Preview of the 2005 Independent Games Festival

cyrus_zuo writes "In an effort to bring more exposure to the many fine titles entered into the Independent Games Festival (IGF) this year DIY Games teamed up with Game Tunnel to bring you a brief look at all 81 games entered into the 2005 IGF. An article on each site covers one half of the games, giving you a chance to look at each title and to make your own decision as to which games deserve to be finalists at this coming year's IGF."

OSs

[joeljkp]

I wish these articles would indicate what OSs the games run on. Does anyone know if any of these can run on Linux (or work with Wine)?

Re:OSs

[BortQ]

My game Lux [sillysoft.net] is one of those listed and it runs on Linux.

Re:OSs

[joeljkp]

To reply to my own comment here, gate 88 [queasygames.com] works on Linux, and is quite fun.

Am I retarded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I a frickin retard or do both of the links go to the exact same page? How on earth did these people earn the title of "editors"?

Here's the game tunnel link: http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-10.html [gametunnel.com]

N -

[Aggrazel]

Haha, just downloaded N because it looked like one of the dumber things on that list, but its actually quite fun. Shows me ...

Re:N -

[I(rispee_I(reme]

N is the tetris of platformers; anyone who disagrees lacks the skills of the ninja.

Recent Trends in Indie Gaming

[MiceHead]

Three recent trends lend credibility to the image of those modest studios (indies) developing games: 1) the fact that many such developers are are coming from industry proper; 2) the actual nomenclature "Indie" being a positive term; and 3) small studios' newfound ability to create games that are visually appealing.

First: An interesting but not-well-known fact is that many members of the indie gaming community come from a background of well-known companies. Take, for example, the Moonpod [moonpod.com] team, which had experience at Gremlin [mobygames.com] and Infogrames [the-underdogs.org] before starting out on their own. Monkeystone [monkeystone.com] is headed by none other than id's John Romero. I would argue that games industry experience is not a prerequisite for the development of a good game; but the recent movement of folks from big gaming companies to their own studios makes independents more credible. Put simply: if folks who have worked on shipped, big-budget games are now part of the indie community, there must be something to the indie community.

Second: The actual term used for smaller studios (Independents or Indies) is an important one. You could call many of the products in this category "Shareware Games," but there's a horribly negative connotation to that term. "Indie Games" evokes the notion of a small, dedicated team of professionals crafting out something new and interesting. By contrast, the term "Shareware Games" evokes the notion of some dude in his basement churning out a buggy arcade clone that looks like it was written for the Intellivision. To parahrase someone, (I want to say Chris Barrie [imdb.com]): A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but may be less appealing if it were called "sewage-weed." The adoption of the "Indie" label has helped legitimize games made by smaller studios.

Fifth (20 years from now, we'll be those old farts still making Python references to people born in twenty-oh-one): Independents can make games that look good. It may be because indies now have access to tools that would have made Pixar cry during its formative years. (Maya [alias.com], for example, can be had for about $2k, and is even free for personal use.) It may also be because there's great talent [gamasutra.com] now available. Either way, I think indie titles, taken as a whole, have become visually appealing. During the '90s, shareware titles had a bad reputation for being ugly, because they lagged so far behind the cutting-edge. These days, titles like Starscape [moonpod.com], Dark Horizons: Lore [garagegames.com], and Wik & The Fable of Souls [reflexive.net] are (IMO) looking pretty good. And, while indie titles may not be as spectacular as those developed by a major studio, (our own Inago Rage [dejobaan.com] focuses on bright colors, but doesn't quite outdo Tron 2.0 [ign.com], for example), decent sales suggest that gamers like what Independents are doing.

However, given the dearth of posts in this thread, I still believe we have a long way to go. :) So, if you haven't already, check out the DIY [diygames.com] and Game Tunnel [gametunnel.com] coverage of the 81 IGF entrants. You may find that precious diamond in the rough.
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Re:Recent Trends in Indie Gaming

[mink]

Back in the day "Shareware Games" comprised of not only some dude in is basement, it also was the only way most people experianced Doom and many other high quality (for the time) games. Later many of the high end "Shareware" people went to the "Industry" so there must be something to the "Industry" but then they went to be "Indie" so the "Industry" must not have been all that hot. Maybe in 10-20 years it will go back to "shareware".Many studios would not exist today IMO without the start they made in Sharew

Linux...?

[euxneks]

Which ones are for linux?

I wish there were more free games for linux.