The "Indie" Bums

[icycalm]

What's hilarious about that dude is that the only reason he now loves Ketsui is because I told him to love it; I even EXPLAINED to him why he should love it -- and he's now parading my arguments back to me as if I wasn't the one who MADE them in the first place! And now that I am telling him there might be higher games than that, he is unwilling to listen; even worse, he presumes to LECTURE me on the subject -- this pitiful little wretch thinks he's become an expert now! He's turned his ceiling into everyone's ceiling so as not to feel bad about his insufficiencies!

[icycalm]

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?t ... #msg520065

Wow, PleasingFungus, why don't you be a little more condescending while you're putting words in my mouth and missing the point besides. I mean, thanks for explaining to me why age of majority laws exist, as if I am an alien with no concept of your Earth practices. That really helped. Sheesh. And those last two paragraphs, where you place the error on my lack of clarity instead of your lack of comprehension...

But, let me try again:

1. Children, left to their own devices, will make themselves miserable.
2. This is not a trait that is cured with age, but proper guidance.
3. Parents/teachers/critics/philosophers provide that guidance.
4. Children often resist this kicking and screaming.

Please do not make me "clarify" why this applies to adults, video games, icycalm, or any of the other topics in this thread. It's a very simple point. I understand that you are trying to pay close attention to the exact words being used, which is a good habit, but you will never get anywhere without making some generalizations.

This is Incision's posting history:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?a ... s;start=15

No need to read what he's replying to -- he's quoted the relevant parts. Just read his posting history from bottom to top. Hasn't made any mistakes as far as I can see. He's probably "Worm" from this forum, by the way. And "milk" is probably "Gardenia" from this thread:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=28676

[icycalm]

Oh look, another independent developer that is snubbed by The Independent Gaming Source:

http://kotaku.com/#!5772741/think-fast- ... t-kick-ass

"What is great about being an independent developer is that we make the calls on what we create," he said. "We aren't a racing studio, shooter studio, platform studio. We just make the games we like.

Hear that, scammers? THEY "MAKE THE GAMES THEY LIKE". No one forces them to make anything. THEY "MAKE THE CALLS ON WHAT THEY CREATE". SO WHY IS RESISTANCE 3 NOT FEATURED ON YOUR SCAM-SITE? PERHAPS BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MAKE ANYTHING ANYWHERE NEAR AS AMAZING AS THAT?

The Independent Gaming Source, lol. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

[icycalm]

In response to a speech given by an "indie" bum:

http://www.smf4free.com/forums/afterpar ... tml#msg728

There's a lot that is wrong with the speech, but I'm only going to touch on a couple of the aspects that seem most important to me.

For one, the guy's thesis hinges upon the supposition that the layman can be a competent game developer. As such, he hypes the way in which Game Maker and internet are supposedly going to herald in an era of delightful, twee games that will be "indie" by virtue of the fact that they're not published by any major developer (in addition to the fact that they'll most likely be thematically and mechanically similar). I find this supposition to be quite laughable. The main reason is this: if one is to assume that a tool like Game Maker is going to usher in an era of great games, then one must also believe that the invention of the piano was what caused compositional masterpieces of piano to be created and not, y'know, the years of studying, the theory, the practice and the dedication. To assume that the tool itself leads to greatness (in both music and game design) is silly.

He goes on, slighting professional game developers by calling them nerds. To quote, he says:

...games made by everyone, for everyone. Not games by the same small handful of nerds, for the same nerds to play.

This would come off as vaguely insulting if it weren't the same as saying "not games by the same small handful of professionals, for the same professionals to play."

Finally, the guy wraps up the speech by rather hilariously misattributing the stigma surrounding the word "indie". He claims that the stigma surrounding the word "indie" is one that makes indie games seem like they're part of a secret club or separate from proper games, rather than the correct stigma: they're underdeveloped, simplistic games.

http://www.smf4free.com/forums/afterpar ... tml#msg751

The IGF is a strange place to promote the rightful debasement of the indie developers. First he attacks the "indie" label, and the circlejerk it has created, when of course it is that label that protects the developers from criticism, the reason that Cave Story and Super Meat Boy have metacritic scores of 90. It is the suggestion of hard working, game loving underdog developers that raises mediocre games in the eyes of the critics to the level of masterpiece. And he wants to take that away!

http://www.smf4free.com/forums/afterpar ... tml#msg753

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." — Edsger W. Dijkstra

Same thing goes with Game Maker, which is in fact so simple that you don't even need to learn programming at all.

[icycalm]

HEY GUYS I KNOW ALL U WANT TO KNOW IS HOW TO PRODEDURAL GENERAT EVEBYTHING COS ITS THE CURRENT BUZZ TERM AND U WANT TO BE HIP N KOOL SO LETS GET IN TO THE TIPS

