Stardew Valley totally would have taken staff and money if you can’t live in your parent’s house forever. edit: I didn’t want it to sound mean towards Barone, it’s great what his family did for him, but this game was made possible with a very strong support net – a luxury not many have.
The 8/16but style is overused I feel. Don’t get me wrong I liked the look of it, but every indie game out there uses it.
The SVG style is still relatively new and it’s much easier to animate.
If you’re going to stick with pixel art aesthetic then you want to do something to differentiate your game from all of the others, such as having more animation frames and going for the Prince of Persia look.
“They have formulas that they apply to games to try to figure out how much money they could make, and in the end you end up giving a whole lot of games that look exactly the same as last year’s games, because that makes some money,” Gilbert explained.
…
He continued: “That’s why I really enjoy the indie game market because it’s kind of free of a lot of that stuff that big publishers bring to it, and there’s a lot more creativity, strangeness, and bizarreness."
There’s still a lot of creativity in big games but it’d be shame to see more movement towards nostalgia-driven/pastiche type games.
I will take this opportunity to recommend Crosscode, one of the best action RPGs of all time according to 90% of people who play it.
But yeah even amazing games like that fly under people’s radar in the huge deluge of games. I wish it were easier for good games to find their audience
I like CrossCode, but I am going to bat for Phoenotopia Awakening, one of the best game almost nobody has heard about. Slightly different perspective but similarly massive game full of secrets, puzzles, fun characters and a consistent world where even the tiniest bit of banter can lead you to discover something on the other side of the map.
I love that game but I made the mistake of putting it down for a year. When I came back I was completely lost and had no idea what I had already done or what to do next. The game does not have quest logs and does not hold your hand this way. It’s a game where people might benefit from documenting their progress as they go, especially in case they ever take a break from it.
I bought it last night after reading this. I hadn’t heard of Phoentopia at all. You suggested it. I watched one video. I found it on sale on GOG, and I bought it. I will install it and play it this weekend.
Not having a quest log made that game hell for me. Massive world with tons of little quests that take you all over the map and no way to track progress or see what the last part of the quest is asking for.
It was not a huge problem for me, but I play lots of metroidvania, and I am used to memorizing stuff for later. And for stuff that I know will be hard to remember, occasionally, I might take notes or screenshots of hints.
Though most of the time, there are more than one hint for a single quest. The game does a very good job at updating every related NPC dialogue when something has changed.
But if you want to find everything, yeah you have to talk to absolutely everyone. TWICE. Almost everyone has two lines of dialogue at any moment.
No one reads oldschool curators like RockPaperShotgun anymore. They’re barely afloat.
Generic algorithmic social media like YouTube tends to snowball a few games.
Forums are dead. Reddit is dystopian.
That leaves Steam’s algorithm, and a sea of sparsely seen solo reviewers. But there are billions of people oblivious to passion projects they’d love, and playing AAAs or gacha phone apps instead.
John Walker (founder of RPS, back when it wasn’t a window to Eurogamer style content) is currently doing Buried Treasure, a small review blog for things that aren’t being appreciated by the masses. Well worth checking out!
Not a streamer, but I’ve bought multiple games because YouTubers like Real Civil Engineer or Dangerously Funny has played and it looked fun. All of these have been indie titles. Off the top of my head here’s a few:
Planet Crafter
Incredicer
Coal LLC
Drive beyond horizons
Schedule 1
A bunch more but I’m not gonna dig through my library. But yeah, I’ve spent a small chunk because of YouTubers like that. And they’ve all been a good time.
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I like Ron Gilbert.
Using a screenshot of Stardew while quoting a developer saying it takes money and staff to finish a project is diabolical
Stardew Valley totally would have taken staff and money if you can’t live in your parent’s house forever. edit: I didn’t want it to sound mean towards Barone, it’s great what his family did for him, but this game was made possible with a very strong support net – a luxury not many have.
No idea why you’re being downvoted, the guy who created Stardew literally had his wife take care of his whole life for him while he was working on it.
That’s not Stardew Valley
That’s further proving @[email protected]’s point.
The 8/16but style is overused I feel. Don’t get me wrong I liked the look of it, but every indie game out there uses it.
