How To Create The Ideal Indie Game For Me, An Idiot

So, you’re making an independent game! Congratulations! You’ve entered a world of sorrow and worry, but also lots of pain! No matter what you’re making and regardless of what genre it is, you’ve already been asked at least once, “Is it the next Balatro?” That only makes you stare into the mirror longer each night while seeing less in your reflection. It’s incredibly challenging making an indie game. You may have creative freedom, but you’re making do with less and trying to please an audience that’s often more narrow than triple-A games’ demographics.

And, unfortunately for you, some of the people who will be playing your games are like me: complete idiots. Not to brag, but I’m the stupidest person I know. That said, I don’t have many friends, so I assume there must be way more out there setting the bar even lower. And I’m the one who’s going to be playing your game. Sure, some intelligent people will. Some people who understand how the world works. They’re great, I’m sure. They can probably operate motor vehicles and don’t cry during the emotionally manipulative parts of Law & Order episodes. Not me though!

Screenshots from 3 indie games: Outbound, The Alters, and Hela

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If you want your indie game to succeed, there’s a chance you have to appeal to me, a moron. You could also probably succeed by making something great and/or enjoyable to watch someone else play on a stream. Quality works, apparently. But quality takes time, luck, and money. So why not boost your sales by appealing to people like me who’d slip on a banana peel if they didn’t accidentally eat it first with the rest of the banana?

An early hand of a Green Stake run of the Painted Deck in Balatro.

Make It Short, But Long, But Tiny, But Infinite

Every independent game should be easy for me to complete in two hours so I can have a bad opinion about it online. However, it should also last two thousand hours. After I beat the game, a new game should start, but it shouldn’t be harder than the original game. And the original ending of the game I got after two hours should be the canon ending. Wait! No! There should be multiple endings based on my choices, and the game should tell me when I’m making those choices and also tell me what ending I get based on those choices, but still surprise me.

I should be able to get the best possible ending by clicking the right choice within 15 minutes of playing or after 300 hours in a New Game Plus. There is no middle ground. I should be able to play this game for the rest of my life while complaining there isn’t much to do after the first few hours. And whatever I say is canon must be canon and they need to change other games to fit that for me so I don’t feel scared at the enormity of the human experience.

Let Me Build A Deck Even If It Doesn’t Do Anything

As a kid, I used to swallow gulps of air when I was hungry, like that would do anything. So trust me when I say that someone as stupid as me wouldn’t notice if your deck building game didn’t actually have any deck mechanics. After I beat a story or a level or complete, like, some musical task or whatever, your game should allow blockheads like me to add a card. Just give three random cards.

Oh! I know! Make them tarot cards! Tarot cards are great for games because they’re a little abstract, look cool, and most people have no idea what they even mean so you can just make something up while doing basically nothing. It’s worked for decades, truly one of gaming’s longest lasting legacies. Just let me add a tarot card from a choice of three and don’t tell me what it does because, let’s be honest, it could do nothing and I’d feel the same dopamine rush.

Puzzles That Look Deceptively Hard But Are Just Wooden Shape Blocks For Adults

The problem with games like Blue Prince is that the puzzles look easy, but are deceptively hard. Blue Prince is wonderful if you’re intelligent and inquisitive. Terrible if your brain is made of cotton balls and resentful disappointment. Puzzles in indie games for people like me should basically be wooden shape blocks for adults.

Oh, you can set it in a lab with a lot of beakers and test tubes and computer screens. But let me click the triangle shape and then click the triangle hole and then pat myself on the back when it makes a happy sound. Maybe even have a disembodied narrator mention how cool I am for achieving this. “You really did this puzzle. I’m proud of you. I love you.” It would fix me.

No Microtransactions, Only Small Helper Fees To Do Absolutely Anything

Up to this point, you might think that me being an imbecile makes your job harder. And it does! Because if you did a graph of every person’s intelligence, well, I don’t know – I guess I probably wouldn’t do a good job reading that graph. As Baba Is You, Stupid Is Me. So here’s some good news: You can absolutely fleece me with microtransactions by just calling them something cute like ‘Backer Content’.

I didn’t back anything, but I can pay to have it and I won’t know the difference! Or make DLC that basically unlocks the actual game itself. ‘You’ve paid to play the game, but have you paid to play the real game?’ I’d fall for that so quickly. I’d fall so hard the police would have to keep onlookers from taking photos of the results. Oh, only ten dollars for the extra music? Why, yes, Mrs. Wallet Inspector, you can have my wallet. That’s right, wallet inspectors can be women now. Maybe get outside your bubble.

A Story Where Good And Bad Is Clearly Delineated And Nothing That Bothers Me

Enough with the stories about love and loss. Show me a story about a guy who’s mad at another guy and kills him. But he kills him because the bad guy killed a good guy first. And a police officer gives a thumbs up and screams “Not guilty!” Done. That’s all I need for my game.

I don’t want to learn about the human condition. I don’t want to find something deeper in myself through the exploration of the characters’ experiences abstracted through my own control of their destiny. I don’t want tragic love or conflict between two friends who’ve grown distant. And I don’t want anything that bothers me. I’ll never tell you what bothers me, but when I see it, I’m going to make very long YouTube videos about it. So leave it out! Like the world’s worst guest staying over at your house, I’m going to say “I’m fine” until I lose my mind and wreck the place.

Nobody Else Is Allowed To Play The Game Differently Than Me

Despite the fact my intelligence is on par with an empty VHS box for Bedknobs & Broomsticks, I tend to consider myself the best video game player on Earth. There’s no proof of this other than me beating games that other people have also beat, but here we are, with me the champion. And while a lot of successful indie games give players multiple ways to solve their problems, I don’t like that. Because that means other people are better at solving problems than me. Or just think about problems in other ways, which is gross. It breaks the reality of the world.

So every solution to every puzzle should be the same, but still easy. And if there’s a loophole or a speedrun or a better path, that should be patched out. I don’t want the game to be good for anyone but me, but I also want everyone to love it and tell me how great it is and how good I am morally for being good at it. If I find out there’s a solution I missed, I will do a chargeback on my credit card.

Subtitles That Remind Me Who A Character Is And Why I Care

I don’t mean a journal or a lore log like in Final Fantasy 16. I want every conversation to feature pop ups that explain who that character is, where I am, who I am, and why my character is awake right now. And also if a character’s side quest is worth doing. Not the reward so much as a ‘Yeah, it’s worth it’ or a ‘Let it go, man, his family’s already dead’.

Maybe give me an early preview/Wikipedia summary of the complete story of the sidequest. Whenever there’s dialogue, I should have a scroll of information on the UI reminding me that this person runs a bar and is hiding magic users or something or some such. I want the screen to look like a full-color version of when the Terminator analyzes a victim.

Every Achievement Should Have A Bell Sound And A Gentle Father Saying “Good Job!”

Cooking Mama stands at counter with ingredient options asking if you can do a good job.

Whether it’s completing the tutorial or beating the game on the hardest setting, there should be a nice bell noise that suddenly makes me hungry and the sound of a loving parental figure telling me that I did such a good job. It should then say it’s proud of me and that nobody else has solved this first puzzle in the game, even if that’s a complete lie. I want the game to lie to me is what I’m saying. I want it to pretend I’m actually smart and skilled and talented and not just a husk pantomiming my way towards oblivion. That’s what the best games are about.