game

High-tech Low-tech Authenticity: The Creation of

Independent Style at the Independent Games Festival

Jesper Juul Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts - The School of Design Philip de Langes Allé 10, 1435 Copenhagen K, Denmark

[email protected]

1. ABSTRACT

In academic and popular culture commentary, as well as in

advertising, independent games have been declared a major

factor in video game culture in the last few years. At the same

time, most academic and industry discussions have stated it

impossible to describe independent games in a meaningful way.

Counter to this, this paper examines the history of winning

entries in the Independent Games Festival from 2000-2013 and

identifies the rise of a specific visual Independent Style shared

by many independent games, a style that uses contemporary

technology to emulate visual styles from earlier times, including

pixel style graphics, sketches and other analog materials. This

visual style is meant to invoke a type of authenticity and

“honesty in materials” that marks it as distinct from the alleged

realism of bigger-budget titles. This type of strategy is

associated with the contemporary maker movement, as well with

19 th

century ideas about arts, crafts, and architecture. It is a style

that is not simply a natural expression of a particular method of

game development, but an example of “authenticity work”: a

careful construction to appear as a counter to large-budget game

productions, and to give the appearance of a direct connection

between players and game developers.

This does not simply mean that Independent Style is a dishonest

construct, but rather it enables video games developed with few

resources to present themselves as the result of identifiable

stylistic decisions rather than of a lack of resources, while also

in some cases giving developers a way to demonstrate a counter-

technical expertise by using video game hardware and tools

against the intentions of manufacturers (such as using 3d

hardware to develop 2d games).

Keywords

Independent games, visual style, video game history, honesty,

authenticity, DIY, Independent Style, craft.

2. THE RISE OF INDEPENDENT GAMES

By name independent game refers to the financial independence

of the game developer, rather than to the design of the game. Yet

we are just as likely to associate “independent games” with

particular designs, people, distribution channels, and platforms.

Certainly, with independent games, the assumed slick

commercialism of both big budget and casual games is met by a

counter-image of small, cheaply developed, more personal and

experimental games [22]. While the name refers to the financial

situation of the developer, it is also used more loosely to

describe games made on small budget. However, simply

describing the economic conditions of production does not

exhaustively capture independent games [58], and commentators

typically focus on the general vagueness of the label [21].

Independent games have been compared to independent music

and cinema [33] [58], as well as to punk music [50] with its

rejection of polish and big budgets, and some proponents argue

that independent games embody an authenticity not found in

larger productions [14]. This paper proposes, not a definition of

independent games, but a description of an influential visual

Independent Style, a style that borrows from both the history of

video games, and from the history of art and design.

As film theorist David Bordwell has argued, the study of style is

a rich source for understanding the development of an art form –

in all its complexity, with all its actors [8] – but the question of

style has also sometimes been dismissed as an unimportant

footnote to more important matters. However, style is a very

concrete factor – games are developed for, and judged and

grouped by their style, and to ignore this would be to render

ourselves blind to the processes by which games are selected,

celebrated or ignored. Hence we need to understand the history

of style in independent games.

To develop independent games is to face a particular challenge:

how can a game made on a small budget be perceived by players

as something unique and new, rather than simply a game with

too small a budget, a literally cheap version of a big-budget

game? The Independent Style outlined here is a particular

answer to this problem, because it signals that a game has

deliberately been developed with a low-budget visual style, a

style that would not be improved by a bigger budget. By

emphasizing the small, personal and simplistic, Independent

Style makes the claim that limited budgets are not a limitation,

but rather a better, and more authentic, way of making games

[46].

This focus on small productions and the value of personal

creation shows how independent games connect both to ideals

of the maker movement [17] [25], do-it-yourself (DIY) [51],

local production, as well to older ideas such as those of the Arts

and Crafts movement of the end of the 19 th

century. In the 1888

essay “The Revival of Handicraft” [37], William Morris

described the disappearance of handicraft in the face of machine

production as “a degradation of life” and hoped, as the title

suggests, for a societal and political revival of authentic

workmanship where the individuality of the creator would once

again shine through. Compare this to the way many independent

game developers claim that their games – unlike the games made

by large teams – reflect personal experiences [2], effectively

longing to return to a more simple time in video game

development, when games were made by small teams or a single

person.

Such claims of personality, authenticity and even honesty are

common among independent developers. Super Meat Boy

designer Edmund McMillen lists honesty as the most important

trait of an independent designer [34], and developer Dan Cook

stresses the authenticity of independent games [14]. Like the

Arts and Crafts movement, this notion of independent games can

therefore be said to embody a certain nostalgic or anti-industrial

attitude, even though this is in independent games combined

with modern technology and distribution methods.

My central argument here is that the combination of anti-

industrial attitudes with modern technology is clearly visible in

the visual style of many independent games. A visual style here

means a particular way of representing a game world and its

logic [28].

