AAA games are definitely amazing, providing us with hours of entertaining playtime. However, the video game industry is not just about major franchises and large corporations; independent games have long been a part of our gaming lives, offering us fantastic gaming experiences on PCs, home consoles, and even mobile devices, with both casual and deeper gameplays.
An indie game is the best-selling video game of all time. The second-best-selling video game of all time is possibly an indie title as well. That’s not to say that return equals worth, but it does highlight an irrefutable fact: even in this era of AAA-studio dominance, a really inspired independent vision has the ability to emerge, grow, and even dominate the gaming scene.
Over the last decade, the popularity of indie games has skyrocketed, and indie creators have received more recognition. In recent years, games such as Stardew Valley have become best-sellers, and developers like Subset Games and Night School Studios have demonstrated to the market what small and devoted teams can do. Given the expanding pace and the massive amount of talent emerging online, there are a plethora of games and developers to keep an eye on in 2022.
Emerging developers
With AAA Games garnering most of the internet attention, it’s easy to lose sight of the indie developers that are making some of the most distinctive games in the market. However, there are some emerging studios that have been generating a lot of buzz in the video game industry.
One of the most acclaimed indie developers in recent years is Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone. The hype around his indie hit, Stardew Valley, is almost as captivating as the game itself. Barone worked on the game, his debut release, for four and a half years, doing everything himself — from programming to the animation and soundtrack. The result was an unlikely blockbuster, becoming one of the most successful independent releases since Minecraft. According to his Twitter account, Barone is currently working on a new game called Haunted Chocolatier.
Himalaya Studios is an indie game developer founded in Arizona, and currently operating from Delaware. The studio focuses on creating point & click adventure games based on classics from Sierra and LucasArts, such as Monkey Island and King’s Quest, as well as other popular P&C games like Myst and Grim Fandango. One of Himalaya Studios’ most successful games is Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements, which was released in 2019 to critical acclaim.
But not only great indie video game developers like Himalaya Studios and Luna Wolf Studios are present in Delaware. The state also has a blooming iGaming market, since online gambling was legalized in the state, and some operators have begun targeting casino games, which can be found through useful tools like Time2Play, to Delawareans.
Prominent studios
Even though indie studios are known for not being big players in the video game market, there are some developers that have established themselves as prominent creators in this competitive industry.
Founded in Seattle by Matthew Davis and Justin Ma, two former employees of 2K Games, Subset Games is an independent studio that has already earned a name for itself. FTL: Faster Than Light, the two-man team’s modern-classic breakthrough, was produced thanks to a successful indie-game Kickstarter campaign that garnered $200,000 from 10,000 pledgers. FTL is regarded as one of the most successful video game Kickstarter campaigns, earning generally good reviews from critics. The game is regarded as one of the titles that contributed to the popularity of the “rogue-lite” genre.
Another two-man team, Night School Studio is a developer based in Glendale, California that specializes in dialogue-driven adventures. Oxenfree, its critically acclaimed debut, merges a graphic-adventure mystery quest with coming-of-age teen-movie visuals and features characters based on Freaks & Geeks characters. Night School Studio followed up with Afterparty, Next Stop Nowhere, Mr. Robot (in partnership with Telltale Games), and is set to release a sequel to Oxenfree later this year.
Few studios have contributed more to the advancement of indie developers and the establishment of video games as art than thatgamecompany. This was most evident in its 2012 milestone Journey, an engaging, graphically stunning game that encourages collaboration among anonymous players as they cross a vast desertscape. Their latest title, Sky: Children of the Light, was released in 2019, and even had an animation adaptation announced in March, at AnimeJapan 2022.
