Downloadable Category

This year the International Games Festival (IGF) is divided into two categories, an Open Category, and a Web/Downloadable Category.  There has been a lot of confusion as to the differences between the two categories.  The Open Category is for any game that is larger than 15 MB, or one that requires some alternative media, such as CD-ROM to be delivered to the player.  The Web/Downloadable Category is for games that EITHER are playable on the web, or be a downloadable single file that is smaller than 15MB in total size.

Our coverage of the IGF covers both the Open and the Web/Downloadable Categories.  Read on, and when you are done, vote in the poll on what you think the best of the group is.

AlphaQUEUE

Beesly's Buzzwords

Billiard Boxing

Chomp! Chomp! Safari

Dr. Blob's Organism

Dungeon Scroll

Gish

Oasis

Space Station Manager

Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates

Dr. Blob's Organism
A look into the Life brewing in the lab
By Russell D. Carroll [March 1, 2004]

In 1970, mathematician John Conway created a "game" called Life. The game really isn't a game at all, but instead it is a simulation of how cells grow. His piece of innovation has been spread around the world and exists all over the internet, as an explanation to the "random" patterns that we see in life, specifically in cell growth. For anyone who has "played" the game of Life, Dr. Blob's Organism should immediately show some similarity. In interviewing Ripcord from Digital Eel, Maker's Of Dr. Blob's Organism, he pointed me to the connection to the game of Life as being one of the interesting quirks in the game.

"We don't think of Dr. Blob's Organism as being particularly innovative but it does have its moments and quirks. For example, Dr. Blob's Organism uses the rules for John Conway's Game of Life to generate the blobs you shoot at in the game," said Richard Carlson a designer, artist, and sound developer on the game.

Much like many Independent Game Studios, Digital Eel was formed by friends who wanted a little more freedom than they got in the mainstream industry, "We met each other while working on various commercial games. Our ideas were similar and we became good friends so making games together was a real natural thing to do," said Carlson in regards to how the studio started making Indie Games.

As a finalist in both of the last two years, Digital Eel has become a well-known commodity in the Indie world. Their games show their creativity and free spirit, in addition to meeting their own definition of an Independent Game. Carlson stated, "An indie game can be anything you want it to be because you're making the choice, not someone else. An indie game should be unusual, unique and a clear alternative to what's typically on the shelf."

Certainly anyone who has played Dr. Blob's Organism will agree that the game meets that criteria fairly well. In fact for anyone who has played the game, or even checked out the website, it is immediately clear that the group making games over at Digital Eel walks to the beat of their own drummer. Still, just being different doesn't keep indie companies alive in the end. I asked Richard about what he saw as the evolution path for Indie games, and what the challenges facing the genre were, and he said: "It all comes down to survival of the funnest. Survival and, ironically, the loss or giving up of independence."

Digital Eel certainly doesn't look to be giving up their independence anytime soon, and already are moving on with new games. "We have a couple of new games in the works, including a follow up to Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. Hopefully we'll be able to get them released later this year," said Carlson . A follow-up to SAIS is certainly good news for gamers who enjoyed that great Indie finalist game from a year ago.

For now, gamers get to enjoy a very odd little game that is inspired by the calculable randomness of cells by John Conway, and the incalculable zany strangeness of Digital Eel. Altogether it works out for one great romp in the laboratory.

Dungeon Scroll
A crazed look through the underground
By Russell D. Carroll [March 3, 2004]

Seth Robinson is one of the more interesting characters in the Independent Gaming world, and honestly that is really saying something.  He has long been involved with game development, dating back to the Commodore 16.  For any who have been around the gaming world awhile, Seth's name is synonymous with the game Legend Of the Red Dragon, which was a huge underground hit back when BBS boards were popular.  I use the word "underground" lightly.  In fact, the only thing that would classify that game as underground is the relatively small portion of society that got into the BBS world of computers years ago.   That game paved the way for Seth to move on.  "It really opened my eyes to the possibilities, I’ve been a self employed developer ever since" Robinson said. In addition to being a finalist in each of the last two Independent Games Festivals (IGF), he also has been a speaker at the Game Developer's Conference where the IGF is held.

