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.
Slam Bolt Scrappers
As far as ringing endorsements go, it's hard to ignore a game that's been enthusiastically described by wide-eyed passersby as "kind of like Tetris, except with a bunch of flying dudes trying to beat the crap out of one another." While huge, elaborate booths trumpeting hot AAA titles drew large crowds at this year's inaugural Penny Arcade Expo East, a constant rotation of eager players also lined up on the show floor to check out an early demo for Slam Bolt Scrappers, the debut project by independent Boston studio Fire Hose Games. Very few who sauntered over to the meager booth had even heard of the small studio -- but by the end of the weekend's festivities, a growing buzz about this curious and colorful little indie brawler had infiltrated the farthest reaches of the convention center.
The big appeal of Slam Bolt Scrappers is how it combines elements from wildly different genres in a fresh and original way. One of the game's two main modes pits teams in two-on-two matches, where you must construct opposing towers that engage in bombardment warfare. You steer small flying muscle men, who acquire colorful Tetris-style puzzle blocks for their towers by pounding the snot out of strange monsters that attack from above. Blocks you've collected can be plugged into your tower, and forming larger blocks of specific-colored pieces creates shields, rocket launchers, and other important tower defenses. It's also fun to fly across the screen to deliver punches to the opposing team members to thwart their building efforts. Whittling away at your enemy's tower while building and defending your own is addictive and chaotic, and it's a formula that Fire Hose Games put a lot of effort into fine-tuning.
The way players responded to the PAX East demo was immediately gratifying for the small development team. Even three months later, elation over the sudden crush of exposure from this first major public showing of the game is giving the studio a big boost. "Before [PAX East] happened, we were literally nobody," says Fire Hose Games president Eitan Glinert, who explains that the positive reactions they received from convention attendees was tremendous. "PAX East was a huge question mark for us. We had no idea what to expect... and getting the response we did was just this huge validation of everything we had been busting our asses to do."
Crafting Slam Bolt Scrappers has been an evolutionary process; the game went through four different iterations before the team found the one that ultimately clicked. Spending several months working on each idea -- only to scrap it and move on to the next -- was a challenging process to push through, says Glinert "As a small indie studio, we were lucky that we were able to scratch our heads and go back to the drawing board to try changing stuff around," he says. "I don't think we would have been able to do that at a big studio, because it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to do that sort of thing."
Glinert admits the freedom indie development affords is great, but also double-edged. Working without constraints can be extremely challenging, so it's important for the team to determine its own boundaries and limitations. Money is also an ever-present concern. "At a bigger studio," Gilnert explains, "someone is paying the bills and you're getting the funds you need to make the game. At an indie studio, there's practically no guarantee to that -- so just staying in business long enough to get your game out is a really hard thing to do."
The indie development community has been extremely supportive, and other game makers have been great resources for feedback, knowledge, and insight, says Gilnert. With everything currently riding on the success of Fire Hose's first game, Glinert and his team are anxious and hopeful about what the future holds. Though an official platform and publisher haven't been decided yet, Slam Bolt Scrappers is expected to launch sometime within the next year.
Nathan Meunier is a freelance writer and indie gaming enthusiast who likes his pixels jaggy and his tunes blippy. He writes about videogames and geek/gaming culture for GameSpy, IGN, What They Play, Nintendo Power, GamePro, and many other fine publications. See what he's up to at NathanMeunier.com.