April 30th, 2010 | By Mike Gnade
Tagged in: developers | indie business | indie game trends
A game must be self-contained. It’s a designer’s duty to craft a full experience, while also entertaining its audience. And whether it’s a dependency on outside programs or indie designers prestigious attitudes, the following offenses create a bad impression of the scene overall and put walls up against potential players. For every reason cliche and new, the following examples are the worst problems in indie gaming today. On to offense no.1.
No preprogrammed joystick inputs.
Joy2key is fine… as a last result. We all use joy2key or other keyboard assigning programs, if we have no other choice. But a developer should not be telling me to download the program along with their game or even worse, though less lazy, is when joy2key is included with the game, but without assigned keys. Just program controls in, you’re designers and this is a video game – do it for me! If players don’t like the default, give us the option to change it, but don’t make the default nothing.
Worst Example: The punishment series.
Awesome platformer with no pad or joystick support? One good reason sir!
Arrow keys to move
Years of gaming has proven that the left hand is good for two things: Swearing under oath and moving a directional pad. So why after years of developing the muscular memory needed to make split-second decisions, what possess’ abolish our skill level and spitting on the traditions of our gaming forefathers. Yes. There are arrows printed on the keys – but that doesn’t mean it’s set in stone, people! You can blame PC tradition on this one, which did traditionally use the arrow keys. But this is a post-”Half-Life” world and the “WASD” system killed arrow key movement like the abortion it was. Yet 11-years later, indie’s seem intent on reviving it’s dead corpse, sacrificing player skill and comfort, perhaps in the hope that the Amiga may once again rule gaming.
Worst Example . Alien Hominid. Alien Hominid was, and is, a great game. It is the first flash success story and has made gaming heroes out of The Behemoth team. However, the game was basically UNPLAYABLE until it was released on home consoles and gamers could finally enjoy the “Contra” successor the way it was meant to be played – with the directions snuggled securely under the left thumb.
Save state outside of the game file
If you have a pc, you can’t have save files for flash games. Nope. the routine anti-virus scrubs and spy-ware cleansings mean any game progression will be deleted to your surprise and disappointment. To go deeper, many indie games also rely on the save file being seperate from the main folder. Lost games, lost time and ruined fans.
Worst Example: N
Another great game, except that the save program in Flash is awful. as a personal note, I have three friends that have NEVER been able to save their data in N, never mind turning their computers off. The data was gone with just closing the window. At least we have N+ now, but future developers take heed.
Art? games
My least favorite indie stereotype…
“Crap games that are described as art games when they don’t really have any deeper meaning.”
- Beau Blyth, (dev. “Action Fist”)
“Calling random games art games/thinking because all art games are good just because you don’t really understand them.”
- Jan Willem Nijman (10,800 Zombies)
Indie gaming gets a lot of its street cred by exploiting new ideas and narratives that the bigger studios wouldn’t dare try in place of their latest action movie emulation. But sometimes art for art’s sakes can seem a little… pretentious.
Worst Example: You have to burn the rope
A modernist take on generic roles and rules in games or a meditation on the stale and rigid platforming genre? Probably.
Finish the damn thing!
Who doesn’t like to get feedback and a little pat on the back? The problem is when your “game” consists of one complete level before crashing, burning and tossing the player back to the desktop. One level is pushing the limits of what gamers will take even in mainstream demos. The problem is compounded when many of the developers release the demo as an elaborate hope to stroke their own ego.
” Hey this looks neat. ‘Vertical sidescrolling with a grappling hook.’ Alright… fresh idea. Wow. I finished the demo and I loved it, can’t wait for the full release. What’s that? It’s two years old and the developer has moved on? Son of a bitch.” – Average thoughts of a disappointed gamer.
Developers: If you know in your heart-of-hearts you’ll never finish the damn thing, and there is no chance we will ever get to play the finished product – don’t tease us! Chances are, your idea isn’t such an inspiring example of genius that you need to call dibs on the mechanic months, or even years, early. If your style and/or gameplay is so mesmerizing, you would know it – and would be inspired to finish it.
Worst Example: tigsource.com / neogaf.com
It wouldn’t be fair to pick up one unfinished work out of the wasteland of half-finished demos over at neogaf.com. But to be fair, some games are attempts at new gameplay types, never meant to be finished. But those developers don’t make false promises.
Elitism
What I mean:
“To be too elitist. A phrase made by a famous general: “The best thing for an indie developer – is another indie developer.”
-Daniel Benmergui
Worst Example: You decide. Is the scene becoming too elistist?
Photo Thanks
Henrique Vicente , macle , Wolfrage , LDRBRS , dbking
Mike Gnade (426 posts)
Mike is the Owner and Founder of Indie Game Magazine.