Of course, we did it as well. When compiling those all-important 'games of the year' lists, it's the big budget titles that tend to rise to the surface. The Guardian's own top 25 of 2012 did find space for the likes of Super Hexagon, FTL and Hotline Miami, but the emphasis was on Triple A giants such as Xcom, Dishonored and Far Cry 3. Those titles only tell part of the game development story for 2012, though. The Independent Games Festival tells the rest.
Now in its 15th year, this bastion of the US indie gaming scene was set up – as its website states – "to encourage innovation in game development and to recognise the best independent game developers". Taking place every year as part of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the IGF is essentially an indie awards ceremony, with all the shortlisted titles playable on the show floor. This year, around 580 titles were submitted for inclusion, all of them played and rated by juries of developers and journalists.
The finalists for this year's event were announced yesterday and its a fascinating, thought-provoking collection. There are some reasonably well-known titles: the compelling spaceship sim Faster Than Light and bloody shoot-'em-up Hotline Miami are featured in a couple of categories including the main Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Terry Cavanagh's exhaustingly hyperkinectic Super Hexagon also makes an appearance for Excellence in Design.
"I'm really happy to get a couple of mentions," says London-based designer Mike Bithell, whose geometric platformer Thomas Was Alone drew honorable mentions in the audio and visuals categories. "Thomas was my first indie game, so those nods are massively appreciated. A big inspiration to keep pushing, keep improving and maybe get a nomination with the next thing. Danny (Wallace) and David (Housden) rightly got the nod for the awesome sound work they did, and the visuals mention was a cool surprise!"
A lot of the games might not be familiar – yet they show us intriguing ways in which genres are being explored and interrogated outside of the mainstream. This is most apparent in the new Excellence In Narrative category. Here you'll find Blendo Games' astonishing Thirty Flights of Loving, a first-person narrative experience that more or less invents a new linear story-telling method. Here too is 'magical realist adventure' Kentucky Route Zero, about a strange highway running beneath the state; and Dys4ia by transgender games designer Anna Anthropy, an autobiographical tale about her experiences during hormone replacement therapy. I was surprised to see the beautiful Papo & Yo only making it into the 'Honorable mentions' section of this category, as – alongside Dys4ia – it's a remarkable use of gameplay mechanics to tell a very personal story (this time about a child growing up with an alcoholic father), and it hints at the wider possibilities of interactive narratives beyond the very simple, very homogeneous B-movie plots we're used to.
The list of finalists always causes controversy in the indie community – some feeling its too willfully esoteric, some that it's not esoteric enough. But it's always a fascinating snapshot – and it provides a forum to discuss titles that don't make the major news sites. "Yesterday, every games website, forum and youtuber was talking about indie games and that's a big deal," says Bithell. "IGF have paved the way for games coverage. I'm lucky to have started putting out games once others had fought the good fight to get mainstream games coverage to look at their stuff, but I respect what's been done. And as a player, I know I saw some names on the list I'd not seen before, so it's a great way of finding interesting new games to play."
Indeed, I'll certainly be trying out Richard Hofmeier's street vending sim, Cart Life and the sci-fi puzzler MirrorMoon, both of which are up for the Nuovo Award which specifically celebrates abstract and 'unconventional' titles.
Anyway, have a look at the list and make it a new year resolution to try at least one game you haven't heard of.
