Jared Emry

Independent video games, or indie games, have started to receive more attention since about 2005.  Indie Gaming and Development has become a popular hobby for many people.  Some popular indie games include Uplink, Minecraft, and Amnesia.  Indie games are created by individuals or small teams and are therefore different from the typical game created by the larger companies.  Instead of hundreds or thousands of people working on a single project, there could only be a handful of people working on a game.  These individuals may work alone or gather a small team to build a game.  This is a guide to developing such a game.  There are three parts to a good game that must be observed: concept, aesthetic, and gameplay.  Indie games are partially unique by the fact anyone can create one, which creates a demand for guides such as this.  The concepts of this guide could very well guide the creation of any game and therefore the indies as well.

Indie games are often conceptually unique in the industry.  Uplink, for example, mimics a new operating system on your computer as you play the part of a freelance hacker.  PC Format called it, “A true original, paranoia has never been so much fun….”  In the game you have to upgrade your computer, get new software, and try to become an elite hacker.  The player roams the Internet (a fake in-game Internet) and hacks corporate and government systems in an effort to fulfill anonymous contracts for money.  The player can choose which side to be on as the story begins; will he help ARC create the virus known as Revelation, or will he help Arunmor make the counter-virus, Faith.  The player can even work for both corporations at the same time.  The game is done in the style of hacking seen in Hollywood and is truly unique.  Indie games must be conceptually unique.  This does not mean the game needs to be experimental, like Slave of God; the game merely needs to be original.  For example, Slave of God is an experimental game that relies on psychedelic textures and flashing lights to provide a unique gameplay and maybe a seizure.  Experimental games are usually radical departures from orthodox gaming.  Another example of an experimental game would be a game known as Roulette.  Roulette is a video game that consists of video segments of actors acting out a game of Russian Roulette.  The player takes part in the game of Russian Roulette against an actual video.  This game relies on the dark suspense of Russian Roulette, but without anyone being harmed in the process.  Vesper.5 is another experimental indie game that has become popular.  It tries to portray the concept of ritual.  The game is designed in such a way the player can only take one step a day through the game’s world.  The game takes a minimum of 100 days to complete, so it requires the game to be treated ritualistically to be completed.  What David Reimer once said is still true, “Reinventing the wheel is a trap.”  Trying to make the next Polybius may be a high and mighty goal, but changing the basis of something is no easy task.  Certainly experimental games can be successful and earn a cult following, however the wheel does not have to be reinvented for a good indie game to be created.  Being innovative is good, but don’t strain yourself trying to make something entirely new.  The concept is the broad view of the game: it contains the game’s world, mythologies, and the characters that inhabit it.  Don’t let the effort of forever trying to come up with something new under the sun stop you from creating a concept at all.  Work with what you know and then expand.  The indie game must be conceptually unique or original.  Start with the orthodox form of a typical game in the genre you want to work with.  If you are making a first-person shooter, then you might want to play Doom, Wolfenstien3D, or Quake; those games are the basis of the modern first-person shooter.  Use the form (but not necessarily using the same engine) used for those games.  The form is really just the basic flow of the game’s plot and how its story is typically told.  From this basis the story is woven.  The concept contains additions to the form and its originality.  The concept can range to just about anything.  Once you have started working with more orthodox concepts, the unorthodox will probably be easier.  The concept is just an idea that can be manifested into the game.  The better a developer is, the better concept he can use to symbolically portray the concept in the video game.

The second part is the aesthetic component of the game.  Some indie games like Amnesia have AAA-quality graphics, however this is not necessary.  The graphics need to match the game.  Amnesia’s AAA graphics were suited to the game, which is part of what made it so good.  Amnesia used light effects and foggy aesthetic touches to maximize the game’s suspense and horror.  The music it used fit the old castle with its creepy undertones and sound effects.  Amnesia could not have been done in 8-bit or 16-bit; it had to be done with a certain level of graphical (and audio quality) sophistication or else it would have lost the elements that made it so good.  Uplink’s menu-based system similarly relied mostly on just pictures that popped up when a button was clicked.  These graphics were equally stunning and fitting to the game, and the music made you feel like a hacker.  Uplink also relied on these aesthetic qualities for the game, but they were not the same graphics that Amnesia used.  Uplink’s concept would simply have not worked in an Amnesia aesthetic.  Similarly, all game concepts must be linked to an appropriate aesthetic.  If you want to make a sci-fi, you need sci-fi-looking stuff and sci-fi-sounding stuff because belief cannot be totally dismissed from the game.  The aesthetics must capture the belief of the player.  Capturing belief does not rely on the realism of the graphics but on consistencies.  An 8-bit sci-fi game would be unbelievable if the graphic for a sword was used instead of a ray gun; the same holds true for all types of graphics.  A sword simply is not a ray gun.  The belief can be captured by trading out the sword for a graphic of a gun.  It needs to be understood the graphics are a symbolic representation of the world of the game.  The game does not need to be as realistic as possible because the graphics are merely symbolic.  The game is not in the graphics; it is in the concept.  The aesthetics are the symbols used to portray the concept.  The game must use the aesthetics that best portray the concept.  The graphics should not be understood as simply one texture (or group of pixels) moving across another because a computer script simply moves it, but as a representation of a life with its own background and mythology.  The story told is real.  The aesthetic links the concept to the player.  The indie game, Space Funeral, uses a 16-bit graphic and a similarly situated soundtrack to create a disturbing yet comic aesthetic.  If Space Funeral had been in Amnesia’s or Uplink’s aesthetics, the game would be terrible.  Even though the story would be told, the concept would be lost.  The aesthetic qualities of the game must match the concept.  The aesthetics must always be polished and excellently done, but the quality (referring to resolution and type, not to the excellence of the graphics themselves) must match the game.  This area is also where the difference between indie games and typical games is most pronounced.  The major game publishers only cater to newer graphics.  8-bit, 16-bit, and other outdated graphics are not to be found on the popular new consoles (except in packaged classic games).  This methodology wrongly closes the door to different kinds of game play, however indie games provide a solution by providing new games with older graphics styles.

