Ramblings: Why I'm An Indie Gamer

On the merits of indie gaming
(This was originally posted in response to the thread Indie > AAA on NeoGAF)
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When I first posted here in July, I had only recently gotten into PC gaming. Now almost seven months later, I wanted to share my thoughts on the debate again from a more informed perspective. In those months, I've found myself immersed in the indie gaming scene. I rarely touch my consoles anymore, I check r/IndieGaming and TIGForum everyday, and have become one of the primary contributors to the NeoGAF monthly Indie Games threads, as well as the author of my own blog focused on indie gaming.

To say it was a radical shift, and an unexpected one at that, is probably an understatement. A year ago, even less than a year ago, I would have never imagined myself to be such an advocate for indie gaming. While I had dabbled in freeware and flash games over the years, I was always primarily a console gamer, mainly Playstation, since I was a kid. Between Uncharted, God of War, pretty much anything by Rockstar, I always loved games with the best visuals, crazy set pieces, bombastic action, etc....you know, the typical AAA experience.

However, I found myself less enamored by the wonders of AAA gaming as I got older. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still impressed by and enjoy big-budget console gaming as much as the next guy. The Last of Us is probably one of my favorite games of 2013, maybe even all time. But as games shifted more towards online focused, and many just seeming rote and uninspired, I was looking for original and unique experiences to play. And I found them in indie games

Personally I feel that gaming is the most innovative art medium out there. It's definitely the youngest, and definitely has to grow and develop more before being appreciated on the same level as literature and film, but I still feel that gaming is the one form of art that can truly immerse you in an experience, through a multi-faceted array of the visual, audio, narrative, and of course the interactive element. While many AAA games seems to only represent gaming as entertainment, the indie side of gaming has embraced the medium as an art form and in this way, continue to deliver unique original experiences that just can't be found anywhere else and certainly wouldn't be attempted by AAA publishers.

There are several reasons why I feel indie gaming is so much more rewarding than its AAA counterpart. Perhaps the most evident is the closeness between developer and community. While Ubisoft, Rockstar, Square Enix may communicate with its fanbase through community managers and the like, more often than not, indie developers have a direct line of communication between themselves and their fans, through devlogs, Tumblrs, Twitters, and forums. It's this closeness and transparency that makes indie development, in many ways, feel like a conversation between creator and community, more intimate than the relationship between fanbase and publisher.

The other reason and probably the one that intrigues me the most is the seemingly endless depth of originality and diversity that indie games offer. Put aside the notions and biases, look beyond those common cries of "It's all 2D pixel art platformers" and "Everything's inspired by Dark Souls", and you'll find a wide expanse of unique titles of all genres, styles, and themes.

In 2013 alone, I played the bleak hopeless tale of Gods Will Be Watching, delved into twisting meta-rabbit hole that was The Stanley Parable, fought for desperate survival and died under the cold rain in the roguelike Neo Scavenger. I explored an abstract frontier in Mirrormoon EP and discovered unexplored worlds in Outer Wilds. I watched my plans fall apart in blood and anarchy in Prison Architect, dropped tangos with timing and precision in Door Kickers, endured bullet hell mayhem in Assault Android Cactus. I become the lynchpin in fates both big and small in Papers Please, I admired the fluid artistry of Dust: An Elysian Tail, and honed my skills in the frantic Samurai Gunn.

That was only 2013. 2014 is even more promising, between the free-form rocket-propelled platforming of Cloudbuilt, the Greek mythos given life in Apotheon, the hyper-kinetic high-speed Distance, from the atmospheric worlds of Hyper Light Drifter and Rain World to the first-person adventure awaiting in The Witness and Routine. And that's only a fraction of what indie gaming in 2014 has to offer. And the fact that each and every day I discover new promising experiences that I had never heard of before, speaks volumes about the diversity and potential of independent gaming

However there is a final element that makes indie gaming worthwhile and worthy of your time and attention and it's an element that's easily summed up in one word: "independent." Indie developers are free to express ideas, values, narratives that just wouldn't be profitable or perhaps be deemed unfit for mainstream gamers. Would Rockstar or Ubisoft seek to tackle the subject of cancer and its effect on family (That Dragon, Cancer) or lead a player through a world crafted from the history of typography (Type:Rider)? Would a game about a troubled girl's childhood (Journal) focus test well enough to see release or would an experience about building massive self-sustaining autonomous factories on alien worlds (Factorio) be considered too complex and complicated to be released without hand-holding and myriad tutorials and tips? Indie developers are able to breathe life into their wildest concepts and most personal experiences, unfettered by the restrictions and barriers of AAA development, able to tackle concepts and themes that big mainstream developers can't or won't.

