I recently heard about a 48-hour game jam for lo-fi RPGs over here at RPGDX, but unfortunately I haven't heard much about the projects that resulted -- with the exception of this one, Sophie Houlden's Linear RPG.
It's kind of cool in terms of concept -- since it's tough to explain, I'll recommend you just learn by doing, which will only take you a few minutes -- but since the primary game mechanics come down to running back and forth while trying to read tiny text, I'm not sure it's all that much to see. Which is fine, of course -- no one's ever going to make a mindblowingly perfect finished product in a 48-hour jam, and the primary takeaway of game jams tends to be new concepts more than new games, per se.
Similarly, the reason I'm into the idea of a lo-fi RPG jam is less because of the specifics and more because of the concept. Last time on SVGL, we were talking about similarities between the games biz and the music biz, and when I think about the lo-fi scene enjoyed in each arena, I discover yet another cool connection!
Whether games or music, the term "lo-fi" has come to encapsulate something of an independent movement that rejects big budgets and high production values. It originates as a financial necessity for indies with few resources -- and then it becomes an art form in and of itself, as audiences develop a taste for not only the rough and simple, but for the integrity behind it.
Without fancy development tools -- or, in the case of music, fancy recording tech and studio time -- artists of both disciplines adapt by getting fascinatingly creative with the way they produce. The results can be so much fun that fans of some bands often reject the music once it stops sounding like it's been recorded into a tape deck.
Similarly, video game fans often have a hard time dealing with the way technology's onward march affects their favorite franchises, preferring pixelated originals to the flashy remakes. I like how Capcom got wise to this and made Mega Man 9 with scanlines and all.
Of course, neither Capcom nor the Mega Man mega-franchise are indie, nor were they ever -- in the days of early Mega Man, that was high-fidelity. But it's that particular aesthetic that seems to inspire the stylish popularity of today's Cave Story and Spelunky, to name just a couple.
Like Capcom, you can bet more than a few music acts with the bucks to burn deliberately fake the DIY vibe. When it comes to "true" lo-fi music acts, I'm actually vaguely nervous about listing the ones I like for fear the music nerds will descend on me and peck out my eyes (little help here, Dahlen?). It's safe to say The Kills and Vivian Girls, right?
But just a quick glance around Google shows that even music connoisseurs have the same kind of "what is true lo-fi" arguments that mirror the heated "what is true indie?" discussions that we often have in the games biz (I am looking forward to GDC. Really, I am).
People are passionate about it -- because on both counts, it's a "scene." Consumers are connotating a morality to it, a hipster sensibility that only serves to make both lo-fi indie games and music alike painfully cool.
We've even got our own Pitchfork of sorts in clever-cute-cool Offworld, now. Which if you're not reading, you seriously totally should. Don't wanna be left out, now, do you? All the cool kids are doing it.
What are your favorite lo-fi games? And can anyone point me to some other games to have come out of this RPG jam?
40 comments:
Your taste in music is perfectly awesome. I love your Twitter show reports.
My favorite lo-fi record is probably Guided by Voices' "Alien Lanes." It's funny, I'm not even a big ROCK GUY but I love bands that sound like they're just rocking out in their basements. The pretentious reason would be that it's "authentic," but the real reason is "they're having fun."
I think Action Button is a closer Pitchfork-of-games than Offworld, though. Offworld needs ratings!
I'm currently playing Civil War Generals, a Sierra product made to run on Windows 3.1, and Carmageddon 2 which requires a lot of patching to get it to run on XP. Plus I still have Wasteland for DOS 3.3 on my machine. I hope to buy Ultima IV and V next. At some point I apparently turned into an old man who doesn't get what you kids are into these days.
Phew! Thanks Chris -- of course as somewhat more than a casual listener, while I listen to what I like and never what I don't like no matter how cool it is (sorry, "AnCo" and SantIgold), I am constantly terrified not to be awesome (honestly)!
It's funny, I was talking to Edmund McMillen of Gish fame the other day, and he had some interesting stuff to say about what actually consitutes 'indie' now. For instance, he claimed that Pixeljunk Ededn didn't qualify, because they were making a bunch of money out of it now. So, in that case, 'indie' merely means free or not commercially successful. However, I'd refute that somewhat.
