More and more and more and more people play and make games. And budgets gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So it’s getting more and more and more and more difficult for small independent developers to get noticed. Witch is a pity as they make better and better and better and better games.
How can one get noticed amongst the humongous titles like GTA IV, GT5, MGS4, CoD4, Something Mario Something 9 etc? Tough, tough, tough…
Interestingly enough there is some light sifting in through this tunnelish vision these days. Take the excellent AudioSurf, for example. A brilliant mix of Tetris, Lumines and Amplitude. These guys were lucky enough to get enough attention at the last IGF to be taken under the wings of Valve and presented via the Steam-network for 10 puny dollars.
The World of Goo is another IGF success story. A mix between LocoRoco, Gish and Bridge Construction Set (not made by the good folks behind those last two, though) - soon to be launched for the Wii and Windows (and later for Mac and Linux). Pre-orderers with a Windows PC can download the first world already.
(Other interesting stuff coming our way via IGF include Fez and Crayon Physics Deluxe. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to test any of these last two (only the fantastic prototype of Crayon Physics, but they definitely seems to be worth keeping an eye or three on…)
Stardock and their copy-protection-free independent ways have had great success lately as well with their Sins of a Solar Empire strategy affair. Good news! For them, as well as us law-abiding starforce-disliking gamers.
Well, that’s all for now;
“Play more independent games, please.”
Good night and sleep tight.
I would like to recommend Eschalon: Book 1 at http://www.basiliskgames.com/book1.htm - an excellent turn based fantasy rpg-game(also a plus that it’s available for mac, linux and windows)
It’s been a while since I wrapped my head around some good old old-school turn-based RPG action, but this looks promising. Thank you Nils-Anders!