CONCEPTING FOR THE INDIE MARKET By Carissa Vadella OVERVIEW………………………………………………………………………………...2 RISKS AND RISK MANAGEMENT……………………………………………………...2 UTILIZING NOSTALGIA…………………………………………………………………..3 REVIVING OLD AESTHETICS…………………………………………………………..4 REVIVING OLD GENRES………………………………………………………………..8 HIGH DIFFICULTY LEVEL……………………………………………………………….10 ATTENTION TO DETAIL…………………………………………………………………13 COMBINING POPULAR GENRES……………………………………………………..14 FRESH PERSPECTIVE………………………………………………………………….15 HEAVY NARRATIVE INFLUENCE……………………………………………………...17 GAMES AS HIGH ART…………………………………………………………………..18 FURTHER INSPIRATION………………………………………………………………..19 UNDERSTANDING ONE’S ENGINE…………………………………………………...19 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………....20 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES……………………………………………………………..22 Vadella 2 OVERVIEW Commercial success often, though not always, corresponds with successful ​ ​ design. In examining the market as a whole for both its strengths and weaknesses, understanding what makes a concept “good” or “bad” is made easier. In indie development especially, although relevant to all game design, the main objective is to create as powerful and fun of a game with as minimal of work as possible, thus making every element impactful. The strategies discussed herein should be looked at as merely one way of achieving success. RISKS AND RISK MANAGEMENT One should have a clear target audience in mind. People will dislike your game; it is frankly impossible to make everyone happy. What is important is understanding why ​ they dislike your game and what, if anything, you should change based on their feedback. In a highly simplistic example, if one was creating a cutesy Sailor Moon inspired shooter, the advice of a dedicated Call of Duty player to add more explosions won’t always mesh well with the direction of the game. Whether feedback is discarded or used, a developer should always know why they chose what they did. Indie development doesn’t need to be that much riskier than bigger name development. Drawing from proven solid techniques and finding under-realized markets can minimize the likelihood of failure without compromising the more experimental edge indie development is so often known for. Vadella 3 Ideas are a dime a dozen. If a game idea isn’t turning out to be fun, and no easy fix exists, don’t be afraid to try something else. UTILIZING NOSTALGIA A common theme throughout indie development is the reliance on nostalgia. Defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations” (“Nostalgia”), nostalgia within video games relies on drawing and improving upon classic video games to remind the player of the strengths of their childhood favourites. Nailing nostalgia relies on four key concepts: “take from multiple sources, emulate what worked, modernise what doesn’t, [and] give it a rose-tinted look” (Shovel ​ Knight and Nailing Nostalgia). Yacht Club’s Shovel Knight, the game featured in the ​ ​ ​ Game Maker’s Toolkit Nostalgia video, embodies these strategies successfully. The ​ ​ game draws clear reference from six classic games: Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Duck Tales, Castlevania, Super Mario Bros 3, and Zelda 2 (Shovel Knight and Nailing ​ 1 Nostalgia), and modernizes the resulting combination, aesthetically, as mentioned later ​ , as well as drawing on more recent inspirations to update gameplay, including reference to the popular Dark Souls franchise for their checkpoint system. ​ ​ Another example of successful use of nostalgia is farming sim Stardew Valley. ​ ​ The game, unlike Shovel Knight, faced a rather unique struggle in that, other than ​ ​ FarmVille-- a hugely popular Facebook farming sim --and Harvest Moon sequels/spin-offs, there were really no other hugely popular farming games. As such, 1 See section “Reviving Old Aesthetics. Vadella 4 the game takes from less obvious references with “‘...tried-and-true gameplay elements such as crafting and quests’” (Baker) as seen in traditional RPGs. REVIVING OLD AESTHETICS Retro art styles, including the ASCII based graphic of Rogue, pixel art in bit counts ranging from 8 to 32, and countless more. ASCII: (Left: Rogue (1980). Top right: Guilded Youth (2012). Bottom right: Dwarf Fortress (2006)) Cel-Shaded: Vadella 5 (Left: Jet Set Radio (2000). Top right: XIII (2011). Bottom right: The Walking Dead (2012)) 1-bit pixel: (Left: Dark Castle (1986). Top right: Air Supply (2014). Bottom right: Obra Dinn (TBA)) 16-bit pixel: Vadella 6 (Left: Super Mario Bro (1985). Top right: Shovel Knight (2014). Middle right: Owlboy (2016). Bottom right: Gods Will Be Watching (2014)) Why use older art styles at all? They translate better, especially on smaller screens such as mobile devices or in faster paced games where the visual elements need to be quickly and easily readable. On a similar line of thought, older art styles are less overwhelming, and make it easier to tell what the player should be focusing on. The styles also lend themself to nostalgia, and for that reason, easier marketing. More