First a quick pair of plugs:
Above 49 (Nels Anderson) and Some Accounting on the Cost of Making Games
The Rampany Coyote, tireless advocate of the Indie scene and indie dev in his own right.
In a nutshell, then, indie games can still be expensive to actually produce, but they can still be fantastic pieces of work. I’ve worked for two game studios now, one a cog in the EA machine (then Headgate Studios, now EA Salt Lake), one a plucky independent developer (NinjaBee/Wahoo). I’ve liked both, albeit for different reasons… but honestly, I like where I’m at now considerably more (NinjaBee/Wahoo). It’s more risky, developing games without a patron like EA holding a financial net under our trapeze act, but at the same time, it’s also liberating in that we have a lot more control over what we do with game and art design.
So when we come up with something like A World of Keflings, know that it took time and hard work, and isn’t just something cooked up in a garage somewhere as an experiment or cheap sequel. In many ways, it’s a labor of love, but since we think it’s a great game and has a lot of fun to offer, we also think it’s a great product and a worthy successor to the original A Kingdom for Keflings game.
Similarly, it looks like Recettear was a labor of love not only for the original Japanese developers, but also the intrepid localization team of Carpe Fulgar. They believed in the game enough to carry it to term and throw it to the wilds of the internet. It’s a great game, a curious mix of shop sim and dungeon crawler that manages to be more like fudge mixed with peanut butter rather than anchovies mixed with onions. It came out of left field for me, but is a very welcome addition to my game library and a lot of fun. That I can play it from a USB thumb drive is icing on the cake (yay for Impulse). As Tipa notes, it’s well worth the $20. (There’s a demo, but as fun as it is, it just scratches the surface.)
These smaller indie games tend to live or die largely on riding waves of interest and word of mouth. As Nels notes, 10,000 purchases are a rounding error to the EAs of the world, but the lifeblood of indie gaming. In an age of “social media”, spreading the word is easier than it used to be, but it’s still important. The cost of sharing a recommendation can be very low, but to those of us trying to make a living making interesting games instead of Big Box clones, it’s a boon that we’re grateful for.
…so yeah, go check out Recettear and if you like the demo, it’s a game well worth buying! Similarly, when A World of Keflings comes out, try the demo and if you like it, please buy it! (It will be an XBox Live exclusive for a while, but we have promised a PC port like what we did for A Kingdom for Keflings.)
And if you like ‘em, please tell people! Digital distribution and social media keep the indie scene alive and cranking out great games. Speaking with your wallet and recommendations speak to us, nice and loud. Without big box market overhead and publisher static, the signal is clearer.
Thanks!
I’ve been anxiously awaiting World of Kelflings, so I was dismayed a bit when NinjaBee announced it would arrive in winter. Guess all the indie hype made me think it was pretty much done and would launch soon. I passed over Kingdom since I didn’t have anyone to play it with (and World had already been announced) but I’m pretty sure my blogger/XBL friends will be jumping on World (partially because we like your blog, by the way!).
Not sure if you will be allowed, or if it fits with your personal blog style, but I, for one, would be interested perhaps in a personal account of developing from start to finish as an artist, as well as an interview with other NinjaBee staff on the same topic.
I’ll definitely check your game out once it comes to PC. =) No XBox here.
BTW – why the exclusive? What’s the point? Don’t you want *ALL* gamers to be able to try your product at the same time while the hype is high? I mean, I often try games because blogs/podcasts are flogging them…. but if it’s Xbox exclusive for too long then I run the danger of forgetting it exists when the PC port finally does ship.
I just don’t get it.
I don’t get the appeal of Recettear. May I recommend the not-so-indy-but-at-least-not-EA game King’s Bounty instead?
This said, I am still waiting for Red Dead Redemption for the PC and would like to second Andrew, a pity that WoK will stay XBox exclusive for a while. Hopefully not for too long.
Scott, we had hoped to be done for summer, honestly, and early promos reflected that, but problems came up and we’ve been madly trying to get it finished. Most art has largely been done for a couple of months.
Oh, and yes, the pending article I’m doing on it takes a trip through the art process, from concept to final. I’m gathering screenshots now, and should be finishing the article next week. I’ll probably wait for it to be posted on the company blog before I repost it here, but yeah, I want to take a look at what goes on behind the scenes. I might even make a series of it and do some more in depth articles.
As far as interviews, well… that’s a really good idea. I’ll see what I can get away with.
Andrew, on the timing, it has to do with the process of porting. It takes time. We simply can’t wait (sitting on the finished XBox version) to get it done and then release both at the same time, and concurrent development doesn’t really work either. Yes, it would be better for the hype wave, but it doesn’t really work with our pipeline and budget schedule. Maybe that means the pipeline needs to change, but that’s not something I have say in. At least it’s easier to do the PC port than another platform.
Longasc, King’s Bounty is sweet. I’ve not played a lot of it, but I like it. Mount & Blade is one I’ve read you pumping before, too, and while I haven’t played much of that one either, I like what I’ve played.
Enough to have purchased both from the demo’s strength, incidentally.
Ahhh… gotcha – it’s not so much that you have a deal with MS to make it exclusive for a while (like some games have done), but that the PC version is simply not ready yet. I get that – thanks for clarifying!
Just remember to flog World’s PC release here when it happens.
Yeah, it’s not some weird MS deal. I’ve never even liked those, m’self.
And yes, I’ll most definitely flog the PC release. Might even have a call for beta testers like we did for the AKFK PC release.
Heh, I was about to plug that above 49 post myself – got beaten to it.
But – does he own part of the company? Or is he an employee of it? I’m not sure it’s indie any more if it’s the latter.
Do you mean Nels? I’m pretty sure he’s an employee of a different company than the one he cites numbers from.
There’s also a fair bit of debate out there what constitutes “indie”. Some say it has to be solo, some say small groups are OK, some say anything self-published is “indie”, no matter the group. Company ownership is another facet to consider, yes. The Rampant Coyote writes about it once in a while.
I haven’t defined it for myself. *shrug*
Well, broaden the definition enough and EA or Blizzard are ‘indie’.
I think the term ‘indie’ gets uses as if it has credibility, and indeed is granted credibility, when it’s getting used with some pretty broad definitions in places.