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Edmund McMillen, with his Wolverine beard, I don't like his
glasses though :/ |
I'm watching a documentary at the moment, entitled 'Indie Games, The Movie'. It basically goes into the production and release of two specific independent games. These are games that are independently created by literally 1 or 2 guys in a bedroom with a mac and then sold to Microsoft etc. and downloaded to consoles everywhere. It made me realise the work that really goes into game development, and the scary levels of anger it creates. These two guys created this game 'Meat Boy', a creepy concept of a boy with no skin, going against his antagonist 'Dr Fetus', a fetus in a jar, and this game just represents everything good about simplistic gaming. It took about 550 days for 2 guys to develop it, and it sold about 22000 units in it's first day - earning Edmund McMillen more than he had earned in the last 6 years. I have to admit I haven't actually played the game as of yet, due to my lack of an X-Box (burn me later), I have however seen videos and fallen in love with the feel of the game.
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Look at this crazy, slightly cross eyed monkey of a game designer,
granted his beard is less Wolverine, more Comic Book Guy from
Simpsons and his glasses are way nicer than Wolverine but he's still
an angry mofo |
This is all very well in a success situation. However, when Phil Fish won awards for his game 'Fez' way back when, he probably didn't envision releasing it nearly 5 years after it was announced, redeveloping it 3 times and losing business partners in the process. This film showed him totally freaking out over this game, and while this idea of the amateur rising is exciting everyone in the gaming world, perhaps some 'amateurs' are just... too... amateur??
Mainstream companies create large scale, high quality games that appeal to a wide market. Independent game developers create simplistic, nostalgic games. The real clincher in this deal, is that the games are so personal to the developers, that they often represent their own ideals, messages and memories. It is this personal touch that is seeking to decrease the gap between developers and players of games, something which i'm totally up for. Two guys spending a year creating a game, then selling it on X-Box live is an embodiment of the revolution of amateur production. We've seen it with YouTube, and MySpace, however now perhaps the gaming world will be hit by the force of the amateur.
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I think the only reason the game is called
'Fez' is cos he has a little red group of pixels
protruding from his giant white head. |
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Super Meat Boy - bit of a strange concept
but ultimately endearing... |
