Local, int'l developers exhibit ingenuity at Indie Arena 2016

Unshackled by rules and corporate interest, indie game developers enjoy the freedom to express their ideas in unique, imaginative ways. For this reason, any event that showcases their works – such as October’s Electronic Sports and Gaming Summit (ESGS) 2016 – is always a cause for celebration.

One of ESGS 2016’s most notable successes was Indie Arena. An eclectic game exhibit featuring more than 30 developers, this year’s Indie Arena was unique in that it gathered both local and international talent.

“When I go to international trade shows, they normally have a wide array of game developers from all over the world,” said Gwendelyn Foster, who was largely responsible for making Indie Arena happen. “I realized it was time for Filipinos to see both local and international developers at our own game events. So this year, our Indie Arena has both.”

The following are just four of the indie game developers who showcased their projects at Indie Arena 2016:


Chryse

Ronnie Legaspi, the co-founder of local studio Chryse, (https://chryse.itch.io/) described their creation, “Shots Fired,” as a sniper game with puzzle elements.

“You’re given a contract by a client, and several clues about your target,” said Legaspi. “You have to figure out who your target is, then shoot him.”

“Shots Fired” was featured by YouTube personality Jim Sterling, who described it as a “very violent ‘Where’s Waldo?’ ”





In the game, players scrutinize an environment full of people walking around, performing specific actions, and generally minding their own business. If you find an individual whose appearance and behavior match your research, then you might have just found your mark. If you shoot the wrong person, however, the missions fails.

Chryse plans to add more complex targets to the game, such as those who will have unique reactions to gunfire.

2 developers, 2 artists, and 1 designer are developing “Shots Fired.” It’s around 40% complete. It has been Greenlit on Steam, and Chryse hopes to have it launched by Q2 2017.


Werold

Werold is the Taiwanese developer behind “MoKai Adventure.”

“MoKai Adventure” is about “little monsters that you can collect, raise, and use in battle,” explained Werold’s Stephen Chao. You can also feed the monsters, raise their stats, and evolve them.

The game boasts 150 monsters of various ranks. If you count their evolved forms, that number rises to around 250.





“MoKai Adventure” uses a semi-auto battle system, and also lets you perform devastating special attacks.

The game boasts other features, such as a story campaign, an arena, and a challenge tower, which tasks you with climbing as many levels as you can while surviving monster battles. The higher the level you reach, the greater your rewards.

The game is already available for Android and iOS devices. Werold updates it every week, and plans to add 50 new monsters soon.

Werold started developing “MoKai Adventure,” which is their first game, about a year ago. ESGS 2016 was the company’s first major convention.


Indigo Entertainment

Philippine studio Indigo Entertainment showcased two games at Indie Arena.

Action platformer “Agent Aliens” brings classic titles such as “Mega Man” to mind.





Indigo Entertainment co-founder and president, James Lo, explained how “Agents Aliens” came to be.

“I asked the creative people at work to develop prototypes for game ideas that they liked to work on,” he said. “We reviewed and tested each one. Whichever games were the most fun to play would be developed fully. ‘Agent Aliens’ was one of those games.”

“Agent Aliens” is already available for Android devices.

“PlayDay,” which is still in development, is an altogether different beast. Instead of a single experience, it’s collection of tap-centric mini-games designed to give players a quick fix.

“Based on research, casual players tend to prefer games with quick experiences, so we thought, ‘why not come up with a collection of micro games that catered to that experience?’ ” he said.

Indigo Entertainment plans to give players the chance to win real prizes, such as coupons, through “PlayDay.” The studio is working with sponsors to turn this feature into a reality.

According to Lo, Indigo Entertainment’s main goal is to ensure its games are fun and engaging to play. Of course, there are other factors he considers important, such as making a profit so that the company can survive, and promoting Filipino talent worldwide.

“It would be great to show the world that Filipinos can develop great games,” he said. “Doing so would only help grow the industry, make our country look good, and provide future game developers with inspiration or references.”

It took 2 to 6 people 6 to 9 months to develop either game. They couldn’t work on it full-time, though.

“We develop games primarily for clients,” said Lo. “We don't have a team that works full-time on our indie projects, so we squeeze them in whenever we can. So the challenge was to pull together a number of different resources – basically whoever is free – at any given time to build a complete game. This means standards have to be set and maintained strictly during development to generate a consistent experience.”


Springloaded

James Barnard, who’s originally from the UK, is the founder and lead developer of Singapore-based Springloaded, the studio developing “NetherRealms.”

“NetherRealms” is “a tower defense game with procedurally generated monsters,” said Barnard, who further described it as a cross between “Plants vs. Zombies” and “Spore.”

In “NetherRealms,” the screen is split into two – Earth on top and hell at the bottom. You play a middle manager who works in a warehouse in hell. One day, someone accidentally opens a portal between hell and Earth.

“It’s really bad in hell, it’s really boring for the guy who works there; he’s so depressed. And then this portal opens up, and suddenly he’s got a chance to destroy the world. So he sends out demons… and a wizard from Earth creates monsters to fight your demons.”
 

Every time you kill the wizard’s minions, you collect their parts. You can attach those parts to your demons, giving them special abilities. For example, attaching a bunch of eyeballs to a critter allows it to clear the fog of war on Earth.

“If it only has eyeballs, it’ll be weak,” said Barnard. “One hit, it’s dead. But you can create other monsters to protect it.”

The different environment types will test your monster creation skills.

“There’s a level covered in mud,” said Barnard. “You can create demons that fly, so the mud doesn’t touch them and slow them down, or you can create demons that eat the mud.”

Creating and customizing demons, however, costs souls (the game’s unit of currency), so you’ll have to play strategically.

Additionally, you can customize your own world in “NetherRealms” to give it a specific theme, such as an “underwater world.”

“NetherRealms” arose from Barnard’s desire to create a game like “Plants vs. Zombies,” but with deeper levels of customization and complexity.

The game’s single-player mode will have you exploring the world and finding out humans are perhaps even more horrible than demons. Multiplayer will allow you to experience other players’ worlds and monsters.

Springloaded is developing “NetherRealms” for “every platform in the world.”

“NetherRealms” has been in development for only 3 months. The core team working on it consists of Barnard, who does all the coding, and two artists. 3 part-time employees also help out.


Making it big

Events like ESGS and Indie Arena benefit indie game developers enormously.

“It’s a process of the developers showing their games, and then finding out from the players’ reactions where their games need improvement,” said Foster.

Foster is happy that some among the developers at Indie Arena have already found success.

“Some got Greenlit on Steam,” she said. “Even without any marketing support, they got millions of downloads. So it’s amazing that you have these game developers here who are actually making it big in the international scene, yet not a lot of Filipinos know about them. So that’s why they’re here, we want to make their games more accessible to the Filipino market.” — TJD, GMA News