Contrary to popular belief, games don't always need huge budgets and teams of hundreds of worker drones toiling away under the watchful eye of whip-wielding overlords in order to be awesome. The thriving indie development scene continues to give birth to some of the weirdest, coolest, and most innovative games around. Indie Spotlight pulls back the curtain, taking a closer look at the world of independent game developers and the magic they make.
Into the Wild
Making games can be a lot like carving through a dense swath of carnivorous animal-filled jungle with a dull machete. The going can get rough, and it's easy to get lost, but a strong sense of direction -- and the drive to keep chopping away until you make it through to where you want to be -- is sometimes all you need to survive. This analogy is particularly fitting for Andy Schatz, founder of indie studio Pocketwatch Games. Deciding to set out on his own after muscling through a miserable stretch of working on triple-A games for other people, Schatz delved deep into the lush digital wilds, where he carved out a niche for himself making nature-themed wildlife simulation games. However, the musky scent of change is wafting in the cool night air, and it's called Monaco.
Though Schatz has been making games for much of his life, it wasn't until he spent a few years working his ass off on big console games that he gained the perseverance and resolve to stay afloat in the game development world. "Working on other people's crappy projects, pulling all-nighters, and getting little credit for being a cog in a big generic machine while working for a corrupt boss really drove the nail into the coffin," says Schatz, who quit his programming job with the intention of attending business school and starting a game development company afterward. Ironically, getting rejected from all the schools he applied to happened to be just what Schatz needed. He decided to go for it: "Six years later, I'm incredibly grateful to have been rejected."
Inspired by Schatz's love of nature, Pocketwatch Games' debut projects revolved around creating balanced ecosystems populated by a cornucopia of wild animals. Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa and follow-up Venture Arctic both garnered numerous awards and saw successful sales in the casual gaming realm. More importantly, they served as an outlet for Schatz to explore new gaming territory. "I grew up with a nerdy science dad, and I'm a lot like him," he says. "When I go for hikes, I like to see the systems at work in nature. For instance, I'm a big fan of watching bird behavior, and trying to interpret their chatter is a game in itself. There are just so many systems in nature that are ripe for exploration in games. It's just that no one has really tackled the subject [well] before."
Following the launch of his first two titles, Schatz fell into a design rut with the Venture series, and decided it was time to break out of the mold he'd designed himself. Digging up a pet project he'd designed in 2003, he set to work on creating Monaco -- a game about, as he puts it, "stealing shit." A major change of pace from Schatz's past efforts, Monaco is a 2D heist game that can be played solo or with up to three other friends. The general idea is to run around grabbing loads of sweet loot without getting caught -- but stealing stuff in sneaky ways plays out very differently, depending on which of the game's eight classes you're using. The Hacker can take down security systems, for example, while the Cleaner can use chloroform to incapacitate guards.
Cooperative multiplayer matches are a frantic affair, though Monaco is a much stealthier game when playing solo, Schatz says. "You have to be much more careful, because you don't have a teammate to revive you if you screw up," he notes. "That said, you don't have any teammates screwing everything up, so that's good." For the most part, Schatz has been working on the game alone since 2009, but lately, he's been starting to bring in other folks in to help out as the game progresses in development. Monaco is planned for release on PC and at least one of the major consoles, though a release date hasn't been set.
One of the great things about independent development is that people can make awesome games without lots of expensive tools and fancy hardware. All they need is a strong enough desire. Schatz believes too many excellent game designers got sucked into the realm of big studio development because that was the only way to make a living. Things have changed a bit, now that indie games are starting to make money. "Making games as an indie developer feels exactly like what you dream of as a kid," he says. "You get to come up with crazy ideas... and then you get to build them. You simply don't get to bring ideas all the way from conception to reality when you are working at a big publisher."
Nathan Meunier is a freelance writer and indie gaming enthusiast who likes his pixels jaggy and his tunes blippy. He writes about video games and geek/gaming culture for GameSpy, IGN, Nintendo Power, GamePro, and many other fine publications. See what he's up to at NathanMeunier.com.
