The simple answer is this: game developers want to be recognized as being game developers, not as being male or female. Totally fine. However, this does not change the fact that when people talk about indie game developers, you hear only a few names tossed around: Jonathan Blow, Edmund McMillen, Jason Rohrer, Marcus Persson, etc. In short, the media covers guys. Even as a straight male I find this a bit unfair. The discussion on Twitter tossed around the notion that there are no CELEBRITY indie game developers who just also happen to be women, and this of course is mainly the media's fault, but I can tell you that even as a male indie developer it's tough getting your name out there. For some reason there's still an air of mystery to "girl gamers" and it's exponentially bigger when they make games too, especially their own.
Having run an independent game development startup that has seen its share of women come and go (and even stay!), I can tell you for a fact that they DO exist! Have you played their games? Maybe, MAYBE NOT! If not, here's my first list of indie games made by women that you absolutely need to check out.
Swift*Stitch
Creator: Sophie Houlden (@S0phieH)
I've been a fan of Sophie's works ever since I played The Linear RPG up on Kongregate (another one worth checking out... oh hell go check out all her work!). Sophie is a fellow Unity fanatic and has a very distinct, aliased style to her work. I wouldn't call it pixel art, just not smoothed out. She's combined this aliased style in Swift*Stitch with glow, raycast, and particle effects to create one of the most unique looking games I've seen since Geometry Wars. The game is a strictly mouse-driven affair. Left click to change between vertical and horizontal movement, right click to slow down time. Different colored gates will cause you to change direction or start moving in an arc. The goal of each level is to make it to the end and collect Shinies along the way. You get bonuses for scraping against the wall but not crashing into it (and the sound effect that goes along with it is really satisfying). It has 7 difficulty settings, each one being a different speed. Playing on speed 1 is cheap, playing speed 7 is maddening, and it defaults to speed 4. Oh, and the music by Aeronic? There are no words to describe it other than FUCKING AWESOME! Seriously, get this game.
5 Games
Creator: Rebecca Fernandez/Convict Interactive (@chainedchaos31, @ConvictInt)
Rebecca is the programmer for Convict Interactive, an indie game studio in Wollongong, Australia and part of the Microsoft Biz Spark program. She has 5 games up on XBLIG. "Bop" is a fighting game based on the tried and true mechanic of jumping on your opponent's head to cause damage. "Triangle Man" is a puzzle platformer involving coin collection and deadly spikes. "High Hopes" is an auto-scrolling vertical platformer which won the 48 Hour Game Making Competition in Brisbane. "Cave In" is an awesome looking, man vs. environment, race-against-the-clock style platformer. "Jurassic Bar" may just be the best game ever because you play as dinosaurs out to eat cave men. What more could you possibly want out of life? Check out her stuff and go drop 80MSP for a game or two so she can keep making games about dinosaurs eating people. Seriously, folks. DINOSAURS EATING PEOPLE!
The Little Girl Nobody Liked
Creator: Deirdra Kiai (@deirdrakiai)
Deirdra Kiai is an indie dev living in Vancouver who focuses on story-based games having to do with life, conformity, subconscious, and (most importantly of all) player choice. She also throws a hefty dose of non-linearity into all her games, and is the only indie developer that I know of who has a sousaphone with a fake mustache attached to it (as if the sousaphone part itself wasn't distinctive enough). "The Little Girl Nobody Liked" gives new meaning to the term "pointer focus." Your decisions in the game are based solely on clicking on either the little girl or the crowd. The more focus you give to the crowd, the more likely it is they will ignore the girl. The more you click the girl, the more likely it is she will ignore them. If you balance it out, she will conform to their attitude BUT in either a positive forward-thinking way or in a negative peer-pressure way. It's a really well-throught-out game that will only take you a minute or two to play, and Deidra gives the whole thing some lovely, soothing narration. This one's a real thinker, folks.
Ric Rococo - International Art Thief
Creator: Nat Marco/Honeyslug (@whenDoWeEat)
Nat Marco is the designer, animator, and self proclaimed cupcake enthusiast for Honeyslug games. "Ric Rococo," a game on which she is credited for level design, is a clever little sidescroller that involves, just as the name implies, art thievery. You are dropped into a museum and are tasked with collecting any number of paintings with a minimal goal to hit on each level. Many obstacles stand in your way, like security cameras and waiting for elevators, so use your time wisely! As it turns out, though, Honeyslug has a TON of games, so I have linked to their Games page for good measure. You can access Ric Rococo from there, as well as any of their other creative works. She has also worked on the upcoming "Frobisher Says" for Playstation Vita, which looks like a fun little minigames compilation with a hefty dose of mentalness. Go check out her stuff, durnit!
So there you have it. Four games PLUS MORE for you to check out. I hope to do another post on this topic at some point and introduce you guys to some more lesser-known indie games from some more awesome indie ladies.
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