Indie Video Games

Most video games are full of camouflaged men and buxom women flipping and kicking on the screen, carrying machine guns and leaving explosions of dust and blood in their wake. But if you reboot and discover the DIY video game movement, you might see something a bit more refined.

In the surreal game Blueberry Garden, flowers blow back and forth against a stark, hand drawn landscape, and you can hear a bird in a top hat landing on floating islands and pieces of cheese. The game won this year’s Independent Games Festival in San Francisco. It’s kind of like a Sundance Festival for indie video game developers, a place where gaming aficionados can step out from behind the controllers and show off games they themselves design.

Joshuah Bearman attended this year’s conference for The New York Times Magazine and joins us with more on the indie video game scene. We also hear from Chris Dahlen, who lives in Portsmouth and reviews video games for the Onion A.V. Club.

New York Times Magazine: Can D.I.Y. Supplant the First-Person Shooter?

Fierce Developer: Make your own XBOX games in 10 steps

(Photo courtesy Patrick Brosset via Flickr/CreativeCommons)