The third part is gameplay.  Gameplay needs to be good, or the game will be too frustrating, too repetitive, or too easy for anyone to care about.  If you want the concept of the game to be remembered by the players, then you need to make the gameplay suitable and memorable.  There are three kinds of players: players with skill, players with money, and players with time.  Each section of players can obviously overlap.  A good gameplay needs to target at least one of those groups, and a better gameplay maximizes the target range.  If the gameplay fails to reach any of those groups, then the game might still be able to get a cult following (which is pretty cool).  The gameplay must stay true to the concept and is always subservient to the concept in a good game.

There are two ways gameplay must be good.  First, the controls must be working at a very high standard.  If a player cannot control the avatar (the player’s representation in the game’s world), then the player cannot interact with the world properly and therefore cannot be immersed into the world; a disconnect is created.  A game is always a mental contest, either against another player or against a computer.  If the game does not provide a method for the mind of the player to effectively control the avatar, then the game does not provide a fair ground for the mental contest.  The player must compensate for the computer’s shortcomings in order to play against the computer.  It is possible to successfully compensate, but it detracts from the gameplay.  This kind of mistake in gameplay will rarely produce a cult following.  Another mistake in this first way gameplay must be good is grammar and spelling.  Spelling and grammar errors separate the player from the game because language is the gateway to reality (a topic for another time).  A game with bad grammar and spelling is at the very least unprofessional and shows bad quality or lack of interest between the developer and his game.  Luckily, this grammar rule is sometimes waved by the players for translations, especially hacked translations.  Glitches and bugs can often lead to a bad gameplay.  If the glitches or bugs are harmful to the players’ interactions in the world, these glitches and bugs negatively affect the gameplay.  However, there is an occasional glitch or bug that can actually help the game by providing something interesting for the players to examine and play with.  These glitches and bugs tend to be rare and cannot be purposefully programmed into the game.  Along with the glitches and bugs are the Easter Eggs  Easter Eggs are small details programmed into the game that reference something else iconic to pop-culture or to specific cult favorites; they are typically meant to be hard to find and are kind of like purposeful bugs in my opinion.  A few well-placed Easter Eggs are always nice.

