Independent Gaming
Scratchware!
If you're interested in the tension between the big-biz gaming industry and the creative potential of indie developers and artists, then you really should read the Scratchware Manifesto.
Games are big biz, gone the way of movies with huge budgets and productions staffs. And like the movie industry, the games industry provides an endless slog of sequels, license tie-ins, and eye candy. There are quality, artistic games squirming through the slog — this is the same industry that gave us Planescape:Torment and Fallout, for instance — but there's an awful lot of special effects oriented crap.
There's another game industry, though — one that mirrors the early days of computer game programming, when the two people in a garage development team was a reality. Freed by necessity from the Moore's Law-ish graphics arms race, some of these independent developers are making great games on their own terms.
Reviews and News
- aggregated at Indie Informer
- Indie Games Blog
- Game Tunnel
- The Independent Gaming Source
- Bytten
- Indie Game Forums — you'll have to troll a bit, but it's worth it
And, don't forget the holy shrine of underrated games (which, by definition, tends to include nearly all good indie games): Home of the Underdogs
Some Indie Studios
There are more Indie Studios out there than you can shake a stick at, of course, so I'm not going to attempt an exhaustive list. Here's a few I happen to know about, though. These range from professional independents to avocational game producers.
- Iteration Games makes old-school arcade art/games with the Gamemaker tool. Most games created with Gamemaker tend to be amateur works of interest within the Gamemaker community — Iteration's games are beautiful to behold, though.
- Spiderweb Software makes well-crafted story-driven isometric RPGs. Spiderweb games have been critically lauded.
- Digital Eel is the creator of Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, a fabulous lunch-break game. Poke around and you'll find a good blog
- Octopus Motor has been working on They Came From Hollywood for 32 years. I recorded some of the screams that will be heard in the 'finished' product. Seriously, though, I can't wait for this game.
- Squashy Software makes claymation games like the side-scrolling shooter Platypus.
- Malfador Machinations creates the Space Empires lines of games as well as Dungeon Odyssey.
- Sean O' Connor's Windows Games are really GDI Windows games that open in little windows... Critical Mass and Firefight in particular are impressive, fast paced strategy games.
- Rampant Games, of VoidWar fame. Be sure to check out the excellent blog.
Some Indie Distributors
- Shrapnel Games originally specialized in computer war games, but has recently been expanding.
- Retro64, both a developer and distributor, seeks to recapture the glory days of creative game programming that so charmed Commodore64 users.
- RealArcade
- Garage Games
Ludology
Just links for now:
