Indies: One Reason Why Something So Small Can Be So Impressive

Over the last 18 months I've worked almost exclusively with four-man indie developers, following on from a couple of projects put on hold at larger studios. These last two games have also happened to be two of the most successful projects I've had the good fortune to be involved with. Right now I'm working on new projects with middle-size teams, but nothing on the scale of those earlier disappointments.

Indies have tough competition these days, and they respond to it in roughly two different ways. 'First wave' indie studios like Klei, ThatGameCompany and Croteam, established around a decade ago, often chose to expand their staff and produce more work. It served them well, and remains a popular route. Increasingly, though, micro-teams and one-man bands are choosing to stay that way. In addition to Facepalm and Subset, the likes of Jonathan Blow and 2DBoy have also shunned growth in their development teams. Why?

It is probably terribly obvious to point out that a significant advantage small teams have over the big guys is radically lower costs. Who isn't all too familiar already with the path many a critically successful developer has taken from bedroom coding, to fancy offices and a staff of 40, to a crucial project being canned and there not being enough cash in the jar to keep up the payments? But I think there is another angle on the idea that is perhaps more expressive.

Suppose you're a one-man band. You've turned to indie development because mainstream games don't do it for you. You've accepted the product you're putting out is not an Assassin's Creed. You know that if income were a primary concern you wouldn't be doing this; indeed you've sacrificed some level of guaranteed income precisely to pursue this course. You'd like to get the game done ASAP, but because this is a labour of love, and because overrunning 6 months will jeopardise nothing more than your living standard, you're prepared to work on it until it's right. When you hit a creative decision in your game, the only thing you really need to weigh is what is best for the quality of the game you want to make.

Now compare with the pressures that even a team of ten put on development. A six month delay now costs you or your financier £150,000 in salaries alone, or around 25,000 full-price sales of The Swapper. Failure to meet the bills costs you and your staff your livelihoods, and kills your game. A staff also costs you the luxury of doing everything in the right order. You can't afford to have salaried staff sitting there twiddling their thumbs. If you have to build the levels before you write the story, it's too late to do anything else. Finally, when you come to that creative decision, you've got all the above on your mind. This is something I have to remind myself of when I go into meetings with larger teams sometimes. I get to waltz in, push my creative agenda, and (usually) have a guarantee of a reasonable payment at the end, as well as a new job. I have suggested that small indie devs share this advantage to some degree. But if you're at the head of a medium-size studio, each creative decision can make or break your entire business. It's easy, from this perspective, to see why those studios sometimes err on the side of safety.

Of course, there is some level of generalisation here. It is not my intention to suggest small teams suffer no financial burdens, nor that larger teams are incapable of pursuing creative ideals. Rather, I want to celebrate that we're here at a time when developers can choose the path that suites them, and make it work either way.

Me, I like a bit of both.

Project Announcement: Organ Trail Director's Cut

While demoing The Swapper on the Indie Megabooth floor at PAX last year I met the delightful people behind indie dev, The Men Who Wear Many Hats. I'd played through their Oregon Trail remix, Organ Trail, on my iPhone earlier that year, and have felt old every time since that someone younger than me doesn't know what Oregon Trail is.

A few months ago the guys got in touch to ask if I'd produce some new events for the Director's Cut, to coincide with its release on new platforms. It's already out on just about everything from Android to Ouya to Steam, and I have no idea what the new platforms actually are, but I suppose the only possible options are further mobile/tablet platforms, or a console-based digital distribution store. The breakdown of the job was 30 events at 300 - 400 words per event, which is a good couple of weeks' work, but also constitutes a significant increase in the variety of events offered by the main game. At any rate, I said yes, and the results should be available at some indeterminate point in 2014.

The work is obviously quite similar in nature to what I'm doing on FTL, but it was interesting to be able to directly compare the different tones of the games, and how the subtleties of gameplay in each dictated unique structures for the events themselves. For instance, the core gameplay in FTL is quite detailed - you directly interact with your systems and crew - while in Organ Trail your buddies have no visual presence in gameplay, and the resources are limited to car parts, food, cash and bullets. In one way this limits the story, because there is less variety in what you can deliver gameplay-wise as the outcome to an event. You can't introduce a character in the story and then see them in gameplay during the next combat. However, because both combat and text events are relatively rare in Organ Trail, the narrative is freed of FTL's constant pressure to keep the word count to an absolute minimum, and to push towards combat-based outcomes. Every event in Organ Trail is as involved and varied as the 'big budget' events in FTL.

The tones differ as well. Justin set the style in FTL, and it's what I'd call a matter of fact attitude. Events are generally described in an objective way, without florid details or in depth character analyses. Organ Trail has a darker tone, and more room for detail. What's a zombie apocalypse without a little gore and despair?

So, you can grab Organ Trail right now for £2-£4, depending on your location and platform, or you can wait for the new platforms to be announced, along with the release of the new content I've been working on.

Here's a trailer.