Life on Hard Mode: How do we treat Independent Game Developers?

I have always liked Let's Plays. I find it entertaining, and often relaxing, to watch someone else play a game, and because I can't afford a lot of games it means that I get to experience them vicariously through a YouTuber that I find interesting. If you're looking for some good ones, I highly recommend Cupquake's What Remains of Edith Finch series, or Yahtzee Croshaw's Ego Review series. I really like the idea of doing my own, but I am not sure what I would talk about, so although I occasionally record myself playing games on my phone I've never committed to doing any Let's Plays (at this point in time, anyway). But because I really like the idea of doing my own one day, this means that I occasionally download games which I think would be interesting to watch in a Let’s Play. Recently, this lead me to look for games with Lovecraftian Horror, since I’ve been getting into a real horror kick lately, and I was curious how mobile gaming achieves cosmic terror. In my search, I actually found two different Cthulhu games that were labelled “Early Access”. I haven’t really played around with those kinds of games before, so I thought I’d give it a shot, and I really enjoyed the experience, even though one game was really incomplete.
Cthulhu Chronicles is an electronic gamebook engine and library which is most of the way through its development and has some cool mechanics in a simple 2D display. It did have some minor issues with animations and graphics - and at one time, a narrative mistake - but for the most part I was really drawn in. I don’t know when it will be completed, but I recommend that you check out the early access if you like the idea of cosmic horror, since I really enjoyed it and I think you will too.
Cthulhu: time for death is very early in its development, but it appears to be a heavily story-based 3D, first-person adventure game. The gameplay and mechanics are both a work in progress, and it’s quite buggy with a low framerate, probably since it is much earlier in a longer development. Whilst the current build is very buggy, the attention to detail is highly encouraging and the story idea of being a detective searching for a missing elder god is a really exciting premise for a game story.

After leaving feedback for the developers, I was excited to see what the new builds were for each - perhaps Chronicles would be released, and maybe Time for Death would get an update which would fix the bugs and allow me to do more in the small environment they’ve built. However, it’s been over two weeks so far, and there’s been no observable progress on either game.
Of course, I realize that game development takes time (and money). I know this because I had followed the development of Yandere Simulator for a long time, and seen what can go into creating a game, be it a 3D simulator game, or even a simple 2D engine (I didn’t follow it myself, but my oldest brother followed the development of Prison Architect, and despite being a game of 2D sprites, it was in development for over 4 years). Since we're talking about independent game development, the Word of the Day is: 'INDIE'

Indie /'indee/ n. 1. An independently or privately owned business, especially a film or music company that is not affiliated with a larger and more commercial company: To work for an indie. 2. A movie or other work produced by such a company. 3. A genre of music, especially pop or rock, that is independently produced. 4. A person who works for an independently owned business or is self-employed. ♦adj. 5. Noting or relating to an indie: An indie film producer; an indie video game. 6. Noting or relating to independently produced music: Indie rock; an indie pop group.

Since playing these games had reminded me of it, and I wasn’t seeing progress in the games I’d played early builds for, I decided to dive back into the YouTube Channel for YandereDev, the developer of that game I’d been following, and see how far it had come. See, the game which he is developing - which will most likely be released under the title Lovesick: Yandere Simulator - is a game wherein you play a somewhat sociopathic, young Japanese highschooler who is seeking the affection of a senior boy at her school, and uses any and every means necessary to stop other girls from romancing him or trying to declare their love for him, due to her somewhat unhealthy obsession.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a fantastic idea for a game and so I was following along with the development via YandereDev’s YouTube channel. But a long while ago I had realized that it was taking years to complete, and months at a time just to get an update video. So, I decided to let it sit for a while, and come back to it. These games gave me an excuse to, but when I did . . . oh dear. I enjoyed it at first, and I sat and binge-watched every video, old and new. Whilst I was impressed with all the new features, it seems that very recently there’s been some kind of backlash against the creator, for various reasons which I don’t care to go into because I don’t think they truly matter. Only a few weeks after I had rediscovered the game developer’s blog, he uploaded a new video called Hate and Shame, all about the kinds of things he had been dealing with, behind the scenes. So, it appears as though this lengthy project has developed a counter-culture to the fandom, sometimes known online as a hatedom. Not only is this bad for the sake of those with empathy, since I don’t like it when others suffer needlessly, but it’s also bad for the game development since unhappy artists are crappy artists and it has taken a toll on the progress of the development of Yandere Simulator. This sucks because I want to buy this game. It sounds really cool, and from what I’ve seen so far it should be fun to play. But, forces beyond the developer’s control have lead to a great many issues, and slowed down an already lengthy process.

