In the glorious old days of the Atari 2600
hundred many games were made by a handful of programmers. Anyone with the
know-how to make a game filled with bleep-bloops and ham sized pixels could and
could release it. That leads to why so many strange games were made for that
and the similar consoles of the age. Through time in video games often games
were made by these small groups of people passionate about gaming and their
creations.
Even some old games were made from passion.
The 1980 arcade game Missile Command was made by progammer Dave Theurer
suffering from nightmares about nuclear war. Similarly the 1988 game Wasteland
and it's spiritual successor Fallout, both of which having sequels coming soon,
come from the ideas of cold war fear.
Nowadays many games are made by big publishing
firms, huge groups of people making these triple A titles. But indie games are
becoming more popular with each passing year, especially with Steam, Steam's
Greenlight, and Kickstarter many small indie game makers can make money. The
beautiful thing about indie games is that they tend to be built from passion,
often with deep meanings behind it all. They bring an entirely different type
of experience, and in a wide display of ranges.
For example, Braid was designed by Jonathon
Blow to be full of meanings and metaphors. Almost everything within the game is
important, and this is of course an indie game.
Cave Story was an indie game released in 2004,
and it's something I want to talk about. Cave story Cave Story's original name
was Doukutsu Monogatari and was made all by one man called Pixel in Japan over
5 years. Yes, all made by one guy. This is what I mean about games made from
passion, he had this dream to design his game and it was awesome.
It was made
to be a free game and once it was translated it became horrendously popular,
and I definitely see why. It's seen by many as a masterpiece of game design.
Part of a reason for it's success was that everything was solid. Solid game
play, solid pixel art, solid music and a solid story that hooks you in.
Now this sounds awesome right? This guy gained
alot of digital fame via his game and people loved it. I bet he was over the
moon. It gets better. Cave story has been updated and re-released, several
times. Cave Story + was an updated version with new art and more levels
released on all consoles and PC like a regular game, and recently a fully 3d
version was released on the Nintendo 3DS.
Oddly though all of these re-releases were
done by different people and different companies, while Pixel had his fame he
didn't exactly stay in the limelight.
However a different story is the story of
Minecraft and Notch, whose indie game made him so popular he now works as the
CEO of his own company. Like Cave Story I remember playing this when it was in
it's fairly unknown phase (which makes me sound like a massive Hipster I know).
Like Cave Story it was originally all made by the Swedish fedora-wielding
Notch. He made the game all in Java, inspired by other indie games such as
Infi-miner.
Like Pixel Notch built this game just because
he wanted it to exsist, it's like his baby. But people loved Minecraft. People
payed for access into its Beta, for each update. People started filming
themselves on Youtube, making their own things.
Now Minecraft is HUGE! It's on pocket devices
and modded onto the Xbox 360 and soon the Xbox One. Notch made so much money
with Minecraft he hired a team of people to help him work on it, and he now
works on creating other games; which maybe he regrets after nearly getting sued
by Bethesda for his game Scrolls.
Minecraft is now one of those major fame
stories, where and indie game rose to a level of video game godness, and is now
pretty much known about by everyone as if it was Tetris or Mario. It's
interesting how this happened. Not every Indie game explodes like this, many
are lucky if they get a small fan base. It's theorised that because Minecraft's
gameplay is all about building it applies to everyone. Everyone likes playing
with LEGO (and if they say otherwise they're clearly in denial) and it's the
same kind of satisfaction when you build a skull fortress in a mountain.
Talking about Minecraft and its fame means I
can't resist talking about mods. Modding has always happened since the days of
Doom, when a pixelly flat demon was terrifying. But when it comes to Minecraft,
mods have also exploded. Now many people who make big intensive mods for
Minecraft such as Tekkit and Feed the Beast make money and have been able to
build their own companies!
Because Minecraft was just so simple to play
and to code if someone wanted something new and awesome they could just work
hard and make it; I actually know people who studied programming and did
classes on Minecraft because of its ease of use. This means almost anything you
can imagine has been modded.
Talking
about all these video game creations made out of a person's passion all really
takes a new meaning to 'Do what you love and the money will come.' But it is
important to remember that when it comes to indie games, there's many stories
that don't end in success. Everyone wants to tell their story, and make their
game. Not everyone gets Notch level fame.
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