5 Indie games that the mainstream couldn’t make…
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One of the great things about being Indie (not Goro, although that might be an advantage too) is that you’re free to fuck around with concepts and idea’s that the commercial publishers wouldn’t touch with someone elses bargepole roughly the size of South Africa.
So, lets celebrate, dear readers, five games whose concepts would never manage to get past the pitching stage at a mainstream publishers…
Tarenagasi
Painting Mario’s hall with poop.
Generally, games involving faeces by their very nature have to remain the domain of the Indie. Last time I checked there isn’t much of a market for full price shit flinging games at your local supermarket.
Ok, there might be, but I dare you to find a publisher that would risk the financial outlay on a fully 3d virtual poo-able upon world. After all, why publish a game about shit when you can publish a game that is shit instead?
Tarenagasi has plenty of shit flinging. In fact, the entire game appears to be based around flinging shit around Mario’s mansion. Why? Nobody really knows but you’ve got to admit - it’s a noble pastime. There’s been many a time I’ve wanted to cack over the irritating moustachioed twat. “It’s a me, Mario!”
Don’t go expecting a point or a punchline to Tarenagasi because honestly, there isn’t one. You’re presented with 3 options upon starting the game and the only thing effected is the amount of time you get to play for. For the more casual scatalogically inclined player - mode 3 gives you unlimited time. So you can relax, make yourself a brew and shit yourself senseless all over the place without the worry of ever having to wipe.
Mighty Jill Off
How high?
The games industry has a long history of flirting with sexual imagery, but lets face it - much of what passes for adult content gets little further than behind the bike sheds teenage sniggering. From the early days of poorly digitized strip poker, Maria Whittakers and Wolf’s tits on display or the nipple slip of the Game Over advert to todays so called adult scenes in games it seems we’re destined for the mainstream to never let itself slide beyond sub Paul Raymond content in games. You have to worry about any industry that actively encourages the Leisure Suit Larry series of games to exist…
Mighty Jill Off is an entirely different matter. Overtly dealing with BDSM themes, it keeps its tongue in firmly planted in its cheek (and at the boot) and manages to create an adult themed game with humour that dares to step outside of the comfy confines the game industry has built for itself. It also helps that it’s a rather good game too…
And who’d have thought you could have sexualised the Bomb Jack formula?
Van Damnation
Kicking to Slayer, the Indie way.
The games industry has a long and prolific history of investing in celebrity, TV, film and character licensing and spewing out games on the back of them. Over the years, from the Knight Rider/Street Hawk fiasco to 50 Cent in Bulletproof, the general public have grown to be incredibly wary of any celebrity endorsed product. And rightly so as 90% of licensed games tend to turn to gutrot faster than last nights drunken indulgence in a kebab smothered in chilli sauce.
Free of the constraints of a publicist or PR guru breathing down their neck, Indies can take games on an entirely different track and Van Damnation is a sterling example of a celebrity based game that actually works. The original concept for the game comes from a Seanbaby article from 2005 detailing some of the worst TV licensing tie ins known to man.
“a score of 10 would be for a game based on Jean-Claude Van Damme which uses only two buttons—one to do the splits and another to punch someone in the dong”
Throw in a rough plotline that entails nothing more profound than the eponymous Mr Van Damme travelling to a Slayer gig and you’ve got a recipe that can’t possibly fail. It’s also a plotline that’s far too dumb for the mainstream to pick up on. Even the forthcoming sequel to the abysmal 50 Cent game has seen the developers construct a needless and bizarre Indiana Jones/war in the Middle East plot to flesh out the background.
The mainstream industry needs to learn one important lesson from Van Damnation. Dumb isn’t necessarily bad.
Obsessive Compulsive Penguin Simulator
Just one more snowdrift…
For anyone who’s ever wondered how someone with obsessive/compulsive traits copes with gaming, you can do a lot worse than take a gander over at friend of Mersey Remakes Moobaa’s blog. Aptly titled O/C Gamer, the blog documents the trials and tribulations of gaming with an industry increasingly focused on 100% collection rates, unlockables and empty rewards. Actually, you should just go and read it anyway as it’s always highly entertaining.
For anyone who’s ever wondered how an O/C Penguin copes with uneven snowdrifts, the recent TIG Source Video Game Name Generator competition spawned this glorious gem of a game.
Go on, just think about that for a minute. Can you possibly imagine walking into your local supermarket and there, for your shiny new Playstation 3, is a game that’s not just about obsessive/compulsive traits but a fucking Penguin with obsessive/compulsive traits that can’t bear even the slightest ripple in the snow. I think I’m pretty safe to bet that it’s not something I’ll see in my lifetime.
The game itself is something I’m sure any company would be happy enough to wrap into a shiny casual wrapper but you can bet your last few pennies that they’d be forced to come up with some sort of fluffy backstory about how the evil Baron Von Polarbear is going to invade Penguincity etc… etc… blah fucking blah.
Mondo Agency
It’s just my restless legs.
As a rule of thumb, the commercial games industry try not to fuck with your head too much. In the past we’ve had a few rare examples of games going out of their way to break your brain (LSD on the Playstation being a prime example) but nothing that really fucks with your perception.
Generally, the closest we’ll come to mind bending is a bit of a flashback, a slight weird out a la the Silent Hill series or a quick tripped out scene. The chances of someone building and then being able to market a game built entirely around messing with your senses is close to nil, I’d wager.
Mondo Agency from is a Lynch-ian nightmare of a game. Presented predominantly in black and white, it uses minimal 3d graphics and sound to throw you off kilter and disorientate you. From the curious perspective of the opening maze, onto the hi-rise cubes and beyond - every single level messes with you in a slightly different way. It’s playful in the way that it bends gaming conventions that we’ve all grown used to over the years, making the familiar seem cold and strange.
If the sales of the infinitely less weird Space Giraffe are anything to go by, I doubt we’ll see much in the way of mind warping mainstream games in the near future. God forbid you should challenge the player beyond the realms of switch flicking and “collect 100 coins to open a room” style gameplay, eh?
Download and play:
Speak your brains
6 Responses to “5 Indie games that the mainstream couldn’t make…”
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hehe… space fuck
You could pick any of Cactus’ games really, couldn’t you?
Bless, he’s a star.
ya forgot g-force
That’s “wouldn’t” not couldn’t :p
I hate Van Damnation.
Clearly you’re a dick.
Oh wait…