But in the end, it doesn't matter if a game has pixel graphics, or is inspired by Dark Souls, or is on IOS, or is an mobile-to-PC port, or is indie or AAA or whatever. What matters, what should always come first, is the gameplay, the experience itself. Is the game good, is it worth playing, is it fun, is it enjoyable? Doesn't matter the platform, or budget, or team size; a good game is a good game, period. Perhaps that's what we should strive for, not to enjoy or dismiss games because they're labelled as indie or AAA,, but to judge a game by the depth of its experience and the wonder of its artistry, by the quality of its gameplay,

Ramblings: Die, Succeed, Die Again, Repeat

On the allure of roguelikes and difficult games
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Imagine for a moment, trying to explain the concept of the roguelike to a casual gamer or non-gamer...

"So this is called a roguelike. Basically you try to survive as long as you can, with limited supplies and health."
"Oh, that sounds cool."
 "Death can come at any moment. And you only have one life."
"So what happens when you die?"
"You start from the beginning."
"The game doesn't save? What about checkpoints?"
"Nope. You just lose all your hard-earned progress. And all your powerful weapons. And your gear. Back to square one. Sounds fun, right?"

Yes, yes it does. It's very fun. The roguelike may have once been niche, but today it seems like you can't go another day without a new title flaunting its roguelike elements. From the platformers like Spelunky and Towerclimb and the shooters such as Tower of Guns and Fancy Skulls to the action roguelikes and more traditional turn-based one, if anything it seems like the roguelike is in vogue today. And it's not just rogues or games with roguelike elements; across IOS, PC, console, high difficulty games are thriving. Super Meat Boy and Demons' Souls are probably the poster children for white-knuckle, ass-kicking, break-your-controller/keyboard/tablet experiences, and dozens of games have followed in their footsteps, such as Super Hexagon, Hotline Miami, and dozens and dozens of twitchy reflex-testing IOS games. But why? Why do gamers enjoy so many forms of digital torture?

I can't speak for all gamers, but I can speak for myself. For the longest time, I hated difficult games. Perhaps it was my introduction to the more demanding nature of stealth games that began my change in opinion, but the turning point that I'm certain of was Demons' Souls. Getting Demons' Souls was a leap of faith in several aspects. At the time, I didn't really enjoy fantasy games that much, I didn't really like hard games, I had never been a fan of RPGs. But the compelling and intense stories I had read across the internet drove me to give Demons' Souls a change. And I'm glad I did.

Now Demons' Souls is not a roguelike, but I consider it a gateway to the genre, an introduction to the basic elements and mindset needed to enjoy the roguelike genre and perhaps hard games in general. Death is quick, and sudden, and lurking around every corner. You need to be careful and cautious. Recklessness gets you killed. You need to accept that a wrong decision, a lapse in judgement, could make you lose hours of progress. Your life in Demons' Souls is precious and playing foolishly will only mean a quick death.

I think that's perhaps the most critical reason behind the appeal in these games. Life has meaning, death has consequence. The setback is more than a quick load to the last checkpoint. The games demand more from a player. They demand that you improve your skills, actually become a better player. They demand that you play on a knife's edge, where a simple mistake could equal death and failure. It's that slim margin for error, that gives these games true tension, not the manufactured atmospheres of Outlast or Dead Space, but tension that derives from your skills or lack of skills, from the fear of what lies around the next corner or the darkness ahead.

That's roguelikes. In the case of twitch games like Super Hexagon and Hotline Miami or platformers like Super Meat Boy, difficulty breeds a different kind of appeal. The appeal of perfection. Just like roguelikes demand the player's utmost focus and skills, so do these high difficult twitch games. But instead of fear and dread of the unknown, it's the thrill and adrenaline rush of clearing a challenge that defeated you dozens of times before, where each failure hones your skills that much more until you could achieve that white-knuckle perfection. It's seeing your best attempt increase in increments of mere seconds or maybe just fractions of a second. 

Since I played Demons' Souls, I've embraced difficult and challenging games, from myriad precison platformers and reflex games on IOS and PC to a wide variety of roguelikes, rogue-lites, and games with rogue elements. The punishing lessons of defeat and the thrill of victory, of overcoming that overwhelming challenge, is an addictive appeal that few other games or genres can match.

Ramblings: From The Shadows

On why stealth games are empowering
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I first played Splinter Cell when I was eleven. I started the tutorial, couldn't pick the first lock, returned the rental the next day.

