A Tale of Caves and Mimigas
About four and a half years ago, one guy (Daisuke Amaya) nicknamed Pixel put together an entirely self-made retro action-adventure game called Cave Story. Through the great efforts at Aeon Genesis, an English translation patch was made with the blessings of its original creator. About a month ago, I finally realized its existence.
One thing particularly striking about the game is how it melds its personality through the combination of its various elements: gameplay, story, visuals and sound; all created by the same person. In the same way that Everyday Shooter was a personal reflection on Jonathan Mak, its creator, Cave Story is certainly a reflection of Pixel. Though the characters are small and cute, its music up-beat and catchy, there’s a smart story being played out between the various creatures that populate the game’s scenario. It’s not just a series of progressively more difficult levels with bosses at the end, but rather an evolution of Metroid’s game design fused with a memorable cast you might find in an RPG.
When considering independent games, it’s easy to get caught up in the notion that it’s all amateur acts until someone gets noticed and consequently published. Certainly a lot of the crowd populating Xbox Indie Games (formerly Community Games) doesn’t help kill this notion; most of the popular titles I see rising to the top consist of programmer graphics and sound in need of a better ear. Yet, this is the image of indie games that is becoming popularized due to the ubiquity of console gaming. However, there are gems like Cave Story that suddenly appear and become classics among gamers in the know.
If Cave Story had been released either on the NES or SNES in their eras, I believe that we’d be seeing a huge following today with a multi-faceted franchise backing it up. It’s one of those games that you could have sworn you’ve played years ago. The music is instantly recognizable and hummable the moment you come back to the game after a few days away. It’s everything that makes me appreciate games, and for some miraculous reason it’s also legitimately free. If only there were more people of such high standards of creativity and generosity. Absolutely support Pixel and give his game a shot!
Posted by Leif on Fri Jul 3rd at 9:08PM