Of course, the industry didn’t simply pop up overnight. Its earliest products were a collection of 2D side-scrollers that looked like they belonged on the screen of an early smartphone. However, over time these small developers began to achieve a more artistic level of refinement than their larger counterparts. Indie games like Limbo (2011) set a new precedent as to how the lines between gaming and art might be blurred. Limbo was a 2D side-scrolling platformer with a characteristic black and white environment, ambient noises and no adjustable difficulty, and it won multiple awards.
The award-winning game Fez (2012) showed how indie games are able to rely on innovative gameplay, interesting storylines and problem-solving to make up for their comparatively smaller scale. However, this is beginning to change. The indie gaming industry is growing to include full scale first-person games with large 3D maps like that of Ark, which is currently available as an early access release on Steam and will be released in 2016 across multiple platforms.
The main advantage that independent developers have is that their design process is not subject to the bureaucracy of large organisations. The small teams, sometimes just one person, are able to work more closely, thereby enabling games to stay true to their essence. Indie developers are mainly disadvantaged by limited resources, although this was never the point for many developers. Indie games often begin as passion projects, and that is where their success lies.
Characters from the indie game Darkest Dungeon. Illustration: Asiphe Dlulane