than that, older art styles can be easier to pick up and faster to implement than the hyper-realism of today’s big name games. For convenience’s sake, our focus here will be higher bit pixel, though quite similar arguments could be made for using any retro art style. Vadella 7 Shovel Knight emulates the 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System’s stylings ​ closely, modernizing when necessary to keep the game viable in today’s market. The NES allowed only 64 colors in total, a number Shovel Knight mostly stuck to. There is ​ ​ obvious parallels between pixel count and level of detail. In terms of modernization, Shovel Knight uses true parallaxing, as opposed to the faked effect of NES days, and ​ switches to widescreen, to suit the modern monitor’s aspect ratio. The game additionally uses modern color capabilities, in both an increased number of colors per sprite, as well as more palettes simultaneously on screen, compared to the NES max of 25 colors at once, and features the addition of a limited number of particle effects (D’Angelo). Developers Yacht Club Games creating Shovel Knight as though “...development for the ​ ​ NES never stopped” (D’Angelo), imagining the influence of “modern design lessons” (D’Angelo) and tech, but ultimately kept as close as possible to their NES inspirations. NES enthusiast D-Pad Studio’s game Owlboy uses its retro muse more as a ​ ​ jumping-off point. The style has more--and different-- colors than the early system would have allowed, as well as a greater level of detail, but the referential art style lends to the tone of the game, a major focus of the developers (Couture). Gods Will Be Watching uses pixel art in another way entirely: to speed up their ​ art production. Utilizing relatively little detail, the game’s take on pixel is notably simpler--and quicker-- than both Shovel Knight and Owlboy. The time saved is then ​ ​ ​ ​ applied to elements that improve gameplay more, such as the number of contextually specific animations that form an immersive “health bar” in the game. It’s a move that Vadella 8 really sells the characters as real, and maximizes the impact of the player’s often life and death decisions. Unfortunately, pixel has become a rather flooded market recently, however retro aesthetics as a whole remain a solid selling point in the indie market. REVIVING OLD GENRES Genres of times past, include arcade style gaming, multi-user dungeons (MUDs), point and click games, the text-based adventure, et cetera. Due to technical limitations, retro games were forced simpler than the kind of games possible today. As such, implementing the basic framework of an older genre is relatively quick, allowing more time for polish and greatly decreasing the scope of one’s project, with scope being the amount of stuff put into one game. In the case of the small ​ ​ and usually low budget indie team, managing one’s scope is paramount. However, the main concern that arises when using older styles of gameplay is the player feeling limited and wanting for the sort of features allowed by today’s technology. As before, for convenience’s sake, we will be discussing one of many older genres, the text-based adventure, namely through two games by developer Abigail Corfman: Open Sorcery and 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds. It is important to ​ ​ ​ ​ note, in genres even more than in art styles, examination of the specific limitations of said genre is key, a process outlined below. Vadella 9 In Open Sorcery, one plays as magically enhanced firewall “BEL/S”. Gameplay ​ ​ centers around remotely monitoring the safety of the places the player is charged to protect. Via 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds, the player is an off-duty vampire ​ ​ hunter trying, unsurprisingly, to kill a vampire at McDonalds before he eats the cute cashier. In terms of base mechanics, the two are nearly the same--use dialogue and inventory items to defeat an enemy or enemies. However, the two play very differently; 16 Ways is frustrating in a way Open Sorcery never was. ​ ​ ​ Text-based adventures’ limitations lie in its lack of visuals: location or inventory based elements are hard for a player to keep track of. 16 Ways deals with finding and combining items to build a suitable anti-vampire ​ weapon. Upon locating a new item, the player likely immediately thinks of ways said 2 item can be used, most of which are not the “correct” way to use it. The problem lies in that when the game displays, via text, the possibility to use an item, the player often has already forgotten about it, or hadn’t considered using the item in such a way. Open Sorcery’s “inventory” is slightly more user-friendly, in that it is composed of ​ different magical elements of the enemies encountered. As well, these elemental categories are brought up every time BEL/S initiates a fight. Thus, inventory elements are tied more to an experience, and seen relatively often, making them easier to recall when needed and less ambiguous in terms of their intended use.