As the video game industry descended on San Francisco for this year's Game Developers Conference, one thing was clear: some of gaming's biggest ideas are born from its smallest teams.
At showcase events like the annual Day of the Devs and The Mix, hundreds of independent developers were eager to show players their new and in-progress video games.
Video games are big business. Last year, the global games market made an estimated $188 billion in revenue, according to analytics company Newzoo. And at the same time, more independent developers are making games. In 2018, just over 8,000 indie games were released, according to Video Game Insights. In 2024, VG Insights claimed that the number skyrocketed to over 16,000. Sometimes, those indie games become breakout hits, selling millions of copies and driving industry trends.
I played dozens of games during my visit to the conference. Below are just a few of my favorites — titles that represent the innovative design and bold storytelling that indies are known for.
Take Us North
Take Us North follows the journey of migrants and asylum seekers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The player assumes the role of a migrant guide — often called a "coyote" — braving the heat and dangers of the Sonoran Desert.
But why is a video game the right medium for this story? "These are the existential questions we ask ourselves in the design session," says Karla Reyes, game developer and founder of Anima Interactive.
Reyes says the project is aiming to be realistic and authentic. Part of the team's research process included speaking to migrants and other experts. And as much as the vibe and atmosphere are a part of telling that story, she explains, it's the power of interactivity that ultimately sets video games apart.
"There's a lot of tension through this journey," she says. "We want to create this immersive experience for the player: where you feel what it's like to be in the desert."
Take Us North is still early in development. While we don't yet know how well the game will balance the nuance of its subject matter with its mechanics, Anima Interactive's clearly leveraging immense talent to build a project that aims to directly change hearts and minds.
"When we think about who we're trying to target with this game, we don't just want to preach to the converted," Reyes says. "But the hypothesis is that there's a large portion of the population that simply does not know that much about this because it's not covered well in mainstream media."
Out of Sight
Out of Sight began with a mind-bending design premise: what is it like to play a game from a "second-person" perspective? In the game, you control a young blind girl who is trying to get to safety. The twist? You see all the action through the eyes of her teddy bear, as you move the girl around the environment.
"The eyes that you see from are not the character that you control," explains creative director Per Hallros. This is in contrast to a first-person game, like Call of Duty, where you see the action from the perspective of the main character. "You know you are not just a camera anymore," he explains.
Developers often preach that a good video game camera is one you don't notice. Out of Sight challenges that idea and derives its scares from this disorienting new perspective.
Beatdown City Survivors
Shawn Alexander Allen left Rockstar Games 13 years ago and has become something of a video game rock star in his own right. Beatdown City Survivors is his latest project. Like his previous game, which the Los Angeles Times called "the most antiracist game of 2020," heady concepts hide behind its comic book aesthetics.
"I was thinking about making a game that deals with structural decay," he says. A New York native, Allen says the game's visuals materialized as he watched waste and garbage spill onto the city's streets after a rainstorm. He crossed that idea with an Escape from New York-style story, where New York becomes a prison state.
That thoughtful subtext informs what looks to be a chaotic and compulsively playable entry in the survivors genre, where battling hordes of enemies in pursuit of higher scores is the name of the game.
Big Hops
As Mario has proved for decades, few video game pleasures exceed running and jumping. But where can platformers go next? Despite the retro aesthetic of Big Hops, which resembles Rare games like Banjo-Kazooie, game director Chris Wade is trying to push the genre into new territory.
Wade says that big budget video games might be prettier on the surface, but not necessarily more immersive and interactive. Big Hops is a response to that trend. You play as a frog running, jumping, swinging and climbing your way through a highly reactive environment, "where the world is your playground and you can use it as a tool," explains Wade.
The short demo I played showed an example of that philosophy. I used inflatable mushrooms as trampolines so I could reach up and place vines on cliffsides I would need to later climb. Imagine a slice of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's "do anything" mentality combined with Super Mario 64 speedrunning — that's the kind of game Big Hops promises to be.
All Systems Dance
Sometimes a game checks all your boxes. For me, that's All Systems Dance. Rhythm game? Check. Aesthetics reminiscent of Jet Set Radio? Check. A story about a renegade dancer using their powers to fight back against a corporate behemoth? Check.
Dave Proctor, creative director on the project, says this game stands out from other rhythm games because it encourages expression and experimentation. While you get extra points for staying on the rhythm, you're free to wander. "If people feel expressive and playful moving around a space however they want, I think that's great," Proctor says.
While All Systems Dance was a bit buggy during our demo session, the game's setting and color — a futuristic hellscape that looks like it was modeled after a late '90s Apple commercial — made me eager to check out more.
to a T
The upcoming game to a T is the latest from innovative creator Keita Takahashi and his studio, uvula. The game's main character, a young teen navigating life in his small town, is stuck in a "T pose" — the basic position a character takes while being rigged by an animator. Basically, standing straight up with arms stuck out to the side. A character like this usually makes an appearance in video games through accidental glitches. But Takahashi uses the idea for comedic effect, as your character poses their way through mundane tasks like pouring milk into a cereal bowl.
A coming-of-age story, to a T feels far less narratively abstract and relatable than Takahashi's previous games. "I'm not sure if it's emotional or not," Takahashi says when I point this out, "but it's kind of new for me."
New because it's born from a kind of moral responsibility he feels in this current moment. The game emerged, Takahashi says, when he heard climate activists say they didn't want to have kids. "I need to focus on the next generation," he says.
This game attempts to deliver that message: a lighthearted story with a hopeful vision of adolescence, made for a generation that may have never heard of Takahasi's runaway hit series Katamari Damacy.
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