This year's entry by Robinson Technologies, the two person team of Seth and his artistically inclined wife Akiko, is Dungeon Scroll, a game that places players in a dungeon where they must fight off enemy creatures, including dragons with nothing but a bag of jumbled letter tiles.  What did Seth have to say about the most innovative feature in this combination of the puzzle and RPG genres? "Well.. Uh.. Let’s see here… Um, that spider effect on the main menu is sort of neat? Seriously, I stole two concepts, word game mechanics and some RPG type things (hit points, dungeon ambience) and merged them. I wouldn’t award myself any innovative-points unless it’s for integrating them. Oh, and the random treasure generator cracks me up." 

Those who have played the game give it a few more points in the innovative category.  In fact the game was a finalist in the "Concept" category of our own Game of the Year awards last year. In addition to the concept being a nice meshing of two different genres, the game packs a lot of fun.  As even Seth agreed, "It’s fun. It has good rhythm. The speed, delays, sounds and timing were very carefully placed. You quickly become absorbed and stop thinking about the GUI or keyboard and directly interface with the heart of the game. It becomes very intense."

Yet in any game, and especially those that push the limits a little, there are points in the development that challenge the developer, in this case, Robinson mentioned it "would probably be the code dealing with the quick generation of anagrams from a given letter set. (The Oracle item in the game uses this)." Quickly following up that comment with his characteristic gusto, Robinson said "I’d never written a word game and there is something very sexy about the idea that unlimited interesting game play can be created with a few random()’s and a dictionary. I found it a really pleasurable project to do."

Dungeon Scroll, and indeed Robinson Technologies is one of the highlights of Independent Gaming.  As Robinson is one of the longest standing successful Indie developers , I asked him about what he thought of all the changes that have been occurring in the world of Independent gaming and what he sees as an indie developer being.  While he didn't want to get into the definition of what an independent developer is, he did give some comical feedback on the idea, saying  "My non-technical, romantic definition of the ideal indie is a very stubborn person who creates what he thinks is beautiful without regard to critics and weekly sales data. This kind of indie tends to have crazy eyes and live with his parents or in a park."  Further pressed about the future of indie gaming he said: "There is a lot going on right now. When the dust settles I think we’ll see after all the changes it’s still basically the same thing but with more (frequently slimy) middle men & virtual publishers."

With the advent of Garage Games, and a literal explosion in the number of developers doing Independent game projects, it has been increasingly difficult for developers to get noticed.  In fact, one of their great selling areas in the new world of the internet has been through affiliate sites, and software sites that are available in a seemingly endless quantity across the internet.  While having an increased selling base can certainly be helpful, "Finding a developer’s homepage can be tough when the top ten Google results are affiliates. I think we need to fight to be noticed, not settle for the backseat. The developer should be the star, damnit!" said Robinson.

Certainly being an independent developer has changed over the years, and while we are at perhaps the greatest point of expansion in the history of Independent Games, what the future holds is certainly up in the air.  As for the future of Seth Robinson and Robinson Technologies?  "I’ve finally graduated from being in a constant state of "that’s a cool idea, but can I really program that??!" to just caring about the game design. I’m getting crazy eyes."  While for a normal, boring developer that might sound a bit odd, for the Independent Gaming world it sounds like we can expect more interesting projects from Robinson who sounds like he is becoming the ideal indie developer that many already believe him to be.

Billiard Boxing
Pool balls settle the score
By Russell D. Carroll [March 5, 2004]

Shizmoo has become something of a mainstay at the IGF, this year is the third straight year that they have been a finalist.  In 2002 they actually went a step beyond being a finalist, winning the "Audience choice" award.  This year's effort is Billiard Boxing, a game that employs the same type of furious action twist on a common game concept that Shizmoo has been able to pull off each of the last two years with their other games that made the final round.

