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[gimymblert]

I think Derek did a pretty good job of summarizing my position in the first post: There's nothing wrong with male power fantasies. Also nothing wrong with "brown" games. The problem is saturation: there's not enough experimentation in terms of style, theme, and audience. Instead we've been focusing on a different kind of experimentation.

The games continued to be unique and interesting, but it felt like ‘experimental’ was starting to mean something dangerously specific. It meant finding a unique, promising mechanic dealing with spatial perception, imaginary physics, time manipulation, or some combination of the three and trying to squeeze all the possible interesting permutations of interactivity out of that one unique mechanic. Time, space, sound, color, structure. The criteria seems to be innovation as a mind-expanding riff on physics, and the games can almost always be seen as an attempt to answer one or two interesting questions as fully and satisfyingly as possible. And then culling the cruft.

The reason "grizzled space marine with a 3-day beard" look is popular right now is because a) badass sells and b) modern games are clones. God of War and Gears of War and Doom sold well and games that came after them strive to clone them.

I think that's true, and I'd like to see more thematic breakthroughs in games. In terms of mechanics, though, incremental refinements as well as big leaps are necessary.  People think the high number of Street Fighter games is ridiculous, but it seems to me like a necessary route to get to the perfect fighting game.

Discuss

[Chaoseed]

I'm not all that worried.  I think there are a lot of smart people designing a lot of cool games.  But hey, more experimentation is always good! 

So, there are a couple of different things being discussed here.  First, "theme" to me means the ideas and emotions the game tries to get across.  A lot of times it's just "I won because I'm awesome", but we can go ahead and try for other emotions...tragedies might be good, or romance.

"Style" to me refers to the presentation of the game, the atmosphere created by the graphics and music.  The style should help the theme get across, should make it more apparent.  (The mechanics should do this too...in fact, you might even say that the mechanics are part of the style. )  There are a lot of artists and filmmakers and stuff that we can imitate.  (Sometimes I'd rather see a style that I've never before seen in games, which imitates some art or film...rather that than a "completely original" Tolkienesque fantasy world.)  Why not try imitating

?

[gimymblert]

I think audience is the last frontier for indie to seek.

EDIT: audience experimentation (which will bring new thematic, style and structure). I mean moving away of our taste and like mindness to challenge ourself and push new boundaries.

[John Nesky]

Why not try imitating

?

That was amazing.

[J. R. Hill]

When I think experimental, I think cactus games, and I mean that in a good way.

[agj]

I believe there is a lot of 'truly' experimental video games being made right now, they're just not the focus of the indie scene (or of anyone, really). The scene focuses a lot on certain figures and clichés, so you just have to go beyond.

[hmm]

... it felt like ‘experimental’ was starting to mean something dangerously specific

Sums up my feeling. Alot of the games I play that introduce new twists on traditional game mechanics feel similar. As is there's some giant (or tiny) experimental game maker machine churning out different permutations and combinations of innovative ideas, then applying a genetic algorithms to the whole thing. Then putting pixel graphics on it. Its a conspiracy.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I think Shattered Horizons deserves mentioning here. Just go take a look at it-- It's a true game experiment, and I think in that respect it's one of the most successful games ever made. From A-Z, it does most things differently, with success, and I think it deserves more notoriety in that respect.

[Toeofdoom]

I definitely get where this is coming from but I'm not sure I agree. It kinda seems like games are getting more experimental and will continue to do so, but not many people are actually able to pull it off and make a good game. The physics experimentation and all that is closer to what we know, so it's generally stuff we're better at making.

That isn't to say that the people who are good at making the more experimental games you're looking for don't exist - just that those people aren't here.

Personally I tend to really like the games that fit the "formula" but somehow haven't seen many come out since Braid/World of Goo. Maybe I'm playing the wrong ones, but I hardly liked indie games from 2009 (I played Braid in 2009 on PC, but it was originally before that...) I probably should look at Shattered Horizons though.

[drChengele]

The more experimental games, the better, regardless of what your definition of "experimental" is. In my opinion, fixing the preconceptions of established genres/formulae is just as valid a line of experimentation as is creating new genres.  Game industry is rooted deep in conventions. Some of them are good, some of them are not, but we cannot know which is which until we try breaking them. Shattered Horizons is a good example for this, but there are others.

If the indie industry has come to see "experimental" as a specific term, it is just a trend.  I am optimistic that a few games challenging that convention will turn the scene around soon enough. I am not worried that the indies will somehow become "locked" in a specific experimentation mindset because, well, it's a horde of people with their own ideas and game-making tools at their disposal.

[SirNiko]

The other issue is games that pretend to be experimental, but in reality are cliche.

For example, you sometimes see games introduced that have no instructions: you learn them as you play through. This is hardly a new concept, since Myst basically did this as a commercial game over a decade ago. If you started Passage by being told that you were on a time limit, and you could find more treasures below if you went that way, would it be the same game? The only thing deep about it was that you weren't told what to do and had to figure it out.

Redder seemed like it was pretty much non-experimental. You were told how to play and the objective was to collect the diamonds. Yet, the game has a quirky twist to it that makes it different to play. Is it experimental or not?

All we have are varying degrees of willingness to experiment. Some companies will just update a control scheme and build a few new levels, others will create new powerups and stories, and others will create totally new games with new objectives. All games can be considered experiments, until every game is identical to the last.

-SirNiko