Did you think that playing videogames was simple fun? The formats may have varied over the years, but that's been one clear theme all the way through. For example, nowadays playing videogames might be joyfully waving your Nintendo-crazed arms about in front of the TV or getting addicted to a browser-based Flash game while at work (kindly don't check Jay is Games if your coworkers are expecting you to complete any crucial tasks this week). A few years ago it might have been pumping quarters into the arcade machine or enjoying the adrenaline rush of first-person shooters of the Doom/Quake era. It's all just good fun, right? Entertainment of the disposable kind?

Maybe. But maybe much more. The people who see potential in videogames have big dreams, enormous dreams. The ambitions are so huge that it's really hard to see how to get there from here. Allow me to quote Greg Costikyan to show the full extent of the ambition:

I want you to imagine a 21st century in which games are the predominant artform of the age, as film was of the 20th, and the novel of the 19th; in which the best games are correctly lauded as sublime products of the human soul. . .

I want you to imagine a world where it [is] understood that continuing to play into adulthood is not failing to grow up, but rather preserving the flexibility and ability to learn that is essential in an era of rapid technological change. I want you to imagine a world in which the enormous expressive potential of our medium is no longer potential, but reality.

We have a long way to go!

That's especially true since Costikyan is one of the people who thinks the current system of producing games is profoundly broken. I won't summarize all of his arguments, but see the sidebar for some of the high points. Essentially, he argues that once the cost of producing a game becomes too high, all chance of creativity and experiment is squelched. That's a death spiral, as games get less and less innovative. The only way out seems to be an emphasis on the indie side of producing videogames, in the mode of small presses for the book publishing industry.

I don't know enough about the nuances of the industry to argue for or against the position. And I'm not sure if I see a way from Point A, today's perception of games as fun but mindless, to Point B, some future utopia where games can fulfill so many human and creative urges. But that's fine; I'm just a consumer who enjoys the games currently available. If I could identify the way forward and actually had the knack to make games, I would be out there doing it! And there are plenty of people who are trying. They might be going in a few crazy directions (and dozens of slavishly imitative directions), but that's the point, as we'll see. Will indie games save the future of entertainment? Beats me. Are they currently fun? Let's find out . . .

An Aside for Some Controversy

Bluntly: the term "indie" is worse than useless. It's often actively misleading, and it's a label almost inevitably bound to be misused in marketing. For an optimistic look at the distinction between "indie" and other types of creative production, see this blog post. Interestingly, the reckless use of the word in question led to this rant in response:

When most say "indie" to describe their production, concept, artistic statement, etc., they mean it to infuse a sense of hip, underground, and edgy into their operation. It's used as a marketing term. It means to a fan or vendor or investor that your operation is rooted in core development values, pure of intent, uninfluenced by a "corporate" world driven by profit motive.

When I hear the term "indie" in association with media, I instantly think just the opposite. I think of a business that is undercapitalized, devoid of strong managerial acumen, and without strong marketing to access customers and fulfill their expectations over time in the form of customer support.

Strong words, and ones that misunderstand at least some of what's at stake. From my limited perspective as a consumer, I've only seen support for the exact opposite point of view: too much money gets thrown at the big titles for them to do anything interesting, and the result is an inevitable decline or complete implosion of the field. There has to be space to be creative, and the people taking chances are the ones who make these kinds of advances. Not to rule out innovative work from big companies or crap from the little ones of course, but if it's a matter of degree, the situation has moved too far towards the overly expensive duds. Besides, I'm always in favor of shaking things up!

Finding the Gems

It's remarkably hard to find the good videogames, just like locating the best items in any creative field. Is the situation more difficult for indie videogames in particular? I'll grant that at least part of the "undercapitalized indie" accusation is true: if a company is throwing millions of dollars at a product, you can reasonably expect, dud or no, a certain level of polish (whether these expectations are fulfilled is a debate for another day). When it's me and my friends in my garage, we might not be able to clear all of the technical hurdles involved in creating software, never mind our ambition. Money does talk, at least to a certain extent. But if we take it as given that the indie gems are out there somewhere, how to find them?

