Indie Games

Indie Games

Independent video games commonly referred to as indie games are video games created by individuals or small teams without video game publisherfinancial support. Indie games often focus on innovation and rely on digital distribution. Indie gaming has seen a rise in the last few years, primarily due to new online distribution methods and development tools.

There is no exact widely-accepted definition of what constitutes an "indie game". 

However, generally indie games share certain commonalities. Indie games are developed by individuals, small teams, or small independent companies. And, typically, indie games are smaller than mainstream titles. Indie game developers are not financially backed by publishers and usually have little to no budget available, thereby generally relying on Internet digital distribution schemes. Being independent, indie developers do not have controlling interests or creative limitations, and do not require publisher approval as mainstream game developers usually do. Design decisions are thus also not limited by the allocated budget. Furthermore, smaller team sizes increase individual involvement.

Therefore indie games are known for innovation, creativity, and artistic experimentation. Developers may also be limited in ability to create graphics, so they have to rely on gameplay innovation. Both classic game genres and new gameplay innovation has been seen. 

 Super Meat Boy 

In This Case Study, I chose Super Meat Boy, I thought i should of chose a game that alot of people have played, so it would be interesting to reseach about.

Super Meat Boy is an independent video game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and developed by Team Meat. It is the successor to McMillen and Jonathan McEntee's October 2008 Flash game Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy was released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, on Windows PCs in November 2010, on Mac OS X a year later in November 2011.

Super Meat Boy is a platform game in which players control a small, dark red, cube-shaped character named Meat Boy, who must save his girlfriend Bandage Girl from Dr. Fetus. The game is divided into chapters, which together contain over 300 levels. Players attempt to reach the end of each level, represented by Bandage Girl, while avoiding crumbling blocks, saw blades, and various other fatal obstacles. The player can jump and run on platforms, and can jump off or slide down walls. The core gameplay requires fine control and split-second timing, and has been compared to traditional platform games such as Super Mario Bros. and Ghosts'n Goblins.

The game was acclaimed by critics. In 2010, it received awards for Most Challenging Game from IGN, and for Best Downloadable Game from GameSpot and GameTrailers. Critics lauded the game's precise control, retro artwork, and soundtrack. Reviewers generally praised the game's challenge, although some warned that not all consumers would appreciate the level of difficulty. The game has been a commercial success, and has sold more than one million copies as of January 2012.

The original Meat Boy is an Adobe Flash game created by Edmund McMillen and programmed by Jonathan McEntee. The game was developed over a three week period, and was released on Newgrounds on October 5, 2008. By April 2009, it had garnered over 840,000 views at Newgrounds, and 8 million overall. A map pack for the Flash version was released on December 8, 2008. McMillen began development of Super Meat Boy after Nintendo and Microsoft requested that he make a game for their download services, WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade, as they were impressed by the success of his Flash games Aether and Meat Boy At the time, he was working with Tommy Refenes on a Flash game titled Grey Matter. Although McMillen initially pitched the companies a sequel to Gish orAether, the pair decided to form Team Meat and work on an expanded version of Meat Boy instead. Team Meat also includes soundtrack composer Danny Baranowsky and sound effects designer Jordan Fehr. According to the developers, Super Meat Boy is "a big throwback to a lot of super hardcore NES classics like Ghosts'n Goblins, Mega Man, and the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros 2", with the plot written as "a mash-up of every videogame story from the early 90s". The game was explicitly designed by the team to be reminiscent of Super Mario Bros.