{"id":317,"date":"2014-12-17T20:17:57","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T20:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/?p=317"},"modified":"2015-02-10T20:21:06","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T20:21:06","slug":"interstellar-and-indie-games-the-risk-and-thrill-of-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/?p=317","title":{"rendered":"Interstellar and Indie Games; The Risk and Thrill of Exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article contains\u00a0light spoilers about Interstellar – I enjoyed the movie but this is not a review;\u00a0it does\u00a0contain a lot of my\u00a0unqualified opinions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Interstellar <\/em>begins on a dying earth, where the remaining humans struggle to farm enough food to keep themselves alive.\u00a0There is a moment when\u00a0Matthew McConaugheys character Cooper states – \u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019ve forgotten who we are…explorers, pioneers, not caretakers …we\u2019re not meant to save the world. We\u2019re meant to leave it.” It’s a\u00a0frightening, idealistic and inspiring moment; it reminded me why I chose to make indie games.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"rocketlaunch\"<\/p>\n

Indie gaming has\u00a0always been treacherous ground. To make an indie game is to embrace the unknown, the chaos of independent software development and business. There is no easy money, no established IP to fall back on, no machine to cover up the failures of development. Each delay can be unbelievably costly; finding\u00a0your own path\u00a0can be overwhelmingly lonely. For the vast majority the financial rewards are nearly nonexistent. I stood\u00a0in front of\u00a0a panel at the 2012 PAX convention and just asked\u00a0“Is it worth it?”.<\/p>\n

It is a difficult question to answer. Beyond the simple opportunity cost of not taking a steady income with\u00a0a large\u00a0company, there is the issue\u00a0of time. In Interstellar, time becomes a valuable resource; we need to consider it the same way. Time is arguably our most precious resource, as every human being is given a finite amount and no way to create more. Every minute an indie developer spends\u00a0building their game is an investment of this limited\u00a0commodity. And when a game fails, the cost is not just in money, but\u00a0in hours spent and never returned.<\/p>\n

\"Storm_clouds\"<\/p>\n

My personal answer follows that ideal\u00a0from Cooper – that we were meant to explore, not to just\u00a0preserve. Right now, at this very moment,\u00a0it has never been easier or faster to build your own game; never been easier to push the boundaries and limits of what a game is, what it can do, who it can touch and the message it can deliver. We are in uncharted territory,\u00a0and there is nothing more exciting than being the first to explore it. In a different conversation,\u00a0Cooper remarks\u00a0how some of the\u00a0best solo yacht captains in the world don’t know how to swim –\u00a0pushing the limits\u00a0with no safety net. I’ve never been solo yachting before, but I remember feeling\u00a0great excitement and crushing\u00a0fear when I ran my Kickstarter campaign; the inherent stakes make indie development both exhilarating\u00a0and terrifying.<\/p>\n

We should not be so idealistic that we\u00a0forget the risks involved. Many of us will fail. Most of our ideas will falter. In\u00a0Interstellar<\/i>, there is a mission that sends a group of the bravest astronauts on one way trips, only to report back data on their destinations with no\u00a0hope of returning home. And we as indie developers spend much of our precious time on one way trips, endeavors that we will see no return on besides the learning we gain from them. We need to\u00a0celebrate\u00a0the bravery required by everyone who commits to a new endeavor, because the data we gain from every success and failure is purchased\u00a0by our\u00a0most precious resource, time. We learn what is feasible, what is difficult and together we move\u00a0our art forward.<\/p>\n

\"7061563019_6b055c761c_z\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Indie gaming has never been easy or safe. We will struggle, we will make mistakes, we will fail. We will waste our effort, our money and most importantly, our time. But we have an opportunity right now unlike any other in the history of our medium. Gaming is changing – this old world is dying, and we must adapt. I make indie games because there are no signposts, no trails, and no fences here – we are free to be explorers and pioneers, to be the first humans to discover a new galaxy of ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article contains\u00a0light spoilers about Interstellar – I enjoyed the movie but this is not a review;\u00a0it does\u00a0contain a lot of my\u00a0unqualified opinions. Interstellar begins on a dying earth, where the remaining humans struggle to farm enough food to keep … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterativegames.com\/reiterated\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}