pixel art Metroidvania roguelike genre
deconstruction welcome to watchmojo.com
and today we’re counting down our picks
for the top 10 indie game cliches before
we begin we publish new videos every day
so be sure to subscribe for more great
content for this list we’ll be looking
at the most notable indie game tropes
and cliches and poking fun at them a
little bit we’re not saying these
cliches are inherently bad or that they
make the games we mentioned bad by
extension in fact most of the games
we’ll use as examples are actually
really really good
anyway here we go but Stanley didn’t
want to go back to the office he wanted
to wonder about and get even further off
track number 10 synth soundtrack
you don’t know what it is with Cynthia
indie game developers but they certainly
seem to love it actually I totally know
what it is it’s because of the ages many
games have incorporated a synth wave
sound in recent years including hotline
Miami fury and defragmented and while we
certainly love us some badass eighties
if the game isn’t incorporating synth
wave it will undoubtedly beat chip tune
that gloriously retro 8-bit sound from
the 80s and 90s which is made from
synthesizers the emergence of this type
of music is probably due to both its low
cost and the retro appeal of the games
it appears in so indie games and
synthesizers basically go together like
[Music]
to go with their synth wave chiptune
soundtracks any developers absolutely
love writing big stories and characters
usually as it means to be artistic these
fake plot elements come in a variety of
factors some games have fake characters
with unclear motivations and
relationships like rate sometimes entire
stories are left open to interpretation
like an inside journey while we’ve loved
a little bit of interpretation
you can almost guarantee that an indie
game believes some form of its story
even complete or intentionally unclear
[Music]
a berate minimal instructions it seems
like indie game developers have taken a
page from the from software design book
when it comes to instructions the fewer
the better in many indie titles the
player is simply plopped into the game
with no idea what to do where to go who
you are or even kind of play
the devs here are simply saying here you
go figure it out for yourself which is
both relief and sometimes a bit of an
obstacle some upcoming games like fan
are considering this approach but the
key is striking the right balance and
communicating the game mechanics to the
player in ways that feel natural which
we gotta say a lot of indie games do
quite well west-northwest so there’s two
philosophies I’m going to do it now or
do we do it way later number seven
breaking the fourth wall if the story is
in Fager confusing it will break the
conventions of its genre in a way that
just basically screams I’m so clever I
totally watch Rick and Morty while we
aren’t knocking these gifted writers you
can only subvert expectations so much
before the subversions themselves become
cliche undertale is a prime example of
this convention as it plays with RPG
tropes and other games like the Stanley
parable break the fourth wall and
experiment with the conventions of games
as a storytelling medium while this
trope is not as common to some of the
others on this list it’s beginning to
crop up more and more now it’s time to
start subverting those subversions come
to think of it I don’t know what that
means
no jokes no games outside of this room I
might be more tolerant of those things
but now we’re in the number six pastel
indie games can be fun and innocent
little experiences it stands to reason
then that they enjoy some fun colors
many indie games love to use the pastel
color scheme with colors ranging from
light green to a few games like braids
use a lot of greens yellows and blues
while other titles like fast employ a
wider variety of colors but mostly in a
pastel scheme while it’s certainly true
that not every indie game does this
there’s no denying that many of them
love to use the childish bright innocent
colors it gives them that cute charisma
they’re usually known for
number five highbrow writing
a lot of indie games features
storytelling flourishes that somewhat
label as you know pretentious and as a
result we got a lot of games with
extremely high brow writing leading to
online discussions about what the game
quote means Jonathan Blow the creator of
games like braid and the witness has
become the poster boy for this sort of
thing however he’s totally not the only
one
games like loved also employ this sort
of thing to similar effect we’re not
saying that intelligent and
thought-provoking writing in games is a
bad thing these are all great games and
interesting stories but they contribute
to the reputation that indie games have
for taking themselves have been too
number four spiritual succession ah back
and functioning normally it would appear
what on earth has happened it’s chaos
everywhere how to market your indie game
say it’s like ex meets ex and then throw
around the word spiritual successor
these are the games that are clearly
inspired by extremely popular old
franchises and tow the line between
inspiration and copying but that are
made for about a tenth of the budget
mighty number 9 was a failed spiritual
successor to Mega Man by people who
worked on the franchise torchlight is
basically a love letter to RPGs like
Diablo and come on there’s an entire
genre known as Metroidvania for crying
out loud what do you think they were
inspired by number three flavors of the
week I got shot by a guy in a tree Nora
hold on hold on popular games come and
go and with them you can be sure that a
million clones will sprout out to leech
off their popularity and goodwill unlike
our last entry which focus on the
influence of older games that might not
be so popular anymore these games are
just basically ripoffs once minecraft
shot to stardom there were a million
games in its wake with more or less the
exact same thing heck we even made a top
10 about it look it up right now top 10
minecraft clones
anyway while they are noticeably easier
on our wallets than the real thing
indie games are supposed to be about
innovation be on the lookout for a wave
of play around knowns battlegrounds copy
hats to start rearing their ugly heads
oh wait that’s already happening isn’t
number two a Kickstarter campaign with
most indie games comes a Kickstarter
campaign and as we’ve learned throughout
the years a lot of those come to nothing
and end up being massive disappointments
to all involved Kickstarter for the few
who are – where is a website in which
fans can give the developer money in
exchange for exclusive goods and
services it’s a great way for legitimate
developers to earn some money and have
their dream financed but many campaigns
don’t go anywhere and the developers
just kind of take the money and run
nowadays it’s all but unheard of for an
independent game to come as a surprise
they all go to Kickstarter or some other
form of crowdfunding Kickstarter is a
perfect framework to do this kind of
we get it developing video games is
expensive and for independent companies
or individual fella person it just costs
way too much to produce a triple a
worthy graphical experience as a result
a large amount of indie games have retro
style graphics usually a nice style of
eight or 16-bit many games like braid
and spelunky have adopted these
side-scrolling gameplay and graphics of
old and titles like to the moon and
hotline Miami employ the old-school
top-down perspective to keep an
authentic nostalgic experience if you
want to relive the pixelated classic
games of old with a modern twist the
indie market definitely has you covered
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