IndieMonth is indie-ing. I mean ending. Maybe both. Tomorrow is the last day, and it's a doozy!
Before you all scatter, here's your chance:
What did you think of this inaugural IndieMonth?
Love it? Hate it? Feel fierce ambivalence?
What was your favorite type of content - did you have a least favorite type of content?
Want more of something and less of something else?
Find games you never heard of, or games you wish you never heard of? ;)
Whew, okay, that was scary. This is scary. I'm still in the very raw "I made this thing and now you all are going to talk about it" phase of indie development of IndieMonth. ;) I CAN DO THIS! (be gentle)
Also think it's a good time to answer some of the natural "it's ending!" questions:
Q. Will there be another IndieMonth?
A. Yes, we're planning on it - also planning on it being bigger, better and even more spectacular!
Q. Can you cover _____?
A. We'll be setting up a way for devs to be suggested and devs to suggest themselves - but for everyone that submitted a request during this past month for *this* month, suffice it to say the participants were committed months in advance of July (all that content takes time!)
Q. Prizes.
A. That wasn't really a question, but I get you - there's a natural lag in prize awarding so to spare you undue pain and suffering I update the "Contest Blog" for each day with a note when those codes have been sent to the winners. All remaining prize tickets will be issued the end of the first week of August.
(I think that covers the biggies, but if you have more I'll answer in the comments or update this)
WTMG's Leo Faria: "The Switch version of Sticky Business is less of a game, and more of a very clunky and shallow creative tool with not a lot to entice players for long. The progression system is silly, the gameplay loop lacks any kind of excitemente, and the controls and interface are embarassingly bad, never taking advantage of the Switch’s touchscreen, or even giving us the bare minimum of a completely cursor-based interface. There’s just no sense of accomplishment while playing it. It’s just downright frustrating. If you really want to play Sticky Business, and come up with your sticker empire of sorts (hey, I’m not judging), just stick to the PC version."
We were expecting problems with mod support, but there are a lot of other issues.
Not accidental, they want modders to stop modding their older games to force them to mod Shitfield.
Over 14 GBs and doesn't change much at all? What? Taking up that much drive space for a pathetic 'remastering' is shameful.
Par for Bethesda.
LOL people are actually expecting massive improvements or something? From Bethesda?? the same people who released Skyrim multiple times and the all look like shit? THAT Bethesda? are people for real?
The ps5 version doesn't change a ton but from my small playtime it's enough to make me want to replay it just to have it running at 60.
A side note to this my PS4 version no longer boots after it's "update" so I guess that's what it feels like to own a Bethesda game on PC
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
Don't be scared :p
Gotta say...really liked indie month. Even without prizes there was a lot of interesting Q&A's, interviews, and a few great looking games I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Plus I finally got to see what a N4G ticket looks like! :)
Thank you and everyone else that took part writing all these blogs and putting this whole thing together.
Great job!
I shall answer each question as if in an interview!!
What did you think of this inaugural IndieMonth?
It was spectacular! A really unique idea that gets the community talking!
Love it?
HELL YEA!!
Hate it?
HELL NAH!!
Feel fierce ambivalence?
Maybe on certain games, but not generally about the entire month.
What was your favorite type of content - did you have a least favorite type of content?
I would say my favorite type was reading about the devs and games I already knew about, but didn't really KNOW about.
Want more of something and less of something else?
More IndieMonth or ___Months in the future!! Less wait between them!
Find games you never heard of, or games you wish you never heard of?
I'd say I only know between 5 and 10 of the games, and they are mainly the more popular ones. I'm not generally an Indie guy but this month really opened my eyes to some amazing stuff! I'm happy to hear about all of them and all of the teams making them!
I liked it I saw a lot of good stuff that would never have made it unto my radar.
It was good to have games at a stage where some gameplay could be shown - Some of it was very text heavy and because it was the Dev talking about their own game, it could not be seen as unbiased.
I myself have received some opinions about indie month and have my own. Once indie month is over, I'll be writing a blog on it. The TL;DR of it is "Good idea with potential, but there are problems."
I loved indie month, it was so much fun reading up on a game that looked awesome and then checking the ticket to see that you can actually experience it for yourself. I played a few great games such as a story about my uncle & ASM which I never would have been able to play. But my favorite was the Stanley parable thanks to indie month! It should be done again. I know there's monthly prizes and stuff but IMO, this was the best.