note Keep in mind this is more common in studios from Western, Eastern European, and West Asian countries. In theory, the lower budget/risk and lack of Executive Meddling for indie games also permits more creative risk taking, whereas failure or even mediocrity of a game can doom a studio tasked with making a multi-million dollar game (even in good economies, statistics of under-performing AAA studios being shuttered or undergoing large layoffs are common). Indie games are typically lower-priced than conventionally-developed games, and especially in comparison with so-called "AAA" ("triple-A") titles that are developed with big budgets and expected to be massive blockbuster hits. Additionally, the recent rise of digital distribution services (such as Steam, most famously) has made it easier for indie developers to receive financial compensation for their work from their fans.
Many indie games have been released as freeware games, since the process of charging people money for the software can be a hassle and rather costly (due to transaction fees for credit cards or PayPal), and furthermore, it's easy to get people interested in your work if you offer it to them for free (and there's no shortage of people looking for free games on the internet), which is especially a good thing if you're an up-and-coming talent wanting to get recognition. Cave Story is a labor of love wholly created by a single amateur developer over the course of five years, and its success has been largely due to fans' word-of-mouth promoting, while Bastion was created by a team of several experienced developers who split off from the prominent video game company Electronic Arts and then published by Warner Bros. Like Tycho said they just updated the game so if you skipped it now might be a good time to give it another try.Nor does "indie" necessarily imply anything about who developed the game or how it was developed. We formed a heist crew in the office and spent many an afternoon knocking over jewelry stores and museums.
I loved the little sprite characters so much that I actually created a series of prints based on each of the classes. The gameplay was brilliant but the visuals really impressed me as well. I wasn’t watching its development like Tycho was so it came out of nowhere for me. It’s beautiful, charming and fun and nowhere near enough people will ever play it. Interacting with this game feels like playing with physical objects whether you’re using the rear pad to poke your finger into the world or the front pad to tear and fold paper. It’s a system seller that’s way too late but it really makes a case for the Vita and all it’s various touch inputs. Tearaway is a hidden gem tucked away on the Vita. So while Tycho picked his game because it caused him mental anguish I picked mine because it delivers pure joy. When I asked him why it was so great and should be on the list he told me playing it was incredibly stressful and filled him with dread. I watched him play it for a couple minutes and decided it wasn’t for me. Tycho picked Papers Please which I never played. Like Tycho mentioned above we worked on the list together but each of us got one game that was a personal pick the other one couldn’t veto.
It’s been an incredible year for games though and I had a great time going back over my favorites. In fact the last real one we did was back in 2003. It’s been a long time since we did the “We’re Right Awards”.
We’re going to spend this week counting down our top nine games of 2013.