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freemandos
Member
Love: they're cheaper and have usually a clear focus in what they want to be and a clear audience they want to please. Less afraid of challenge the audience, and trying new things. Lots of them focusing on memorable gameplay, interesting narrative or both. More caring about taking advantage from the medium strengths and less aping (mediocre) modern Hollywood. I'm having lots of good FPS, graphic adventures, RPGs, survival horror games and more thanks to indie developers. In another words entire genres that dissappeared or have been dumbed down in triple A territory. Lots of my favourite games from the last 20 years are indies: Disco Elysium, Northern Journey, Withering Rooms, Return to the Obra Dinn, Darkwood, Ultrakill, Hotline Miami, Inside, Dreams in the Witch House, Amnesia, etc.
Hate/don't like: too many games about mental health or with the "everything is in your head" trope, specially horror games (ugh). Sometimes too obsessed on "homage"...and not even necessarily being successful on doing it. Too many poin' click games with no real challenge. There are many games, so there are lots of bad and mediocre games, and yes, veeery low effort products. Popular terms like boomer shooter. Overexploited subgenres despite having still unexplored territory...when a Tomb Raider spiritual successor, for example?
Hate/don't like: too many games about mental health or with the "everything is in your head" trope, specially horror games (ugh). Sometimes too obsessed on "homage"...and not even necessarily being successful on doing it. Too many poin' click games with no real challenge. There are many games, so there are lots of bad and mediocre games, and yes, veeery low effort products. Popular terms like boomer shooter. Overexploited subgenres despite having still unexplored territory...when a Tomb Raider spiritual successor, for example?
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GravityMan
Member
AA (mid-tier) games are where it's at. Low-budget enough that the devs are willing to take some risks and not play it too safe, but high-budget enough for some of them to still have semi-modern production values and to really flesh out their ideas.
There are some great indies out there...the most recent one I finished was Nine Sols, which was outstanding once you get past its underwhelming beginning. Extremely well-designed, challenging and memorable boss fights.
The biggest problem with indies is that there's just way too many of them, even when ignoring blatant shovelware. That's not really indies' fault though; it's due to the lack of real human curation from platform holders these days.
Another issue with them is that too many of them are roguelikes, soulslikes, farming sims and 2D metroidvanias. There are some great ones (Hades, Silksong), but the sheer volume of titles in those genres and subgenres has grown tiresome. Games with 8-bit pixel art have also become a hard sell for me. 16-bit art made by competent artists still looks good to me though...CrossCode comes to mind and I'm looking forward to Alabaster Dawn.
There are indie games out there that have interesting ideas and cool concepts and settings, but some indie devs lack sufficient resources or talent to really flesh their ideas all the way out. Also, some indie games touted as "creative" are often just gimmicky or faddish, instead of being truly innovative in a way that drives the industry forward in a positive direction. We really need bold innovation and risks from the big boys (AAA devs), but that probably isn't happening anytime soon aside from Kojima.
Lastly, after playing through Sea of Stars a couple of years ago, indie games that are "love letters" to some beloved game back in the day are a red flag to me. Just because the devs really loved Chrono Trigger or whatever doesn't mean that they truly grasp WHY that game was so highly regarded. Sea of Stars felt nothing like CT.
There are some great indies out there...the most recent one I finished was Nine Sols, which was outstanding once you get past its underwhelming beginning. Extremely well-designed, challenging and memorable boss fights.
The biggest problem with indies is that there's just way too many of them, even when ignoring blatant shovelware. That's not really indies' fault though; it's due to the lack of real human curation from platform holders these days.
Another issue with them is that too many of them are roguelikes, soulslikes, farming sims and 2D metroidvanias. There are some great ones (Hades, Silksong), but the sheer volume of titles in those genres and subgenres has grown tiresome. Games with 8-bit pixel art have also become a hard sell for me. 16-bit art made by competent artists still looks good to me though...CrossCode comes to mind and I'm looking forward to Alabaster Dawn.
There are indie games out there that have interesting ideas and cool concepts and settings, but some indie devs lack sufficient resources or talent to really flesh their ideas all the way out. Also, some indie games touted as "creative" are often just gimmicky or faddish, instead of being truly innovative in a way that drives the industry forward in a positive direction. We really need bold innovation and risks from the big boys (AAA devs), but that probably isn't happening anytime soon aside from Kojima.
Lastly, after playing through Sea of Stars a couple of years ago, indie games that are "love letters" to some beloved game back in the day are a red flag to me. Just because the devs really loved Chrono Trigger or whatever doesn't mean that they truly grasp WHY that game was so highly regarded. Sea of Stars felt nothing like CT.
LyricalShrike
Member
The indie label means practically nothing to me. I don't actively look for or exclude indie titles when I'm looking for something to play. Everything is evaluated to the same standard. Good games are good games. I guess I like that Indie games tend to be cheaper. An advantage that crumbles against a sea of cheap older AAA games that I haven't played.
Guilty_AI
Gold Member
Basically my approach. Find game, determine if it looks cool to me or not for the price, buy/wishlist. If its indie, AA, AAA, AAAA or whatever doesn't matter, i may look into it later out of curiosity.