All I play these days are 15-minute freeware PC games that hope to expand the ludonarrative grammar used to describe player intentionality. Oh, your garage-developed game is on XBLA? Yeah, that's totally indie. ::)
Are these games "fun"? Are these games "games"? That's what we're here to discuss, chaps! :tophat
Good Indie Game Blogs:
<a href="http://www.tigsource.com/">TIGSource</a>
<a href="http://www.indiegames.com/blog/">Indie Games</a>
And remember:
[youtube=560,345]617lGZjYyNo[/youtube]
Okay, so who here has played <a href="http://distractionware.com/blog/?p=759">Judith</a>? It's a collabo between the creator of <a href="http://www.increpare.com/2008/12/rara-racer/">Rararacer</a> and <a href="http://www.increpare.com/">Opera Omnia</a> and the creator of <a href="http://distractionware.com/games/flash/dontlookback/">Don't Look Back</a>. It's a bit of an odd beast, hardly a "game" at all, and the only clue we have to authorial intent is that it's a game about "control."
Spoiler-filled thoughts:
spoiler (click to show/hide)
The interesting thing about the game, to me, was the way it told its story and built tension via taking control away from the player at key points - anything close to a puzzle or gameplay choice is taken out of your hands, leaving you to sort of coast from one segment to the next. Though somewhat dissatisfying, this does have the effect of making the PC's drive to "discover" the truth feel stronger - so strong that she's going to act outside of the player's input. Bioshock played around with this with the Andrew Ryan segment, but I think it's better implemented here.
I'm iffy on the actual narrative, but enjoyed the way it was told and felt it did a good job of building a conflicted sense of drive/unease in the player - which is what the designers were going for, surely
In my next post I will talk about And Yet It Moves (http://www.andyetitmoves.net/)!
I finished Judith but I don't understand the plot. Why do the narratives in so many of these indie games have to be "deep" and not make any sense on the surface without breaking the plots down into essay discussion format. :(
I finished it and the only way I can really piece it together is
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Judith is your wife while the dungeon is your mind...or something. I think it's about how it would be if the wife figured out about the guys secrets (getting shut out completely).
I finished Judith but I don't understand the plot. Why do the narratives in so many of these indie games have to be "deep" and not make any sense on the surface without breaking the plots down into essay discussion format. :(
I finished it and the only way I can really piece it together is
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Judith is your wife while the dungeon is your mind...or something. I think it's about how it would be if the wife figured out about the guys secrets (getting shut out completely).
spoiler (click to show/hide)
What does that have to do with Emily getting lost? I'm just confused how the two timelines relate. One is the story of a guy who owns the castle who secretly tortures people and keeps his wives hidden and it's about his new wife who discovers it and is locked away. Meanwhile the other story is a ...non-story? Guy meets with secret affair lover at this castle, she disappears, he finds her in the room where the castle owner had locked his wife in the other story.
I don't really get what the point of the Emily story is if it even had one