The second half of the gameplay equation is more abstract and far more relative.  It is best described in examples because a set definition would be nearly impossible.  The best gameplay always temporarily absorbs the player into the game and immerses him in the events of the virtual world.  The way it is done is extremely hard to define.  The gameplay must here balance the flow of the game.  The pace of the game must be suited to the concept.  The leveling, upgrading, available currency, costs, monster difficulties, skills, and everything else in the game must be balanced.  This gives the game consistency, which allows the player to stay immersed by not providing anything too easy as to bore the player or too difficult for the player to complete.  Challenge must be in the game, but the game cannot be extremely frustrating or impossible as to keep the players away.  Goldilocks likes everything to be just right.  The game must entice the player with the wonder of what might lie behind the next corner or the next hill and urge the player onward through the game.  Without challenge, the secret behind the next corner is diminished of its potential wonder and sentimental worth.  The harder the challenge and the greater the risks, the greater the payoff is to the player.  The reward should always be suitable to the task.  What the gameplay looks like is extremely varied, from Unmanned (a game meant to follow the average day of the average person in the U.S. Army, from waking to sleeping) to Diablo (where the player runs around hacking and slashing stuff with a weapon).  Gameplay is also damaged by repetition. Final Fantasy would be stupid if the only enemies ever fought were slimes.  New elements throughout the game help make a game continue to be interesting and immersive.  The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a good example of great gameplay.  Oblivion is not an indie game, but the gameplay rules still apply.  The player controls the avatar through a vast world, making decisions and fighting monsters.  The gameplay is good in Oblivion because the controls are suitable, easy to learn, and effective.  The game is immersive and allows its aesthetics to be enjoyed through the gameplay.  As the player progresses through the game and levels up, the monsters also level up.  The strengthening of the monsters alongside the player makes sure battles don’t become boringly easy.  The battles are maintained at a challenge and risk is continually present.  On top of that, the game also adds more monsters as the player progresses allowing for new and more interesting battles.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, another non-indie game, is a great example of a game with a skewed gameplay.  In Skyward Sword, the controls of the Nintendo Wii stopped the avatar from being fully controllable, which is bad because the avatar is supposed to be the player incarnate in the virtual world.  The avatar should be responsive just like someone’s real body.  On top of that unfortunate mistake, the game also featured a character that acted as a guide.  Unfortunately, the character appeared constantly and bluntly told the player what to do next. This forced break for help not only makes the pace of the game choppy, it destroys most of the challenge of having to figure the game out by itself.  As Sid Meier says, “A game is a series of interesting choices.”  If the player is told what to do, the challenge and joy of interacting with the world and learning its unique physics and laws become null.  The sense of adventure, exploration, and discovery are instantly killed.  The game kills the reason for playing the game.  The game also fails on adding more interesting developments throughout the game.  The tools are often tedious to use and can’t be easily used to influence the battles, which leaves the battles almost unchanging and dull.  The player’s avatar does not go through any significant changes to stimulate new and exciting gameplay.  Many of the items and their upgrades are cheap compared to the available currency, causing the game’s economy to be boring and allowing the character to upgrade fully early in the game, which leaves the player with less interest later in the game.  Even the unlockables sidequest common in Zelda games lacked good gameplay: Ocarina of Time had the golden skulltullas to collect, Twilight Princess had the Poe’s spirits, and Link’s Awakening had the secret seashells.  In those three games, the player had to struggle throughout the entirety of the game and look in unconventional places through the entire world for the unlockables sidequest.  This style of the sidequest promoted good gameplay by encouraging the players to think out of the box and look for them in unconventional spots.  The player would have to search for the entire length of the game, adding an extra layer of gameplay goodness for the entirety of the game.  It is also extremely difficult to achieve finishing those three sidequests because of the vast number and diversity of the items.  In addition, as the player found more of the items, a better reward would be unlocked.  Each reward was extremely valuable and very helpful to the player, promoting the player to want to try to get more of the items and thus promoting good gameplay.  Skyward Sword on the other hand fails in its unlockables quest.  The items are not scattered throughout the world but localized in a small portion of the map.  The only thing preventing the player from getting them all at once is the game only lets them appear once parts of the story are completed.  The collection of the items becomes more of a chore because the player must return to the area and look around for more.  Another way the unlockables quest became a chore is the player is forced to do chores to receive the item.  Yes, the hero must clean up a house, move pumpkins, and cheer some people up.  Instead of exploring the world, the player is forced through painful and often boring little tasks irrelevant to the game as a whole.  A few of the items are collected in the exploration way, but these few are insignificant in comparison.  The unlockables are also just as unimpressive and worthless, especially the final one.  Most of the rewards are simply more money, which is unnecessary because the world is already overflowing with it.  The final unlockable was a greatly increased wallet size, but by that time in the game the player has already bought everything he needs and the wallet can do nothing more than hold all of that extra money that is unneeded.  In Ocarina of Time, the few players who strive to get all the skulltullas are rewarded with an infinite source of money, something the player can at least put to use in the many minigames.  The difference in the excellence of the gameplay is often determined by things people might consider to be small details.  It is the details that determine the gameplay.  The gameplay ensures the aesthetics can be properly observed, experienced, and known.

The gameplay allows for the aesthetic to be properly known and the aesthetic allows for the concept to be known.  The video game is a link to the conscious.  It is a medium of ideas, just like reading a book.  It links the minds of the players to the developers, just like reading a book links the mind of the reader to the mind of the writer.  Indie games are different from the typical game made by one of the larger companies, though.  Indie games are made by one person or a handful of people.  Non-indie, typical, games can be made by up to a few thousand people.  Whereas the player of the typical game can only know the general worldview of the mass of developers, the indie gamer has a much more personal encounter.  The indie gamer is more likely to be able to see the art of the game because there is a more direct link between the artist and the gamer.  The video games aren’t worthless, as postulated by many parents who believe their child is wasting his life over video games.  Because the games are symbols of ideas, the games are real.  A game developer is just as much an artist as a painter or musician is.  He often has to work with other artists including painters (game art) and musicians (soundtrack), just as a playwright has to work with his crew.  The indie game developer will often have to both do the game art and soundtrack by himself or enlist help from others, but nevertheless he retains control over his game and shapes it in the form he desires.  The indie game developer is an artist.