"Indie" WTF does that mean?

[dislekcia]

we should have more Underware prototype competitions.

I would totally organise those... If I weren't so busy being elitist.

[BlackShipsFillt]

The thing about Underware competitions is that you have to think like a hobbyist (or at least a failed indie who has ended up stamping envelopes for a living). You have to make something that cannot sell. It has to be personal and it has to be something that you sincerely (misguidedly) believe will change the world and believe has never been done before (because of some specious reasoning).

I think... I don't actually know much about Underware. Maybe I'm a bit cynical.

Maybe it should be more like: Make the best, most unsellable, game ever!

Like: Conan Dash. Cooking management fun starring hunky, but violently unstable, Jason Momoa!

Or Astophysics Equations Scrabble! Endless fun for Astrophysicists everywhere!

Or maybe something fun, I don't know.

Plus! Stop being so elitist Dis!

[helloserve]

I think you guys are over-thinking this in a big way.

[dislekcia]

Also, I program in my undies... (Or sometimes other people's undies)

-A crocheting game for iPad, extra yarn colours sold as in-app purchases.

-An intricate competitive multiplayer lumber-sports game, become sponsored by Stihl to enter the big leagues - no bot play because bots are hard to program but I have a free server API!

-A match-3 about Jungian dream analysis, randomly generated from real LiveJournal posts, try to find your "patients" IRL.

-Knot tying game with real physics! Master the starboard winkle-hitch! Stop errant slippage! Stow that cargo!

[EyeBall]

since moderators make no or very little money can we say they are not moderators?

[Goraan]

Also, I program in my undies... (Or sometimes other people's undies)

-A crocheting game for iPad, extra yarn colours sold as in-app purchases.

-An intricate competitive multiplayer lumber-sports game, become sponsored by Stihl to enter the big leagues - no bot play because bots are hard to program but I have a free server API!

-A match-3 about Jungian dream analysis, randomly generated from real LiveJournal posts, try to find your "patients" IRL.

-Knot tying game with real physics! Master the starboard winkle-hitch! Stop errant slippage! Stow that cargo!

Dis you lose this comp. I would buy all of these games and all the yarns.

[KalMaverick]

When I think indie games I think of developers that are independent from publishers.

I don't automatically think they must be paying the bills with their games and be independent of outside income. Does a indie developer become a hobbyist if he plans on selling a game and it flops badly and resorts to prostitution to pay his bills?

If the game does well and he doesn't need to resort to prostitution is he an indie developer again?

Whether the average guy making a game just for fun can be called an indie developer I also not sure.

In the end it's just a buzzword.

[dislekcia]

When I think indie games I think of developers that are independent from publishers.

I don't automatically think they must be paying the bills with their games and be independent of outside income. Does a indie developer become a hobbyist if he plans on selling a game and it flops badly and resorts to prostitution to pay his bills?

If the game does well and he doesn't need to resort to prostitution is he an indie developer again?

Whether the average guy making a game just for fun can be called an indie developer I also not sure.

In the end it's just a buzzword.

Well, that's kinda the point: I'm trying to make it a useful term instead of a buzzword because the definition I gave for it is useful to me.

It's only really meaningless and consigned to being a buzzword if you want to leave it at that.

[dislekcia]

Dis you lose this comp. I would buy all of these games and all the yarns.

Crap... Uh, what about:

-Play a high school teacher, guiding your class through lessons: Can you get 100% to pass? If you don't hit your mark quotas, you get fired! Think about that when setting your exams.

-Use your motion-sensitive devices to play a juggling game. Audio cues tell you how close your hands are to the balls/pins/chainsaws, try not to throw your phone!

-Dance Dance Meditation

[BlackShipsFillt]

-A crocheting game for iPad, extra yarn colours sold as in-app purchases.

-An intricate competitive multiplayer lumber-sports game, become sponsored by Stihl to enter the big leagues - no bot play because bots are hard to program but I have a free server API!

-A match-3 about Jungian dream analysis, randomly generated from real LiveJournal posts, try to find your "patients" IRL.

-Knot tying game with real physics! Master the starboard winkle-hitch! Stop errant slippage! Stow that cargo!

-Play a high school teacher, guiding your class through lessons: Can you get 100% to pass? If you don't hit your mark quotas, you get fired! Think about that when setting your exams.

-Use your motion-sensitive devices to play a juggling game. Audio cues tell you how close your hands are to the balls/pins/chainsaws, try not to throw your phone!

-Dance Dance Meditation

LOL!! These are the best! I read the first one as "Crotcheting" :P

Have you thought about a career in Underware development?

[BlackShipsFillt]

- Voice Activated Yodeling Championships? With tweet-a-yodel functionality and an 3D animated yack yodel assistant.

- Life Guard simulator. Enjoy relaxing in the sun, with 4 beaches to choose from and 3 varied quicktime emergencies.

- WindSurfing. Learn to windsurf just like the failed US Presidential Candidate John Kerry.