On that note, there’s actually another game whose development I was following around the same time, and after seeing the strife that YandereDev had come across, I decided to return to Rides With Strangers, a game by Reflect Studios which is a company which basically consists of one programmer. He is responsible for the Welcome to the Game franchise. Personally, I don’t find that game very interesting, the Deep, Dark Web is kind of overplayed as horrifying already, but the idea behind Rides With Strangers is truly compelling to me. The story is that you are a woman who is travelling to visit a family member in hospital who has very little time left. After your car breaks down, you are left with no choice but to hitchhike down a lonely highway in the middle of the woods, at night, and attempt to get to your destination before time runs out. Unfortunately, most of the people you can seek to get a lift from are . . . not as kind as they would have you believe.
This is a fantastically creepy concept to me, and I was looking forward to seeing how far the development has come along. However, it doesn’t seem to have come that far either. Admittedly, this seems to be because the developer hasn’t updated YouTube, but rather is documenting his progress via Twitter, and occasional livestreams. But, in one of his tweets, he revealed that he was being called a scammer because people weren't seeing development on his flagship game, and he explained that he was waiting for more money from other games to come in, so that he can use that money to pay freelance animators and artists, so in the mean time he has been working on updating his other games. He had even begun working on a smaller title so that he can provide his audience with something in the meantime.

So, if I had to pick the predominant subject for the month gone by, it would have to be “the struggles of independent game development”. Sometimes, a subject that I want to talk about can be too broad or vague to really make a definitive statement about it, but it doesn’t really get more specific than that. But, why am I talking about it? Well, besides introducing you to four cool games you might want in the future, and four interesting indie game developers that you might consider checking out, I wanted to discuss a major element of independent game development that came to a head in my mind, after looking at all four of these games-in-progress.

A lot of people seem to forget that game developers are human. I mean, perhaps this is just part of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, that some people tend to treat everyone online like crap. But, it seems like a lot more people treat independent game developers like crap. I’m not certain why this is, perhaps it just seems worse to me because I appreciate game developers, and so harassing them seems rude. But, moving forward under the belief that this isn’t the case, I have a theory that the reason for this is because independent game developers find themselves at a crossroads of mistreatment. They are providing a product with expectations involved; they are artists, and so people can disagree with them for subjective, aesthetic reasons; they are often also playing the role of a small business; as well game development requires a lot of money and takes a lot of time, both of which tend to get people into a tizzy & add on top of this the fact that a sadly high percentile of modern gamers are entitled, hateful, whiny little shits when you get right down to it - and I think this leaves these indie game devs at a much increased risk of being mistreated and harassed by people who follow them online.

Some people look at these artists and creators as though they are little more than a widget to be provided; an art to be critiqued; a need to be fulfilled. Yes, when first I realized that these two games which I very much enjoy (conceptually) probably wouldn’t be available for years, not months, not one year, but several years, I can’t deny that I was disappointed. I still am disappointed, because this is something that I wish I had, and I don’t currently have it.
But, I am an adult, and I am capable of understanding that the desire to have something, or the disappointment that I don’t have something, is completely worthless so long as I am not taking the responsibility to provide it. The reason I stopped following YandereDev & Reflect Studios for almost a year is because I didn’t like having to wait, and so I elected to stop waiting, there are more things in my life to concern myself with.
For the record, I want to say that it’s not everyone that is doing this harassment, in fact from what I can see in the comments for these videos, or the responses on Twitter, the grand majority of people who follow indie game devs are just like me - patient, and exciteable, but ultimately hopeful for the eventual release - many of them are actively encouraging.
But, as is often the case, a vocal minority can ruin it for the rest of us.

But, let’s end this on a much more positive note. To begin with, YandereDev recieved overwhelming support saying that the things he is “ashamed” about are of no concern to them, and although he provided a response to his hatedom, he seems to have returned to the game development with much needed encouragement, if perhaps a little soured.
Also, I scoured the Reflect Studios twitter to find this Tweet from Reflect Studio’s developer, which claims that he is aiming to launch the game in the third or fourth quarter of 2019, at time of writing, that's about 9 months away! I'm pretty excited for it.

And, in doing research for this blog, I've discovered that there are actually quite a lot more indie game devs out there with games I want to play than I initially believed, and so I have come to the conclusion that the best way to stave off impatience whilst waiting for one game dev, is to follow several. If you don't like the four that I've mentioned in this post, why not check out Route 59, they've almost finished development on their latest game Necrobarista - a visual novel about a café which uses necromancy to both wake the dead, and to make a great cup of coffee; or, what about Matthew Palaje, who is developing a Zara the Flame (working title), a game that combines third-person platforming and VR to create a game where you act as a sort of powerful guardian, helping your avatar to travel the world; or, even Ryan Fleury, a developer working on The Melodist, a retro 2D platformer in which music is used to change the world, literally, by manipulating the game landscape to solve puzzles and open up new paths.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, if you don't like any of those games, well . . . maybe following indie game development isn't for you. But, as someone who enjoys games, and wouldn't mind one day being a part of a small game's development, I love watching these games come together, piece by piece, to be a work of art that brings someone, not hate or shame, but pride and joy.