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http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/ (http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/)

Everyone else has a bingo, why not indie games?

I was compelled by a strange urge to make this, but it seems to work well. I haven't gotten a bingo yet but I'm getting close. Just as a pisstake obviously, not really a serious and detailed analysis.

Here's a sample scorecard:

(http://www.wildrosemeadows.org/bingo.PNG)

Does Eversion count as filling the middle column?

Ahaha... that's hilarious. Stereotyping, of course, but that's why it's funny.
I love how the free space is "pretentious".
I'll have to try filling this out for various games.

This is great. Try as I might though, none of the games I have worked on can quite manage Bingo... I think I will strive to craft one which will have every possible square shaded. It will be interesting to see if Geometry Wars and Cave Story can be combined.

inb4 let's do a compo of this

Marriage Bump:

"How can you describe The Marriage and give it justice? Electronic Arts' hot new franchise can be broken down like so:

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Remember how she rammed into you and devoured part of yourself to become bigger while dodging falling circles? No other game has come this close to recreating what it's like to have a relationship. Definitely the best EA Sports game since Tiger Woods '06."

(http://www.wildrosemeadows.org/themarriage.JPG)

You know what that means!

(http://img701.mytextgraphics.com/sparklee/2009/05/30/f9e6cf7d56f15cdae2e92742f92bbd02.gif)

Only sparklee can hope to convey the epicness.

Haha, this is good.

I agree with Bingo Compo. Make a game that makes a bingo (or as much as physically possible).

*ahem* I win.

But where's the love?

Don't you feel the chemistry between silhouette Quote and abstract box?  But silhouette quote must tragically shoot abstract box.  Truly this is a game about killing everything you love!  :'(

Damn... got so close to bingo with FATHOM. Although I guess 'Silly Title' is a bit subjective in this case.
(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/7595/bingofathom.png)

Whoops, forgot; here's the program I made to generate the card:

http://www.wildrosemeadows.org/bingo.zip (http://www.wildrosemeadows.org/bingo.zip)

Gives random squares, and left clicking creates a marker. F2 resets and re-randomizes. Alt-prtscr to take a window picture for easy copying. And to close it you have to alt-f4.

FATHOM was the first test of the system (http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/2009/05/fathom.html) and apparently partially served as inspiration for it (I can see why) but it's interesting to see how the two cards differ.

Heh, I guess maybe I was wrong on the lo-fi thing, if you take it to mean more like cactus-style graphics. But Procedural Generation is indisputable!

True... and if lo-fi and procedural generation were checked on the original card, that would be BINGO.

I wonder what is meant exactly by lo-fi?

I assume something more akin to the graphics of the Atari 2600.

I really don't consider a game with alpha blended lighting and full mp3 music to be "lofi."

How do you decide whether it's "Indie Trendy" or not?

If you can tell it's mostly inspired by a particular indie game or a trend of them. At the end of the day though I have to follow my heart and trust my instincts.

if it's posted on the tigsource frontpage

Shameless yet content-full bump:

http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/ (http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/)

Knytt is another obvious choice. This one has a whole bunch of text, for better or worse, with a new "rundown" of the hits to make things clearer.

I like the rundowns, but how can you say that Knytt has no gameplay?

yeah, it's funny how, to many people, unless you are shooting or killing something constantly, there's "no gameplay" -- glum buster was also accused of that.

If all I wanted to do was walk and climb, I'd walk and climb in a real forest.  :giggle:

Games to me are about thrills, not atmosphere.

yeah, but you couldn't walk and climb in that particular world and see the particular things that are in that game, or glide on an umbrella in updrafts, or double jump, etc. etc.

i think saying knytt has boring gameplay is reasonable, since some people require more constant and stronger stimulation than others, and people differ in how much they appreciate a slower pace, but saying it has no gameplay makes no sense to me; it's like saying chess has no gameplay, or civilization has no gameplay

I was being jokingly blatant, and also the bingo is satirical.

it's satire, but we can still disagree about what spots are marked though

for instance, unmarked ones which i would have marked 'no instructions' and 'indie trendy' -- i also seem to recall it does use x and z so 'uses x and z' might be another

also i'm not sure the analysis itself is well-informed -- did you read that stuff? i mean, everyone knows it was seiklus that started the atmospheric game trend, not knytt -- nifflas even admitted knytt was inspired by seiklus...

So you haven't played the game I was writing about, then?


It actually has a full interactive tutorial and uses the S button...

knytt stories is an expansion to knytt, so i consider it the same game, yeah. maybe a terminology difference. i also consider brood war to be part of starcraft.

Brood War is an actual expansion pack. Knytt Stories exists independently of Knytt and has a different protagonist and feel (like KS has enemies and powerups but Knytt has only very few enemies and no powerups).

Yeah uh when I downloaded Knytt the day it was posted on TDC, having not heard any hype, I thought it was a platform engine or something and he hadn't gotten around to adding the game yet.

I still don't get it.

Knytt confuses the hell out of me and makes me angry, but Knytt stories is huge fun to me.

i'd have to replay it to see if i do get a different feel from each -- i remember liking knytt more than knytt stories since it was easier and i didn't have to struggle as much to get through it and see all the locations but afaicr they gave me the same feel

I liked Knytt more than Knytt stories.  It was so huge and explorey.

There are lots of user-created levels for Knytt Stories and each, of course, has a different feel to it. (There are tags for this sort of thing, designating level genre and difficulty. If Knytt were released as a KS level it would be "Easy/Environmental".) The whole user-created content thing makes it so that basically it's not possible for KS to have one "feel".

