Count me as one of the gents that thinks that Jim Sterling missed the point. In a pair of editorials for Destructoid the frequently hilarious, always incendiary writer fired a couple of warning shots across the bow of the indie game.
In "Indie Games Don't Have To Act Like Indie Games" he missed the point because we sure as hell don't see big, expensive games from Microsoft and Activision acting like indie games. If indie games don't do it, nobody's going to do it.
Though I will undermine my argument by pointing out that Hollywood has gotten really good at churning out fake indie movies like Juno. I suppose you could argue that games like Portal and Flower are indie-like games coming from major players. But we're just not seeing a flood of quirky stuff coming from huge companies. Until that happens we've got to look towards the indies for our arts and farts.
In a follow-up editorial, Sterling made a slightly more cogent point: "Art Games Aren't Innovative and Innovation Isn't Good." He's only partly right though. Innovation isn't inherently good. But damn if innovation doesn't feel good, if not mandatory, when it works. As much as I love Nethack, I love the newfangled innovation of actually being able to tell what I'm fighting without having to look at a chart of every letter in the alphabet before learning that I'm about to get killed by a lichen. It's pretty damn cool to see that lichen, stick your sword in that lichen and move on.
Even failed innovation remains memorable. I'll always remember the way I wrestled with and eventually mastered the nutty shooting in Killer 7. And the absence of innovation, like we saw in Dante's Inferno, can make a game feel listless and limp.
Anyway, I'm not here to pick apart Sterling's arguments. I enjoy his rabble-rousing. And what he's really saying is what we all really want -- to hold indie games to a high, maybe even higher standard, than we hold Halo, Bioshock or whatever.
Except there's one major problem with this approach. Indie games, by their very nature, don't have the resources, budget or manpower to always be considered in the same breath as the big guys. And that's why critics frequently give them a pass on the bits where they fudge the mechanics, copy outright or just plain get it wrong. Because an indie game is the product of one or a handful of gamemakers, frequently working on their dime -- people who feel so strongly about their kooky idea that they go out and execute it themselves.
I'm not saying we ought to implement some kind affirmative action for indie games. But if a game lets me play as a slouching bird dude stacking giant fruit and crap into the sky while berries bloom, grow and drop into the dirt I'm gonna give the game points for showing me something I haven't quite seen before.
I'm gonna forgive that the game doesn't hold my hand. In fact, I'm probably gonna embrace the game for not telling me what to do. Just as I forgive artsy fartsy movies for not telling me what to think. I enjoy the feeling of being at sea, having to find my mental footing and, eventually, attempting to digest the art I just consumed.
That's one of the great rewards of art.
As creative types in all mediums know, artsy and fartsy both come really cheap. Look at David Lynch's early short films -- they're the kind of stuff that would make David Jaffe claw his eyeballs out. Pretension, vagueness and obtuseness are all traits of this kind of art because they're cheap, they're easy and they're effective. You can create a mood with the stuff. Even if the only feeling you nail is confusion.
I'm only going to cherry pick one quote from Sterling. "I bring up The Void, with its wonderfully bleak atmosphere and haunting premise, juxtaposed against its unclear gameplay, lack of direction and its need to punish players for the crime of needing some unique mechanics explained properly." You could just as easily use the same quote to describe Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
I bring this up because the problem Sterling is trying to put his finger on isn't unique to indie games. Its a problem with all games. The real battle being fought here is a turf war in the realm of taste.
Some folks like their games to make them feel big and tough, so those games better be full of guns and blood and boobs. Others like their games to make them feel twee and superior and cooler-than-though. So those games had better be retro-looking or hand-drawn, with chiptunes, piano or ambient techno in the background.
I'm in total agreement. Cliches of all stripes are best avoided. But this new wave of indie games still feels terribly new. Weigh all the quirky copycats against decades of wizards and soldiers and robots and demons and suddenly the indie game hot box feels way more appealing.
It may be getting a little stale in here, but those warm, steamy toots of art are welcome. Go ahead and continue cutting the artsy, fartsy cheese indie game makers -- there's still plenty of fresh air in here.
Pretension +1 is a weekly column by Gus Mastrapa that hopes to find insights into the art of games via the judicious out-gassing of fart jokes.
Tags: Blueberry Garden, Dante's Inferno, David Lynch, Destructoid, Jim Sterling, Killer 7, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, The Void, Turtlenecks
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