Look at World of Goo. It's obviously an extremely indie effort, and yet it's done remarkably well (at least critically). To say that 2D Boy (love you!) are posterboys for the indie scene would be a minor understatement, and yet a company like Introversion or Valve, both of which are large, but fund themselves, and are therefor Independent, don't quite qualify for the name. It's a tricky one, and seems to hinge mostly on just who is trying to make the assessment. Indie is what you want it to, it appears.
Oh, and I've heard of neither bands you've mentioned, so they must be suitably lo-fi and awesome.
Knytt and Knytt Stories! They're both very minimalistic, atmospheric platformers with an emphasis on conflict-avoidance (you don't kill anything) and exploration. They're perfect chill-out, stress-relief games, and philosophically they're also very inspiring.
As far as lo-fi games go, you should have a look at the output of two Irish gents named Stephen Lavelle and Terry Cavanagh.
...I just noticed that you linked to the post Terry made on the TIGS forums, actually, so you may already be familiar with those guys' games. Still, I'll post this just in case.
Japanther!
Also, don't you think the big titans (IGN, Gamespot) are closer to the sort of insular navel gazing that Pitchfork wallows in. Pitchfork isn't exactly academic, its more just elitist, which is what makes it mind-numbing for me to read. It's all tone and feigned objectivity, with little supporting substance. Sounds sort of familiar, no :)
Dwarf Fortress is awesome. I only just tried it and I'm hooked. Definitely lo-fi. Stubbornly so.
How can I see this what this awesome music is you listen to? Do you track it on last.fm?
I don't use stuff like that -- I am too socially-networked as it is. I tend to put bands I like in my blogger profile, though.
It's a lot easier to make music than a game, though. Anybody with an instrument can make some noise (no guarantees of quality, of course), whereas even the most rudimentary videogame requires solid knowledge of a programming language. Even Passage couldn't replicate the specific appeal and immediacy of a limited edition home-recorded 7" with a hand-made sleeve.
To add to what Garrett Martin said, I don't think we'll see a true indie revolution in gaming until someone makes a bit of software that makes it easier for the average person to make games. Something like what Dreamweaver did for the internet, but for games instead. Little Big Planet's user generated content maybe begins to hint at what I'm thinking of.
In the music world we have Fruity Loops, Reason, Cubase, Garage Band, and all of the many other "studio in a box" kind of programs that have made it easier for people with limited knowledge about sound engineering or production to gain entry into the previously priveledged world of music recording. I think a lot of people have great ideas in their head about videogames they would make if it didn't require years of training in computer science to even begin a rudimentary version of their vision. If there were a technology to make videogame making easier, I think a wonderfully creative and diverse indie game scene could arise.
Not to say that there aren't some great indie games now- World of Goo is phenomenal. Crayon Physics is really cool. Alien Hominid started as a geeky fun flash game and eventually saw its way to XBox and PS2 (perhaps the first indie gaming sellout? heheh. Just kidding. I can't stand when bands get called sellouts just for joining a major label.)
Anyway, until someone develops a technology for making it easier to create games, I'll just have to keep my brilliant ideas to myself, since I don't have time for a computer science degree. To any legitimate game developers out there though, I'd be happy to let you rip off my ideas! :)
Whether games or music, the term "lo-fi" has come to encapsulate something of an independent movement that rejects big budgets and high production values
Don't forget about word at the other end of the phrase "lo-fi RPG jam"--that word was explicitly borrowed from music, although it's more of an ideal than being all that accurate a description for most events these days.
whatevs, abdn is the pitchfork of gaming, if pitchfork never updated but was unerringly awesome when it did
incidentally, today's captcha word is "prog rot"
oops, chris beat me to it.
leigh let me make you music recommendations
48 hour lo-fi RPG jam?
I'm reminded of NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month, the idea of which is to write a novel in a month, quality being far less important than meeting the word count.
I'm always weary of the terms "lo-fi" and "indie" because, as some of the comments show already, they mean different things to different people. I mean, is a band lo-fi because they only have the means to be lo-fi, or does it still count if it's a deliberate choice? And lo-fi compared to what? I still play text adventures and that's about as lo-fi as you can get. And indie I've always taken to mean an independent studio no matter how well they're doing (Like, say, Introversion). Slippery terms, they are.