This seems to be a challenge tailor-made for the distributed recommendation machine known as the Internet! Any number of blogs come to mind. Tales of the Rampant Coyote is excellent, especially if you're interested in indie RPGs. I like GameSetWatch for its coverage of a wide variety of related topics, like reviews of game magazines, retrospectives of games from the past, and all the latest news. Dubious Quality is slightly more personal. Some of the blogs come with a built-in bias due to the writer's attachment to some project, like Costikyan and Manifesto Games. But I guess that's how blogs work—you can be drawn into someone's world if they are a compelling writer. I know I'm far more likely to try Rampant Coyote's next game now that I've been reading all about its genesis.

For a site slightly more formalized than a blog, I would recommend GameTunnel. GameTunnel surveys titles of interest every month, in panel format. I find that I'm not entirely in tune with the GameTunnel hive mind, but at least I get to try new things I wouldn't have known about otherwise. GameTunnel seems to keep a close eye on the Independent Games Festival, if you'd like some commentary on the various nominees and winners each year.

Warning! As I've mentioned, the next link is very dangerous for anyone who needs a productive day at work: the best place to find casual games is Jay Is Games. The left hand column of the site has recommendations that are very addictive. The specialty of the site is games that you can play immediately, so you'll find a large quantity of browser-based Flash games. As someone who finds Flash mystifying, I'm generally in awe of the ingenious things the kids can do these days.

Current Titles Worth Your Hard-Earned Dollars

I love how easy it is to try games—all of the titles I will be mentioning are easily available for download in some kind of trial version. I end up installing a lot of games on my computer that don't last long before uninstallation. That's fine: I buy the ones that make the grade. Here are a few titles that I found to be worth my hard-earned dollars. Don't take my word though—it's dead simple to go out and make your own judgment.

My top recommendation is Fizzball, from a small outfit called Grubby Games. Fizzball is a polished mix of old-school impulses and modern game types. Their earlier, breakthrough game was called Professor Fizzwizzle—good stuff but simply not in the same league. Apparently they are hard at work on a sequel as well.

Fizzball is a mashup of Breakout and Katamari Damacy—you are breaking items in the screen above your bumper Breakout/Arkanoid-style, but your fizzball is also trying to scoop up things and has to grow to a certain size before this is possible. There's a storyline about rescuing animals that's a little too cute, except that the presence of the animals provides the best bits of comedy. The storyline, such as it is, is stretched to the breaking point by the 100+ levels that you have to pass to complete the game. While the game is not terribly difficult—there's a helpful mode for young kids—it's definitely long enough.

Another neat little game that takes advantage of the conceptual breakthrough of Katamari Damacy is Tasty Planet from Dingo Games. This is another game that kids will find easy to play and hypnotic—you star as a blob, microscopic at first, but soon growing large enough to eat ladybugs, then cars, then cities, and planets and stars by the end. You move your blob around with your mouse, eating things that are smaller than you until you get big enough. That's about it. It's not as sophisticated as Fizzball, but it's a pleasant diversion.

I'm currently hooked on the new Popcap game, Peggle. It's a fabulous lark, since it has absolutely egregious forms of player reward. You are presented with a screen filled with pegs, and if you hit a peg with the pinball you're launching from the top of the screen, it disappears. Your goal is to clear all of the orange pegs on a screen, preferably with crazy moves and great panache. If you clear a level, the music and light show has to be seen to be believed.

Popcap is a juggernaut in the field, and there is good reason for its status, since it has created some of the classics of the field. If you haven't tried Bejeweled or Zuma, you should check them out immediately. They are two of the most duplicated concepts in casual gaming. Things like the Puzzle Quest mania will make a lot more sense if you know the antecedents and why people are thrilled to see something unique done with an old idea. Popcap also publishes games that other companies have made—I would highly recommend New Crayon's Bonnie's Bookstore to anyone mildly interested in word games. Popcap's own Bookworm Adventures is similar.

One little item worth mentioning: Pizza Panic is really old-school arcade action, and suitable for much younger kids—not much in the way of violence, and the controls are simple and easy.

To sum up: these are awesomely fun and addictive games, but I'm not sure what they add up to. I suppose my own personal tastes have altered the survey results—for example, the most popular title currently at Manifesto is an adventure game based on the Jewish mourning ritual, The Shivah. It sounds deep and interesting and I'm glad that such a game exists and that it has found its audience, but I tend to get addicted to puzzlers and arcade-y stuff like Fizzball and Peggle. Perhaps all I can say in response to the ambitions surrounding indie videogames is: the state of affairs is promising, keep up the good work. Maybe I'll have to return to this topic soon with a full new slate of games to play and talk about.