Recently I have played a couple Xbox Live Indie Arcade games that are so stupid and ridiculous, they are fun. These two games are Try Not to Fart and Baby Maker Extreme. Obviously both sound stupid and idiotic, but are actually a lot of fun. However, are these really what players are looking for from “Indie” games?
Try Not to Fart involves the player pressing and holding buttons at the right time when prompted by the on-screen cues in an attempt to stop the player’s character from farting during a socially awkward moment. While on paper the game just seems dumb, the actual execution of the game is quite fun. The button combinations require a bit of skill later on in the game, and some will even have the player’s hands contorted to get all the buttons at once. The game gets fairly hard during later levels, with some buttons ending before other do.
The other game, Baby Maker Extreme, involved the player shooting a baby out from a…. you know and trying to get the baby to fly as far as possible. The player does so by boosting or diving the baby away from objects that will hinder its progress, or hitting those that will make it fly a bit further. There is added fun in this game in the form of using the player’s Xbox Avatar as the baby. There is just something addicting to seeing ones Avatar curled up in the fetal position flying across a hospital and hitting doctors in the face in order to get a “Doc Block” and fly even more.
While these two games are a lot of fun, I just can not help asking myself if this is really what I am looking for out of an Indie game. Now, I understand that the studios that made these games do not even have close to the budgets of major development teams, if any budgets at all, but I have seen other Indie games that have more production value and story than both these combined. I mean, the animations on Try Not to Fart are worse than early South Park episodes. So my questions to you, my dearest of dear doves, are these: are you content with the quality coming from the Xbox Live Indie Arcade? Do you think there needs to be a bit more moderation to the titles that are released? Have you even played any of them, or do they not pique your interest at all? Discuss all these and more in the comments!
Posted by Bup 