[rant]I'm afraid of the hipster pretention of music coming to gaming. Pitchfork loves to praise the underdog. That it, until they get popular, in which case Pitchfork knocks the band down a peg or two. This need to be always at the bleeding edge of obscurity is annoying and unhelpful to musicians. [/rant]
@JT
www.garagegames.com & Kodu is coming this Spring.
Lo-Fi? Isn't that what my Wii is for? ;p
And "Lo-Fi" in gaming in generally termed "retro."
Films have the same exact issue Music and Games have regarding "Indie" what it means, who counts, etc. For instance: both WB and Fox have indie-branches, but can a film count as indie when it's funded by a large distributor? Many very-much-not-indie blockbusters are ONLY funded by these same distributors, doing everything else independently (clearly, Valve would be an equivalent gamer example). I mean, Juno "looked" indie, but definitely wasn't from a practical standpoint. Anyway, I guess that just goes to show that the question of "indie" is universal through all modern artistic mediums.
And I want to just reiterate what JT said about Gaming needing their Casio, or Dreamweaver, or Flash. SOMETHING that allows the creation of games to be removed from the realm of esoteric computer programming languages. I've personally always been more fascinated by the concept of video games than the actual games themselves.
If I had the opportunity, I'd love to try building one myself. But how does a single person casually do this without investing lots of time into a skill – programming – that is so intensely mathematical? Even Flash game development requires a knowledgeable programmer. And it's been like this for years. The closest we've ever gotten is RPG maker, which is woefully limited. And also restricts you to RPGs.
I'm not seeing the parallel here. Show me the "lo-fi" music creations that are anything like the stuff people do with pixel art. Name a band that gets "creative" with bad sound quality. It's like saying a game designer is creative with low frame rates.
I think you're confusing low production values with minimalism. Plenty of bands make do with limited instrumentation and other constraints--similar to pixel art--but there's no excuse for making a recording that sounds like it was done with a computer mic in your bathroom.
I love Offworld because it's the antithesis to Pitchfork (and game sites, in general):
Where the latter loves to play taste maker, Boyer simply digs up rough gems, dusts them off with some modest editorial and sort of says "you might like this."
God, if only I were so eloquent.
I didn't know what the heck lo-fi was until I read this. I guess I like indie podcasts to listen to, it's just hard to find them so far. Once I become familiar with podcasts as I am with text blogs, I guess I could talk more about it. Having BEEN in a podcast talking about Osamu Tezuka's Buddha manga on the ABC's Triple J program Sunday Night Safran I know how much time and effort goes into a podcast, which is why I can appreciate them even more.
As for my taste in music, oh the shame. I used to be an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, which is like pouring salt on the proverbial indie snail. I dunno. I have odd taste in music, a friend introduced me to Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and I love Apocalyptica's cello Metallica covers ("One" on cello is pure win). I also listen to Leonard Cohen and actually paid for the albums of his that I own, same with a lot of my other music I didn't rip from my twin bro's CD collection. Went to Leonard Cohen's Sydney Concert too. I was one of the only two 19 year olds there, the other 19 year old was my bro.
what's wrong with liking leonard cohen?
I think of last.fm as an antisocial network for collecting my music stats. disclaimer though, I work for them, so I can't help but think it's worth using.
Ok, I've read comments about tool sets and the definition of "lo-fi" changing from person to person, plus plenty of reference to the music scene. But what if the two medias just aren't analagous at the moment?
Not having the tool sets to create games independantly from programming does severly restrict what is possible but using tool sets might destroy the potential to make something that falls under the definition of lo-fi in the first place. And where does it draw the line and just become modding?
Personally, I'm fascinated by the idea of game-jams and don't think that we should start taking labels from other media to stick on something so unique to the games industry.
This isn't something that needs to be turned into a genre to be recognised.
Name a band that gets "creative" with bad sound quality.
The Dead C, Times New Viking, about a thousand others...
Using feedback, static, etc. is not the same as being lo-fi. That's just unusual instrumentation.
Also, having bad sound quality is not the same as being creative with it. I'm well aware that plenty of bands record badly on purpose and say they like it that way. But what's creative about it? Anyone can do it; it doesn't lead to new and interesting sounds.
The video game equivalent would be, say, someone creating a texture, then intentionally making it low-res and blurry.
Would Mitsuo's level in Persona 4 be considered lo-fi then?
And for a laugh, here is the future of hipsterism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_7eEY_9bg8
I think the most obvious example has to Cave Story, which gained a pretty ridiculous following after it was spread around on various forums including that love-to-hate hole of the internet, 4chan.