Though “independent games” has been described as an unclear

label, a quick glance at the well-known independent games

shown in Figure 1 through Figure 3 gives an impression of

similarity. Each of these games has a side-view perspective and

builds on earlier games (Super Mario Bros [40] in the case of

the first two and Kirby: Canvas Curse [24]) while adding twists

both in graphical representation and gameplay.

Figure 1: VVVVVV

Figure 2: And Yet It Moves

Figure 3: Crayon Physics Deluxe

On the other hand, their visual styles do at first appear quite

different: VVVVVV (Figure 1) uses a low-resolution pixel style

that harkens back to an earlier point in video game history, the

Commodore 64 games 1 of the 1980’s [47]. This pixel style is

perhaps the primordial independent visual style, also found in

earlier games like Cave Story [53] (which references different

hardware platforms). By pixel style I mean graphics where each

pixel has been edited by hand, and where these pixels are

enlarged, giving the appearance of a lower resolution than what

is afforded by the platform the game is running on. But not all

independent games share this retro 8-bit style. And Yet It Moves

[10] shown in Figure 2 could not have been produced in the

1980’s due to technological limitations, with the graphics

appearing to be made out of cut-out paper, thus giving the

impression of being analog rather than digital. Though Crayon

Physics Deluxe [45] shown in Figure 3 also requires modern

graphics capabilities in order to represent its crayon-based visual

style, this style is again different from the paper style of And Yet

It Moves. Is there any commonality in their visual styles at all?

The answer is that each of these games uses contemporary

technology to represent a low-tech visual style. For VVVVVV,

the style is 1980’s video games; for And Yet It Moves and

Crayon Physics Deluxe, the styles are torn paper and childlike

crayon drawings. In their 2000 book Remediation, Bolter and

Grusin make the broad claim that new media tend to remediate,

that is simulate, earlier media forms [7]. As can be seen, this

visual Independent Style hinges on a remediation of earlier

styles in order to create something new and contemporary. Or

put in another way: Independent Style is a representation of a

representation; a high-tech representation of low-tech, and

usually cheap, materials.

What Bolter and Grusin also say is that each new medium

promises us a more immediate – transparent – experience, but

also points to itself as a medium in the process [7]. It is easy to

trace this line of rhetoric in the promotional campaigns for new

consoles, which regularly promise more realism and emphasize

the technology that allows a particular console to provide such

alleged realism [29]. This shows that Independent Style

represents a break with the idea that video games through

technological progress are moving on a linear path towards

realism. Independent Style is rather a deliberate attempt at going

back in time, towards earlier representational styles – styles

1 While Cavanagh explains [47] that VVVVVV refers to

Commodore 64 games, the game’s use of single-color sprites

suggest that he is thinking of games such as Manic Miner and

Jet Set Willy which were converted from the ZX Spectrum,

and hence use a visual style common on that platform.

made from cheap materials 2 – that now appear as less realistic

than what is promised by console manufacturers and big-budget

game development. I will call this style Independent Style

(capitalized), and it can be described like this:

Independent Style is a representation of a

representation. It uses contemporary technology to

emulate low-tech and usually “cheap” graphical

materials and visual styles, signaling that a game with

this style is more immediate, authentic and honest than

are big-budget titles with high-end 3-dimensional

graphics.

2 The use, or referencing, of cheap materials can be compared to

the Italian Arte Povera movement in art.

3. THE HISTORICAL APPEARANCE OF

INDEPENDENT STYLE

I claim that Independent Style signals authenticity and honesty,

but before I further argue for this interpretation of Independent

Style, let me first ask: what are the historical origins of this

style? It is clear that many independent developers create games

in other styles, but this visual style is predominant among well-

known, and well-awarded, independent games. Is there a logic

or necessity to this particular style, or is it an arbitrary

construction, a style that was decided on simply to signal

belonging to a particular subculture of game developers? To

answer this, let me examine the grand prize winners of the

annual US Independent Games Festival (IGF), not only because

this is the longest-running major festival of independent games,

but also because it names the games that it judges as exemplars

of independent games. It is not that the IGF can tell us a final

truth about independent games, but rather that the IGF has been

a high-profile venue for the curation of a particular idea of what

constitutes (and doesn’t constitute) an independent game. It is

therefore valuable to follow the choices of the IGF jury as the

historical evolution of a particular conception of independent

games. (Full disclosure: the author is also a jury member.)

