There is no doubt that 2021 is a very exciting year for domestic independent games. Both the theme and the gameplay have achieved a lot of breakthroughs, from the beginning of the year's "Dyson Ball Plan" and "Ghost Valley Eight Wilds" brush screen, and then to the end of the year of "Shadow Torch City", "The Country of the Wind", "Mountain and Sea Traveler" three consecutive shots have been universally praised, in addition to "Caged Peeping Dream", "Tenjin Town", "Homecoming 2" and other games are also remarkable.
A year can emerge so many excellent independent games, which in the past can be said to be almost unimaginable, and now it has become a reality, which will play a huge incentive for the entire domestic independent game industry, and promote the development of the entire industry, making people feel that domestic independent games to reach the international first-class level seems to be not out of reach.
How these great indie players have done this is a lot to think about.
What are the general commonalities?
Looking at these outstanding indie game works this year, there are generally several commonalities:
The first is to explore and innovate on the basis of already mature works.
In recent years, the Galaxy City game has continued to emerge, among which the more famous works in Europe and the United States are "Hollow Knight", "Mexican Hero Scuffle", "Ori and the Will of the Elves", "Salt and Refuge", etc. This genre of Galaxy City has also become a hot topic repeatedly discussed by the game media and players in the past few years.
However, as far as the country is concerned, although there have been some games in the past to make some attempts on the galaxy city genre, but there has always been a lack of a game that is successful enough, and the "Shadow Torch City" that appeared in 2021 has finally changed this situation, although it is not comparable to the benchmark works such as "Hollow Knight", but as far as domestic independent games are concerned, it is not easy to achieve this level.
This game has made a lot of innovations based on the experience accumulated in the past Galaxy City works, such as the mixing and matching of martial arts elements and diesel punk, in fact, it should be said that martial arts elements have appeared extremely frequently in domestic games, but this element and diesel punk collision give people a very novel experience, as if it is an innovative dish made after the fusion of common Sichuan cuisine style and Western food.
Such an innovation may be seen as an inevitable path and a call of the times, because in the field of animation, there have also been works of mixing eastern and western elements such as "New God List: Nezha Reborn" and "White Snake 2: Green Snake Robbery", and in the field of martial arts novels, there was also a book called "Quantum Jianghu" that blended and mixed Chinese martial arts styles and physics many years ago.
Looking at the world's popular Galaxy City games, almost all the genres that can be used have been mostly excavated, and the mix-and-match approach of "Shadow Torch City" can be said to be a very clever idea to break the game and avoid homogenization, from the game's earliest trailer to show such a world view has aroused great concern, this differentiation approach is very successful.
Further, the world shown in the game with the style of old Shanghai also has a sense of sci-fi overhead, coupled with the characters are furry animals, and these animals are one-move martial arts style, all of this, whether it is Chinese players or players from other countries, can feel a sense of stylized freshness.
"The Country of the Wind" is also unusual, the work is actually the main tribute to Nintendo's past very famous earth adventure series, the series has attracted a lot of players in Europe, america and Japan, but because of the language barrier, this series is not very well known in China, most players have only contacted the GBA 3 generations of that folk Chinese version, which is also the only Chinese work in the series.
On the other hand, the Earth Adventure series has ended after 3 generations, and no sequel has been launched since then, but there are still many players who want to play similar works, so in recent years, there have been some games in Europe and the United States that pay tribute to the game, the most famous of which is "Under the Legend".
However, as far as domestic games are concerned, "The Land of the Wind" can be said to be the first work to pay tribute to the Earth Adventure series, from the pixelated style to a variety of interesting AND vivid NPCs, which are reminiscent of the Earth Adventure series, so many game media around the world have specifically mentioned this tribute to this work.
However, the Earth Adventure series is a turn-based RPG, while the Country of the Wind is an ARPG, and the gameplay is a tribute to Nintendo's famous "The Legend of Zelda: Triangular Power", and many of the puzzles in the Country of the Wind are based on the innovation of the game.
