Independent GamesFest ‘09

While I was down in Melbourne, I happened to pop into an oddly-shaped building right next to Federation Square; the ACMI, or the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Within lurked devious traps and fabulous riches, as well as the unquiet spirits of the long-dead, eager for vengeance against those who disturb their rest… wait, no, that’s Parliament House, my mistake. No, inside the ACMI was something far more interesting: the “Best of the Independent Games Festival 2009“.

The ACMI has showcased the Independent Games Festival in previous years, featuring a variety of games that have since gone on to even wider recognition such as Braid, Darwinia and Portal. This year’s was small, as usual - they only showcase 10! - but they were the 10 best, so quality was pretty awesome. After I had finished wandering around the history of the moving image exhibit in the next gallery (check it out if you have the time, Melbournites; these two galleries of the ACMI are free) I wandered into the Indie Games exhibit and began to play.

The first game I sat down at was called Brainpipe by Digital Eel, which won the Excellence in Audio award. And quite deservedly; the music in this game is hypnotic, trance-inducing, and combined with the frankly insane visuals and the simplistic gameplay easily mean that your brain will turn to mush after a few minute’s gameplay. You guide your camera through a series of tunnels which represent your brain or something and you collect glyphs and avoid everything else. That was it. In a way, it’s a lot like Audiosurf or Descent, but way more trippy.

I moved on to The Graveyard, by the Bulgarian developers Tale of Tales. This game was billed as ‘a poetic mediation on death’ and, to be honest, that’s exactly what it is. You know those films which are billed as ‘experimental’ and then do something artsy and you don’t immediately connect with it unless you put the effort in? Maybe that’s just me, but The Graveyard is a lot like that, only for videogames. The developers themselves describe it more as an ‘interactive painting than a game’ and I for one agree entirely; the gameplay consists entirely of walking an old, slow woman up to a bench and sitting down on it. But the emotional response it may provoke… ah, now there’s some interesting concepts.

The next stop was PixelJunk Eden by Q-games, a beautiful but confusing as hell game for the PS3. From a side-scrolling perspective, you guide a tiny creature with the ability to shoot silken webs to swing from, aiming to collect an object far above. The only way to get there is to grow your own strange, glowing plants so you have something to swing from to grow more weird plants until you get to the top. Similarly to most other independant games, Pixeljunk boasts a unique modernist artstyle and a hypnotic soundtrack, but ultimately I found PixelJunk Eden to be confusing and difficult to play.

Another gardening game was next, Eufloria by Rudolf Kremers and Alex May. I personally found it very interesting, so much that I went out and grabbed it on Steam for $2 (it was on sale… normal price is $10). But I suspect that - much like the other games in the room - it wasn’t something that would appeal to a mass market. A very minimalist strategy game, Eufloria is all about using your seedlings - both your soldiers and your resources - to take over the map. Procedural graphics and movement as well as the soothing wind-chime soundtrack mean that this is a very calming, very fascinating kind of game. I don’t know how the gameplay survives in the later game - it did seem very simplistic from what I played - but certainly I enjoyed the first couple of levels I tried.

Cortex Command by Data Realms and Blueberry Garden by Erik Suedang were the next two games i played. Cortex Command I didn’t particularly enjoy; I found it too complex in possible options and possibilities. It’s a side-scrolling strategy/action game, where you control a disembodied brain mind-controlling dummy bodies or soldiers or something and waging war against other disembodied brains. Weird. Blueberry Garden was the grand winner of the Festival, although I confess I couldn’t see why. While it had a fantastic paper cutout style of art, and a very story-book style, the side-scrolling weird artistic platformer simply didn’t click for me at all. Controls were very awkward and figuring out precisely what to do was kind of annoying. That said, I saw some patrons playing it with every hint of enjoyment, so who knows?

I found Machinarium by Amaria Design in the next booth, which seemed to speak directly to me, perhaps because of its lush, rich artstyle or its return to the old-school games which inhabit my soul, adventure games. Following a small, adorable robot in a steampunk robot city trying to get home and rescue his girlfriend - standard fare, but fascinating in its charming, robotic way - Machinarium is of the old guard, the point and click adventure, where to do anything - anything - you need to solve some diabolical puzzle that won’t immediately make sense. I may pick this game up eventually, but be forewarned; the puzzles are hard. I know this because I spent about 30 tries playing 5-square tic-tac-toe against a laughing robot and I honestly have no idea what would have happened had I won. But the art is incredible and the music toe-tappingingly good, so even when you get stuck forever you’ll at least be aesthetically pleased.

Osmos by Hemisphere was the next game I found, and one I found fantastic, even though I played the basics of it before. Simply put, you’re a cell - or a galaxy, I was never really quite sure - in a huge space, and you eat smaller cells to get bigger and avoid bigger cells or get eaten. You control speed and direction by shooting out bits of yourself, which can be eaten by other cells, so movement is a clear risk-reward scenario. If you ever played Spore, and you thought to yourself “man, I really liked the Cell stage of that game; why doesn’t anybody make a whole game of it?”, well, your prayers have been answered. I bought it off Steam when I got home - $10 - because I really liked that simplistic, elegant, and serene kind of gameplay and atmosphere.

The last two games I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to play; Nicalis’s Night Sky and Kranx’s Musaic Box. Some woman was sitting at Musaic Box for like a full hour and I simply didn’t get a chance to jump on it; perhaps it’s a testament to Musaic Box’s quality, or maybe she was just really bad at playing. I don’t know. Night Sky reminded me a little of Loco Roco, but only in that you were a weird rolling thing solving puzzles. The little I saw didn’t appeal to me especially.

So! Indie games! You should play ‘em. The reasons are great and varied, but they boil down to this; independent games are developed independently by independent studios. Established developers and publishers aren’t going to fund as much variation and creativity as two guys coding in their house somewhere. Games as art? This is our most pressing arguement, right now. Do you want to be endlessly playing Marine Shooter 7: Fighter of Men for the rest of the existance of videogames, or do you want to support innovation and creativity in the games industry? Also, they’re cheap. You can’t go past quality videogames on the cheap!