It wasn't until I played Hitman Blood Money that I appreciated the stealth genre. Maybe it helped that I was older as well. But Hitman Blood Money was my first real introduction to stealth and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory instilled a love for the genre.Since then I've sought other games in the genre and saw the emergence of more action-oriented stealth. But as much as I enjoy Splnter Cell Conviction's and the Arkham series's more aggressive stealth, in many ways, those forms of stealth sometimes seem to forget what makes the genre so satisfying and empowering.

(I guess it should be noted that while I do enjoy pretty much all stealth in games, I consider shadow-based stealth, seen in games like Splinter Cell, Riddick, and Mark of the Ninja, the purest and most enjoyable kind.)

A good stealth game requires patience and planning. The waiting game is not an act of frustration, or an annoying aspect to endure, but a compelling necessity. Rather than lining up headshots, you need to observe and study. Skill comes not from the ability to outgun your enemies, but learning how to outmaneuver them. When you clear a room or complete objectives undetected, it feels like an earned victory. The very logistics of remaining unseen adds another dimension to the gameplay, where success is not getting the best kill or acquiring the best weapons but planning the most efficient way to avoid conflict and then enacting it successfully.

I find stealth to be more empowering than other genres due to that more personal, calculated level of engagement with the enemies. In many FPSs or third person shooters, you engage the enemies at a distance, waiting for them to expose themselves and just pulling the trigger. But in a stealth game, your weapon is not your ability to outgun, but to out-think. You're not firing away from a distance; you're inches away from your unaware foes, their virtual lives at your discretion. You need to understand and predict the AI's response and manipulate it to your advantage. You need to know the layout of an area, and know what to do and where to go if it all goes wrong. It's skill based in a multi-faceted way that other action games are not: the puzzle-like aspect of considering the environment as a whole, how different systems interact and will react to your actions, and then using that to your advantage and to the enemy's disadvantage.

That tension between moving among a more powerful enemy undetected, the risk of discovery always looming, is what elevates stealth above other genres in my opinion. You need to play smart rather than just more aggressively. That's the most empowering aspect of stealth: you as a player are in control of the enemy, to manipulate the AI or not, to either be discrete, unseen, or strike from the shadows.

Ramblings: The Numbers Game

On reviews scores and ratings:
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As a gamer, I share the same inclinations as others: that need to race to the bottom of a review of that highly anticipated game from your favorite site and check the score. I'm proud when a game gets the score it deserves and frustrated when a reviewer doesn't see the inherent greatness and rates a game poorly.

But now as a reviewer, I've found that I can't and won't score a game. Over these few months and in hindsight of other occurrences in the gaming hemisphere, I've come to the conclusion that applying a score, a rating, just does a disservice to the product. A game isn't a singular entity, but myriad variables working in sync to deliver an experience. How can a single number or ranking possibly represent the entire spectrum of that experience, from the wonderful highs to its frustrating lows and every aspect in between? Truth is, it can't.

When I first started this blog, I considered scoring the games I write about. But I found that once you start down that path, you're no longer considering the game in terms of the experience, but within those self-imposed boundaries. What separates a 7 from an 8, or the 9 from 10? What superficial aspect could possibly separate a 9.5 from a 9.75?

Consider games like Alpha Protocol or Fallout New Vegas, both which were riddled with technical issues upon release. In that decisive moment, how do you weigh the pros and the cons? Do the bugs and glitches tarnish the product as a whole? Do you place the narratives, those taxing moral choices, the wonderful emergent moments, above those issues? Is it really worthy of a 7,8,9,10? What are the designated context of those numbers? What constitutes an arbitrary "Average", "Great", "Masterpiece"? I feel it's better and more beneficial to the gamer to forgo the scores and ratings and just discuss the game, which is why I post impressions, not reviews.

Consider Eurogamer's "controversial" review of Uncharted 3, which rated the game an 8 out of 10. Now personally, I felt the issues discussed in the article were perfectly valid, but reading through the comments, it seemed pretty apparent that most were fixated on the score, not the actual content of the review, and on the fact that because others had rated the game a certain score, then a lower score couldn't be valid. I've seen people compare entirely different games, in entirely different genres, not because they share any similarity in gameplay or tone or story, but because they share the same score. And I recall the controversy of hard-working developers losing bonuses and even jobs because of their game's Metacritic score. By designating a rating, all that a game is - all its promise and potential, its emotional resonance, all the elements that generate the experience - is reduced to just another number.