Joyful. Another eye-candy gameplay-failure arena shooter going to console.

I'm using that as the tagline!

Nothing says failure like an anonymous troll.

That's funny. did your mom come up with that one for you?

Anonymous, I love you. Whenever one of these dreadful, idiotic indie games are posted onto the blog, you make it your duty to tell everyone how terrible the game really is. I mean, arena shooters have failed us so much in the past! Geometry Wars was the worst game I have ever played. It's like, they put no effort into it at all. And Warning Forever is just the same old thing over and over ;)

Derp.

Looks like another one of these pointless "art games" to me. Why can't these pretentious douches finally stop trying to be "deep and profound" and make some games with REAL gameplay like Metal Gear Solid?

Troll harder.

Trolls they may be, but the points they're making are sound. The indie scene is rapidly disappearing up its own arse in a relentless blaze of replication of tired IP and our only hope is that they take their apparently bottomless supply of Tower Defence games, twin-stick shooters and match three puzzlers with them. Which would leave us with a shitload of single screen, single level one-trick ponies that fail as games and so try to pass themselves of as "art" or "innovation".
I'm not feeling the love these days folks. Somebody, somewhere ... excite me ffs. And not with another Robotron however good you think it is.

Karma, have my babies please.

SYNSO is not a twin stick shooter. Happy now? ;)

Err, Karma. I'm just making a game, man. There's no artistic statement, no disappearing up my own backside. No claims of innovation, no trying to apply deeper meaning, nothing, zilch, nada. It's a game. As a game. Which does gamey things.

I'm making a game I want to make, because I want to make it, because no-one else will.

To be honest, I couldn't care less if I never excite you nor anyone else. I'm happy with what I do, I'm happy with myself and most of the time, generally happy with my games.

Perhaps you should look elsewhere if you're not satisfied as it's certainly not my job to satisfy you by a long chalk. I'll just be making games, because it's sorta what I like doing.

Then have some credibility and go make your crappy game instead of wasting time around here defending yourself.

Wow, if you don't like it, don't play it,. simple eh. Why should anyone care what you think about it, are you special? do you have some insight you'd like to share?

Some of us like indie games,. games, that are not another tired military funded firstperson human killing sim, or corporate licened sports, car, or cartoon/toy product designed to stimulate yet more consumption,. just a simple game that is fun for a while, and gasp! sometimes has a point, and had some thought put into it,. . actualy evolking thought, or other times not at all, just twitch and enjoy, but hey.., to each his own. Arn't you on the wrong site, bro?

Sorry mum!

I applaud RobF for defending himself and coming up with valid arguments. I didn't expect there to be so much anonymous trolling around here, but I suppose there has to be trolls lurking everywhere... Anyways, I don't have a 360 so I won't be able to get this, but I did enjoy the PC versions!

Hey guys, I'm the second anonymous "troll" (the guy with the statement about "pointless art games". Honestly, that comment was sarcasm and I'm pretty sure that the fact that SYNSO isn't an art game (at least not in THAT sense) and that I used Metal Gear Solid as an example of "real gameplay" should have made that pretty clear.
So anyway, sorry for causing trouble.

I thought it was funny, anyway :D

"Then have some credibility and go make your crappy game instead of wasting time around here defending yourself."

Wow, you're pathetic.

"To be honest, I couldn't care less if I never excite you nor anyone else. I'm happy with what I do, I'm happy with myself and most of the time, generally happy with my games."

RobF hats off to you. You really shouldn't care, in fact I say every game designer shouldn't give a crap about these fat slobs thinking they know better.

Make the game the way you intended it to be. This is your canvas, and no one should tell you how and what you do with it.

Reading your rebuttal to Karma's pretentious and ultimately hollow post just makes me happy to have someone like you with the cojones in the community instead of these other "I'll bend over backwards just to satisfy you" types of designers.

Kudos and don't change your views, we need more people like you.

We need more developers pandering to self-indulgence?

Well whatever you say.

Better that than pandering to you, fella.

Do I have to send both of you to the corner?!

I thought not trying to please everyone was the whole reason why indie games are entertaining, while big companies' games are generic and crappy.

Well, quite and snarks aside it's sorta the whole point of doing the indie thing. We're not (or at least most of us aren't) beholden to anyone.

Given the sheer breadth of developers who are working under the banner of Indie, I find the whole "the indie scene is disappearing up its own arse" thing so totally mindcrushingly boggling that if I were a less gobby goit, I'd be speechless.

Given the indie "scene" consists, as a rule, of a bunch of disparate people doing entirely unconnected and disparate work it's bemusing y'know? Sure, you could say that there's some cross influence going on in places like TIGS but that's such a small portion of the people who make games independently.

Plus, of course, I can't help but snigger when you consider that self indulgence is one of the basic tenets of creativity. If everyone stopped being self indulgent there'd be no bloody decent art (I should add, I don't include myself in the "bloody decent art" category, y'know?).

It's not some sort of dogmatic self indulgent reaction to say "I don't care about what you want me to make", it's the way things work. It's the way things have to work.

I care not a jot if someone thinks my game is shit, I think loads of games are shit. I'm cool with that. YMMV, tastes differ, etc... I'm not going to get mortally wounded or all "stop picking on me" over that, in fact - I appreciate it. It'd be a duller world than Epic could conjure if we all shared the same tastes.

I found the initial comment funny (seriously) partially because I kinda expected it due to the predictable nature of some trolls and partly because it did make me laugh.

I'm -not- cool with someone thinking that my work is somehow representative of some sort of perceived problem with some sort of scene that for reasons unknown should be pandering to J.Random.Idiot on the internet. Or being used as a springboard for a ridiculously strawmantastic argument the likes of which hasn't been seen since Ewar Woowoo lost some d's on a Scottish island.

Whatever problem the poster has with this scene he speaks of is jack diddly squat to do with me or most of the authors of games posted on here and definitely bugger all to do with a rather fetching port of my game to the 360.

I was going to make a passive aggressive video about all this and post it on YouTube to maintain my credibility (which I evidently should be concerned about) with the indie crowd but couldn't be bothered.

Actually, I have no credibility nor any need for any so there wouldn't be much point anyway.

Also, if IndieGames comments continue to be populated by such kneejerk idiots, we would absolutely consider going moderated only.

There's absolutely no need to be an anonymous Internet asshole, guys.

(There may actually be a constructive point to be made about arena shooters and console - so make that, if you care, so we can have some sensible debate!)