The SVG style is still relatively new and it’s much easier to animate.
If you’re going to stick with pixel art aesthetic then you want to do something to differentiate your game from all of the others, such as having more animation frames and going for the Prince of Persia look.
deleted by creator
Because its easy…
and it does a lot of damage…I also thought it was Stardiew but after 3 seconds looking it’s evident it’s not.
From the article.
There’s still a lot of creativity in big games but it’d be shame to see more movement towards nostalgia-driven/pastiche type games.
He’s been talking about it on Mastodon for quite a while now. It’s a shame.
/edit: It wasn’t the game he talked about on Masto; that game finished/released! My dumb. I thought it was continued development.
It’s a shame, but also, there’s billions of games and RPGs out already. The game industry is so oversaturated, it’s not even funny.
I will take this opportunity to recommend Crosscode, one of the best action RPGs of all time according to 90% of people who play it.
But yeah even amazing games like that fly under people’s radar in the huge deluge of games. I wish it were easier for good games to find their audience
I like CrossCode, but I am going to bat for Phoenotopia Awakening, one of the best game almost nobody has heard about. Slightly different perspective but similarly massive game full of secrets, puzzles, fun characters and a consistent world where even the tiniest bit of banter can lead you to discover something on the other side of the map.
Wow this looks incredible actually! Definitely giving it a go, thank you
Hey a fellow Phoenotopia Awakening fan!
I love that game but I made the mistake of putting it down for a year. When I came back I was completely lost and had no idea what I had already done or what to do next. The game does not have quest logs and does not hold your hand this way. It’s a game where people might benefit from documenting their progress as they go, especially in case they ever take a break from it.
I bought it last night after reading this. I hadn’t heard of Phoentopia at all. You suggested it. I watched one video. I found it on sale on GOG, and I bought it. I will install it and play it this weekend.
Thank you!
Not having a quest log made that game hell for me. Massive world with tons of little quests that take you all over the map and no way to track progress or see what the last part of the quest is asking for.
I can kind of see that.
It was not a huge problem for me, but I play lots of metroidvania, and I am used to memorizing stuff for later. And for stuff that I know will be hard to remember, occasionally, I might take notes or screenshots of hints.
Though most of the time, there are more than one hint for a single quest. The game does a very good job at updating every related NPC dialogue when something has changed.
But if you want to find everything, yeah you have to talk to absolutely everyone. TWICE. Almost everyone has two lines of dialogue at any moment.
Thank you both for the recommendations
And the discoverability pipe is breaking.
No one reads oldschool curators like RockPaperShotgun anymore. They’re barely afloat.
Generic algorithmic social media like YouTube tends to snowball a few games.
Forums are dead. Reddit is dystopian.
That leaves Steam’s algorithm, and a sea of sparsely seen solo reviewers. But there are billions of people oblivious to passion projects they’d love, and playing AAAs or gacha phone apps instead.
I still enjoy Yahtzee on Second Wind since the whole Escapist debacle. They seem to be trying to stoplight more indie games which I really appreciate.
I know you meant “spotlight” but that typo made me chuckle
John Walker (founder of RPS, back when it wasn’t a window to Eurogamer style content) is currently doing Buried Treasure, a small review blog for things that aren’t being appreciated by the masses. Well worth checking out!
Streamers are sometimes a good way to find indie games. My wife and I watch DieDevDie and he mostly plays stuff from itch.io.
Not a streamer, but I’ve bought multiple games because YouTubers like Real Civil Engineer or Dangerously Funny has played and it looked fun. All of these have been indie titles. Off the top of my head here’s a few:
A bunch more but I’m not gonna dig through my library. But yeah, I’ve spent a small chunk because of YouTubers like that. And they’ve all been a good time.
For finding new games Steam peek is pretty good. And playtester io isn’t bad either.
And there are so many games that never got finished or polished properly.
It’s a confusing article, the game he talks about on Mastodon (Death By Scrolling) has just been released. There was another game he stopped dev on: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@grumpygamer/115657740122347206
I wonder if he tried to get in touch with smaller indie publishers (something like yacht club games) or he focused on more established companies.
the interview that was mentioned:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/12/after-40-years-of-adventure-games-ron-gilbert-pivots-to-outrunning-death/