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Changes in Indie Games and Inspiration Games : Jungyeop Lee

The “inspiration game” with “independent thinking” at its core identity created a new game ecosystem, veering itself from the existing serious game framework, and further expanded the idea in which players can independently intervene in the game and privatize the world through the gameplay. Games such as “This War of Mine,” “After Days,” and “21 Days” convey social issues, allowing us to take a new perspective on the cultural value of games.

If we have looked at the various layers surrounding games so far, in <Changes in Indie Games and Inspiration Games>, we return to the original medium of games and examine the unique media characteristics of games. Recently, games are becoming not only a simple form of entertainment, but a medium that can address social issues and deliver cultural values. With this, there are more games using materials and game mechanics differently from previous commercially successful games and now have achieved significant success domestically and internationally. In this lecture, we proposed “inspiration game” as a new term to refer to these games, and a game creation and distribution ecosystem strategy these games can be made.

We call games that address current socio-cultural issues and deliver significant values beyond entertainment, “indie games.”

So, how are indie games different from the existing games we know? First of all, it is premised on the fact that they do not depend on established capital. If we look at this by limiting it to the game industry, it means developers are free from the interference from investment companies or publishers. This also means that developers can create original games that they want to make. In other words, “independent thinking” free from any interference is the most important to keep the identity of an indie game.

indie games= independent(독립적인) + games(게임)

But these days, countless indie games are being introduced to the public. Due to this, publishers specializing only in indie games are emerging. But this raises a question as to whether indie games can be completely independent from capital.

Essentially, the game is divided into mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics. Among these, the element that forms the foundation of the game is the mechanics. The mechanics are invisible, but it is the factor that determines the rules and interaction mechanism of the game. Among them, it is very important for indie games to create mechanics that have not been used in other games.

<Papers, Please> (2013) was explored as it is viewed as one of the most well-established examples of an indie game in which these attempts were successful.

<paper, please>, 2013

<Papers, Please> is an indie game developed by Lucas Pope and released in 2013. It is a puzzle video game in which the player works as an immigration officer in Arstotzka, a fictional dystopian country. In Korea, it was released under the title, <Dongmu, Ryeokwonnaerau>, which briefly translates into <Comrade, Pass Me Your Passport>. During this game, the status of the country’s internal affairs changes depending on which immigrant the player chooses to pass through immigration checkpoint, and the health conditions of the player’s family is improved only by examining how many cases the player can handle within a short period of time without making any mistakes. These materials and settings in <Papers, Please> contain a story that indirectly criticizes the oppressive problems of totalitarian society as an allegory.

Some of the most common genres of traditional indie games have been platformer genres, roguelikes, and survival games, which are traditional indie games that solve puzzles. But recent indie games have been converging genres and mechanisms. Let us take a look at <Crypt of the Necrodancer> (2015) as a main example.

<Crypt of the NecroDancer>, 2015

<Crypt of Necrodancer>, created under a unique genre by combining rhythm game and roguelike, is a game released by Brace Yourself Games in 2015. Although it is basically a roguelike game, it has a unique gameplay that requires moving one space at a time according to the rhythm of the background music. The developers decided that there was no chance of competing with the existing mechanics alone, so they decided to converge the rhythm game to the roguelike game with a high learning curve, and started adding elements of the rhythm game in various ways. Therefore, it required continuous interaction and rhythmic manipulation of the player, and helped the players to be more immersed into the game.In addition, we explored games such as <Downwell> (2015) and <The Long Dark> (2014), which were successfully evaluated by players by converging game mechanics in various ways.

Today, the Korean game market accounts for about 97% of online and mobile games, and has an unusual market structure as it does not account for any video games, PC games, and arcade game markets compared to other global game markets. However, through <Battleground> in 2017, Korea entered a new phase of the game market by taking the lead for the highest sales and the biggest number of simultaneous log-ins on Steam, which had never been done before.But other than that, are there any domestic examples of an indie game with social and cultural values that can be showcased to the international market? Korea’s game developers, publishers and players as a whole need to consider whether it can create a stable environment that can allow them to create games with cultural values based on diversity and creativity.

The “inspiration game,” which appeared as a result of these considerations, was created to improve the game development and distribution ecosystem and discover strategies to enhance the diversity and cultural value of Korean games.<This War of Mine> is a game developed by 11 Bit Studio in Poland, on subjects like the civil and other wars in Europe. The game progresses from the perspective of civilians who experience the horrors of war, and tries a different directing method so that players can interpret the seriousness of the war from a new perspective. This is an important example showing that not only games with commerciality and entertainment purpose, but also games with various materials and themes can also be commercially successful.More studies began on “inspiration games” with the purpose of analyzing successful cases of game development projects that have social and cultural meaning and suggesting feasible strategies to create a game environment that supports diverse creative attempts.In Korea, games such as <After Days> (2015), which dealt with the earthquake in Nepal, and <21 Days> (2016), which deals with the Syrian refugee issue in Europe, are a medium that can convey social issues and cultural values, and it showed that it is possible to look at games in a new way. And the term, “inspiration game” was coined to refer to a game that is socially and culturally significant.

<21 Days>, 2016

<21 Days> is a game developed by Professor Jungyeop Lee and students of Soonchunhyang University’s Korean Cultural Contents Department. It is a simulation game that allows players to experience the life of Syrian refugees from applying for the refugee status to settling down in Germany by becoming Mohammed Shenu, a fictional character for 21 days. In order to develop the game, the students and Professor Jungyeop Lee actually collected various data related to Syrian refugees and reflected the actual information into the game. During the development process, the team made sure the game should not represent any particular ideology and the game mechanics were constructed to induce players to look at this situation from a third party’s point of view.This game was submitted to the Busan Indie Connect Festival (BIC) and was nominated for the Best Narrative Award, and was officially released through Steam.Compared to international examples that mediate and study social games such as Games for Change, the performance of inspiration games in Korea has a room for improvement, but attempts to create more diversity are continuously being made in the Korean game industry. The reason for the difficulty with their commercial success was somewhat due to the overall quality of the game, but it was mainly because of the lack of external support from the government, corporations, or foundations.Games that enhance social and cultural values and promote diversity can change from the overall negative perception of games in society to positive. As these games that have been classified as subcultures can be expressed and directed in new ways and allow developers to deliver their message and ideas in a form of mainstream mass media, it has various positive aspects (Korea Creative Content Agency, 2018).With this, inspiration games, among various indie games, create a new game ecosystem out of the framework of the existing serious games, and further contribute to expanding the spectrum in which players can independently intervene in the game and privatize the world through gameplay. The game does not change the player as a one-way medium that delivers a message, but rather changes us so that we can interact and take a step closer as an active subject. As such, the new term, “inspiration game” best shows the special medium and potential of the game.

ReferenceFinal Report on Strategy Research on Game Development and Distribution Ecosystem for Enhancing Cultural Value, 2018, Korea Creative Content Agency (Soonchunhyang University Industry-University Cooperation)

Jungyeop Lee (Professor at Soonchunhyang University, Department of Korean Cultural Contents)Jungyeop Lee graduated from the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Seoul National University and received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University. He is interested in and researching indie games, game mechanics, and game narratives. He has also been involved in several game design projects, including “Shenmue Online.” He currently serves as an auditor for X-Mon Games, which he founded with his students at Seoul National University. His publications include “Digital Storytelling”(co-author, 2003), “Story, Becoming a Transformer”(Co-author, 2015), “Digital Games, New Territories of Imagination”(2005), and his translation work is “Casual Games: The Re-Creation” (2012).

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