Indie games like Untitled Goose Game appeal to people outside the usual game demographics

Articles

From the horse’s mouth

Untitled Goose Game (product page)

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Previous coverage on indie games

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My Comments

What is being realised now is that independently-developed electronic games are appealing to a larger audience than most of those developed by the mainstream games studios.

A case to point that has appeared very recently is Untitled Goose Game. This game; available for Windows or MacOS regular computers via the Epic Games Store, and the Nintendo Switch handheld games console via its app store, is about you controlling a naughty goose as you have it wreak havoc around an English rural village.

Here, it uses cartoon imagery and slapstick-style comic approach of the kind associated with Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy in the early days of cinema to provide amusement that appeals across the board. It also underscores concepts that aren’t readily explored in the video games mainstream.

This game was developed by a small North Fitzroy game studio called House House and had been underpinned by funds from the state government’s culture ministry (Film Victoria) before it was published by an independent games publisher called Panic.

A close friend of mine who is a 70-something-year-old woman was having a conversation with me yesterday about this game and we remarked on it being outside the norm for video games as far as themes go. I also noticed that her interest in this game underscored its reach beyond the usual video-game audience where it would appeal to women and mature-to-older-age adults, with her considering it as a possible guilty pleasure once I mentioned where it’s available on.

With Untitled Goose Game being successful on the Nintendo Switch handheld games console, it could be a chance for Panic or House House to see the game being ported to mobile platforms. This is more for benefit to those of us who are more likely to use an iPad or Android tablet to play “guilty-pleasure” games. This is in addition to optimising the game’s user interface for the Windows variant to also work with touchscreens so it can be played on 2-in-1 laptops.

What is happening is that there is an effort amongst indie games developers and publishers to make their games appeal to a wide audience including those of us who don’t regularly play video games.