I had a chance to pose a few questions to Dan Goldstein, one of the founders of Billiard Boxing, and the boundless enthusiasm that I've come to associate with the Shizmoo team was more than a little evident in his responses.  As far as what the game is, and a little background on Shizmoo games, I thought I'd let Dan explain, "Billiard Boxing is a crazy version of pool, where each player has his own cue ball and can shoot at any time. Aside from the fact that it's a new kind of game that didn't exist previously, I think all our games are innovative in that we bring interesting new game mechanics and kinds of play to multiplayer web games. If you look at the multiplayer web games that are out there, they are almost exclusively turn-based classic parlor games. Although it's good that those exist, the state of affairs is a little bit boring to us. Our technology allows us to quickly create and deploy interesting new kinds of multiplayer web games that are easy to play."

That technology has been growing as years go by.  The focus of Shizmoo has been web-based games.  Their games are playable through a web browser, and the ease of access by players is one of the reasons they won the audience award two years ago at the fourth annual Independent Games Festival. 

Shizmoo has a much more limited definition of what an independent game is than some of the other finalists, though their responses do echo some of the same feelings that I've seen in conversing with several of the finalists.  "Anything that wasn't funded by a publisher or didn't intend to get a publisher [is an independent game]"  said Dan.  While this is more of a strict definition of what an indie is than many people espouse, and it most definitely would disqualify even some of the IGF finalists were this definition to be used for the IGF, Dan gave several good reasons for so narrowly defining the indie game world while discussing the distinctiveness of Independent games. 

"Independent games come in a few flavors, each of which have different positive aspects. Some of them are created by people whose creative impulses greatly outweigh their financial interest in the game, which allows such authors to create the game that they want to make rather than the game for which they believe there exists a large potential to make money. Unfortunately, such games are often limited in scope simply because they lack resources during the creation process. Sometimes though, this lack of funds forces the developer to be more resourceful and come up with new ways of doing things and new kinds of games. Other games are made for financial benefit, but may not fit the traditional brick-and-mortar sales approach. These games have the potential to expand our notions of what is a game, how a game is distributed, and who plays games. Overall, Independent games become distinctive simply because they are made outside of the traditional publisher funded developer/publisher/distributor model and this means that different considerations are taken into account during the process of creation."

The overall feel I got from Dan was that by not receiving the kind of money that a mainstream game would get for development, Indie developers have to be more inventive in order to create the game they want, and in addition, not having as great a financial need from the game allows developers to take the time to be as creative as they want.  The financial constraint on developers, may in fact actually work to make the indie developer more innovative.  Shizmoo itself was working on a "massively multiplayer realtime strategy title, but we ended up temporarily straying into the web-games space somewhat accidentally because of a game idea I had one day while taking a shower. (previous IGF Audience Choice winner Kung Fu Chess)" said Dan.  One can only assume that had they received funding to do that first project, that the many loved games made by Shizmoo would not exist.   (of course, we might have had one amazingly good massively multiplayer realtime strategy...)

With as successful as Shizmoo has been, Billiard Boxing is not the last game that we can expect to see from these guys thankfully.  About the future Dan stated: "We've been focusing on expanding the distribution of our multiplayer web games and getting the revenue model really solid. We also have a new version of our technology, this time in Java, which will allow Mac and Linux users to play our games. It will also hopefully allow us to let other developers make games using our system. Over the coming year you'll start seeing our games in a lot of big places, thanks to some great partnerships we've made. I'm really excited to start on some fun new projects we have planned as well."  Which can hopefully only mean many more reflex oriented twists on some of our favorite games, in addition to a few more surprises.  Until then, I'll meet you online for a game of Billiard Boxing, and I'll take the first shot...and the second...and the third...

