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[img width=616 height=353]https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/589500/capsule_616x353.jpg[/img]
Ah, Shovel Knight. The poster child and gold standard for a successful Kickstarter. Also an excellent game!
In decades past, development studios would plot out a game concept, determine its viability, assign a team, and dedicate funds and resources to make the game concept a reality. Sometimes the funds would come from an outside publisher or other interested party, and other times the development studio was part of a publisher, so it would be funded internally. If a game was fully developed, it would "go gold" and be submitted for approval by the company whose platform on which the game was to appear. Once approval was given, it would go into a queue for manufacturing, and the advertising hype cycle could begin.
That model still exists, of course, and is still used by many companies. But over the last decade, a new paradigm has gone from a novelty to a norm. With the rise of indie gaming, many smaller studios have sought other means of funding their creations. Couple that with developers from the old guard who want to continue to make retro-styled games or smaller adventures that don't warrant big budgets, and the larger publishing houses often see those projects as loss leaders, and they get very little attention next to the big franchises. The new paradigm for self-contained experiences is crowdfunding.
Continue reading Crowdfunding And The New Normal
 So, I checked the IndieGames Weblog yesterday, and their freeware game of the day was a game called Rom Check Fail.
Just what is Rom Check Fail? Turns out this game was made for a competition on another site I lurk, The Indpendent Gaming Source (aka: TIGSource). This competition was to make a game based on whatever title this video game name generator chooses. However, the creator of the game decided to break the rules of the competition and do what he calls a "video game generator".
Rom Check Fail is like a broken emulator that glitches by throwing in random music, characters, levels, and gameplay. The object of the game is to defeat all the enemies in a level, however that will not be easy because every five seconds or so, the gameplay, music, and characters will change on you. For example, you could start out as Pac-Man trying to eat the power dot and turn Asteroids into ghosts, then the next second you could be Link trying to stab some Goombas, and then finally Mario trying to jump on some Space Invaders. Sometimes, what the game does may not work out, but that's ok because it's randomly generated combinations.
If you love games, which I assume you do, then you've got to check this game out. It's free and is a small 2.6 MB download. You can get it at Farbs.org.
While I'm at it, I'd like to feature some of the other standout games entered in this competition.
Emo Harvest on the Oregon Trail
Morbidly Obese Workout Man
Planet of the Forklift Kid
Furry Punching Nitro
Extreme Bedtime: The Next Generation
Super Mario vs Programming In China (made by someone so indie he doesn't need computers to play. And create games.)
I haven't played every game, but I enjoyed or got a laugh out of those games I just listed. If I find any other great ones, I'll post them in the comment.
You can view every entry in the competition, including the ones I just listed, at TIGSource. Monocles are optional.
[Source: IndieGames.com - The Weblog]
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