[KalMaverick]

Well, that's kinda the point: I'm trying to make it a useful term instead of a buzzword because the definition I gave for it is useful to me.

It's only really meaningless and consigned to being a buzzword if you want to leave it at that.

But if the people who use indie use it differently than you would?

How does assigning your own personal definition make it useful?

[BlackShipsFillt]

How does assigning your own personal definition make it useful?

Assuming his definition is useful, rather than just being a not-AAA catchall buzzword, then he is not just assigning a definition, he is trying to spread it and bring the more useful term into popular usage (as is evidenced by this thread).

Debating semantics is itself, not a useless pastime. Now when I talk to Dis, I'll be fully aware of his elitist views of "Indie" and understand his understanding and be able to talk his language in response :) Resulting in fewer debates over semantics in the future (and fewer tragic misunderstanding) and leaving me with more time to eat crisps.

[dislekcia]

Plus I must admit that my definition comes from talking to people who use the term hobbyist and indie to describe two different groups of developers. It's not like I spend time trying to convince anyone of the difference at conferences overseas - I'm actually pretty surprised that people would argue the difference on this forum.

- Voice Activated Yodeling Championships? With tweet-a-yodel functionality and an 3D animated yack yodel assistant.

- Life Guard simulator. Enjoy relaxing in the sun, with 4 beaches to choose from and 3 varied quicktime emergencies.

- WindSurfing. Learn to windsurf just like the failed US Presidential Candidate John Kerry.

OMG. Brilliant. These will change very, very small parts of the world :) I think my fav has to be the yodeling.

[KalMaverick]

Assuming his definition is useful, rather than just being a not-AAA catchall buzzword, then he is not just assigning a definition, he is trying to spread it and bring the more useful term into popular usage (as is evidenced by this thread).

Plus I must admit that my definition comes from talking to people who use the term hobbyist and indie to describe two different groups of developers. It's not like I spend time trying to convince anyone of the difference at conferences overseas - I'm actually pretty surprised that people would argue the difference on this forum.

Ok I get that, except as is shown in this thread not everyone believes dislekcia definition to be the most appropriate or am I wrong? Is there only a very few that disagree?

Anyway it doesn't really matter that much, okay maybe just a little, for now I'll skip over the term indie and just do what I've always done up until the time disleckia starts to go overseas to conferences and convinces everyone to use the same defintion, which admittedly would make things a whole lot simpler.

[dislekcia]

Ok ok ok, new ideas:

-Tablet Kite Simulator. Fly a kite even if you don't have one. Checks location and weather for realism, uses microphone to gauge wind strength.

-DDR for iPad. Network 4 iPads together. Play barefoot. (This one courtesy of Nandrew)

-Barista Dash. Match pretentious hipster tastes to coffee orders, finally draw hearts in cappuccinos like you've always wanted.

[dislekcia]

Ok I get that, except as is shown in this thread not everyone believes dislekcia definition to be the most appropriate or am I wrong? Is there only a very few that disagree?

Anyway it doesn't really matter that much, okay maybe just a little, for now I'll skip over the term indie and just do what I've always done up until the time disleckia starts to go overseas to conferences and convinces everyone to use the same defintion, which admittedly would make things a whole lot simpler.

Well that's the funny thing: How closely was agreement tied to actually making a living making indie games? That's basically what I'm saying already happens in locations with higher concentrations of indie devs anyway.

[KalMaverick]

Well that's the funny thing: How closely was agreement tied to actually making a living making indie games? That's basically what I'm saying already happens in locations with higher concentrations of indie devs anyway.

So if someone had a full time job, say plumber, and at night he made games as another means of income albeit not anywhere a big as his main source of income.

Would he be considered an indie game developer?

[dislekcia]

So if someone had a full time job, say plumber, and at night he made games as another means of income albeit not anywhere a big as his main source of income.

Would he be considered an indie game developer?

If he was actively involved in the business of selling the games he made, I'd probably say yes.

The thing is, I don't think that you really have anyone doing this that IS actually making side-income off the games they make, because you have to spend so much time on the non-development side of games if you're trying to make anything off it.

[BlackShipsFillt]

- Realistic Golf. Strolling included. IAP golf carts and GTA style golf gang territories.

- Legislation Racket. Pass legislation by pinning to unfailable legislation. Like depleted-uranium mini gun funding appended to blankets for underaged starving hurricane victims. Apply rude name calling techniques and rig polls to show "public support" to force cowardly politicians to vote alongside you.

- **** Plumber. Drag and connect plumbing against an rapidly expanding suburb and their onslaught of pooh.

- Crime Watch! Battle Crime in a middle-class neighborhood as an impotent middle age man or woman.

- 2 Player IPhone Frisbie? Gyroscope enabled iphone throwing fun! Try catching it between your legs.

- Cape Taxi Driver. This has got to be said, it comes up so often for some reason, or used to. It's a true under ware game concept if there ever was one.