Less is more in the right places: Why indie has taken over horror games
This isn't so much a report on a product, more just a series of observations, looking at this question: Nostalgia aside, why are simple, often pixellated indie games more popular than ever?
More that any other kind of media, video games are bound ultimately to the human experience where sensory input, nervous response and imagination tie together. In detail, this is, 1. how the game looks, 2. how efficiently it's programmed (concerning response time and how the controls work aesthetically), and 3. the concept & story the player experiences. These all work together, and are equally important. All three qualities are fundamental to a game's enjoyability, and the balance of each in turn affects the other. This is not tied necessarily to money or manpower, instead to a deep understanding and talent in creating experiences, often from just one individual or teams of very few people.
If a group of developers could make a game that is technically amazing, running at high frame rates with minimal response time, it would not be enjoyable as a finished product without this technical skill married to a knowledge of aesthetic. Conversely, amazing artists could team up to create stunning 3D models and animations, only finding that they display as fast as a slideshow before the computer crashes. To put the previous point differently, looks and efficiency need each other to lean on in telling a story.
It is only from the combination of art and programming that the experience inside a virtual world is created. Catering to the mind of the player is absolutely crucial, and this is what low-budget developers exploit. As with older mediums like film, the imagination of the consumer is more powerful than any technology. So if a game is extremely minimal, yet clearly and intelligently designed and written, indie studios can minimise cost, and maximise compatibility so that non-gaming optimised computers and smartphones are able to run the game. Showing a minimal amount of information in the right way, the gamer has can without thinking imagine the rest of the world for his or herself. As far as I have seen, horror-themed and more cerebrally unsettling games have boomed and improved artistically, even while having no promotion budget. Many are also free. The unsettling Stanley Parable, mod Dear Esther, LIMBO and ZX Spectrum-themed Organ Trail are all examples of making the intentionally obscure and unnatural truly unsettling. Scary comes from combining the normal and the feared, or abnormal. When my old laptop's volume control broke and it started playing music very loudly, I got a panicky adrenaline rush.It was totally mundane, but anything acting like it's possessed is more likely to create that reaction. Meanwhile, in AAA titles like Dead Space 3 and Resident Evil 5 create beautifully-rendered monsters that act exactly as expected, but fail to be truly scary.
With large companies trying to gloss over idiosyncrasies and end up with something marketable and unoriginal in equal measure, indie games seem to be doing so much better at their job - Minecraft, Crypt Worlds, Slender, and certainly the Amnesia have between them zero set pieces, and often zero weapons. They have less.
To focus on one, I would say that the free RPG Crypt Worlds is intentionally badly-designed in order to come across as unsettling and otherworldly, with 'off'-looking Imagery straight out of nightmares and descriptions of bad drug trips. Nothing quite sits right, and this extra energy required to navigate the world leaves the player permanently on-edge. With graphics that could run in 1993, it gets under the skin unlike anything I've ever played. Minecraft is similar at points.
I will probably go into this more in the future, perhaps not focusing so much on unsettling horror titles, but I hope you understand my take on why indie games as a genre are so successful. Their low budgets emphasise the one resource that the developers have: their brains. They focus on developing the human experience of the videogame rather than the technical achievements. And that's why minimalism will always work, whether that is a necessity or a stylistic choice.
Screenshots: Organ Trail: Directors Cut, Crypt Worldsy
