man teams.
And then video games got huge and you ended up having
hundreds of people working on a single title.
I think what's great about independent video games now is that you're seeing this return to really really small
teams, so teams under the size of ten.
I think one of the biggest problems in the past, for indies, has been distribution. Let's
say you struck a publishing deal with
a Microsoft or Sony. That process is going to be a lot longer, you might have a little more cash to play
with, but you also have to deal with the reality that your game needs to be put on a
schedule and released at a certain time. One of the great things is that there's some new
platforms such as crowd funding, so Kickstarter or Indie GoGo.
Those are places where you can put your prototype out there and say "Hey, I really want to
finish up this product." It allows you to garner a new audience and it puts cash in your pocket.
So that's what's really exciting is that it's not the difference between me
purchasing it and not purchasing it. It's really a difference between something existing
and not existing and I think that that's a really exciting thing for independent game design.
The jumping or the running or the bouncing off enemies, these are mechanics. This is different than
something like having three lives which is a rule but it's not particularly
a mechanic because it doesn't push you towards the interaction in the game
on a moment to moment basis. For me, the mechanics in the game are the small systems
that lead to the emotional feeling you get from playing a game. What you really
want when you have a game is systemic significance; learning that it's okay to
try again in certain context, learning how to approach a situation where you're
uncomfortable because the game's making you uncomfortable but you decide that
you're going to tackle it anyway.
That's the purest and most exciting motivation of a system. And I think indie
video games
have the possibility to create the most interesting and unique systems because
they're driven by the want to make something and to express yourself.
I feel like a lot of Triple A games approach sound design
from just a hyper-realistic perspective whereas a big thing for indie games is vibe
and tone and thinking about how I want the player to feel and what kind of feel I want the music
to convey.
Sorta like an animated film or something, you're responsible for the entire soundscape.
It's not like there's any
physical space that the game is taking place in so you have to
create all of that from scratch. For Bastion, a lot of it took place on like floating islands in the sky.
So, yeah, I had to make up what that would sound like and I
asked myself really weird questions throughout the process like "What does it
sound like when you hit a genie with a hammer?"
Like I had to figure that out, you know, so. You have to make it so that it'll play over
and over again without the player either getting sick of it or even really noticing that it's
happening. How you swing your hammer, that sound has to be a big, satisfying hear because you're gonna
hear it like thousands of
times throughout the game. All of your senses that you use to play a video game
should be tantalized. It shouldn't detract, it shouldn't draw attention away from other things.
Everything should hold up the gameplay and the feeling of what's happening. And if music
doesn't do that then
it's not doing it's complete job.
The visuals that I love the most are the ones that just blend seamlessly in with this world and make it come alive.
In Osmos, there's definitely a spacey kind of feel or like a deep underwater feel and so, sort of a dark blue
seemed to be the right choice. And when you start going into abstraction, that space
opens up so much more than realism. Realism feels so focused. Like Andreas
Illiger, Tiny Wings, the mix of this beautiful watercolors but mixed with this procedural
coloration that changes everyday. You want to be artistically resonant and beautiful
and aesthetically pleasing but you're trying to convey information. I'd say like a third
of the time spent on the
visuals in Osmos were spent on making sure that things look good at
all magnifications. A lot of games don't have to deal with that. And so you don't want to overwhelm the
player. You want them to have enough information to do what is they need to do
and you want it to look good. How do you render the things that the player needs to see and how do you render them in
such a way
that they actually have a dynamic feel of what's going on in the game? Almost all visuals in video
games are somewhat related to info-graphics because they're conveying information
you need to be able to play. Some of it's window-dressing but it all has to be harmonious and it can't compete or
take away too much attention or interfere with what's happening at the systemic level.
And in the independent game design space we don't need an army of content creation but
would have to basically implement that vision.
Indies are extremely interested in advancing our emotional engagement with
games and they have the freedom to try to do that outside of what get's funded in the commercial
sphere.
Interactivity adds a third dimension to storytelling. You actually get to be part of
the story. Your actions determine what happens and you're able to experience a greater
emotional and personal impact, I think,
then you would by observing or viewing a passive story in which you're not participating.
One of our primary ways of interacting with a game is by exploring.
So the story can be on the walls, the story can be in the environment, you can see a
place that's ruined, for example, and that prompts the player to wonder how that
place came to be.
And the decisions that indie games ask players to make on a moment to moment basis
can create some interesting themes. For example, there are games that are very
violent that ask you to question violence. We have games about the impact of choice. You know,
what do you do when you can
take one path or the other? Do you arm yourself or do you help someone else? But games
where there are memorable relationships between the protagonist and other characters
are some of the ones that remain, I think, most relevant to the canon of the world of gaming. One of
the most oft cited examples in the indie space is this game called Passage.
You start on one side and walk to the other and then you die. But along the way, as you're
playing Passage, you meet a woman ages alongside you. It's really the capsule of what means
something in someone's life.
People are trying to find ways to make those relationships feel more real, to
make those interactions feel better understood.
Storytelling in games is still such a new frontier. I think we're all very eager to
see what people with
the freedom to experiment will develop
and when unique things happen,
it's going to be the indie space that produces them.
Indie video games are really important to you
the evolution of games
because indie games have the opportunity to take risks. Because they're designed by
people
who have a drive to express something really specific as opposed to
a drive to make money. They try to push the envelope of the medium and
provide new experiences that we haven't seen before.
So that means new art styles, new mechanics, new methods of storytelling. We play, humans play.
It's always gonna be with us, it's not going away.
And indie videogames contribute in a much more personal way, and they're much more focused,
they're much more emotional. They speak to you.