Passion Blog: What is an Indie?

For my last passion blog, I’m doing something that maybe I should’ve done a long time ago, but I’m making a cheat sheet on how to identify if the game you’re playing is an indie. While the process might be simple to someone like me who has spent an inordinate amount of time, it would be helpful to inform someone who maybe doesn’t have the same sunk cost that I do. When it comes to identifying whether or not the game you are currently playing is an indie, there are a few concrete things you can look out for: visual style, lack of realism, and price.

When identifying if the game you are playing is an indie, one of the first apparent tells is a very unique visual style. The state of the current video game market means that large companies are unwilling to try an extremely out of the box visual style for fear that it will lose them money and alienate potential customers. But indie developers are hoping for the opposite effect with the same tactic. They’re hoping to attract a crowd by giving their game instant recognizability through the visuals, not worrying about who they drive away in the process

The second thing to look out for is a lack of realism. The big thing in the gaming industry nowadays is realism. Everything has to look Ultra 4k at 120 frames per second with HDR reflections because apparently that’s what the consumers want. Not bug-free game launches. Not a return to classic game franchises. Not a promise that our favorite games won’t be overrun by battle passes and micro transactions. No, we definitely want ultra-high graphics more than anything. With how much the industry has focused towards making games more realistic, independent developers just don’t have the capability to make a game that looks as realistic as the big budget corporate titles. So they don’t even try. Most indie games don’t even attempt to look realistic just because it isn’t feasible with time or monetary constraints. So if a game looks realistic, it’s most likely not indie

The third thing to look out for is price. With how expensive modern game titles are getting, it’s extremely rare to see a brand new title for less than $50. But indie game developers know how much gamers care about their hard earned cash and often sell their games for much lower than they could probably get for them. Just to name a few examples from earlier in the blog, Hollow Knight is $15, Terraria is $10, and Undertale is $10. These are all amazing games being offered for fractions of what a big company would charge you for them and for a fraction of what they should be worth. If you go to buy a quirky looking game for $15 dollars and it has overwhelmingly positive reviews, just know that you might be in for one of the best gaming experiences of your life

Banner Image Photo Credit: Collider

RCL Blog: Public Controversy Ideas

The first idea that I had for the public controversy project was to write about the public acceptance of gay marriage in the United States. While it is legalized under federal law, there are still plenty of states where you can be shunned socially, fired from jobs, or denied service at local establishments based off of who you love and marry. I thought it might be interesting to compare maybe where in the country these behaviors tend to happen or for how long instances of them have been cropping up

The second idea I had was to talk about the minimum wage in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania minimum wage is staggeringly low when compared to most other states in the US and especially those around it geographically. I thought that it would be interesting to look at how livable the Pennsylvanian minimum wage is when compared to other states and if there’s a significant difference in standard of living or if everyone is just screwed

Passion Blog: The Game Awards

For this week’s blog, a bit of a change of pace with a newsworthy blog about the recently announced nominees for The Game Awards, the video game equivalent of the Oscars. While this story doesn’t focus solely on indie games, there is a prominent indie game at the heart of the story so I thought it should still count. But before we get there, a bit of history on why people are a bit up in arms over this year’s nominees

When The Game Awards revealed it’s nominations for the award Game of The Year, people had issue with two particular nominees. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which was a remake of a game that released in 1997 and Shadow of the Erdtree, which is the DLC for Elden Ring, the game that won Game of the Year in 2022. (DLC in this case refers to extra content, not the size of a full game, that exists as a paid add-on to a previously released game, that you cannot play without owning the full version of the base game). Many people are angry that these games are being considered for one of the highest honors in the gaming industry when they have valid reasons for not being included in the award.

People who are for their inclusion say that the remake of Final Fantasy is a complete rebuild from the ground up of the original game with a different combat system and a slightly expanded story, and that makes it different enough to warrant a nomination. They will also argue that Shadow of the Erdtree, while being smaller than Elden Ring, is still large enough to be the size of it’s own game and should be included with the other nominees.

People who are against the inclusion of the two games argue that they have too much in common with their related games to be considered for nomination, and that a separate category should exist solely for “Best Remake/Remaster” and “Best DLC”. They argue that by having these games take up slots in the highest category, it takes away the slot from potentially more deserving games.

