Indie Games 2

HANDCRAFTS

BOUNTHAVY SUVILAY

VIDEO GAMES FROM HANDCRAFTS TO BLOCKBUSTERS PIXEL ART – VR/AR – PARTY GAMES – ROGUELIKE

From handcrafting to VR, independent video games are on all fronts, top the sales charts of Steam®, make sensation in the biggest game shows and awards, and are acclaimed by the most prestigious publishers. Their aesthetics, their gameplay and their original writing shake up the codes.

Indie Games: independent video games, from handcrafts to blockbusters analyses the major developments in independent games since 2018. Superbly illustrated and documented, for enthusiasts and curious amateurs alike, this book gives voice to those who drive this cultural industry.

How did these games manage to conquer gamers and media? In a world of hyper-choice, what are their strategies to make themselves known? How do they manage to port to multiple platforms with such small teams? How do they finance themselves?

In this exceptional book, thanks to numerous exclusive interviews, more than 300 illustrations, concept arts and unpublished sketches, the reader will get a glimpse behind the scenes and get answers from the key people behind the success of independent video games.

Discover more than 300 independent video games, with some of them mentioned for the first time in a book: A Plague Tale: Innocence, A short Hike, Children of Morta, Carto, Creaks, Eastward, Factorio, Frostpunk, Genesis Noir, Haven, LUNA–The Shadow Dust, Old M an’s Journey, Return of the Obra Dinn, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Season, Slay the Spire, Spelunky 2, Untitled Goose Game, When the Past Was Around...

Doctor of modern literature, Bounthavy Suvilay regularly invites pop culture in the halls of university. She was a long-time editor of IG magazine and, in 2018, she published at Bragelonne a first book dedicated to independent video games, Indie Games: history, artwork, sound design of independent video games.

BOUNTHAVY SUVILAY

PIXEL ART VR/AR PARTY GAMES ROGUELIKE

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1 . INDIE GAMES GENRES? 9

Roguelike 11 Couch games

6 Simulation and survival 18 Puzzle genres 20 Environmental narrative and narrative experience 24 Traditional craftsmanship and AR/VR 29 Mossmouth Studio Derek Yu 34 3909 LLC Studio Lucas Pope 40 Simogo Studio Magnus Gardebäck 44

2. THE PARADOX OF CHOICE 53

Beginnings on PC and mobile 55 Porting games 60 New horizons 73

House House Studio Jake Strasser 80

Yaza Games Studio Dorota Halicka, Wojtek Janas 84 Ghost Town Games Studio Phil Duncan, Oli DeVine

3. THE QUEST FOR VISIBILITY

Social media’s influence 94

The limitations of social media 106

The PewDiePie Effect 108 Influencer limits 111

Impact of traditional medias

Make something unique

Feral Cat Den Studio Evan Anthony, Jeremy Abel 130

Amanita Design Studio J. Dvorský, R. Jurda, J. Plachý 136

4. THE PUBLISHERS’ COMEBACK 1 47

From distribution to publishing 150

From developer to publisher 154

The indie expert publishers 166

Partnering or not? 172

One size does not fit all 178

Pixpil Studio Ruimin Zhu, Tommo Zhou, Feng Ye, Moran Hong 180 Scavengers Studio Simon Leclerc, Adrien Chenu 184

5. COLLABORATING WITH THE COMMUNITY 19 1

Financing your dream 194

Alternative funding 202

Early access and feedback 205

Test, test, test again 211

From virtual to real world 217

Asobo Studio David Dedeine 222

11 bit Studio P. Marszał, J. Stokalski, K. Adamczewski 231

6. JUST DO IT 2 37

Learning by doing 239 Never underestimate anything 241

Creating a company or not 242

Start small 243

INTRODUCTION

THEfirst volume dealing with video games created by independent studios focused on the different artistic aspects required to create a piece of work, be it gameplay, narratives, visuals or sounds. This second volume aims to show the recent evolution of independent games while focusing on contemporary studio issues such as visibility, choice of platforms, the publishers’ comeback or the relations with gamers’ community. Moreover, numerous testi monies and interviews give a voice to the creators, whether they are newcomers on the “indie scene” or veterans having assisted to its rebirth.

The brief history of video games in the first volume reminded that the first game creators of the 1970s and 1980s were in fact the first independent. The scene then became more structured as companies merged to become multinationals producing blockbusters on a bigger scale than Hollywood movies. In the late 2000s, a new indie scene emerged thanks to the Internet and new digital tools.

After more than a decade, it tends to follow the same trajectory as in the past, with the reappearance of intermediaries and the creation of large groups through the purchase of smaller structures. Nevertheless, most of the developers interviewed remain motivated by the same desire for freedom. They want to work in their own way, take decisions quickly and make bold choices that AAA game studios might not risk implementing. Contrary to what one might think, there are not just lone wolves fighting against the army of employees of the multinational corporations.

Jack-of-all-trades mix with duos of friends who work with numerous freelancers, small groups of students who have become entrepreneurs and companies that have grown over the years.

Among the jack-of-all-trades, there are enthusiasts who have learned to code or draw on their own, such as Luis Antonio (12 Minutes), Adam Robinson-Yu (A Short Hike) or Anthony Tan (Way to the Woods).

BELOW,

Some of these creators remain solitary, such as Derek Yu (Spelunky) or Lucas Pope ( Papers, Please), while others have decided to set up a small studio like Tomas Sakalauskas (Human: Fall Flat), who is now at the head of a team of about fifteen employees.

In many cases, small structures tend to remain stable, like the duos of Simogo (Sayonara Wild Hearts) or Mega Crit (Slay the Spire), who prefer to work with external collaborators rather than expand. At the same time, some studios function above all as collectives of artists, where each one retains his autonomy, like Amanita Design (Chuchel, Pilgrims, Creaks), Broken Rules (Old Man’s Journey), Mojiken (When the Past Was Around ), Feral Cat Den (Genesis Noir). Finally, some studios became SMEs over the course of time, such as Panache Jeux Numériques ( Ancestors), Scavengers (Season), Wube Software (Factorio). Some companies even manage to work on several projects in parallel, such as 11 bit studio (Frostpunk) and Asobo ( A Plague Tale: Innocence).

Whatever their size, independent studios have to be agile and ingenious to appeal to an audience faced with a situation of ‘hyper-choice’, where the number of games (and other entertainment) on offer far exceeds the time available to enjoy them. In order to create a good game and make a living from it, everyone draws on their strengths, on what makes them unique. Instead of trying to sell to a very large audience defined by the lowest common denominator, these studios target “niche” audiences that corre spond to them.

Indeed, the diversity of economic structures is compounded by the heterogeneity of the developers’ profiles. Some have primarily computer skills, such as the students of Indoor Astronaut (Unrailed!). Other come from the cinema, like Balthazar Auxietre of Innerspace ( Maskmaker ), or have been trained in game design like the e x-students of Chasing Rats Games ( Worship).

In the case of SMG Studio (Moving Out), the founders are video game enthu siasts who worked in commu nication agencies before having the chance to develop their own games. The founders of the Indonesian studio Mojiken met during their studies in visual communication at university, and their company was initially intended to allow them to take on illustration work. As for the Chinese studio Pixpil, they are veterans who decided to create their own games.

To really give a voice to these creators, this book alternates between parts based on testimonies, in order to give a current overview of the independent scene, and short interviews with some studios.

In fact, the studios were so incredibly generous with their time that there was enough contents for at least two books, but we had to condense the material for this overview of independent video games in the early 2020s.