The level designer in Knytt Stories is pretty sweet, but I can never figure out which tilesets you can write over without feeling bad about it.

Heh, it irks me that being "indie" means making experimental games and anti-games. Instead of trying to be so avant-garde, I stick to rehashing themes and mechanics from games I grew up enjoying. It's a shame the public over glorifies the abstract as having the most substance, when this is almost never the case! But alas, we live in an age where substance is no match for style anymore :(

Go have a cry.

Better yet, go make some more awesome Retro Styled Games! I think you're imagining things if you think the indie game scene glorifies games with ideas over games with gameplay. Seems to be the opposite.

I hope that wasn't sarcasm, I was just expressing my opinion.

Hell no. I don't like using sarcasm over the internet - translates awfully. I enjoy Retro games. I just... well, I don't like people taking up a kind of victim mindset. I mean, if you go out thinking that no one will vaule your game because it's not "artistic," well, it's kind of self-defeating.

We shouldn't be drawing up more boundaries in out own community. There's a bunch of folk happy to decry mainstream games, and casual games, and... well, I guess I can see why. I don't always agree, but I see why. Now, there's a disturbing trend of Retro* Game makers feeling like they're falling ill of the indie game scene because of Art Games. It's kinda sad - we're all here because we want to see new things, and we want to make 'em! We shouldn't start viewing other indies as rivals.



*By this I mean old-style mechanics based games.

This blog is the best blog.

I think if a game is based purely on mechanics (the substance), you'll get bored of it quickly.  You'll think, "Hey, why am I playing this game that is exactly like a classic I love, but is not nearly as provocative?"

If a game is based purely on style, you end up with: "What the hell is going on?  Why should I care about this?"

For me, I'll take anything in the sweet, sweet middle.

---

I do make exceptions for 'fun physics toys' on the mechanics end and 'la la land mindfucks' on the other end.  I guess, if you're gonna be extreme... GO ALL THE WAY!  ;D

Erm, by the by, what does the Pretentious Star in the middle mean? All the others are circles.


Also: La La Land never fails to scare the bejesus out of me.

It's the free space that applies to all indie games.

yes, but that's besides the point -- by knytt stories i meant the game itself, not the user-created content. i've never played many of the user-created levels yet. i suspect they'd have a different feel since they are made by different people, yeah.


while i agree with this i also disagree with it. people can make the types of games they want. and knytt isn't really "abstract" at all, it's a fully concrete world with a lot of substance. it has a lot more playable game time than most traditional indie games do. besides, if you want a more traditional game, have you tried his game 'within a deep forest'? in any case, knytt is clearly not an "anti-game" in the way that, say, the graveyard is.

I don't think of it as a spectrum but rather two facets that can be emphasized on any level independently of one another; it's possible for a game to have a great deal of both style and substance.

fucking seconded

I just make games with a feel similar to the games I love, and throw in some awesome idea to help make it more unique. I make a game not to be philosophical or mind-bending, but to be fun to play. I wouldn't care if I didn't get paid, as long as I got to play my game in the end.

Exactly what games are you talking about here? It seems from the context of your post that you're referring to Knytt, but nothing you say really applies to that game. It's not experimental (it's based on Seiklus, and even Seiklus wasn't exactly a huge leap into the unknown) and it's certainly not an 'anti-game' or 'abstract'. I also disagree that Knytt focuses on style over substance. It's longer and larger than most freeware platformers of its ilk, and that's not including the vast number of extra levels in Knytt Stories. It's obvious that a great deal of effort and consideration went into it. What does a game have to include for you to accept that it has substance? Is it just the number of game mechanics implemented that matters? Don't you think that there can also be substance in well-considered simplicity?

Lastly, you seem to think that you're in the minority and that 'the public' loves experimental and/or abstract games. Luckily for you, nothing could be farther from the truth, since the gaming community as a whole prefers exactly the same thing as you (repetition of trusted mechanics) and even on Tigsource you will probably find that appreciation of experimental games is in the minority.

I think the reason why people associate "indie games" with the more artsy or experimental releases is because they're closer to what the stereotypical idea of "indie" connotes. That is, comparatively eccentric or outlandish products that no one would expect mainstream companies to create. But in any case, I really don't think experimental games are preferred more than, or outnumber the traditional ones on this forum.

I think it's more of a square/rectangle relationship.

Most art games are indie games, but not all indie games are art games.  Art games seem to be, for the most part, a subcategory of indie games.  Indie games all together seem to fit into many categories such as art games, revivals of retro genres, games that experiment with gameplay mechanics, small games, etc...

oh god here comes the discussion again

make whatever you want.

http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/ (http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/)

Gravitation/Blueberry Garden bump.

I'm starting to run out of games here. Any suggestions? Braid might be doable so that's a fallback plan. Surely I'm missing some major indie breakthroughs.

do my games

i tried to make a fez one, but turns out it's not indie enough.

By your standards, substance hasn't been a match for style for over a century, and even then it had been on and off for a very long time.

EDIT:
also, abstract games often have AS MUCH substance as, er, directly representational games. you're effectively arguing that substance isn't a match for substance AND style, which would be true.

I still don't agree with what you're saying, though.


EDIT FOREVER:
the reason for this is that it's bullshit.

Dadaists Gone Wild got about 14 of them, if you count a Heart saying "Loooove" as a generic love message, and a SHMUP stage where shooting does nothing as a "SHMUP", and metaphors that obviously mean nothing (or which directly tell you what they mean) as "Obvious Metaphors."

I really can't think of any other good choices to bingo. Look what horrors come from me running out of ideas: http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/ (http://indiegamebingo.blogspot.com/)