Writings Of Mass Deduction
DQ reader Steven Hurdle sent me an e-mail:A year ago, frustrated with what I saw as short-shrift being given to passionate independent developers, I began a project to purchase and review a quality Xbox Live Indie Game every day. My idea was to prove that the indie games channel was so much more than just avatar massage games, and that doing reviews over a large number of consecutive days would help prove that. I also limited myself to games not well represented in the top-50 lists in the Xbox dashboard, in the hopes of finding the hidden gems beyond the few good ones that do get regular attention on message boards and websites.
Somehow I find myself doing the 365th review tomorrow (Thursday). I wouldn't have dreamed I'd get that far, having either run out of good games by now (I won't review games I think are of poor quality), or having life issues get in the way. But there we go.
The site is Writings of Mass Deduction and I thought I would let you know about the project. I don't know how far I'll be able to take it (to a degree it depends on whether XBLIG developers keep turning out good content or not). In an era of major publishers trying to only publish AAA games, indie games have an opportunity to step up to the plate and to fill that B-game role that the major publishers are ceding. It's also an opportunity for racing games, rhythm games, and any other genre that is getting squeezed for retail shelf space. For those reasons and more, I know own hundreds of indie games and I'm loving it.
There are too many games to know where to even start in what to recommend, but one I bought early on that I want you to know about is Battle Beat (purchased way back on Day 30). This is a game that puts traditional Guitar Hero/Rock Band guitar controllers to great use, with a tremendous amount of personality and flair.
That's both a great idea and an absolutely incredible amount of writing. What's also quite remarkable is that Stephen noted he doesn't review the bad games; in other words, he may play several games each day before he finds one worthy of review.
I would usually mention a reader's website in Friday Links, but Steven's site is so useful and fills such a gap that it deserved its own post.
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