Maybe that whole article was concocted up for the sake of throwing in a gratuitous Blade Runner reference that might have popped up in a convo the author had, and he then felt like the thought was brilliant enough to build an article around it.

Either way, I don't quite get what the commotion is about. Both AAA and indie game developers are in a pyramid, only a few at the top and many at the bottom. Same as any other line of work. This has always been like that and most probably always will be until the days rivers start flowing upwards. OK, the overall size of the cake has grown because of all the casual gamers that didn't exist 20 years ago, but its's still a pyramid. Just because a select few indie games made big bucks doesn't mean there was this big revolution that now falters away.

PS: buy The Samaritan Paradox, we need more of that stuff

Back in march, Sir Molyneux also talked about the bubble.

Arggg, another adventure game. Is it really worth it? A little tired by all the adventure games I buy on gog but never play.


Do indies love making adventure games as it is cheaper to produce?

I am no expert, but it seems to me that they only need to think up a story and some puzzles and draw some more scene, you got another adventure game ready.

Compare to the time for RPG in addition to those effort above you need to tweak game play balance, test the flow of the game, test for bugs, generate much more scene, battles, sprite, animation, music for varied places and mood, test for beta.

Only very good adventure games can stay afloat. And there are few good Indie RPG due to the upfront effort required. But this is only my opinion.

Well, getting some cent each from hundreds of thousands of people gets you more money than indies were able to get before all these bundles and massive discounts.

I don't think, that the bubble will be popping soon, it may inflate up to a point though, were people will pay a cent for a game to the developer and the developers still get a fair amount of money because many people will shove it into their evergrowing backlog although they would never have bought it at a real price.

The bad side of all this is, that some masterpieces don't get the attention they deserve, but as long as the developer gets paid and was able to make his vision of the game come true, it's not as bad, the same is happening with music for decades although most musicians don't earn anything with their art and can be happy if they are not making negative profit because of all the equipment and time.
Programmers don't need as much equipment and don't need to travel around, so the situation there will stay better anyway (at least if you don't take this artificial/programmed electro stuff into account).

Speaking of bubbles, proffesional game engines is getting a lot cheaper also.

For $500 you can lease the CryEngine for about 4 years, and there is no royalties involved
$19 pm + 5% royalties gives you Unreal Engine
$75 pm give you Unity Pro

Creating games with professional tools is no longer a barrier.

I think you already answered both of your questions here yourself. ;)

Also: "it seems to me that they only need to think up a story and some puzzles and draw some more scene, you got another adventure game ready" - that's a pretty big "only". You could say something similar about other game genres, too, like "to make an RPG, you just have to fill an empty world with monsters, write up some quests and add some numbers to it". Whether that simplistic recipe will result in a good RPG is another matter entirely, same as with adventure games. If you want to create a good adventure game, coming up with a story and puzzles and drawing the scenes for it can be a pretty challenging task. Regardless, like you say, it is a more realistic and manageable project for individuals with small budget, since noone expects an adventure game to have 40+ hours of content.

True, that's why till now I fail to find a good RPG that is up to standards like Wizardry 8 or Strategy RPG like age of Wonder from indie dev

Those that are just decent have Paper Sorcerer have shortcoming in some sort like graphical presentation and length

They can be good on game play and lack in story or vice versa.

indeed, but it tends to be one of the largest barriers. Do not forget that each of the ones listed are more than just graphics engines, though.

I would also like to point to this article:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MeganFox/20140527/218539/Indie_Bubble_Buts_What_Do_We_Do_Now.php

"[...] First of all, if you're only targetting Steam, that's a huge issue. GOG.com is an increasingly important part of desktop gaming, and if you aren't short-sighted about your tech (ahem, seriously, please don't write your own engine, even for simple 2D games), mobile ports are probably a button push away. [...]"

and there is a large discussion in the comments section on this point.

That's just the author's personal biass. ;)

An indie adventure game with full voice acting could end up costing more to develop than an indie RPG without voice work.
A fully fleshed out RPG might involve more work than a fully fleshed out point & click adventure but not necessarily. In terms of development hours vs playtime hours, adventure games are probably more work than RPGs since adventure games are usually much shorter and RPGs can draw out playtime with battles that keep reusing the same assets. RPGs often recycle and stretch out their own assets (multiple enemy types made from same base sprite etc) while adventure games have lots of screens that you pass through only once. I think it's impossible to say which is more work, highly depends on the production values, style and scale of the project.
I think the amount of work that goes into point & click adventure games is gravely underestimated. Even if you use the AGS engine, you have to make all the assets from scratch (backgrounds, sprites, sound effects, music, etc.
One thing that's particularly hard is designing puzzles, try to come up with good puzzles that don't seem borrowed from older games but at the same time aren't so off-the-wall that the average gamer can't figure them out. This must be devilishly hard work. Just because we play through adventure games in a handful hours doesn't mean the game didn't require hundreds or even thousands of hours of work. I have the highest respect for indie developers like Petter Ljungqvist who pretty much made The Samaritan Paradox all by himself.

Well does Petter Ljungqvist have a great game or done anything to warrant people patronage?
Anyway I trust you as a fellow GOGer and went on to buy it.

If you like to support one man team indie I would recommend you Matt Roszak
http://kupogames.com/
I PM you a gift of his game, Epic Battle Fantasy 4 to see his work.

I support him because instead of crying of the indie bubble and whatnot, he creates a string of good games that are TRUELY FREE to play WITHOUT MICRO TRANSACTION for time wall, difficulty wall, grind wall to build up his reputation and loyal fan base.

This game visual is colorful and aesthetically pleasing, story humorous, game play wizardry like and……
I am not the greatest reviewer so head over the link below and see all the good things people say about him
http://store.steampowered.com/app/265610/

If you see the review section, from all 138 review, only 1 review is not recommended, which is quite rare to see in steam.
That attests to his popularity and game quality.
You can check his other TRUE Free to play games in Kongregate. Even Epic Battle Fantasy 4 free to play version with less content does not diminish game play experience.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/kupo707/epic-battle-fantasy-4
I can vouch for that because I only play the Kongeregate premium version despite having the steam version due to time constrain. (Brief playing the steam version to check new feature does not count)

Thanks a bunch Gnostic for surprise gifting me Epic Battle Fantasy 4, much appreciated! I'm downloading it right now. Since you're full of praise of Matt Roszak's work, I'm looking forward to playing this game.


I hope you'll find enjoyment in The Samaritan Paradox which I have praised in several posts, admittedly I'm a bit biased towards traditional point & click adventure games but I do feel that this game is an excellent addition to the genre and is not getting nearly as much attention as it deserves, partly due to having been released in the middle of a series of awesome GOG sales with plenty of adventures and also shortly before the release of the highly awaited Blackwell Epiphany.
Perhaps a lot of people assumed that The Samaritan Paradox is just another one of those numerous AGS adventures many which you can get for free and will rather spend their money on developers such as Wadjet Eye games who make great games but are already well established and proven to be great.
It's so hard for newcomer developers (especially indie ones who can't afford PR campaigns) to brake into a market that is saturated, with gamers having way too many games at their disposal already. If I hadn't relied on pure gut instinct, I most likely would have missed out on The Samaritan Paradox altogether. It turned out to be the closest thing to the genre's classics I've seen in a long time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc26EKhZNyM

Heh heh heh :)

Just so you know there are Indie games I do like.

One Late Night. Mark of the Ninja. Primordia.