Indie Games

My definition of an Indie Game is something along the lines of an alternative game which tries to convey a message usually to take a critical view of society today.  Many games today are not designed to be innovative, but are remakes of older game ideas and washed up concepts.  Sure, the Halo series is fun and awesome, but really?  You do the same thing over and over and over until you find something better to do.  The only innovative part of the design of the Halo series is the creating of the leveling and ranking process behind the multiplayer game play.  Without this, a lot of the addictive properties that are attached to playing online would be lost.  But back to my main point!

The ideas and innovation behind many Indie games today are simply amazing!  It is truly tough to think outside the box these days since so much influence is forced into our minds with all the visual stimulation we receive in todays society.  People think that games should fit into one of a few categories such as a first person shooter or a role playing game, but these indie games I have found create their own simple, yet innovative ways to use games to stimulate creativity.

A great example of an innovative indie game is We the Giants (above), created by Peter Groeneweg.  In this game you play as the very small, but very wise "giants" shown above.  Peter is making an attempt at showing everyone can be a "giant" not by being literally monumental, but by being influential and inspiring to those around us.  The game is less than ten minutes long, and you go through a couple tutorial levels showing you how to move and explore the terrain, where finally it takes you to a screen where you sacrifice yourself by becoming a stepping stone to reach the sun.  Once you have sacrificed yourself you are allowed to type one set of inspirational advice which gets uploaded instantly to his blog.  Everyone in this sense works together to reach the ultimate goal of getting to the sun even though they can only play through the game one time and contribute their two cents once.  Additionally, you can go to his blog and see everyones advice which is quite a treat and can be either very inspiring, or even very rude.  Some people don't take this part in the game seriously since they think it doesn't matter and this in turn effects what is posted on his blog.  Even though the system isn't flawless, I believe it takes huge leaps to interactive and stimulating gaming design.