What's even more interesting is that "Wind country" may be the first game in the world to combine the style of the Earth Adventure series with the gameplay of Zelda Legend: Triangular Force, both of which are Nintendo's famous works, but why no one thought of combining the two in the past is worth pondering.
In fact, "The Land of the Wind" to this point is already a victory, the result of the game built into a "Children of the Earth" mini-game that many players are addicted to, the game is a tribute to Japan's early FC and GB era represented by the Dragon Quest series of the FC and GB era of the ancient pixel style of Japanese RPG, because the gameplay is also very interesting, so that some players think that the game is more fun than the main body.
The objects of tribute to "The World in the Picture" and "Monument Valley" are "The World in the Picture", but on this basis, it also makes its own characteristics. For example, the exquisite level design, especially the hidden four seasons and the changing of the day and night levels, are amazing, and the plot explores family relationships and anti-war thinking through a textless way, which is more difficult than "Monument Valley".
"Dyson Ball Project" is based on the famous "Alien Factory" has also made its own innovative features, "Alien Factory" mining resources to build conveyor belts and projects to form automated production lines is to build fortresses and weapons, to resist the attack of alien creatures, while the "Dyson Ball Project" assembly line is to more efficiently go to outer space, to explore farther deep space.
In addition, the screen of "Dyson Ball Project" is more three-dimensional, and the optimization of gameplay is also more, so it finally presents a gorgeous science fiction wonder like a "sea of stars", which can be called a milestone of Chinese science fiction games.
It is not difficult to see from the above that the developers of these independent games have experienced hundreds of battles, played a large number of games, and have a high love for those classics, so driven by this love, coupled with their own ability to complete factors, can finally stand on the shoulders of those giants to make a difference.
The second is the internationalization feature.
At present, it is the era of globalization, and any independent game released on Steam or EPIC actually has to take into account an internationalization problem, and these domestic independent game masterpieces in 2021 are obviously more international.
"The Land of the Wind" because of the tribute to many Japanese classic games, so by the famous Japanese game media FAMI Tong focused on the report, the elements of the game for Japanese players are also very kind, the character dialogue in the work has a European and American characteristics, although it is not up to the level of dialogue written by the real European and American screenwriters, but has reached the point of falsehood, which also has a certain attraction for European and American players.
"Caged Dream" simply does not have any text, so players from any country can play it, in addition, the anti-war thinking and exploration of family relations in the game are common to every country and nation.
The science fiction theme of "Dyson Ball Project" plus the construction of "farming" is also universal, because the imagination of science fiction and the future is the common dream of all mankind, and the beauty of the science fiction world that Chinese players and American players feel when they play this game is the same.
The third is that the average level is relatively high.
If you compare the domestic independent games that appear in 2020, the average level of such games that appear in 2021 is obviously much higher, which can be seen from the media ratings and steam evaluations, most of these games in 2021 can get more than 8 points of media ratings, and on steam, like "The Land of the Wind" and "Shadow Torch City", they can get special praise, and the evaluation of "Caged Dream" is amazingly praised.
However, in contrast, most of the domestic independent games that appear in 2020 have such and such problems, which are generally low in the two dimensions of media ratings and steam evaluations, and cannot be compared with 2021 at the level of influence.
This may be because most of the independent games that appeared that year lacked enough time to polish, and the "Dyson Ball Project", "Shadow Torch City", and "Wind Country" that appeared in 2021 have all undergone several years of long-term development, so the final degree of completion is very high, so naturally it is more recognized by the majority of players.
Why the outbreak?
The reason why there are so many masterpieces this year is actually a combination of the self-motivated spirit of East Asian peoples and the gradual maturity of China's game industry.
The self-motivated spirit of East Asian nations is simply to be diligent and hardworking to break through, perseverance, and the pursuit of breaking the situation, which are actually some traditions left over from the agricultural era, and still have their merits in the modern society of industrialization.
