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.
Staying True to Your (Indie) Heart
Toronto hasn't always been the indie game development Mecca that it's grown into today. Just under a decade ago, studios in the city were scarce, and many budding developers had to leave Toronto to find solid work. Sick of competing for the meager handful of game dev job openings in town and unwilling to relocate away from home, a group of enthusiastic game makers set out to change things. After a few years of working on a slate of mobile phone projects, indie studio Capybara Games has settled into a steady groove crafting offbeat games about rainbow-puking critters, puzzle jousting combatants, and pixilated touchy-feely warriors.
A partnership forged in 2003 from Monday night meetings over beer and banter at a local pub has morphed into something special for the folks at Capy. Their collaboration started small, and eventually led to the studio smooth-talking its way into working on a Disney/Pixar mobile game for the film Cars. That was a good boost, but the team's true creative heart and spirit was elsewhere. The drive to simply make games -- any kind of games -- was strong at first, says Capy co-founder and president Nathan Vella. "We didn't care what they were or where they were coming from…we just wanted to make games," he says. "That worked for a bit, but after a while we started to loathe making other peoples games."
It wasn't until several years ago that a major shift occurred at the studio, led by co-founder and creative director Kris Piotrowski and empowered by other indie developers in Toronto. "Capy started to embrace the fact that the only way we were going to continue making games was to only make games we love, games we HAD to make," Vella explains. It was around this time that the studio was introduced to the wider indie game development community. Have been to the brink, the studio suddenly did a 180 and began focusing on making the games its employees wanted to make. It hasn't looked back since.
Following the success of the adorable PlayStation Network title Critter Crunch -- a puzzle game about feeding cute creatures to larger cute creatures -- Capy eventually launched its first-ever boxed game, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, which was published by Ubisoft. A completely fresh puzzle twist on the storied Might & Magic franchise, Clash of Heroes met rave reviews from the press, spurring the team to work on a slick HD console version.
The big difference between working on smaller mobile games and larger projects is that the studio can really focus its creative energy, says Piotrowski. The mobile title development they did early on divided the team into smaller groups to work on different games for four to eight months at a time. "That's a really great way to learn a ton of about making games, but not the best way to make something truly awesome," Piotrowski says. "Now that we're working on a much smaller number of bigger games (by our standards), we're finally able to transform in to a Voltron of game-making goodness."
All the while, Toronto's indie scene has blossomed into a massive, swirling vortex of creative force. With many other indie studios nearby to provide support and friendship, the game development atmosphere in the city has changed dramatically from back when Capy first started out. "Toronto is one of the best places to be if you're an indie dev," Vella says. "There's a real camaraderie and spirit of community amongst the devs in the scene here. It's an open, mutually beneficial relationship where everyone is in this together, and there's a willingness to share expertise -- be it business, tech, or design. We all genuinely want to see each other's games come out and do well."
At the moment, Capy is hard at work on wrapping up the downloadable console version of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes HD, as well as an innovating fantasy adventure game for the iPhone and iPad called Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (both titles are set to launch shortly). Though Capy's pumped to wrap up their next few projects and get cracking on some new games, the team is just as excited about what's on the horizon for the indie development scene at large.
"There are so many amazing people working on games they genuinely care about, that it's not hard to get super-excited about the future," says Piotrowski. "I think that's the most amazing thing about the indie dev scene: A whole bunch of amazingly talented folks are spending their time trying creating things they love and feel passionately about, while also working together to help each other out. It's a pretty positive scene -- and an amazing time to be independent."
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.