1. USE GAMEMAKER AND OR UNITY
U CAN ONLY USE THESE PROGRAM BUT OTHER HIP ALTERNATIVS INCLUDE "LOVE" AND "FLASH"

2. RAND() IS UR FREIND
U HAV TO RANDOM EVERYTHING THAT HOW U PROCEDUALR GENERAT THINGS

3. HOW BIG AND RANDOM THE MAP IS WAT MATTERS
MAK THE LEVEL SIZE 1000000000X 10000000

4. USE CAVE TILE
USING CAVE TILE HELP MAKS UR GAME LOOK LIKE CAVE STORY. OTHER ALTERNATIV IS GRASS TILE

5. MAKE IT A PLATFORMER OR A ROGUELIKE
ONLY THESE GENERES ARE PROCEDURALLABLE

6. REMEMBER TO USE THE TERM PROCEDURAL GENERATION WHENEVER POSSIBLE
IT MAKS U LOOK INTELIGENT

7. RAND() IS UR FRIEND... BUT 2 RANDS() ARE MORE KOOL
IT MAKE IT EVEN MORE RANDOM AND UNRPREDICTABL

8. DONT WORY ABOUT HOW THE LEVEL LOOK
THINKING IS TO HARD. GO BACK TO TIP 4 TO REMEDY THIS PROBLEM

9. DONT WORY ABOUT REPETITION
PEOPL LIKE EXPLORING NOTHING AS LONG AS IT BIG AND RANDOM AND YOU COLLECT COINS

10. USE PIXEL ART
IT FIT THE THEME OF LEVEL BEING ABSTRACT AND CAVE TILE

11. DONT MAKE CONTENT
REMEMBER THE ONLY REASON FOR PROCEDURAL GENERATION: TO NOT MAKE ANYTHING YOURSELF

12. ONLY LET THE PLAYER EITHER JUMP AND MOVE
REMEMBER MINIMALISM IS KOOL

13. ALSO USE THE TERM "EXPLORATION" IN CONJUNCTION WITH "PROCEDURAL GENRATION"
THIS WILL GUARANTEE AN INDIE MEGAHIT, ALSO EXCUSES STEP 12

14. ALSO USE THE TERM "MINIMALISM"
SEE TIP 13

15. PLATFORMER GIMMICK
EVERY PLATFORMER REQUIRES 1 GIMMICK. HOWEVER HAVING PROCEDURAL GENERAITON COVERS THE QUOTA

WELL WHAT DO U DO AFTER U MADE THIS AMAZING GAME USING THES TIPS??? WEL NOW IT TIME TO MARKET

16. IGF ACHIEVEMTN UNLOCKD
YOU HAVE PROCEDURAL GENERATION. YOU WILL BE NOMINATED FOR A TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

17. INFLUENCES
REMEMBER UR INFLUNENCES ARE THE GAME FROM THE 1980 ALSO MENTION THE TERM METROIDVANIA

18. ORIGINALITY
ALWAYS SAY UR GAME IS COMPELTELY ORIGINAL. ALSO MENTION MADDEN HERE FOR BONUS POINTS

19. SELL UR GAME
MAKE SURE U MENTION TATH THERE IS NO DRM COS UR NOT A CORPORATE MONSTER. ALSO MENTION THAT UR THE ONLY ONE MAKING THE GAME FOR MAXIMUM GUILT TRIP

20. UR ULTIMATE GOAL
THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO HAV THE GAME FEATURE BY TIMW. THIS MIGHT NOT HAPPEN ANYMORE BECAUSE OF THE CLOWN MICHAEL ROSE

OK THATS IT I HOPE U LIKE THE TIPS. THIS IS TRIED N TRUE WAY TO MAKE A PROCEDURAL GENERATION

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=18516.0

[JoshF]

Independent studios often make remakes with the goal of improving on classic games. "Independent" designers prefer "demakes," with the goal of downgrading modern and classic titles. Independent studios sometimes succeed in their goal, and "Independent" designers always do.

Demakes allow amateur video game designers to implement the concept and feel of a complex, high-budget, professionally made video game, in a simpler form–something that would not otherwise be within their capabilities. Popular demakes include Portal's Flash version; Rockman 7 Fc and Rockman 8 Fc, NES-styled demakes of Mega Man 7 and 8; Gang Garrison 2, a pixelated demake of Team Fortress 2; and Halo 2600, an Atari 2600 style demake of Microsoft's Halo series.[2] For much of the 1990s in China and Hong Kong, black market "demakes" of popular contemporary hits for the PlayStation such as Final Fantasy VII and other "next-generation" systems were often made for the NES (and even sometimes porting SNES games to the NES) — the system that many Chinese continued to own and purchase because of its comparative cheapness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_remake#.22Demakes.22

[JoshF]

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=36773

[icycalm]

http://kotaku.com/5804041/if-dadaists-o ... -like-this

B.U.T.T.O.N is a game in which a group of players are kept in suspense, guessing at an objective—will the winner be the first to press a button on the Xbox controller? The fifth? When the goal flicks across the screen, the players rush at one another and the controller bank, wildly reinventing the nature of the experience each round.

Innovative!

[icycalm]

This is how they rationalize their existence to themselves:

http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopi ... 658#947658

artfag is the perfect word to describe it because it is art, ie something impossible to understand and so threatening, and faggotry, ie something that looks fun but yr too scared to try

lol. Having someone shove a cock up my ass looks fun but I am too scared to to try it lol. And they actually believe that. And of course the standard "art is impossible to understand". Which is also true -- IF YOUR STOOPID!

[icycalm]

http://mindprobe.co/forum/index.php?topic=99.0

[Nic P]

Man, that thing is a treasure trove of stupidity (most of it from the actual subject of ridicule). But yeah, lol.

[icycalm]

Here is an example of how an amateur designer should present himself and his work:

http://alastairjohnjack.com/

He calls himself an amateur instead of making up meaningless labels, he realizes how far away from the professionals he is (see how he rates his games), and he is on the right track theory-wise to making better games (earlier games had grinding; latest one seems to be arcade-conception), and finally he reads this site and has an account here! Now all we need is a bunch more amateurs to follow his example, and I'll be able to say that, in this aspect of the game industry at least, "my work here is done".