Year Name Screenshot Visual style Theme / gameplay

2000 Tread Marks

3d Tank battle

2001 Shattered Galaxy

Isometric Strategy game

2002 Bad Milk

Photos rotating in

3d

Associational

multimedia

2003 Wild Earth

3d Animal safari

2004 Savage: The Battle

for Newerth

3d MOBA war

2005 Gish

Monochrome 2d /

physics

Platform game

2006 Darwinia

Platonic low-poly

3d

Strategic war game

2007 Aquaria

Watercolor 2d 2d swimming

2008 Crayon Physics

Deluxe

Hand-drawn 2d Physics-based puzzle

with drawing

2009 Blueberry garden

Hand-drawn 2d Storybook platformer

2010 Monaco

Pixel style 2d w/

lighting effects

Multiplayer top-down

action

2011 Minecraft

Pixel style 3d Quirky world-building

2012 Fez

Pixel style 3d/2d Platform game with

puzzles and 2d/3d twist

2013 Cart Life

Pixel style

greyscale

Existential simulation

of low-paying

occupation

Table 1: Independent Game Festival Grand Prize winners 2000-2013

As the table demonstrates, the IGF’s idea of the independent

game has evolved significantly during the history of the festival.

This history can be divided into four different phases.

1. Before Independent Style: 2000-2004 winners

are not recognizable as having the Independent

Style that I have outlined, but rather appear as

small versions of bigger-budget games, with 3d

graphics and presumably an intention of

eventually acquiring publisher backing and

distribution on physical media. Three of these

games share a regular theme of armed conflict,

but Wild Earth has a more “ecological” message

(borrowing from the photography element from

Pokémon Snap). The 2002 never-released winner

Bad Milk is a return to 1990’s CD-ROM

experiments.

2. The rise of pixel style: 2005-2009 winners show

the appearance of a well-defined Independent

Style as 2d side-scrolling games with unique

graphical representation. This style coincides

with the increasing availability of non-physical

game distribution, when it gradually became

common for developers to distribute small-

budget games globally. In visual style, Darwinia

is the exception, with a type of “platonic” 3-

dimensional graphics, arguably referencing the

movie Tron and thus referring to the 3d visual

style of an earlier time.

3. Pixel style in the 3 rd

dimension: 2010-2012

winners show a movement beyond the 2d

platform game, with Monaco as a top-down 2-

dimensional game, and Minecraft and Fez

representing the transformation of pixel style into

the third dimension.

4. New themes: The 2013 winner Cart Life retains

the pixel style, but is more of a life and business

simulation, in this case used towards

documentary and political ends, presenting the

struggles of poor street vendors.

This history also points to differences within the high-tech

representation of low-tech materials. Pixel style games refer

directly, and probably nostalgically, to an earlier time in video

game history. On the other hand, Crayon Physics Deluxe cannot

point to an earlier point in time when video games were made

with crayons. What is referenced is rather the general idea of

playing with crayons and paper. The pixel style 3d games

Minecraft and Fez also cannot refer to an earlier time when 3d

games were commonly made out of large volumetric pixels

(voxels), so like Crayon Physics Deluxe, the historical reference

is somewhat counterfactual, but still suggests a simpler, if

nonexistent, earlier technology.

4. HONESTLY OLD-FASHIONED AND

HIGH-TECH

Independent Style is most consistent on a visual level, but it has

parallels in fiction (emphasizing irreverent or atypical themes)

and gameplay (surprising variations on existing genres).

Certainly, the platform genre has been overrepresented among

independent games: in games such as VVVVVV and Braid [42],

many conventions from the 1980’s platform game are intact, but

our expectations for how time and physics should work in such

games are also challenged. Camper has examined such strategies

in deliberate retro games [12], and describes how developers

aim to capture a central experience of an old game, while adding

contemporary developments in gameplay. In visual style,

developers often add some contemporary flourishes such as

particle effects or detailed animations that would not have been

possible in the 1980’s.

More poignantly, the use of physics engines in games like

Crayon Physics Deluxe is a parallel to the visual Independent

Style: this type of physics engine-based design comes across as

immediate, simplistic and playful since it mimics a free-form

play activity with bouncing objects. Yet it also requires modern

processing power to work, and high quality physics libraries

have only recently become broadly available. In this way it

shares the high-tech-low-tech duality of the visual style, by

being a thoroughly modern representation of a pre-digital play

experience.

In the beginning, I discussed how the idea of honesty and

authenticity connects independent games with earlier

movements. Art historian Linda Nochlin has examined the idea

of honesty in architecture and the decorative arts through the

19 th

century and writes:

As early as the 1840s Pugin was inveighing against the

dishonest concealment of architectural members,

declaring that ‘architectural skill consists in embodying

and expressing the structure required, and not in

disguising it by borrowed features’. [41]

This is a common type of argument, where it is emphasized that

art or design should appear direct and without artifice express its

own substantial structure and materials. It is a type of argument

that has been used extensively in cultural history, and even in

game design discussion [15].

In short, Independent Style follows this dictum of honesty in the

choice of the low-tech materials that are represented, but

contradicts it by representing these low-tech materials through

high-tech tools. Independent Style effectively invokes and also

contradicts these ideals of authenticity or honesty championed

by earlier historical movements, but invokes an idea of make-do

craft or expertise as a consequence: Independent Style consists

partially of the “borrowed features” that Pugin was against in

the previous quote; particularly the remediated pixel style can

require developers to work around default software and

hardware affordances.

