The games market can be an odd place sometimes. While games juggernauts pump out gritty, realistic war shooters; Madden sequels and boring shite, small teams are producing eye-twinklingly beautiful experiences and distributing them to us via the internet and internet-based platforms. Ideally, there should be no difference between the two areas, but there is, and there’s a perfectly good reason for this.
The first major, striking thing is the amount of crazy, colourful design choices the devs put into their game. A recurring trend in AAA titles nowadays is all the dark grey and low brown “realistic” environments. That’s why I find it really amazing how many different styles can be found by browsing around Steam and the various console networks such as WiiWare. You have your modern cubism (Proun,) your eastern European cartoon (World of Goo,) your retro style (Cave Story, Eternally Us, a trillion others) and not forgetting using Atari graphics, interpreted as a 3d world (BIT. TRIP) All these games look beautiful, but gameplay is what makes a game. Much like the art, indie developers often come up with really different and inventive mechanics that make their games really enjoyable. The developers of BIT. TRIP decided to take as many genres as they could and make them rhythm games. That’s just brilliant in my eyes. Of course, some games just re-imagine old games, such as Eternally Us did with PC adventure games. Read more »