Let's first look at the case of Japan, in Japan, the console game industry has been extremely prosperous, leading the global trend, and then although after a long period of decline, and Nintendo and CAPCOM two companies were once constantly sung down, it seems that both companies are about to close their doors, the result of Nintendo with the Switch console back to the top, this console recently sold 100 million units, is the world's seventh sales of more than 100 million consoles, and CAPCOM also with "Monster Hunter: World" and " Games such as Resident Evil 8 have achieved a constant state of high profitability, getting rid of the embarrassing state of the past many years.
The mystery lies in the spirit of East Asian national self-motivation, Nintendo and CAPCOM did not know that the world was singing down to them in those years, and it is precisely because of these voices that Nintendo and CAPCOM realized that they must make great changes, and finally made many changes to achieve the return of the king.
The outbreak of Chinese independent games in 2021 also has a similar situation, probably in 2014 to 2016, when with the emergence of foreign independent game masterpieces in an endless stream, there was a discussion about when domestic independent games can rise and break out, and in those years, domestic players were generally disappointed in domestic independent games, especially independent games such as "Fantasy" and "Crystal War" made this disappointment worse, because "Fantasy" was extremely strong in publicity, and the final quality was very poor. Triggered various criticisms, "Crystal War" is a domestic independent game announced earlier, which was once regarded as the hope of domestic independent games in that year, but finally it was hastily failed to come out.
So in 2016, it was generally believed that domestic indie games were difficult to have hope or no hope, and the indie game industry was mentioned in those years as a cold winter state, and the indie game developers were a kind of squatting in a rental house and eating instant noodles.
However, this situation has gradually changed with the emergence of games such as "Taiwu Scroll" released in 2018, even so, in 2019 and 2020, although there have been a large number of independent games, there are not many of them with medium and high quality, especially in 2020, although the number is large, the number of particularly good works is very small, and some works are even semi-finished.
So we can see that it is precisely because of such an embarrassing situation in domestic independent games from 2014 to 2016 that some domestic independent game developers want to change such a situation, and then concentrate on development and catch up, which makes domestic independent games appear such a prosperous scene in 2021.
It is particularly noteworthy that "The Land of the Wind" was launched in 2016 and has been developed for so many years before it was finally released in 2021. It can be said that the developers of "The Land of the Wind" and "Shadow Torch City" may have seen the problems existing in the previous domestic independent games, and also realized that there is actually a huge breakthrough space in it, so they held their breath and wanted to make some really good independent games, which is the embodiment of the self-motivated spirit of east Asian nations.
On the other hand, China's game industry is constantly maturing, from 2014 to 2016, why domestic independent games are lackluster, it is because mobile games were too hot that year, players and excellent developers are paying attention to the mobile game, at that time to do domestic independent games is simply a thankless thing.
Later, with the gradual red sea of the mobile game industry, and the entire Chinese game industry in a series of policies and regulations to show a boutique trend, so independent games were gradually valued, there are constantly some new publishers to publish such games, some large publishers are gradually involved in this field and explore such masterpieces, this topic has been frequently discussed in recent years.
On the one hand, developers are constantly trying to break the game, on the other hand, the industry is constantly getting better, in this kind of time and place, under the favorable circumstances, in the end, it will inevitably lead to qualitative changes.
Conclusion: The future will be brighter
If you go back to 2014 and tell a Chinese player that a domestic indie game will explode in 2021, he may think that this is a fantasy, but this has become a reality.
Of course, we also need to pay attention to several issues, one is whether this prosperity can continue in 2021, and we also need to realize that there are still some gaps between the independent game masterpieces that emerged this year and the international top level, and there are still more roads to be taken.
But in any case, domestic independent games are really improving, for many game developers, in the future through independent games to achieve the opportunity to achieve their dreams may be more, for global players, the future may play more high-quality independent games from China, which is of great help to the chinese game industry in the global influence of the promotion, and may even better enhance China's international image.
Domestic independent games are already on the way to rise.