5. CRAFT: CONTRADICTIONS OF THE

OLD AND THE NEW

If the low-tech and analog materials represented in Independent

Style suggest authenticity and honesty, the representation of

these low-tech materials can thus require a technical expertise

that gives developers an opportunity to exhibit their ability to

work against the intentions and default settings of hardware and

software manufacturers. This points to three related

contradictions in Independent Style: 1) between old and new

technology, 2) between DIY and the expertise of the

craftsperson, 3) between local and global distribution.

1) The old and the new: What can we make of the fact that

Independent Style uses modern technology to imitate older

styles of representation? Discussing the phenomenon of indie

craft (today most associated with sites like etsy.com), Emily

Howes examines the idea that crafting is a way of escaping the

digital and immaterial, and that this can be seen as an echo of

the Arts and Crafts movement, only responding against the

digital where the Arts and Crafts movement responded to the

industrial revolution [27]. Ultimately, Howes argues that

contemporary indie craft is rather an example of how the “digital

and the handmade are not in such opposition as might be

assumed”. In this case, Independent Style is a type of creative

anachronism, where it is possible to reference past styles, pixels

and drawings, without wishing for a complete return to some

imagined pastoral past.

Figure 4: Cave Story character with anti-aliased and aliased

graphics

2) DIY and the expertise of craft. If we focus on the low-tech

materials represented in Independent Style, then we can chain

Independent Style to a type of humble “lo-fi” DIY culture that

emphasizes participation and personality rather than skill [51].

On the other hand, if we focus on either the high-tech

representation, or the idea of the low-tech representation as

something that enables developers to perfect minimalist game

designs [39], then Independent Style becomes a place where

developers can demonstrate their technical skills and their

perfected craft. As Sennett describes this value, “Craftsmanship

names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job

well for its own sake” [49:9]. As an example, the popular

Unity3D engine will by default provide anti-aliasing when

rendering, making pixel art appear blurry. Figure 4 shows the

blurriness that the default settings of Unity3D would apply to

the Cave Story main character (left), compared to how the

character will look with the necessary adjustments to render

pixel art with hard edges (right). The latter gives the appearance

that the game is running on a different platform than it is, one

material imitating another.

Figure 5: Unity3D Angry Bots tutorial game

In addition, before version 4.3, Unity3D did not explicitly

support 2d games. Regardless, Unity3D is a popular platform for

independent developers. This is also unexpected given how

different the default game demo is from independent values.

Figure 5 shows the gritty 3d military shooter demo Angry Bots,

which from version 3.4 of Unity3D has been installed by

default. Presumably, Unity Technologies feel that this shows off

the tool well, but it is completely contrary to the Independent

Style I have described here. It has therefore been up to

developers to find ways to use Unity3D to create games in styles

for which the platform was not designed or intended [54].

Such technical challenges are also tied to the ethos of sharing

that Guevara-Villalobos has described in indie communities:

“Within indie communities and networks, code sharing is a

defining feature of game work. It fulfils different purposes, as it

is both the product of the cultural ethos of the Web and a

learning practice.” [23]. For example, the open source Flixel

library [48] was created by Canabalt author Adam Saltsman,

and provides a set of routines that makes it straightforward to

make pixel style games in Adobe Flash, even though that

platform by default encourages anti-aliased graphics. In this

way, developers improve their craft and share tricks and tools

with the community in order to overcome the default

assumptions of the Flash software. 3

The idea of craft has undergone a resurgence with books such as

Sennett’s The Craftsman [49], and the recent anthology The

Craft Reader [1]. These books trace a lineage back to William

Morris, quoted earlier, and discuss the idea of craft as personal

skill and contemplation. Compare this to game designer Anna

Anthropy’s book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: how Freaks,

Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Dropouts, Queers,

Housewives, and People like You are taking back an Art Form,

where she promotes the idea of the DIY game that anybody can

make, and compares them to the photocopied underground zine

[3]. In this case, the pixel style that Anthropy’s games often use,

becomes a way of making video game development more

accessible, as do other tools that she promotes, such as the text-

based Twine platform [18].

Interestingly, Anthropy herself represents a hybrid position in

that her games demonstrate considerable technical skill in

referencing and combining elements from video game history,

while she is also arguing for a type of development that is less

reliant on such skills. As a type of middle ground, Westecott

compares independent game development to craft as such [57],

and notes how craft has often been associated with “women’s

work”, and how mass production gradually devalued craft,

associating it with the domestic sphere of women. Westecott

also notes how independent games have the opportunity to

bridge this division, but now face a potential division between

amateur and professional independent developers.

