Indie Games
From the World of Goo, to Super Meat Boy and from Braid to the newcomer Minecraft, all of them are indie games, and did you notice the pattern?, all these games are extremely creative. But today indie games are nothing new, the Apple app store is literally littered with indie games, some good a lot not that good.
But on the bright side these games are still better than what EA and Activision cook up every year. After those same formulaic titles over and over again, these new indie games are a breath of fresh air.
But first of all this new phenomenal is not new, it all started in the 1990′s when PC gaming was spreading rapidly and when making video games was starting to become profitable for the PC, at that time indie developers started to make their games, but they didn’t catch on fast enough, mostly because that the internet still had some catching up to do. Today as off 2011 the indie game industry has finally started to mature, thanks to new opportunities created by the Apple app store and the other things like Xbox XBLM, PSP minis and of course the PSN. But the start was much harder.
So lets ask a small question, why do we need these wannabe game developers?
Read:
How Indies Games are Changing the Game
Watch:
Discuss:
What is the difference between a commercial and indie game?
What indie games have you enjoyed and what makes them different?
Evaluate:
Which of these games do you see as being the most beneficial to students?
Read: Rise of the Indie Games
In class viewing:
Indie Game: The Movie (IGTM) is one of the first feature documentaries about making video games. It looks specifically at the underdogs of the video game industry, indie game developers, who sacrifice money, health and sanity to realize their lifelong dreams of sharing their visions with the world.