Gish
Physically able tar saves the world!
By Russell D. Carroll [March 6, 2004]


As one of the return groups presenting at the IGF, I already know a little bit about Chronic Logic.  I met Josiah Pisciotta last year at the Independent Games Festival (IGF) when they were showing off their Audience winner Bridge Building Simulation Pontifex II. The games by Chronic Logic are some of the most recognizable in Independent games.  Each of their current titles has a heavy focus on physics.  Pontifex II made players bridge builders, who would create a bridge, and then send vehicles across it.  If you build a physically sound model, the cars make it, if not, you can watch from a first person perspective as the car drives into the river.  They also released a great puzzle game called Triptych that made you line up blocks, but only after smashing them into the ground and into each other.  Perhaps the most amazing thing about the company is their uncanny ability to put physics into a game and make the game much more intriguing and fun while doing so.

This year there are two games on tap from the brilliance at the studio, and Gish, is one of the finalists at the IGF.  Gish is a fantastic game, featuring a main hero that is a Tar blob.  This game may end up being my personal favorite from this year's batch of IGF finalists, and the movement of the character is a big reason why, as Josiah said, "I think the most innovative feature is the character movement, all of the characters including Gish are physically modeled, which creates a lot of gameplay possibilities."  Some of those possibilities are just amazing to see as Gish reacts like tar would over the different landscapes, sometimes oozing, sometimes sticking to objects and moving them over his body like a conveyor belt. 

I certainly love the game and could go on about it for hours, but you don't often have the chance to ask the developer what they think about the game. Putting Josiah on the spot, I asked him what he though people would appreciate in the game.  "Most people seem to appreciate seeing things they've never seen in a game before, also a game that focuses on gameplay instead of graphics," said Josiah.

Not to say that Gish skimps at all on the graphics, the adventure / platform presentation of the game is well-drawn.  Graphics of Independent games are routinely criticized.  However, with this year's games, there has certainly been an overall improvement in regards to the quality of the graphics of the finalist games at the IGF.  Some of this is definitely due to the the large budgets that were present in some of the games, notably Savage.  Considering that point, Josiah offered his definition of an independent game, "most people define independent games as anyone who isn't owned or funded by a publisher, but I believe that true independent games are ones that aren't dependent on large amounts of funding and eventual profits, and therefore willing to take a risk."

Risk-taking is certainly a big part of Indie game development.  There are really two types of risks that developers take, financial, and innovative.  However, there are other challenges that face indie developers, as Josiah noted, "Money is always a difficulty, but I think the biggest challenge is having the determination and discipline to actually finish a game."  Beyond those points, the whole industry of independent games is changing as mainstream gaming creates ever larger groups of people who are intrigued by independent games, and developers who want to take their own shot at making an indie. "I think there will be a bigger market for original games once more people realize there are alternatives to published games. Also a lot of the people who thought they could make a puzzle game and get rich will realize they were wrong," said Josiah.

Though Chronic Logic might not have gotten rich with their puzzle game, I think that Gish will be a great financial boon for them, which will hopefully keep their brilliant physics-related games coming out for a long time.  However, when I asked Josiah about the future he simply said, "the future is an abstract concept which humans are incapable of fully comprehending."  Hopefully that means that we cannot even imagine the wondrous games that await us from Chronic Logic.  Certainly Gish is a game that is difficult to fully comprehend without playing it, and it is a great experience for those who get a chance to play it.
 

Interview with Jack Lyon about Chomp! Chomp! Safari
Feeding hungry animals IS all fun and games
By Russell D. Carroll [March 7, 2004]

Jack Lyon was nice enough to spend a few moments with us in regards to their International Games Festival (IGF) finalist game Chomp! Chomp! Safari.  "Our goal from the beginning was to make a game that felt familiar but added a unique twist that would leave players thinking that Chomp! Chomp! Safari represented the next level in action/puzzle gaming. We feel the most innovative feature is the mix of traditional “block-matching” gameplay with the food catalyst element," said Jack in regards to what is innovative about Chomp! Chomp! Safari.  The game is sort of a mesh between collapse and other matching games.  However, the big difference is that in this game, you must place the right kind of food next to the right blocks in order (feeding them) to make them disappear.  In order to really succeed at the game you need to maximize the amount of squares that you feed for each piece of food.  "Players really respond to the character illustrations and the surprisingly deep strategic elements."

