As 2013 draws to an end and we look ahead to what the new year and next gen consoles will bring, there's plenty that's happened over the past year that's worth a bit of a revisit. Here, then, is a recap of some of the stand out Indie-Ana Co-Op features over the past several months, and my own personal list of favorite indie games I've played in 2013.
Gaming with the Devs
This particular feature of Indie-Ana Co-Op was something I had tried to start up back in 2011. However, many of the indie games I was playing at that time were XBLIG, for which I didn't have a capture device, and my PC wasn't quite setup to do a live capture of footage and audio, so this didn't get a chance to really come to fruition until now. Essentially, it's a chance to play the very game the developers are in the process of making (or have made) and just chit-chat with them. The equivalent of sitting down and having a beer with them.
This past year, I was able to work this out with the developers from Dinosaur Games, MechKnight Chronicles: Knightfall, and Hopoo Games, Risk of Rain, both of whom were really kind and shared some interesting views into the game development process. There are still a few aspects I'm working out with all thi, but I hope to do more of these next year with the embedded streaming capabilities on the next-gen platforms and, hopefully, get the Co-Optimus community involved as well!
Interviews
The more formalized version of the above, sans gameplay footage. This year, we had a chance to converse with Arcen Games about their slew of games, Rocket City Studios about the upcoming Second Chance Heroes, and the one-man development team behind the excellent 8-bit zombie shooter, Dead Pixels, John Common.
Arcen Games interview, Part 1 and Part 2
Dev Stories and Post-Mortems
One of my favorite features: just give the developers a blank canvas and see what they come up with. Dev Stories are a chance for the people who make these games we love and play to share how they started in this whole business, or why they do what they do, or how they were able to even make it to release. On the other side of that, the Post-Mortems are an introspection to what happened afterwards. What worked, what didn't, and what's going to get better the next time. We heard from Cadenza Interactive, Yeti Trunk, and Really Slick this year, and trust me, there will be more in the year ahead.
Cadenza Interactive post-mortem