Calling out indie decline

In this thread, post examples of indie games that exemplify everything that we despise about them. Including, but not limited to the following:

-An art style purposing to imitate 8 or 16 bit consoles or older computers
-Made in Flash or with an art style indistinguishable from Flash
-Overbearing "chiptune" music
-Cartoon characters who behave in unbelievably stupid ways, or like Teletubbies on speed
-Cartoon characters that are too zany
-Cartoon characters with stupid gimmicks
-Cartoon characters designed in otherwise unbelievably stupid ways
-Tries too hard to be funny
-An art style that tries too hard to look "artistic"
-An art style that tries too hard to woo the hipster crowd
-Meta game jokes used in any other way than sparingly
-Uses gameplay gimmicks

And the worst sin of all

-No decent, non-gimmicky gameplay to back it all up

Imagine my disappointment when I looked at the latest game added to GOG's library

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/edna_harvey_the_breakout_harveys_new_eyes/



I don't even need to add a single world to convey that it is the incarnation of every single point listed above.

 

I sense much fear in you.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92962578

so quirky and zany xD

 

Why, because I oppose stuff that used to be whimsical Quake 2 mods or Newgrounds Flash games to be made into actual games with even more pretentiousness?

 

That's something that does get me about indies. Their rise - which I think is overall a good thing - has coincided with a huge decline of imaginative mods. Even around the early days of Half-Life 2, we had Dystopia, The Hidden, plenty of others, all with very active player bases. NWN had a huge range of campaigns and modules twice the size of the official campaign. Half-Life 1 speaks for itself and the Morrowind modding scene was a thriving, varied place with real talent and ingenuity. Now, SP games just have more and more ludicrous porn mods and fanfic companions, multiplayer mods are deserted, sparse and amateurish, and the people who used to save these scenes have moved on to making shitty indie fare.

It's not as black and white as all that, but the link never really occurred to me. Sad state of affairs. Can't blame people for wanting to make money off their work, I suppose.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92962578

The Last actually is good idea for 50-ties/Hemingway style African Safari game with adventure part, shooting Elephants with BIG GUNS and running from machete rape squads Mau Mau Freedom Fighters.

 

When one of these quirky fake 8/16bit platformers manages to raise tens of thousands of dollars on Kickstarter. Oh wait thats already the reality.

 

Fuck pretentiousness. I don't like it, I don't buy it. I see a stupid RPG Maker game or Minecraft clone in Greenlight, I vote no.
I think it's better to ignore them than to rage. Only give attention to the games who deserve it.

Edit: Like Grimoire [griːmˈwɑː].

 

The thing is, I'm not that opposés to this when there's am actual game beyond this, which is why I don't despise stuff like Wizorb or River City Ransom. The Wizorb guys are making a Metal Slug clone now. I had to support a decent Montreal game studio.

 

The Binding of Isaac is borderline

 

Cross posting from the BTE, 2deep4u games:

Scam History


Are 3D platformers too complex for you? Then remove all the platforming challenges, the enemies, the time limits, most of the moves, and most of the stage design, and cut the length down to a couple of hours so that no one will have enough time to get bored by the fact that all they are really doing is pressing forward, and voilà: you've got Journey (2012).



Are flight simulators too complex for you? Then remove all the complexity and replace it with essentially a mindless collectathon on auto-pilot, and voilà: you've got Flower (2009).



Was Pac-Man too complex for you? Then remove the mazes, most of the ghosts, the scoring, and most of the risk (hence also the reward), and reskin the entire thing with programmer graphics and bleep-blop "music", and voilà: you've got Flow (2006)."

 

Indie games are just like AAA-titles, some of them are good, some of them are shit, most are mediocre.

That's how it's been since the start, Big deal. Move along.

 

I blame the fact that we stopped stoning these sorts of people to death at birth.

 

I don't know if this counts in terms of HHR's criteria but the only indie game I've played was some insipid Newgrounds game where all you did was walk a captive to a trench for execution and it was supposed to bring awareness to Africans killing each other. I specifically remember the gaming press shooting loads all over this turd and praising it as one of the best examples of videogames as art.

 

"Decline" is a long-term trend, not specific games, and there's no trend of decline in indie games like there was with mainstream games that declined into cinematic popamoles.

 

It's a good game, you just have shit taste. If a game is good it doesn't matter what medium it's presented in whether it's 8-bit or flash or has an art style you personally dislike.

 

Define "indie".



No, really.
I played games like Aquaria and Machinarium and liked both a lot. Not sure if those are "indie". Acquaria was made by 2 guys AFAIR. Machinarium was made using Flash.

 

Codex what happened to "Indies save gaming, fuck you"?

 

p-people have different opinions to each other??? i don't understandg[hg[honj mh

 

While I really like seeing video games try new things, I do agree that some of them just stink of hipsterism. I'd rather see new takes on gameplay rather than trying to cram philosophical BS into the game.

 

No one ever advanced that argument other than you to set up a straw man. There's good and bad everything. Every single indie game doesn't 'save gaming' but the good ones (in combination with digital distribution) have helped the PC gaming landscape by obsoleting publishers. While you might think PC gaming is terrible can you imagine how much worse it would be if all we had to choose from were AAA offerings from Acti-Blizz, EA, Bethesderp, etc?

 

These games are pratically the exceptions of the "indie scene". Aquaria is a great 2d action game and probaly the best these indies has to offer, and Machinarium is a good adventure,though it has popamolitis like a built in walkthrough.

 

Machinarium was a terrible adventure game. Very charming, though.