3) Local and global distribution: Glenn Adamson defines craft

as “the application of skill and material-based knowledge to

relatively small-scale production” [1]. Given that independent

games, and Independent Style, are highly dependent on the

availability of digital (e.g. immaterial) global distribution of

games, this creates a disconnect between the local, “small-scale”

aspect of independent game development, and the global large-

scale distribution that may follow. The short answer to this

conundrum is that it is impossible for successful independent

game developers to provide the type of personal connection and

communication that the audience may expect from them, as

independent game developers. The longer answer is that in

independent games, the “small-scale” emphasis is on the

production rather on the distribution, so that this is not

understood as the conflict that one might predict 4 .

3 The open source Box2d physics library [13] used for Crayon

Physics is similarly used by many independent games.

4 The main alternate solution to the local-global dilemma is the

“new arcade” [31], where developers avoid digital distribution

and rather only make a particular game available at single

events, using custom non-distributable hardware.

6. AUTHENTICITY WORK

As we can see, the signals of honesty and authenticity come

from the materials represented by the visual style (large pixels,

paper, crayons), while the representation of the same style may

sometimes be technically challenging, and thus give developers

a chance to demonstrate their skills while employing a visual

style that suggests that little skill is necessary.

A default critical response may be to declare this a type of

paradox of authenticity [52] in that the low-tech pixel style and

hand-drawn graphics that are meant to signal authentic,

unadorned and honest game development – are not the least

authentic, but entirely and deliberately constructed

embellishments enabled by the high-tech representation. And it

would be easy to make such a critical reading of Independent

Style, arguing that for something to be perceived as authentic, it

will have to exhibit the signs of authenticity, and these signs will

often be deliberately curated, hence undermining the

authenticity claim in the first place. Straub [52] quotes Jonathan

Culler for making such a general argument:

The paradox, the dilemma of authenticity, is that to be

experienced as authentic it must be marked as authentic,

but when it is marked as authentic it is mediated, a sign

of itself, and hence lacks the authenticity of what is truly

unspoiled, untouched by mediating cultural codes. [52]

Peterson takes this a step further and argues that authenticity

should therefore be understood not as a property of something,

but as “a claim that is made by or for someone, thing, or

performance and either accepted or rejected by relevant others”

[43]. Based on examples of authenticity claims in country

music, Peterson names this “authenticity work” in order to

describe effort made to make something be accepted as

authentic.

This suggests Independent Style to be a cynical ploy, an

artificial construction made to create a false impression, a

collection of dishonest signs 5 . However, such a critical

conclusion would overlook the fact that some signs require more

resources than others. A large advertising campaign extolling

the authentic virtues of wine from a particular region [4] is

clearly expensive, but a pixel style signaling another kind of

authenticity may be cheap. But if the claim of the independent

game is exactly that of having virtue due to it having been

developed with few resources, then the style that I have

described here as a sign used to signify independent authenticity

– that style is an embodiment of development on a limited

budget. It is cheap to make, and cheaper to make than are

expansive 3d worlds with high-end graphics 6 . Lipkin argues that

the term “indie” has shifted from being a signifier of production

to referring to a style [33], but I am arguing that it is both at the

same time, and that the style itself refers to production methods.

And even though Independent Style is a constructed signifier

5 It is of course perfectly possible to interpret Independent Style

as such as cynical ploy, but my argument is that independent

games are appearing in a cultural environment that supports

authenticity claims – and as quoted, some developers certainly

make authenticity claims in public statements.

6 The economy of “minimalist” visuals are also discussed by the

Osmos developers [26].

chosen to signify low-budget production, the concrete style also

enables low-budget production.

For example, VVVVVV developer Terry Cavanagh freely admits

that the visual style for the game came about because of his

personal limitations as a designer, where the self-imposed

limitations of the retro visual style helped the development of

the game.

I don't have the technical ability to make my games look

good, so I do what I can to at least make them look

interesting. I find it easier to do this when I work within

narrow limits - in VVVVVV, for example, I limited the

background tiles for each room to just 5 shades of one

colour, and then changed colours and patterns as I went

along. [47]

The truth is two-fold here: independent development has to

some extent followed the money and gravitated to the style that

can be made on the smallest budget. But additional work is also

employed in order to create the Independent Style that most

directly signals authenticity and immediacy.

It is cheap to make pixel style graphics or to scan hand-drawn

sketches. Yet given that these styles are in a sense borrowed

because they do not represent the hardware on which they run,

the assumed honesty can clearly not be located in the running

program, but in the development process. Independent Style has

the function of signaling this honesty, while also being

identifiable as deliberate, well-executed design because it by

now is a well-understood existing visual style.

When I claim that this style signals honesty, I mean that this is

plausible given its affinities to both historical and contemporary

movements, and because this interpretation is supported by the

public statements of several developers. It is unlikely that all

developers choose this style because they want to signal

authenticity – the style has also become a default style that

developers can now choose simply because it is already common

and well understood.

7. RETRO: ANOTHER CASE OF

HISTORY REPEATING?

Figure 6: Hover Bovver

Still, is there not a sense that all of this happened before?

