The Indie Game: Short and Sweet that can’t be beat.

There is a leading misconception in the video games industry about the length of the product equating to quality. If you consider the state of the economy and the cost of living crisis (words I didn’t think I’d ever write down) this advertisement shift towards the merit of length and brimful content makes more sense. This is vastly represented in the gaming industry as a shift away from linearity towards the open world genre of games, as ticking off miscellaneous side activities takes far more time than walking a strict path. Look no further than the assassin's creed series, drastically transforming after the controversial (but well received) ‘Assassins Creed Origins’ revitalised the series down an RPG route. What was once a 7 hour adventure in a small city became an odyssey (yes I just went there) in an expansive realised Ancient Egypt to be explored on horseback. More often than not, this open world phenomenon is more tacked on to extend game time and can become saturated rather quickly. Myself personally have faced this fatigue when playing Ubisoft’s Far Cry games, as it follows one very strict formula with very little to no deviation. The point I’m trying to get across is that I’d advise you not to play a game purely because you’ll get a lot of hours out of it. The Triple A market of games ultimately excels in this, often producing sequels to older games without much creative interest. But, the indie market is where the human factor of games truly gets to shine, often not as long but oozing with quality you can’t find anywhere else. Some of the best experiences gaming has been from these shorter, condensed and intellectually vibrant games that I’ll talk about further in the upcoming sections.

Firewatch: A satisfying dissatisfaction.

My first choice to highlight the beauty of the indie game genre is the 2016 smash hit Firewatch from the visionaries at Santo Campo. This enticing mystery adventure game explores mature themes of guilt, isolation and expressionism. The story considers a middle aged man effectively fleeing a troubling and difficult relationship for the woodland as he takes a distant job. After forming a flirtatious friendship with another fire marshal over their radio, things spiral out of control as they seemingly stumble upon a conspiracy that threatens his wellbeing. With his watchtower ransacked by a mysterious man, and an offsite locked facility nearby, Henry (the player character) sets out to find answers. Now again like with so many games I talk about, I don’t want to ruin the ending of the game for fear I might rob you of enjoying the experience for you personally, but I can vouch for its hard hitting nature and impactfulness. One of the biggest factors that drew me into this game was the radio calls between Henry and Delilah (the other fire marshal). They have sort of a running dialogue going for the entire game, and is really the player and Henry’s only person that they interact with for the 79 days Henry is there for. Despite only flourishing over a short time, you feel very connected to her and their relationship is often flirty but never verging into the personal. Rest assured, the player and Henry are both anxiously awaiting the fateful meeting of the two characters as one would rightfully assume. I’m sorry to tell you that these two characters have never met. This is obviously unsatisfying for all parties involved, as from Delilah’s dialogue she too is miffed but ultimately feels it is the right thing to do considering Henry’s relationship. This theme of dissatisfaction is tied to the main story as a whole (another spoiler incoming!) as the entire mystery is unravelled as the death of a young boy. Built up as some kind of corporate, scientific conspiracy that had our characters fearful has ultimately boiled down to a mishap in climbing. This isn’t some kind of power trip like other games, it’s more a reality check that sometimes things are what they are, the world isn’t always fantastical and just needs to be lived in and moved through. That’s my take at least, with many others and inflections on different facets of the game. This is another beauty of the indie game genre, how its vague and complicated nature can be analysed as many different things with no concrete meaning. I find this far more interesting and enticing than a simple A to B story that holds my hand narratively.

Kholat: A Disaster turned Masterpiece.

Firewatch was rightfully a big hit and known by many for its excellent storytelling, but the next game I’m going to comment on is far more niche. Kholat is a survival horror game by a small Polish studio IMGN.Pro about discovering and evading the supernatural, contextualising a real life horror story. This real life story the game takes heavy influence from is the incident known as the Dyatlov Pass incident in Russia in 1959. Simply put, this incident involved the death of 9 soviet hikers, but without a clear cause or intent. Six of the hikers had been killed from hypothermia, whilst the remaining three seemed to have died from some form of blunt force trauma. This game seeks to answer this question by inferring some kind of supernatural origin in a playful way. I’ve always had the opinion that if a piece of media I’m watching or consuming is based on something in real life, it elevates it and makes it infinitely more interesting. Now, I’m not going to lie to you and say that this game is offering some crazy innovative gameplay that you’ve never seen before, in actuality it’s actually quite limited and not very graphically impressive either, but that’s not ultimately what makes this game great. It was actually something this game has in common with Firewatch, how the game entrusts you to navigate the map and find the various locations. Now, something to know about me, I’m what I’d like to refer to myself as directionally challenged, I can’t tell where I’m going at the best of times. I’m the kind of player that’s going to check the map just before he rounds a corner just to check I’m going in the right direction. This game however just gives you a number of locations you’re expected to find, a compass and your wits and you’ll be off. Combine this with a lot of walking in similar snowy terrain, and a scary spectral monster with the voice of Shaun Bean that can appear out of nowhere, and you have the recipe for genuine and fearful scares that come out of nowhere.

What Remains of Edith Finch: A tale of family tragedy from every angle.

What Remains of Edith Finch is one of the most riveting walking simulators that I have ever played. I don’t like to use the term ‘walking simulator’ as it feels derivative to the game having any actual substance, but Edith Finch is the antithesis of this word. The story of this game boils down to an older member of a large family returning to their unconventional and complicated home to relive the lives of their family members. A curse is supposedly on the family, dooming them all to die, and such seems to be the case. It’s only now that I’m actually realising just how morbid that is, but it doesn't come across as such. The gameplay of the game is incredibly robust, with each different family member's life and death playing out entirely differently based on their life experience. For instance, Calvin Finch meets his unfortunate end falling off a swing, but this adrenaline of swinging is exemplified as playing as different animals soaring in the air and climbing in the trees. All of them are just as creative as this one, but my favourite snippet of the Finch family life is Lewis Finch. So, Lewis is depressed and stagnated in his job as a fishmonger where he dices the head of fish in a guillotine for hours straight. So as his mind begins to wander, he starts to picture an imaginary world that the player can navigate through. For the mechanics of this, the player uses the right stick to pick up the fish and shift it over to the guillotine, whilst the left stick is used to navigate through the fantastical world. Over the course of the section, the fantastical world continues to encroach on the real world, until the fantasy world begins to entirely eclipse the real world. This is when Lewis meets his end, being crowned in the fantasy land, but in reality being decapitated. The game itself is chock full of moments such as these, and I’m sure anyone else who has played it could point to any number of the other family members as their favourite. Ultimately, this game flips the idea of death on its head, as much like their house these moments leading to their deaths are whimsical and full of life. Just as easily you could focus on the more darker themes of death and its inevitability, but I prefer to focus on the positive.

Ultimately, you’re at absolute liberty for what games you’d like to play and I would never suggest otherwise. All I am saying is that If you’re sometimes getting fed up with formulaic and bloated releases from the bigger publishers, I implore you to support the indie game market and smaller creators for the best game experiences around.