Sophie’s first book this month was Indie Games by Bounthavy Suvilay. This beautiful book features over 300 images taken from a huge variety of indie video games, including screenshots from the finished games, concept art, and design sketches. This is more than a book of pretty pictures, however. It is an in-depth look at the entire indie game industry and scattered throughout are quotations taken from more than 50 interviews with people in the business.

Section one looks at the history of indie game development from the lone creators of the 1980s through the development of game hacking in the 2000s to the indie games boom that began in 2008 and onward into the future. Section two is more concerned with the business side of indie game development: financing, finding the right team, handling deadlines and release schedules, and how indie game development differs from that of blockbuster games at large companies. These sections were generally less interesting for Sophie but will be invaluable to anyone looking to break into game development.

The later sections focus on how games are designed and created. Section three explores the different types of indie games available, roughly categorizing them as Mechanics Focused, Narrative Focused, or Art Focused—although naturally there is always a lot of crossover between the three. This is something Sophie had never before considered and she found herself mentally cataloging her own favorite games to see where they fell! Section four looks at Visual Art Direction, and finally, section five covers Music and Sound Design.

Sophie wouldn’t consider herself a dedicated gamer—she had never heard of 98% of the games mentioned in this book—but she found Indie Games utterly fascinating and totally eye-opening. In fact, the biggest problem Sophie had with this book is that she kept learning about new games she wanted to try, and by the time she had finished it, she had a list of games to pick up that will take her years to play through!

Sophie would highly recommend Indie Games to anyone with an interest in video game development, but also to anyone who simply enjoys game art because the pictures here are stunning too.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I didn’t find this book to be what I wanted it to be. As someone interested in indie games, I wanted to be enthralled with the information provided. I was let down and found it hard to read. It could have a smoother writing style that makes it enjoyable to read.

The art in this book is utterly gorgeous and should be read simply to see how different video game designers are using the medium to make beautiful art. The text seems like a straightforward taxonomy and history of different aspects of indie games. I guess the larger question is why have indie games as a category? Is there anything coherent about grouping these games together other than thy were developed outside of a large corporation? But again, read this book for the art - if you look at it and remain unconvinced that video games are an interesting visual and storytelling artistic medium, them i'm not sure anything could convince you!

ARC provided freely for review via NetGalley.

A nice coffee table book which briefly describes Indie games and the art, music, and production behind them. From time to time, it seems the central essay portions of the book touch upon the more controversial or alarming parts of the gaming world, but overall not much in extreme depth. There's mention that people may not take video games seriously (but it isn't followed by any mention of how that's in large part to the massively destructive "gamergate", which expelled mass amounts of racism and misogyny and inevitably led to neo-fascist recruiting and radicalization while pushing a narrative that games can't have 'political meaning' or else they'll be too 'pc'), and there's some mention of "crunch" happening to various studios, burnout, or the instability of American game studios in particular (not having the same social nets as other countries), but it's sort of lightly acknowledged only.

The images are beautiful, the games chosen vary across a wide range of platforms, and the interviews are interesting. If you like games and want artwork from a bunch of different ones, this might be worth a purchase. It's not really a strong history of Indie games, but it does overview it briefly. I learned some new things, but it definitely is more a "pretty book" than an intensive one, if that makes sense!

Superbly illustrated, INDIE GAMES contains more than three hundred images from titles that revolutionized the gaming industry. Full of anecdotes and interviews with personalities like industry veteran Eric Chahi and young designers like Ian Dallas. You will see behind the scenes at Indie studios, revealing the creators, designs and marketing. This exploration will give you a better understanding on what is an “Indie” game. I really adored this book cause i was a big fan of some games. This is also con as i didn't care for the majority

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really thorough exploration of the indie video gaming world!

This books shares the history of indie games in the mid-aughts and the rise of indie apps and games. It talks about what makes a game indie, classifications of games, and how they're made from development type to different gameplay.

The art included in this book is beautiful! There are lots of great shots of interesting games. I was also pleasantly surprised to find the history behind some of the indie games I've enjoyed. There's also a couple interviews in the book with developers and creators.

I was expecting more depth into the history of indie gaming, but enjoyed this read for what it offers. There is some insight to what makes an indie game successful, scalable, and sellable. Overall it's an informative read!

I was really looking forward to reading this book. However, the ebook has printing that is just too small for me to read. It's a shame, because what I did read was very good. I will be buying a print copy of the book. After reading it, I will update my review. Thanks anyway for the opportunity to read it!

What a beautiful and interesting book. Visually it's very appealing,
There are a lot of beautiful images and I'm sure printed version will be awesome.
This book is a must have for gamers!

Indie Games is a big book about, you guessed it - indie games.
The book is colourful, with many screenshots and concept arts from well-known indie games. I'm pretty sure that it looks amazing in print, as it looked quite nice on a PC as well. However, I think the formatting could have been done a bit better as the text is quite small compared to the page size, which means that pages with no pictures can feel overwhelming.
Another thing I'm not quite fond of, but some people might like or even prefer, is the fact that the style in which the book is written is very modern-article-like. For me, unfortunately, that makes it sound a bit chaotic, not well-enough structured, and at times not informed enough or quite out-of-date (e.g. PewDiePie is quoted as having 56M subscribers, however he hit 100M mid-2019).
Overall, the book has some interesting information, but I think it cold have been better condensed.
I'd still recommend anyone interested to read it.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Diamond Book Distributors for providing me with a free digital copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.*

In Indie Games: The Origins of Minecraft, Journey, Limbo, Dead Cells, The Banner Saga and Firewatch, Bounthazvy Suvilay provides a combination of history and critique of the world of indie games. The rising genre of indie games continues to grow, and as Suvilay points out, is increasingly difficult to define as it shifts between a descriptor of the way the game was designed to a more specific style of game. Regardless of how it is defined, there are many notable indie games that have gained momentum in recent years, and Suvilay uses images and stories of these games to emphasize various aspects of the genre, including the spectrum of gameplay that ranges from a more visual narrative approach to one that focuses more on the mechanics, and the ways these games have influenced the industry. Suvilay provides a full overview of indie games that dives into the history, development, mechanics, visuals, and music that go into creating these games in a way that is easy to understand and palatable for existing gamers and curious non-gamers alike.