Compare VVVVVV to the 1984 UK home computer game Hover

Bovver [36] shown in Figure 6. Hover Bovver is mostly made by

a single person (UK developer Jeff Minter), features pixel style

graphics and an idiosyncratic and non-heroic theme, in this case

the mowing of the player character’s lawn. In terms of visual

style, theme, gameplay, and development conditions, this game

is eerily similar to many contemporary independent games.

But Hover Bovver demonstrates what we can call a Pierre

Menard-effect. In Jorge Luis Borges’ short story Pierre Menard,

Author of Don Quixote [9], the titular character decides to write

– from scratch – a text that is word-for-word identical to Don

Quixote, without having read the original novel. Borges’

narrator compares the style of the two identical 20 th

century and

17 th

century texts – and concludes that they are radically

different since the original Quixote was written in the language

of the author’s time, but the newer Quixote is archaic and

mannered [9]. Which is to say that the simple pixel style of

many contemporary independent games is deliberately dated, an

archaic throwback to an earlier time in the history of the video

game, whereas Hover Bovver’s 1984 visual style was

contemporary. In fact, Hover Bovver does not use pixel style in

the way I defined it previously, given that its pixels are

displayed in the native resolution of the hardware, rather than

being enlarged as in VVVVVV. A particular visual style does not

mean the same thing when executed twice, 25 years apart.

While many contemporary independent games may be

associated with early Nintendo culture due to the common use

of platform games as inspirational genre, I believe that

independent games owe more to computer-based games in

general, and to European video game of the 1980’s in particular.

This is in part a function of the fact that US and Japanese video

game development at the time was largely directed toward

consoles, while European video games were mostly developed

for home computers. This meant that from the success of the

Nintendo Entertainment System and on, many US and Japanese

games were subject to approval by platforms owners, while

more European video games could be freely created and

distributed. Furthermore, and possibly as a result, many

European video games of the 1980’s share a thematic

irreverence that was rare in console games [32] [16].

As Bennett Foddy has argued, independent game development

has been a constant in the history of video games, but the idea of

calling it “indie games” is quite recent [20]. What is new is the

appearance of a style that references earlier (factual or

counterfactual) times in game history. Interestingly, game-

derived pixel style was popular in web design already around

1998 [19], before it became a popular game style, suggesting

that contemporary pixel style is dependent on a distance

(temporal or in media) to the materials and styles it references.

8. GAMES FOR THE CONNOISSEUR?

It could be said that the rise of independent games is a logical

consequence of the fact that video games are now being played

by more than 50% of the population in many rich countries [44].

It used to be that playing video games was a differentiator, but

now a new differentiator is needed, and (the idea of)

independent games serve that need. In her book Realism, Linda

Nochlin argues that in art, “the creation of the avant-garde was

the mirror image, the precise response to the emergence of the

mass Philistine audience” [41]. Some independent and art games

can be seen as a similar response to the broadening of the video

game audience, a way for self-identified game connoisseurs to

develop a sense of having a particular and refined taste. This is

the fourth contradiction in Independent Style: that this visual

style can both work to democratize game development by

enabling DIY development and to rarify game consumption, by

catering to the tastes of a selected few. This contradiction is also

tied to the amateur/professional divide, where Minecraft has

sold millions of copies, while more experimental games are only

played by a small audience.

I have not defined independent games, but rather described a

central Independent Style curated by the Independent Games

Festival, a style that is shared by the majority of IGF winners

since 2005, as well as by many other better known independent

games. To name some games often referred to, and awarded, as

independent, yet not sharing this style, Osmos [26] while 2-

dimensional, is oriented towards the affordances of

contemporary hardware rather than towards the emulation of an

earlier visual style 7 , and Journey [55] is a 3-dimensional game

that does not remediate any earlier visual style either. Of course,

given enough time, even currently high-end graphics effect

(such as bloom) of contemporary big-budget titles may

eventually be used by a future independent game developer as a

way of signaling a simpler, more honest time in video games 8 .

Figure 7: Braid

Another prominent game usually referred to as independent, but

which uses a particular variation on Independent Style, Braid

[42] shown in in Figure 7 uses contemporary graphical tools to

give a (perhaps simplistic) appearance of expensive materials

associated with fine art 9 . The style and materials represented

here are not improvisational and cheap, but rather invoke

something expensive or high-brow, matching the lofty

aspirations of the game developer [6].

Independent Style is a positive force in that it supports the

creation of small-budget games that are recognized as belonging

to a particular well understood (and promotable) category.

However, Independent Style was also part of a “tyranny of

pixelated platformers” [30], when many games lauded as

independent also seemed to become quite similar. This shows

the inherent tension if a movement for dynamic innovation in

games congeals around a well-defined style, regardless of

whether that style is explicit or implicit, agreed upon or not. It

7 The visual style of Osmos could also be interpreted as a

deliberately old-fashioned flat 2d-blending style enabled by

early 3D graphics cards, even if the temporal distance is quite

short.

