With the latest round in what seems to be a trend of layoffs at the big “triple-A” companies things seem to be getting tight…and we don’t mean the heavy drinking Scotsmen Julie’s family tree (although the thought of all those people out “pounding the pavement” as grandmother used to say might lead us to drink). Still, at the risk of mixing yet another metaphor, there just might be a ray of sunshine behind the dark clouds of layoffs. That ray of sunshine, my friends, are independent developers (indie). There is an interesting article over at one of our “must read” sites Gamastura today called “The Tiger and The Spider: From AAA to App store (available here). The article is about two gents named David Kalina and Randy Smith, who found themselves pounding said pavement after another round of layoffs from the same triple-A developer that has been in the news this week with Mythic.
The ray of light is that these same to gents decided to strike out on their own and struck indie developed gold in the form of an i-phone app called “Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor”.
Now its not that we here at No Prisoners No Mercy are big fans of the I-phone…heck none of us even own one. What is exciting is to see all the new an interesting products that come out of indie developers these days (with a big nod to the developer of one of our favorite games Fallen Earth). As we have discussed in the comments from readers, and on our shows it seems that the new and interesting developments that hit the shelves (even if those shelves are virtual shelves found on a web site) are not likely to come from the big triple A developers (who seem to have about as much loyalty to their employees these days as a box of hammers).
Enter the indie game developer, our own personal heroes.
All you have to do is take a quick tour, via Google, of indie developed games and you will find everything the same Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor to…ok…we want to say it…it starts with “Fallen” and ends with…
Yes, we will admit we are stuck on the latest indie game to hurl rocks at the big Triple A giants by delving into Julie’s favorite genre (and that would be the plural No Prisoners No Mercy team we).
So that ray of sunshine you see shining down through the darkened clouds of the big name developers who give us the “same old same old” time after time (or as Tipa will say on our next show “I already play WoW – the icon is still on my desk top) the new and fresh sent of unheard of game mechanics will be coming from our gaming heroes: the Indie Developer.
See you Online,
Julie Whitefeather
Un-Just Deserts
By Julie Whitefeather
It always seems to be “I know a guy who knows a guy” – at least it seems that way.
You would think life in a post apocalyptic society trying to eke out an existence in the middle of the Arizona desert crawling with mutants, the occasional hail of gunfire and the remnants of what was left of society would be different. At least Auntie Maim thought it should be different. She actually had no direct memories of the downfall of society of her own. All she had were the memories of some, presumably, long dead woman vaguely resembling her that had been stuck in her head by some machine cum quasi-sentient computer that called itself “Lifenet”. Perhaps vaguely wasn’t the right word. A more appropriate adjective in this case would be looking exactly like her – after all, the disembodied voice that she thought was the computer (which later turned out to be a woman called “Winters”) had insisted on repeatedly calling her “clone”. Well, insisted on it until the point
at where the disembodied voice was no longer disembodied and Auntie had threatened to reach down Winter’s throat, grab her ass and turn her inside out if she said the “C” word one more time.
All that had been about a week ago.
And now here she was, somewhere just outside some bombed out burg surrounded by a scrap wood wall it’s inhabitant laughingly thought was “security” – somewhere that called itself “Needle Eye” in what used to be a place that called itself Arizona, in a place that used to be owned by a company that called itself “Global Tech”, that bought the place from the government of what used to be called “The United State of America.”
And there he was in front of her, squatting on the ground in front of a fire: the guy who was known by a guy, who was known by a guy that Auntie had met about an hour ago.
What a strange turn of events it was that had led her to the point in what her reason told her had started about a week ago, but which her mind kept trying to tell her had started some 30 odd years ago.
“I knew you would come” said the guy, known by the guy, known by…well
you get the idea. The “guy” (who the guy that had started all this said would call himself “Ward”) was 60ish, wore a face mask that was obviously meant to be sort of shamanistic but more realistically resembled a clown on some serious drug. His feet and legs were wrapped up in old bandages up to the knee, above which he wore a leather breechclout, above which he was shirtless. Off to one side of the fire pit was what appeared to be a human skeleton topped off with a deer skull and a full set of antlers. Presiding over this odd scenario was the largest white dog that Auntie had ever seen (or thought she had ever seen if you considered the implanted memories). In fact the dog was the only being of two or four legs that she had met in the last week that hadn’t threatened to bite her, shoot her, or wanted something in trade for something else.
“You that guy named ‘Shaman Ward’” Auntie blurted out in the general direction of the clown mask.
“Not ‘named’ Ward”, the shaman spoke slowly, “Ward is what I am – it’s what I do.”
“Right, whatever” Auntie shot back.
“And I knew you were coming” said the shaman in a voice that she wasn’t sure was meant to convey mystery, exhaustion or just plain sickness of it all.
“How is that?” asked Auntie, feeling as if she were setting herself up for either a straight line or some long winded story; so far she wasn’t sure which.
“The fire told me…” came the matter-of-fact reply.
“Riiigght” said Auntie slowly.
Now it was obvious to Auntie, and it would be obvious to anyone else who had a chance to peruse the setting, even briefly, how the shaman really knew she was coming – they were in the middle of the desert and the only thing for at least a mile in any direction was the crazy shaman, his dog, a sea of cacti, and Auntie Maim. However, the shaman’s reply did answer one question for Auntie: she now knew what she was in for…
A long story.