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Indie Games Are Great But We Don’t Want Any More of Them

Indie Games Are Great But We Don’t Want Any More of Them

I absolutely love indie games. I love to play them. I love what they stand for. I love how they let developers try out new ideas that would never be funded by AAA companies. However, there is a trend in indie development that I, personally, hope will slow down. The indie sphere is totally saturated with 2D platformers.

There are lots of reasons why we have seen so many 2D platformers in the indie sphere. First of all, they are pretty easy to make. Second of all, they are probably the easiest genre to innovate on, as so many 2D platformers have been clones of Mario or Castlevania or Mega Man and the like. Heck, when you are just getting started as an indie studio, 2D platformer is your go to genre.

Now, I’m not saying that the 2D platformers we have seen so far have been bad. Super Meat Boy, Braid, FEZ, Shovel Knight, Limbo, Outland, Cave Story, Closure, Sound Shapes, Thomas was Alone, La Mulana, Dustforce, Spelunky, VVVVVV, Stealth Bastard, No Time to Explain, I Wanna Be The Guy, Electronic Super Joy …. Wow I got a little carried away there. Anyway, ALL of these 2D platformers are absolutley awesome and the world of gaming would be a worse place without them.

However, I worry that the indie sphere will end up falling into the same stagnation hole that AAA development has fallen into. We are seeing a lot of indie games that are just very small changes on a formula at this point, like The Amazing Princess Sarah . These games are fun, to an extent, but they aren’t anything we haven’t seen in the past. They don’t bring something new and interesting to the genre, like so many other indie titles have done.

Not only that, but indie games have done so well in so many other genres. Lethal League, Nidhogg, Towerfall, Samurai Gunn, and Divekick changed the way we looked at the fighting game. Broforce, Super Time Force, and Mercenary Kings changed the way we looked at the Contra style shooter. Enemy Mind is a fresh take on the shmup, and The Walking Dead changed how we looked at cinematic games. Then there are awesome titles like Bastion, Don’t Starve, The Stanley Parable, and more, none of which are 2D platformers.

Indie Games Are Great But We Don’t Want Any More of Them

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is so much potential out there in the indie sphere. Indie games give us the unique opportunity to try things that other studios have not tried. That’s why I worry so much that indie studios will make platformers because… well… other indie studios already have. Spread your wings indie developers! Give us some cool indie RPGs, or strategy games, or first person shooters. I think they will be as awesome as the best 2D platformer titles out there, if not more.

That being said, I totally backed Mighty No. 9 , so what do I know?

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