8 The 2013 Thirty Flights of Loving [5] is based on the 1997 3d

engine from Quake II and its somewhat old-fashioned 3d

graphics thus already arguably signal that the game belongs to

an earlier, simpler time. Similarly, the game Tuning [11]

references low-res 3D graphics.

9 IGF winner Aquaria also references painting, but in Aquaria,

the style referenced seems to be children’s books rather than

fine art.

also follows that it would be worthwhile to compare IGF

winners to games selected and promoted in other venues and

countries. In addition, future variations of Independent Style are

likely to change as more modern visual styles become

sufficiently distant that they can be invoked, no longer signaling

limited budgets, but as conscious choices referencing an earlier,

simpler time in video game history.

It is clear that small independent developers need not build their

games around this particular Independent Style. A number of

independent developers rather build “regular” 3d games in

genres not seen as commercially viable by big publishers –

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare [56] is an example of this strategy.

Such games are rarely promoted or awarded by independent

game festivals. They are reminiscent of the early 2000-2004

phase of Independent Games Festival winners, before the rise of

Independent Style.

Conversely, though Independent Style enables low-budget

development, there is nothing to prevent a bigger-budget

production from using the same style, even if there are fewer

financial reasons for doing so. As an example, the high profile

(if medium-budget) PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet [35] is

based on high-end 3d representations of handmade materials

built from cloth, thread, buttons, and stickers. The Lego

Company similarly publishes Lego games built on existing

franchises such as Star Wars, and uses 3d graphics to represent

the low-tech brick-based representation of the Star Wars

universe. Outside games, the directors of the Lego Movie

“wanted to maintain the crude look of Lego figures and the

limitations of the toys” [38].

Though the idea of independent games is by name tied to the

economic and legal realities of game production, I have here

talked about the components of a central Independent Style, a

particular style that is not a necessary reflection of small-budget

game development, but is rather a style deliberately designed to

signal a particular small-team ethos. It is a style than can work

as an enabler of small-budget productions, but game developers

will sometimes put in extra effort in order to use this style. This

is the dual nature of Independent Style, the high-tech

representation of low-tech and low-budget materials.

Independent Style is a construct, but it also genuinely represents

a cheap way of developing games, and its popularity makes it

possible for developers to develop low-budget games that are

understood by players not as cheap games that would have been

better had they had a bigger budget, but as games that embody a

particular style, and belong to a new type of video game.

9. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Clara Fernández-Vara, Andy Nealen, Bennett Foddy,

Sophie Houlden, John Sharp, Frank Lantz, Nick Montfort and

the anonymous FDG reviewers for discussion and insightful

comments.

10. REFERENCES

1. Adamson, G., ed. The Craft Reader. Berg Publishers,

Oxford; New York, 2010.

2. Alexander, L. How today’s game developers come to grips

with self-promotion. Gamasutra, 2014.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/208489/how_toda

ys_game_developers_come_.php?print=1.

3. Anthropy, A. Rise of the videogame zinesters: how freaks,

normals, amateurs, artists, dreamers, dropouts, queers,

housewives, and people like you are taking back an art

form. Seven Stories Press, New York, 2012.

4. Beverland, M.B. Crafting Brand Authenticity: The Case of

Luxury Wines. Journal of Management Studies 42, 5

(2005), 1003–1029.

5. Blendo Games. Thirty Flights of Loving. (Windows), 2012.

6. Blow, J. Truth in Game Design. (2011).

7. Bolter, J.D. and Grusin, R. Remediation: Understanding

New Media. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000.

8. Bordwell, D. On the History of Film Style. Harvard

University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998.

9. Borges, J.L. Labyrinths. New Directions, New York, NY,

2007.

10. Broken Rules. And Yet It Moves. (Windows), 2009.

11. Cactus. Tuning. (Windows), 2009.

12. Camper, B. Fake Bit: Imitation and Limitation. (2009).

13. Catto, E. Box2D. 2007.

14. Cook, D. Steambirds: Why indie games are good for fans.

Lost Garden, 2010.

http://www.lostgarden.com/2010/02/steambirds-why-indie-

games-are-good-for.html.

15. Crawford, C. Process Intensity. Journal of Computer

Game Design 1, 5 (1987).

16. Donovan, T. Replay: the History of Video Games. Yellow

Ant, Lewes, East Sussex, 2010.

17. Dougherty, D. The maker movement. innovations 7, 3

(2012), 11–14.

18. Ellison, C. Anna Anthropy and the Twine revolution. The

Guardian, 2013.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/ap

r/10/anna-anthropy-twine-revolution.

19. Engholm, I. Digital style history: the development of

graphic design on the Internet. Digital Creativity 13, 4

(2002), 193–211.

20. Foddy, B. State of the Union. Indiecade East, (2014).

21. Gnade, M. What Exactly is an Indie Game? The Indie

Game Magazine, 2010.

http://www.indiegamemag.com/what-is-an-indie-game/.