One nomination that the award show did get right was the nomination of Balatro for Game of the Year. Balatro is an indie game that released this year and is all about poker. It is a deckbuilder, where you combine special modifier cards called “Jokers” with poker hands to get increasingly higher amounts of chips. It seems like an incredibly simple game when you first start out but gets addicting fast. The nominations at this years Game Awards bring up some interesting questions about the industry and the future of gaming awards. Should remakes and DLC be held in the same regard as brand new games? Should they have their own award category, separate from the others? Are they worthy of award in the first place? I don’t think any of these questions have a correct answer and any potential answer will only get more complicated after the Game Awards air on December 12th

Photo Banner Image Credit: Xbox Wire

Passion Blog: Hollow Knight

For this week’s passion blog, a bit of return to form as this is an entertainment piece on the game Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight was made by the 3-person Team Cherry based out of Australia and released in February of 2017. The game follows the subterranean stroll of our main character, The Knight. The underground civilization of Hallownest, inhabited by a wacky assortment of kooky crickets, daring dung beetles, and other weird bug friends. You start your journey as a wanderer, but over the course of your travels, discover the tragic tale behind this hidden world.

The game falls under a genre of game known as a Metroidvania, which gets it’s name from classics Metroid and Castlevania, a genre defined by mazelike levels with lots of locked doors and blocked pathways. The items and upgrades you get along the way unlock these doors and paths, but you won’t encounter everything in a linear fashion. The game is at it’s most fun when you explore every nook and cranny and truly get lost in every hallway the game has to offer, whether you end up finding a fun item, a new collectable, or one of the games 40+ incredibly fun bosses

Speaking of those hallways, the game is beautiful. Every environment is beautifully rendered and distinct enough to be immediately recognizable from wherever you are in the world. From the luscious verdant trails of Greenpath to the top of the cavernous Crystal Peak, every environment in this game is worth getting lost in just to appreciate the beauty and care that has been placed into every single square inch of this world.

The gameplay of Hollow Knight is incredibly fluid, with combat consisting of a blend of spellcasting and melee strikes with a sword. Hollow Knight adds a bit of a unique twist on it’s combat by allowing you to bounce on enemies with a move called a pogo. This added verticality in your move set, combined with the ability to dash in the air, slam to the ground, and shoot fireballs above and to the side of you, makes every boss fight in the game feel like a dance. You need to learn how to weave an dodge around any attack the enemies can throw at you and respond with the appropriate counter. The game recieved some flack initially for being “too difficult”, likened to the Dark Souls of Metroidvanias, but I think that like any other game it can be mastered. And that mastery leads to some immensely fun moments that when combined with everything else the game has to offer, makes for one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in a while

The Knight entering two of the areas I mentioned earlier (Photo Credit: IGN)

Passion Blog: FIFAFO Games

For this week’s blog post, I am creating a list of my personal favorite FIFAFO games. FIFAFO is a community term which stands for Four Idiots F*** Around and Find Out and refers to a genre of game where you and your friends must work together towards some common goal, often with wacky shenanigans happening in the middle. A common trait of all FIFAFO games is that half of the enjoyment comes from laughing at the wacky things your friends are getting into and the subsequent chaos it causes in the game state. This genre has dozens of games contained within it, but here is a ranking of some personal favorites of mine that have caused the occasional chuckle between me and my friends

4. GTFO

GTFO is a 4-player horror first-person shooter (FPS) where you are tasked with retrieving information from a facility overrun by monsters that are extremely deadly, but have one weakness: they’re blind. The gameplay loop of GTFO involves syncing up your shots with your teammates so that you don’t alert any monsters besides the ones looking down the barrel of your gun. Fun game, but gets ranked so low due to the lack of laughing that happens during it. If you mess up, you just die.

3. Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 is the story of a massive intergalactic war between the humans, aliens, and robots. You play as the humans, on a mission to use as much firepower and weaponry you can muster to obliterate the other two factions. Gameplay in this one involves fighting off hordes of whichever faction you choose to fight on an array of varied planets. This game is incredible with friends as you strategize the best way to take out the enemies and maybe accidentally call an airstrike on their position. whoops

2. Deep Rock Galactic

Deep Rock Galactic is a mining game where you and your friends play as dwarves on a mining expedition trying to gather as much gold as you can while fending off the hordes of aliens trying to protect their homes precious resources. The game is immensely quotable, which brings it up in the rankings and the way each player’s roles synergize together leads to a very fun and rewarding gameplay loop

1. Lethal Company

Lethal Company is part of the subgenre of FIFAFO games started by Phasmophobia which are technically horror games, but cease to be scary after like two hours of gameplay. This is a boon, however, as Lethal Company becomes so much fun once you no longer become scared of it. You and your friends are trying to recover salvage from (formerly) abandoned facilities at the behest of an unnamed company while an array of monsters try to hunt you down. This game has caused me to laugh out loud so many times there’s no way it could be anywhere else except for number 1. See below for some clips of me and my friends playing the game and having a wonderful time

 

 

RCL Blog: TED Talk

 

I really like this Ted Talk about drawing because I am definitely in the category of people who believes that they cannot draw. I’ve never been good at it and always wanted to be able to learn how to, but convinced myself that it would be too much of a time commitment. This TED Talk showed me how simple drawing can be and how little time you can put into it and still get a positive result.

