Since the end of 2021, I’ve been tinkering with a little column here at IGN.com featuring indie games that I thought were great. It quietly drives away on a Saturday afternoon, spotlighting smaller games and developers that haven’t received much attention from mainstream gaming sites like ours.
I’m proud of that coverage to this day, but I’m especially proud today.My little column for today is A much bigger IGN initiative Spotlight all kinds of editorial columns. So I can tell a little poetic story about what my corner of this initiative is really like.
Indie game coverage is always a difficult question to answer, especially on sites like this. Combined with the sheer size of both industries, coupled with a large audience that justifiably expects us to cover all the biggest beats in gaming and entertainment every day, the vast majority of our resources are being used by people who already know. Inevitably, it will be spent writing about what is happening. I’m talking Marvels, big PlayStation exclusives, famous TV shows, Marios. Our audience desperately wants to read about these things, and we love to write about them.
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Yet, unfortunately, IPs, budgets, studios of a thousand, or names already known to mainstream audiences. Sure, the occasional indie surprise gets a community big enough to hit the mainstream (see Stardew His Valley or Vampire His Survivor), but such opportunities are extremely rare. Yet countless innovative, beautiful, moving, weird, clever, and engaging games are created every day. Many of them are breaking game design, art, music, and conceptual foundations that have never been touched at AAA for fear of missing out on sales targets. Some fill in genre gaps that mainstream games have completely forgotten about. Others were created by developers who overcame major obstacles to pursue their dreams of making video games.
We firmly believe that these games deserve to be known with fun, curious depth and attention, not just handed out as part of a showcase or quick tweet. I think it plays an important role in
This is Hidden Treasures, our monthly column featuring small games made by small teams that aren’t often featured on IGN. Use this space to give some early impressions (at least the first few hours, if not more) and tell you about the developers and who they are, what they’re making, and why they’re making it. talk about the Why you should care. My goal is not just to showcase the perfect 10/10 indie gem or his next Stardew Valley. It sheds a little light on the brilliant games that inhabit the space between Mario and Marvel, celebrating this corner of the creative industry that doesn’t always get time in the sun.
We hope this column inspired you to at least check out some of them, or if not, go on a quest to find hidden treasures of your own.
(And you can catch up on all the previous Hidden Treasure columns, including those before this column got a name.)
With that said, I’d like to officially tell you that I spent at least an hour crying last night until the end of A Space for the Unbound – a slice of gorgeous pixel art – that’s been spending my nights the last few days. game of life.
A Space for the Unbound follows a young man named Atma as he approaches adulthood in rural Indonesia in the late 90s. “What is your name? and Weathering with You, Atma and his girlfriend Raya have great debates about their futures and a wholesome journey of mutual discovery of strange magical powers. Balancing the bucket with completing his list. Raya has some sort of material manipulation, and Atma can “space-dive” into the minds of those he meets, helping them resolve their internal dilemmas.
Part of the way A Space for the Unbound boils down its mystery comfortably in the background is due to its hilarious portrayal of 90s Indonesia and Atma’s role as a young man. In between adventures with Raya, he explores the city. He collects plastic bottle caps, names and strokes every cat he sees, plays games in the arcade, solves problems for the local townspeople, and fends off school bullies. I’m here. The main story The various vignettes between his beats are loving glimpses into the relatively mundane problems of 90s Indonesia and ordinary people. With little experience in this setting, I loved the mix of unfamiliar culture and familiar humanity.
A Space for the Unbound is clearly a very personal glimpse into a setting and era that is very close to the heart of game director Dimas Novan D. In an email interview, he said the idea for the game came from the concept of “anime pilgrimage”, which compares places in real life and places in anime. Through this idea, Dimas began to discover many of the anime’s familiarity with the real-life locations referenced, from iconic buildings and landmarks to common rural neighborhoods. I wanted to, but it was about where he lived during a personally sentimental time for him and the development team.
Dimas started working on the game in 2015 with a team of just 2-3 people inside Surabaya-based Mojiken Studio. During that time, Mojiken had created and released many other games, including She and the Light Bearer and When the Past Was Around. Around 2020, however, When the Past Was Around was released and the studio was able to dedicate everyone in the studio (about 12-14 people) to her Dimas project. But Dimas admits that her first few years were “probably the hardest” for her personally.
“Me [had] It’s just bouncing back and forth between work and trying to find a direction for the ASFTU game,” he recalls. “Since the 2015 ASFTU prototype, we already have the very basic concept of the story, but making it a richer experience in video game format has been a daunting task. I had a hard time deciding what kind of mechanics would be good for the game as a whole, and if I were to talk about the game, I would like it to have some kind of entertainment and interactive aspect so that the player has a good time and is immersed in the game. is required.
Additionally, the core message of the game is something that cannot be said immediately after the first part of the game. The overall experience needs to be slow, interesting and engaging so that people are happy to understand the message we want to convey, especially the story. I made several prototypes and some elements worked and some didn’t. However, in 2019 we were really happy to finally find the right formula for the game, and in 2020 the demo was released and was very well received. “
Along with his desire to portray a place and time that is close to his heart, Dimas hopes that people who play A Space for the Unbound will feel the flow of time in Rocatown. He also told me that he got his inspiration from another Japanese concept. He describes it as an appreciation or recognition of impermanence and the passing of time.
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“I chose this theme because as we get older we want to remember the past, the good times, the hard times and the times we grew up,” says Dimas. “Every generation has its own memories and ASFTU is our memory and we want to preserve it before it is completely forgotten. It feels like a period of personal growth.”
A Space for the Unbound is certainly about all these things: nostalgia, growing up, recognizing the passage of time as two young people entering a new chapter in their lives, but there is there is something If I do not I don’t want to spoil what you’re doing here, but I encourage you to play it and find out. Be immersed in your work. Very early on, A Space for the Unbound has an overwhelming sense of underlying mystery, even if you don’t know exactly what the mystery is. Part of it comes from the prologue – a dreamlike sequence featuring a girl named Nirmala who is friends with Atma but seems to be nowhere in his daily life. Maybe it’s the kind of strange relationship I have with everyone in town. For example, he has a memory of his favorite food stall, but not another young lady in his class. By the end of Chapter 2, I was hungry to keep playing. what the hell was going on A simple theory didn’t seem to make sense in this town.
no i don’t mean to spoil why A Space for the Unbound’s beautiful (both emotionally and aesthetically) conclusion had me blowing into multiple handkerchiefs, but I went from ‘oh this looks pretty’ to ‘I have to keep playing this. I have to highly recommend this game as one of the fastest turnarounds to ‘must have’. I have experienced it. “What is your name?
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. you can find her on her twitter @duck valentine.
