Indie Game Links: Packed with Meaty Goodness
Not hard to guess the theme for today. An opinion piece about which games are indie and which games aren't, first look at a boss design for Super Meat Boy (plus previews), Time Fcuk postmortem, and some links which have nothing to do with our good friend Edmund.
Here goes:
DIYgamer: 3 Indie Games That Aren't All That Indie
"I'm in no way bashing or disrespecting these games. While I have yet to play Axel and Pixel, I can honestly say I loved both Braid and Castle Crashers. So please keep this in mind..."
GamesRadar: Super Meat Boy - first look
"Titles that absolutely describe their game are a dying breed. What is there that 'Super Meat Boy' doesn't tell you? He's made of meat, he's super, and he's a he. What else do you want?"
Bytejacker Episode 064: Side of Beef - Super Meat Boy Hands-On
"We had the chance to play an early build of Super Meat Boy. How is it? Fcuking delicious. We've got all the juicy details, lightly seasoned and pan-seared. Meat analogies."
Game Jolt: Meat Boy Mini
"Meat Boy Mini is a fangame of Edmund Mcmillen and Jon McEntee's game Meat Boy, in lo res graphics (almost all the graphics are in 2x2 pixels)."
GameSetWatch: Team Meat Shares Super Meat Boy Boss, Danny B Music
"Developer Team Meat fashioned a boss that preys on that weakness to moving blades: Lil Slugger, a chainsaw mech with legs, controlled by Meat Boy's arch-enemy Dr. Fetus. The studio also debuted an equally devious music track to accompany the Forest boss, composed by Danny Baranowsky (Canabalt)."
Nintendo Life: First Impressions - Super Meat Boy
"No platformer fan in general should miss this unique title when it hits the Steam and WiiWare services next year."
Edmund's Dev Blog: Time Fcuk (update/postmortum)
"So its been almost 2 months since Time Fcuk was released and since then its been played over 3.5 million times 1million of those being from newgrounds.com. There have also been a startlingly huge amount of levels submitted closing in on 7k."
Tower Defense Wiki
In Japanese only, but they did a great job of linking to most of the noteworthy tower defense games out there.
xii games: Oh, so THAT's what Linus Bruckman Saw
"I wanted to give people who didn't complete the game the chance to see the ending, and I think after three years it's ok to do that."
Comments
DIYGamer's definition of Indie seems completely wrong to me. If having anyone publish or promote a game disqualifies it then this basically amounts to saying that anything which isn't sold only on its creator's site can't be Indie.
Posted by: Dom Camus | November 26, 2009 11:13 AM
Publishing is different from distributing. After all, Wal-Mart isn't the company publishing Assassin's Creed II (or whichever game you'd like to substitute in), but they do distribute it. So, having a game distributed on Steam, Newgrounds, PSN, or XBLA doesn't automatically mean they're the publishers.
Posted by: Spudsworth | November 26, 2009 1:59 PM
No Immortal Defense on the TDWiki? Poor show, Japan!
And yeah, DIYGamer seems to think independent PUBLISHING is more important than independent DEVELOPMENT. Most widely seen independent films are distributed by the indie branches of the major studios; why should it be different with games? (granted most of those branches have been complete failures and have folded back into their parent companies - thanks, recession!) He touches on the film comparison, but doesn't acknowledge that 'independent' actually means 'produced outside of the X major studios' (I forgot what number X stands for.) Braid is exactly everything an indie game should be - a labor of love by a very talented man that would never have been developed by a mainstream company.
Posted by: Malasdair | November 26, 2009 4:22 PM
I thought the straight up definition of Indie was that you funded the development of whatever it is yourself (meaning that Valve Corporation would be Indie, both as their own developer and publisher). I feel that being your own publisher is merely an added "You're so Indie" bonus though.
Still, I'm probably wrong, seeing as how the term Indie has been twisted around so dang much.
Posted by: Bob | November 26, 2009 5:58 PM
Perhaps "independent" isn't a category, but an attribute which can apply to multiple aspects. And in some cases only "some" but not "all".
Posted by: Lyx | November 26, 2009 11:46 PM
indie also means that the developers own the IP, not just that they funded it themselves -- a corporation isn't a developer, valve funds its own games but its developers don't own the IP of their games, valve the corporation does
Posted by: paul eres | November 27, 2009 4:11 AM
DIYgamer.....who the heck thinks Braid is the holy grail of indie gaming!?
Posted by: Yougiedeggs | November 27, 2009 9:15 PM