November Indie Game Round-Up 39
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.
Strong Bad is Indie? (Score:4, Interesting)
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:the new Indie (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
http://db.tigsource.com/top [tigsource.com]
http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html [igf.com]
Re:the new Indie (Score:3, Interesting)
the days of one or two people with next to no money producing a commercially viable game are pretty much gone.
Actually that's pretty much the story behind Mount & Blade, one of the featured games.