The example of Cave Story is why this overall comparison is making me sad. It's insulting to put hours of detailed pixel work and animation on the same level as choosing to use an old tape deck.
Alex, I don't think you're clear on what "lo fi" means in this context. Independent music can actually sound quite clean. Especially these days.
Cave Story = a groundbreaking and appealing use of pixel art, an older form of asset creation
Lo-fi music = a groundbreaking and appealing use of older forms of music creation
:\
Music has had centuries of an untouchable, elitist, walled-around creator circle. One of the crucial concepts of indie or lo-fi music is embody the rebellious antithesis of the old norm.
Videogames have had maybe a decade; a decade-and-a-half of this problem of industry outsiders looking in. Before that, which is to say before the Internet made the unestablished creators easily accessible, videogames were just entertainment that most people were happy to leave to the professionals. Music went through that shift, too - from a purely passive audience to an active and passive audience - but certainly not within one generation. Videogames and their culture often trip all over themselves to catch up to their big cousins Film and Music, who are way down the road.
But what I'm getting at is that comparing indie music to indie games is appropriate but not really accurate, I think.
Where the fresh thing about indie music is that it challenges traditional boundaries and borders, the fresh thing about indie gaming is that it charts out mysterious new territory.
For an example of where lo-fi and videogames meet, see the "chip tune" scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNbVTP-HVFU
@Econniff
"lo-fi" only has one meaning, and that involves the use of low-fidelity recording equipment. It is not synonymous with "indie," "amateur," "cheaply made," "DIY," or anything else.
@SVGL
The recording equipment isn't a big part of the creation though, is it? It captures the creation, and in the case of lo-fi, maybe gives it a "finish," like applying a Photoshop filter.
A better comparison would be making pixel art and playing old, difficult-to-master instruments. Chiptunes (with actual old hardware and trackers) are a good example of this, but note there is nothing "lo-fi" about chiptunes; it's no different than using old synthesizers.
I don't have a list best ten or something, but some games made an impression on me. Cave Story and Spelunky are amazing, yet as you already mentioned i will skip those two.
Shih Tzu already said Knytt and Knytt Stories, and they’re great indeed. The soundtrack in Knytt games are very atmospheric and full of silent moments, leading to a very solitary experience of seeing beautiful places. Both games had a powerful impact on me. Also An Untitled Story is a similar work, and is worth a try. It has more conflict but still is more of an exploration game.
I played and not finished a game called Opera Omnia. It's terrific, great history and a more than great gameplay. You're a historian developing thesis about immigrations in the past. It's impossible to explain, is a game that you can only understand when you play. I really love this one.
Jumpman, the one made by Andrew McClure, is an Atari plataform game with psychedelic mirror effects, and other cool design ideas. There's some moments that make it a very especial piece to me. Mighty Jill off is a game about a masochist women climbing a tall tower full of spikes and huge spiders because her sadistic queen command her so. If that's not enough to convince everyone to play it, then the world is doomed. The fact that the queen is actually the designer alter-ego and the hero her girlfriend just add more to the mix. And there's of course Nikujin, where you become a naked ninja killing a bunch of other's naked ninjas with your sword. The controls are hard to master but they provide, when you do, the felling of being a badass ninja. I mean, in a very philosophical way; the story must be really great to someone who can understand japanese.
I don't know much of indie games, but the few i know delight me. I read somewhere these days that mainstream games have a hundred times more details than most indie ones, and i agree. What bothers me is that most of the games aren't a hundred times better.
I'm loving all the comments--I'm learning more about the gaming lo-fi scene (which I didn't even know existed). Cool stuff.
That being said, isn't "indie" just a state of mind?
http://www.nomorelives.com
I think "punk" may be a better term than "lofi" in this case, but: http://www.croopier.com/oo/
These are weekly interactive situations... basically, situationist games. Really awesome stuff, a sort of "fuck everything, let's make a game about it" type of reaction to events.
My favorite lo-fi games is Pac-Man.. well I guess it's not a lo-fi games, but kinda retro games..
Anyway, nice post! Love it..
Melvin
Download Games
Going to try the game. Thanks for the breakdown. I'm a game design foot-soldier myself, and I like finding new and inspiring games that depart from the expected...
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