With INDIE INTERVIEWS, I talk to the game developers hanging here on Cohost to learn more about new games you might love.
How do you discover indie games you might like? How do you get players to discover your own game? For those who aren't eager to play in the Steam front page + Youtuber + Twitch Streamer rat race, all we've got is each other. As people get more into games, they slowly discover just how little of the iceberg is popular and readily available. Underneath the glossy Steam front page or the Nintendo eShop is a vast, vast ocean of indie creators making personal and unique games. Today I talk to @PIZZAPRANKS, creator of Indiepocalypse. It's a monthly anthology game launcher that works directly in supporting small devs and curating a variety of great games. It's one of the inspirations for me starting this very Cohost page!
You can find all the Indiepocalypse game anthologies on itch.io. Don't know where to start? Try the Starter Guide or 10 Picks for games to jump in with.
Introduce yourself for everyone here on Cohost: Who are you?
Hi, I'm Andrew. I run Indiepocalypse and on some rare occasions find time to do other things.
What is Indiepocalypse?
Indiepocalypse is a monthly anthology of games and companion zine. Each month I curate 9 games and commission 1 new game, wrap them together in a launcher and sell that anthology in hopes of helping to support developers making alternative/traditionally non-commercial/whatever-you-want-to-call-them games. (everyone gets paid up front and in royalties as well) It is largely me looking at the model of small press anthology publishing that exists in other mediums like literature and just doing that for with games.
One of the funny things about the English language is that the term "indie" now seems to encapsulate a wide spectrum of scope and budget. In your own words, how would you describe what the "alternative indie game scene" is specifically?
Fortunately , like "indie", "alternative" is an equally vague term that doesn't really mean anything either. An alternative to the mainstream? What if an "alternative game" catches on and becomes popular, is it no longer "alternative"? To me it's more of a feeling or "you'll know it when you see it" sort of thing. And I don't think there's a cohesive scene either, nor should there really be. Is it that they're more personal, experimental, or ignore (disregard even?) your GDC Talk tenants of good design? Maybe. A big part of it to me is that I can play it and feel A Person made it. I can hear their voice and feel the influence of their own particular interests. I think "alternative" works best as a personal identifier. It's the sort of thing that excites you and feels completely unlike the game you are most likely exposed to day-to-day. (Paradise and DOMINO CLUB are good starting points if you want to start finding your alternative and find "just browse itch/the internet" too intimidating)
If you want to think of it in terms of something like a budget, I'd say where the common-term "indie" may have 1% of a AAA budget, the "alternative" has 1% (or more likely 0%) of the "indie" budget.
People make indie games for all sorts of reasons: as commercial products, as hobbies, as gifts, and as personal projects. The lines are blurred between all of them, but I find that devs who make commercial indie games have to dedicate a lot of their time and effort into marketing. Do you see Indiepocalypse's goal as "getting the word out to as many people as possible" about the games you include, or are you content to share small projects with a small, like-minded audience?
I'd sure love it if Indiepocalypse got everyone talking about and playing all these games! I hate doing marketing and it's something I knew, forgot, and arduously relearned. My dream goal is that Indiepocalypse becomes a standard sort of library within the medium that people know to check if they want to go one layer deeper than the commercial, budgeted indie. Not every game in the zine is for everybody and not every game is even for every person who would say that they like Indiepocalypse. But that's the fun!
I would say the ideal audience for the zine is anyone who ever wants to branch out a little or try something they've never heard of before. Which I think is probably everyone at some point in their life! So I guess I want the broader Indiepocalypse to reach as many people as possible so that each game within can reach the people that (whether they realize it or not) are looking for them?
For the devs reading this who may want to make a project for Indiepocalypse someday, how would they go about getting into an issue? In addition, what do they need to know about how payment works?
It's very easy to submit! If you go to Indiepocalypse.com/submit you can easily submit your game. Currently I use itch.io's jam page format for submissions but that URL will always work no matter how submissions are accepted. There are no strict criteria and inclusion all comes down to what games I decide to include. It's probably not best to try and make an "Indiepocalypse game", just make whatever you want to make and not what you think someone else will like. And if you've already got a game you've made you can submit that too, whether you made it yesterday or 10 years ago.
For payments, so long as there is some way to pay you through the internet, you're good.
For the players reading this who want to get started with playing these great games, where do you suggest they start? There's a lot of issues out already!
That's a problem I've been thinking about and dealing with myself! Good places to start would be the Starter Guide or the 10 Picks lists. Aside from that you can try starting with an issue with a dev/game you know, a kind of game you want to try, or just go by the vibe of the covers or screenshots. (also, between you and me, most of these games are also free on the dev's own itch pages and i link to those pages on the indiepocalypse store page. so, you know)
I've never asked anyone this question before, but I'd love to hear your take on it: there are a lot of great, small-scope indie projects out there that most people have never heard of. If someone reading this is a fan of a game like that, what is the best thing they could do to support that game and its developer? And if someone reading this has developed a tiny project like that, what is the best thing they could do to get people out there to play it?
For the first part, the best thing I think you can do is to talk about it. And I don't necessarily mean jumping on social media and preaching the good word. There's something to talking about games with friends and in casual conversation. No matter what a game spends on marketing, you're not actually under obligation to talk or even think about it. I think the longer term tends to benefit niche works and honestly, if I knew how to make these sorts of games more immediate successes I would have done it already!
For the second, buddy, I wish I knew! But I would say try to focus on smaller scales and communities? Throwing yourself at social media with everyone else (especially if your game is not, as they say, "gifable") as the main way of getting people to play your game can definitely be exhausting.
Lastly, are there any indie games out there you've been playing recently? Any favorites to shout-out?
I don't know how it fits into "indie" but 2023 is the Year I Get Into Touhou. I am generally very bad about having a favorite anything, but pressed for an answer I do really like Room of 1000 Snakes.
Thanks for chatting, Andrew! And thanks for all the work you've put into supporting a community of small devs. For everyone else...you can find all the Indiepocalypse game anthologies on itch.io. And if you're daunted by all the choices, try the Starter Guide or 10 Picks for games to jump in with. Until next time!
