Tech Stuff: Indie Games

I'm sure you all know what video games are.

What about indie games?

For a moment at least, let's assume you have no idea what an indie game is, so I can explain it to you.

Unlike a 'normal' video game, indie games are usually produced by small businesses or groups of people, rather than a large, established studio, such as EA Games. They tend to have a small budget. The successful ones tend to be either very good games that are very simple, quirky in some way such that they would never be developed by one of the established studios, or unique/new in some way.

Perhaps the most-played indie game of all time is Minecraft. I'm sure many of you have heard of it. Some of you have probably played it, and some subset of that group of people also payed $5+ dollars for it.

An indie game's business model revolves around the low budget used to create the game. In some cases, there isn't a budget at all! Regardless, they intend to make money - or at least not lose it - as a result of their small budget.

For those indie games that are looking to make money, they need to do one thing, and one thing only - sell more copies. A sold copy of a good game is very nearly the best advertising you can ask for. As the marginal cost of selling another game is very close to zero, and selling a game should, theoretically, lead to future sales - assuming the game is good, which they have to assume - they can afford to sell the games on the cheap.

So, what's the point here? Well, indie games are cheap - often, they are even free! This makes them an excellent way for people to enjoy a lot of games without spending $50+ on each game, like you would to enjoy something like The Sims 5000: Pooping Babies Edition.

Without further ado here are some of my favorite indie games, in no particular order, and why I think they're so friggin' good.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Painfully difficult and hugely expansive 2D dungeon crawl with perma-death enabled? Sign me up, please! One of the best traditional games in a category known as the roguelike, Dungeon Crawl has been around forever, is still being developed today, is different on every play-through  and has such a wide variety of items, abilities, and enemies that you will only tire of it once the incredible difficulty of the game wears you down.

Or, you know, once you beat it. (Good luck!)

Dwarf Fortress

A traditional city-building game... except with dwarves, numerous deadly hazards, and a vertical learning curve with no top. The game's wiki even refers to losing as fun! What's not to like?

Seriously, though, you need to experience it to understand why it's so good. To do so, just read this 100 page manual on how to start a game! [Disclaimer: Not really 100 pages long. Actually page count? 240.]

FTL

A spaceship roguelike in its infancy. While it's currently somewhat repetitive due to lack of content, the game is awesome and will only get better as they develop it more and more.

And, really, who doesn't want to watch a spaceship blow up in their face hundreds of times?

Dungeons of Dredmor

A modern, friendlier version of Dungeon Crawl, with less overall content. Enjoy the look, enjoy the feel. Definitely a good game, but I still think it's inferior to Dungeon Crawl.

Not to mention, it costs actual money...

Minecraft

Old faithful. Want to build stuff? This lets you do it. Want to build things after collecting the materials from fathomless, hand-dug mine shafts while avoiding lava, zombies, and exploding creepers? Even better!

Really, though, for what you pay, this game is awesome. Trust me, as well as practically everyone on the Internet whose played it.

Binding of Isaac

A 2D, bullet-hell roguelike in which a small child hides in the basement from his murderous mother, only to find it full of monsters that he must kill by throwing his tears at them. Add this combination to tons of items, randomly generated levels, and only moderate difficulty (for a roguelike, that is), and you have a pretty awesome game.

Warning: full of inappropriate religious references. ALL THE TIME!

Braid

One of the best puzzle games I have ever played. It's really multiple games in one (as a result of some serious mechanics changes mid-game), and is a lot like a harder version of Prince of Persia with Mario-style platforming instead of the awesome jumps and shit you do in PoP.

Again, trust me and everyone on the Internet, this game is awesome.

Gratuitous Space Battles

Remember how I mentioned that everyone like's watching a good spaceship explosion? Whelp, this game is THE spaceship explosion game. Take a bunch of ships, hurl them at a bunch of other ships, and watch the amazing space carnage unfold in front of you!

Really Big Sky

A classic bullet-hell arcade shooter, complete with drilling through planets, variable difficulty, and exploding dinosaur skulls!

Painfully difficult, looks really good, and a lot of fun.


For reference, the only 'free' games on this list are the first two. The others all cost less than ten dollars the last time I checked. Don't quote me on that.

Hope you are inspired to go and at least check out a few of these games. They're all really, really good. I will see you folks tomorrow, where I will hopefully piss someone off with my political viewpoints!