Feature: What Went Right And Wrong... Seven Times

Author: by Staff

Gamasutra's latest feature takes a look at a series of seven Xbox Live Indie Games developed by indie Radiangames -- aka Luke Schneider, formerly of Volition -- and recounts many highs and lows. One area Schneider tackles that is of particular interest is "passion vs. innovation" -- or whether a game doing something new or something that satisfies its creator's personal passions is more important. Writes Schneider, "If there's one thing game journalists and fans love to talk about, it's innovation and originality. A game is only as good as it is innovative, or so we're conditioned to believe. I even used the word in my press releases on occasion, and I often agonized (in a good way) over how to make my games stand out more." However, he found that when the rubber met the road, this wasn't always that important to him. While he feels that his titles Crossfire, Inferno, and Fluid did innovate, that did not drive him. "I was trying to make a game in a month or two, so innovation could not be my primary goal. Instead, my focus was on games I wanted to play, and making them the best I could as quickly as possible." Innovation was a "bonus," he writes. "I knew that getting a game done is hard, and by making games that I had a passion for, I'd be more motivated to play them, improve them, and most importantly finish them," he sums up, marking down his choice as a "what went right" for the overall project. The full feature, which delves into four more rights and five wrongs for the overall project -- as well as a right or wrong for each specific game -- is live now on Gamasutra, and provides a fantastic look into this indie development experiment.