As is the case with most good indie games, they are not typically the first game that the indie developer has created.  Astromaniac, the creators of Chomp! Chomp! Safari,  already had a large background in games before doing this game.  "We began by making advergames for clients, but found the end products to be too narrow as far as game play goes. Making full-scale games is far more challenging and satisfying."  Clients for the company include such giants as MGM studios, Stuff magazine, and shockwave.com.  MGM Studios is one that really sticks out of the list, as in the past Astromaniac had done a couple of games that used the Crocodile Hunter.  I think more than anything else they have done, their games with Croc Hunter have given them experience with the adventure theme that is such a big part of Chomp! Chomp! Safari.

Astromaniac focuses on smaller games, stating: "the best independent games strive to get the most enjoyment possible out of a “small” concept. Whereas corporate games often get by on big production value and flashy features, a great independent game feels more focused on the elements that truly make the game fun to play." 

Big production value, and especially big budgets are a big part of the difference between Independent games, and more mainstream games.  Jack saw that as one of the challenges confronting indie games, offering as well a possible roadmap to resolving the issue.  "Production values are going to skyrocket, while product budgets will likely stay the same. Indie games as a whole will start to have a lot more depth, more backstory, and more unique gameplay."

Beyond just not having a big budget, a probable lower return financially is a threat many indie developers are facing.  "Over the last couple years, there’s been an explosion of new downloadable game developers. The space has become so crowded, that it’s hard for any one game to really stand out anymore. Plus, bigger developers are starting to get into the downloadable space, leaving even less room for indie games. A good independent game will always have a core audience, but the chances of making a game that will be any kind of financial “hit” is becoming less and less likely for the independent developer. "

While all that could spell out disaster, companies such as Astromaniac continue to try and fight it out with great games that do stand out of the pack because of their quality and innovative features.  Those looking for a puzzle game that provides both should give Chomp! Chomp! Safari a try.

Interview with Kai-Peter Baeckman about Space Station Manager
A sim for would-be astronauts
By Russell D. Carroll [March 9, 2004]

Q: What do you think makes Independent games distinctive?
A: Focus. I think the key aspect that successful independent games share is a great focus. Almost everything else varies, team sizes, genre, style, originality, but good indie games have a certain focus to them. I think this is due to the scarcity of resources, you have to focus to be able to produce something worthwhile with a small team. There are many "non-independent" games with great focus, but many times focus isn't the primary goal for a mainstream game.

Q: What is the most innovative feature of Space Station Manager and how is it innovative in your mind?
A: That would be the players. Seriously, the game itself is more of a good synthesis and than a total revolution of game play. Sure it is a nice combination of elements, but none of the basic building blocks are spectacularly new. What is innovative is the way players have been using the game and extending it. True innovation happens when you let go of something you initially designed and other people start to take it into their life and change it.

Q: What do gamers appreciate most about Space Station Manager?
A: Probably the relaxed atmosphere. Space Station Manager is quite a nice game to just open up and play around with for a few moments. Something to take your mind off what you are doing at the moment, to have a few moments of realized fun.

Q: What was the most difficult part of Space Station Manager to program?
A: Probably those parts that never got into the game. For me personally much of the challenge was limiting the scope and technical difficulty of the project. I wanted the game to be technically good, but also wanted to complete it. Thus the hard part was limiting the scope and difficulty so that I would mostly be covering known terrain. Research and learning should not be in a production game, you need to do that separately.

Q: Other than your own game did any one of the IGF finalists or Student Showcase games stand out to you? Why?
A: It is hard for me to mention any specific game, I think all the games that made it into the finals are of very high quality (and many who didn't as well).

Q: What is your definition of an Independent Game?
A: I can't say I have a meaningful definition for the term. Most who call themselves "Indie" are self funded and self published (at least to some degree).

Q: How do you think Independent Games will evolve in the future?
A: I see the market maturing a lot within the next few years. The recent numbers from the RealArcade and GameHouse deal seem to suggest that distribution channels aren't as prevalent in online distribution as they are with retail games. As see this as a sign for a growing market of professionally run development houses while still keeping the barriers of entry quite small. Tool development also keep lowering the barrier. It will become increasingly easy to get in, and more difficult to reach the top and stay there.

