2D Indie Platformers

[Azu]

If you search 'Indie Platformer' in Steam, it'll return 1,059 results spread across 43 pages.

Many of these titles claim to be original, yet boast the same old 8-bit graphic art style in hopes of tugging at the nostalgic heart strings of college-aged gamers, and rarely seem to do anything ground breaking. Yes, I will admit that there are more than a few great games that fit under this criteria, however the market is undoubtedly saturated.

It's gotten to a point where I just associate the label 'Indie' with negativity. Plaid-shirt, chino wearing hipsters with thick rimmed glasses sipping on a Starbucks coffee as they sit down at their Macbook Air to create a generic 2D Indie platformer to add to the large pool of other 2D indie platformers in hopes of becoming the next big Fez, Braid, Thomas Was Alone, Dustforce, Spelunky, Broforce, Cave Story, Terraria, Starbound, Limbo, Super Meat Boy, Guacamelee - Yes we get it! There is a lot of examples of successful 2D Indie platformers, but please. Try something else.

Wasn't the indie movement initially spurred as a counter to the continually disappointing mainstream video gaming industry? In particular, the relatively large lack of variety at the time. Now, the irony is that it's been happening in the Indie gaming scene for years. We just see mostly 2D indie platformers with little variety. Some do well, most just get buried and forgotten, because they can't stand out.

I will admit. This isn't the best worded, or well thought out post, and the issue honestly doesn't bug as me as much as I make it out to do. I just wish we had a little more variety in the Indie scene, as modern mainstream gaming is still not quite my cup of tea anymore. Some arcade racers, open-world sandboxes, first-person shooters, third-person shooters, strategy. Maybe we need an Indie-Indie gaming movement, eh?

[AshleyAshes]

YOU FORGOT SHOVEL KNIGHT IN YOUR LIST OF GREAT INDIE PLATFORMERS! D:

Also, there are some cool arcade racers in the works.  90's Arcade Racer, if it ever comes out god damnit, is a throwback to Virtual Racing, Daytona USA, Outrun 2 and SCUD Racer.  Or Drift Racer which is like... If the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 could render polygons.  Trippy stuff.

Edited November 4, 2015 by AshleyAshes

[Vae]

I would attribute the abundance of platformers more to the nostalgia of the devs, themselves, for that style of gameplay than anything else. After all, quite a few of us from that age bracket grew up primarily on that style of game.

Also, I thought indie gaming was a way to create and distribute games without having to bend over to the demands of big-name publishers,
not some kind of highschool-tier anti-popularity rebellion shit.

[Azu]

YOU FORGOT SHOVEL KNIGHT IN YOUR LIST OF GREAT INDIE PLATFORMERS! D:

Also, there are some cool arcade racers in the works.  90's Arcade Racer, if it ever comes out god damnit, is a throwback to Virtual Racing, Daytona USA, Outrun 2 and SCUD Racer.  Or Drift Racer which is like... If the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 could render polygons.  Trippy stuff.

I know of three Indie arcade racers currently in development, and they don't get very much attention unfortunately. Drift Stage, 90s Arcade Racer (vaporware?) and GRIP. I've supported two out of those three.

I guess you could say that the market is smaller for those sorts of games, but at the same time, they haven't been given much that great of an opportunity either. None of those games are currently on Steam, and a lot of people use Steam as a sort of benchmark to find out what's hot in gaming. Maybe once they hit Steam, we'll see a bit more of a resurgence in these kind of games. At least, I hope so.

But yeah, like. I don't dislike Indie platformers. I've played and enjoyed a bunch, but there comes a point where you're just fatigued of seeing the same old stuff time and time again. Like with most others (I would imagine) tastes and interests in games shift and cycle. Sometimes I want to play a platformer, other times I really crave a good FPS, or an open-world sandbox adventure, but I'm limited to titles I've already played a dozen times simply because either there's no Indie or modern mainstream games that fit that criteria.

 

[Azu]

I would attribute the abundance of platformers more to the nostalgia of the devs, themselves, for that style of gameplay than anything else. After all, quite a few of us from that age bracket grew up primarily on that style of game.

Also, I thought indie gaming was a way to create and distribute games without having to bend over to the demands of big-name publishers,
not some kind of highschool-tier anti-popularity rebellion shit.

I would imagine there's a large number of reasons that contribute to why the Indie gaming movement began, but developing different types of games from the norm were absolutely part of it. Otherwise I believe we'd see more Indie games trying to replicate AAA mainstream titles, but so far that really hasn't been the case.

I will admit to being quite biased against these sorts of games, given that I grew up with the Playstation and having only played 3D games for a large part of my childhood. Naturally, I hope for indie games to cover 3D titles too, but it's pretty rare to see one.

[Conker]

Thankfully my indie game isn't a 2D platformer but an isometric card battle/RPG thingy. Also, stained glass art style. Fuck your 8 bits!

I like too much mainstream music to be a hipster, and I've never sat foot in a Starbucks either. I'm still a piece of shit though

[Phausk]

Was Minecraft deliberately left out?
I thought that was responsible for bringing indie games to the mainstream.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Phausk

[Azu]

Was Minecraft deliberately left out?
I thought that was responsible for bringing indie games to the mainstream.

I actually forgot about that one, somehow. I was even playing it yesterday >_>;

I would like to see more games like Minecraft, but not direct clones of Minecraft. You know?

Edit: By that, I mean I would like to see more Indie games trying new things and pushing boundaries. Not just replicating the same old formula in hopes of success, which is my main issue with gaming as a whole.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Azurex

[Phausk]

I actually forgot about that one, somehow. I was even playing it yesterday >_>;

I would like to see more games like Minecraft, but not direct clones of Minecraft. You know?

Oh yeah totally. A survivalist game where you can build pretty much anything you want, form tribes, build villages, kingdoms, weapons and have wars with people on a giant server. Something like that probably exists but I doubt it's as great as I would anticipate.

Also I'm kind of tired of the whole voxel cube trend.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Phausk

[TrishaCat]

I don't really think indie games are really any different from any other games when you think about it. A lot of the games are mediocre to bad, are kind of samey, and don't do anything new. Doesn't that sound familiar? I don't really think its fair to associate indie with bad. Or AAA with bad. Its just a term used to describe how a game came to be. In the end, most games are bad and/or uninteresting.

I do agree with your sentiment though; too many games are trying to do the same thing.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Battlechili

[Tsuujou]

I get sick of it too honestly. I end up skipping most of these. If I see pixel, bit, or retro, in the title, I just ignore it. You buy it, beat it in 3 hours and forget about it. I get that that with less resources, indies have to make something simpler, but I get sick of them usually claiming to be fresh and new ideas when theyre just recycling old ideas of games they're probably not going to top. I swear every Steam page, these things boast about "going back to the golden age" or "a breath of fresh air". Shut up. It's not fresh. It's the same Mario, Castlevania, and Mega Man formula that's been beaten to death more than the dick of a Zaush fan.