22. Gril, J. The State of Indie Gaming. Gamasutra, 2008.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3640/the_state_of

_indie_gaming.php.

23. Guevara-Villalobos, O. Cultures of independent game

production. Proceedings of DiGRA 2011 Conference:

Think Design Play, (2011).

24. Hal Laboratory. Kirby: Canvas Curse. Nintendo (DS),

2005.

25. Hatch, M. The Maker Movement Manifesto. Rules for

Innovation in the new World of Crafters, Hackers, and

Tinkerers. McGraw-Hill Education, New York, 2014.

26. Hemisphere Games. Osmos. Hemisphere Games

(Windows), 2009.

27. Howes, E. Cable Stitch: Indie Craft’s Troubled

Relationship with Technology. (2008).

28. Järvinen, A. Gran Stylissimo: The Audiovisual Elements

and Styles in Computer and Video Games. Computer

Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings,

(2002).

29. Juul, J. A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games

and Their Players. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009.

30. Juul, J. The Tyranny of Pixelated Platformers. Game

Developers Conference 2012, Education Summit, (2012).

31. Kopstein, J. ‘No Quarter’: building modern arcade games

at NYU. The Verge, 2012.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/23/3034228/nyu-no-

quarter-indie-arcade.

32. Latorre, Ó.P. The European videogame: An introduction to

its history and creative traits. European Journal of

Communication 28, 2 (2013), 136–151.

33. Lipkin, N. Examining Indie’s Independence: The Meaning

of “Indie” Games, the Politics of Production, and

Mainstream Co-optation. Loading - The Journal of the

Canadian Games Studies Association 7, 11 (2013).

34. McMillen, E. Opinion: Indie Game Design Do-s and

Don’t-s: A Manifesto. Gamasutra, 2009.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26577/Opinion_Ind

ie_Game_Design_Dos_and_Donts_A_Manifesto.php.

35. Media Molecule. LittleBigPlanet. Sony Computer

Entertainment Europe (PlayStation 3), 2008.

36. Minter, J. Hover Bovver. Llamasoft (C64), 1984.

37. Morris, W. The Revival of Handicraft. In G. Adamson, ed.,

The Craft Reader. Berg Publishers, Oxford; New York,

2010, 146–155.

38. Murphy, M. ‘Lego Movie’ Creators Strive to Blend

Familiar and Strange. The New York Times, 2014.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/movies/lego-movie-

creators-strive-to-blend-familiar-and-strange.html.

39. Nealen, A., Saltsman, A., and Boxerman, E. Towards

minimalist game design. Proceedings of the 6th

International Conference on Foundations of Digital

Games, ACM (2011), 38–45.

40. Nintendo EAD. Super Mario Bros. Nintendo (NES), 1985.

41. Nochlin, L. Realism. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK, 1990.

42. Number None, Inc. Braid. Microsoft Game Studios (XBox

360), 2008.

43. Peterson, R.A. In Search of Authenticity. Journal of

Management Studies 42, 5 (2005), 1083–1098.

44. Pratchett, R. Gamers In The UK. BBC Audience Research,

2005.

45. Purho, P. Crayon Physics Deluxe. (Windows), 2009.

46. Purho, P. Why Being Poor and Having No Budget is Good

For Making Game. 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXFOgNVMww&feat

ure=youtube_gdata_player.

47. Rose, M. Intervvvvvview: Terry Cavanagh.

IndieGames.com, 2010.

http://www.indiegames.com/2010/01/intervvvvvview_terry

_cavanagh.html.

48. Saltsman, A. Flixel. 2009.

49. Sennett, R. The Craftsman. Yale University Press, 2009.

50. Sharp, J. Spacewar!, Punk Rock and the Indie Dev Scene:

A Semi-Secret Quasi-History of Our DIY Roots. 2013.

http://www.indiecade.com/2013/east_sessions/.

51. Spencer, A. DIY: The Rise of Lo Fi Culture. Marion

Boyars, 2005.

52. Straub, J., ed. Paradoxes of authenticity: studies on a

critical concept. Transcript ; Transaction Publishers,

Bielefeld, Germany; Piscataway, NJ, 2012.

53. Studio Pixel. Cave Story. (Windows), 2004.

54. Suthpin, J. Making 2D Games With Unity. Gamasutra,

2013.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshSutphin/20130519/1

92539/Making_2D_Games_With_Unity.php.

55. Thatgamecompany. Journey. Sony Computer

Entertainment (PS3), 2012.

56. Torn Banner Studios. Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.

(Windows), 2012.

57. Westecott, E. Independent Game Development as Craft.

Loading - The Journal of the Canadian Games Studies

Association 7, 11 (2013).

58. Zimmerman, E. Do Independent Games Exist? 2002.

http://www.ericzimmerman.com/texts/indiegames.html.