Q: As one of the leaders of Independent Games, what is next for you?
A: Keeping my hands dirty with making and publishing games. There is so much to learn about this business that I can't hardly wait to get to work each day. For more concrete goals, we are now working on a second game to add to the current series.

Interview with Wade Tinney about AlphaQueue
Queue in space!
By Russell D. Carroll [March 10, 2004]


What do you think makes Independent games distinctive?
Ideally, independently developed games take more risks, doing things that wouldn't fly if they had to be vetted by dozens of people at a big publisher. Typically fewer people are involved with an independent game project, so the end product tends to have more personality then a bigger production.

How did your studio get your start in working with independent games?
We formed our company in order to develop games, knowing full well that in order to do so independently, we would also need to produce games for clients (i.e. work-for-hire). So a good portion of our time is spent developing web-based promotional and marketing games for clients like LEGO, Mattel, Discovery Kids, and the New York Philharmonic.

What is the most innovative feature of AlphaQUEUE and how is it innovative in your mind?
It's hard for me to describe any single feature as 'innovative'; AlphaQUEUE consists of a bunch of simple, perhaps even obvious, ideas. Any innovation the game has grows out of the way in which those ideas are combined. In fact, that was sort of the point for us...come up with a pretty limited vocabulary of game objects and then fully explore the ways those objects could be combined to create interesting situations for the player.

What do gamers appreciate most about AlphaQUEUE?
That's a tough one. Unfortunately the emails I get from satisfied players don't go into too much detail! I'd like to think that they appreciate the game's subtle sense of humor and the challenge of the puzzles. It's really a puzzle-solver's game and is all about planning your moves in advance. However, the game is also pretty forgiving of mistakes, so hopefully players appreciate that.

What was the most difficult part of AlphaQUEUE to program?
I'd have to turn that one over to my partner Josh Welber, who did all of the programming. Josh?

Josh says, "If I had to mention a single feature, it would be programming the new, kinetic pieces which followed paths (i.e. the Sweeper and the Chomper). This created new types of game situations and required new features for the level designer part of the app. In general, though, AlphaQUEUE did not have too many difficult features to program. The real programming challenge was, as always, building a flexible system so that we could experiment with the game play as much as we needed to."

Other than your own game did any one of the IGF finalists or Student Showcase games stand out to you? Why?
Well unfortunately I was only able to play 2 of the student showcase games (Kube Kombat and Scrapped...both nice games), but the others sounded interesting from their descriptions! I was particularly hoping to play Growbot and Hexvex, since they were the only finalists in the student category that didn't have a combat theme. (Not that I have anything against combat games; it just seems like the go-to thematic context for most games and its nice to play some of the alternatives.)

In the web/downloadable category, YoHoHo Puzzle Pirates from Three Rings Design is awesome. The guys from Shizmoo also turned in another stellar entry with Billiard Boxing.

What is your definition of an Independent Game?
Any game whose development is paid for by the people developing it, and not a publisher. Unfortunately, this definition encompasses a very wide range of game projects and budgets. On the low end you have one-man shops creating games in their spare time and on the high end you have well-funded studios with multi-million dollar budgets. It seems a bit unfair to compare the two scenarios, considering the vastly different products they can yield, but ultimately its a good thing that both exist.

How do you think Independent Games will evolve in the future?
Well I think that the growth of the downloadable games market over the past 3 years has enabled a lot more indie developers to actually make a living making games. Hopefully this trend will continue, and the market will not only grow, but also evolve to accept and encourage more novel types of game play.

What is the biggest challenge facing Independent games?
Finding players who will support your development efforts by paying for your games.

As one of the leaders of Independent Games, what is next for you?
We are nearing completion of our first 3d game, entitled Freebowl. It uses the GarageGames Torque engine and we're pretty excited about it. Visit us at the IGF booth at GDC for a demo!