One topic that I brainstormed for the TED Talk/ Evolving Idea Essay is the evolution of the perception of Dungeons of Dragons and the people who play Dungeons and Dragons in the eyes of the media and the public. I could focus first on the public perception of Dungeons and Dragons during the Satanic Panic of the 1980’s and how that negativity and public backlash led to a reduction in the popularity of the game. Then I could pivot into how after the Satanic Panic ran it’s course, Dungeons and Dragons began to flourish again and entered a sort of “new age” in the 2010’s and has become more popular than ever before. I could use the evidence of it being featured in mainstream media like Stranger Things and the Dungeons and Dragons movie to show this evolution over time.

Passion Blog: Terraria vs. Minecraft

For this weeks passion blog, I’ve decided to make a comparison post looking at two of the biggest indie games of all time, Terraria and Minecraft. Both games share a remarkable number of similarities: they both released in 2011, they were both originally developed by one person, they both utilize a sandbox building system based off of blocks (3D or 2D depending on the game), they’ve both sold millions of copies, and they both have world generation with a similar disregard for the laws of nature. Due to these large number of similarities, many people (myself included, during my youth) wrote off one of the games as just a “2D/3D copy of the other”. But doing so is diminishing the unique identity of two incredible games. So let’s take a more in-depth look at both and analyze what makes them unique.

Starting with Minecraft, it boasts a fully infinite world compared to Terraria’s random, yet finite lands. Minecraft truly gives that feeling of exploration as you know that regardless of what direction you choose to wander, there will always be more, there will always be something to find to pique your interest. Minecraft is also a game that exists in three dimensions, which gives it’s sandbox system a leg up on Terraria’s in letting the player create whatever they want, no limits. People have remade entire cities, fully functioning libraries, and sprawling fantasy worlds in the limitless possibilities of Minecraft’s sandbox; a feat that would be nigh impossible in the world of Terraria.

For all of the strengths that Minecraft has, Terraria is able to boast plenty of its own. For one, Terraria has a much more robust combat system than Minecraft, featuring dozens of unique monsters, hundreds of varied weapons to craft and collect (including my personal favorite, the yo-yo), and a host of memorable bosses to fight. Terraria also has a much more streamlined progression than Minecraft does, with the game having a clear difficulty curve increasing from boss to boss. It gives the game a much better sense of accomplishment and story than Minecraft does. The base building feature of Terraria also lets players feel like their in-game home is much more lived in than that of Minecraft, but that’s a much more subjective point.

While both games do feature a host of similarities, they also have features that make them very unique and rewarding journeys in their own regard. I fear that in lumping the two games together based off of the presence of blocks, people have blocked the unique presence that both of these games offer to the gaming market. These games deserve to be talked about without constant comparison, so people can see what truly makes them some of the best in the industry.

Featured below are houses made in both games, Minecraft on the left and Terraria on the right. (Photo Credit: YouTube and Fandom)

RCL Blog: Speech Reflection

https://psu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Jack+Leo+DiGioias+Zoom+Meeting/1_st9pz7ct

I believe that I gave a very good speech performance for the amount of pre-planning that went into this assignment. I definitely did not utilize my time wisely and prepared the entire speech the day that I turned it in. I woke up, sat in a closed room in my dorm building and wrote the entire script, made the entire slideshow, and recorded every single take of the speech within around 4 hours. The creation of the video under these limitations was not as bad as one may think and I actually had a relatively enjoyable time recording my video. It was frustrating to mess up on a single line delivery and then feel like I had to rerecord the entire speech, but it was good for me in the long run, as it led to me refining very minor word choices and delivery styles that fit the moment in the best way possible. I learned that 5 minutes is really not that long an amount of time and that you really have to work to make sure that all the pieces of information you want to put into a speech can fit into the allotted time window. I had to cut an entire slide comparing the food waste PSAs to a climate change one that I thought was relevant because it would’ve caused me to go way over on time. A strength I noticed of my recording is my vocal delivery. I think I can do a very good job at giving an enthusiastic and varied delivery that keeps an audience engaged even during some of the more boring parts of a speech. A weakness I noticed was that I do use a lot of filler words when speaking and need to do a better job next time of removing those from my speech pattern when delivering a formal speech