PixelVixen707

The other night I downloaded a shockingly offensive game from XBox Live Arcade. This content - which was rated T, for Teen-friendly - recklessly threw out explicit references to violent sex and depraved drug use. Here’s a sample of the text:

“Then he came. Now sister’s not a virgin anymore. Her sex is violent.”

How old is “sister”? Smells like molestation to me. And the phrase “sex is violent” appears again and again. This is T-rated!

Later, we have this gem: “I’m pissing on myself/Standing in the shower thinking.” I mean, that’s just ick.

What was this horrorshow? Some indie nightmare? A bad boy shooter? Actually, it was the download of Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking for Rock Band. I was pulling your leg. We all know it’s okay for rock to go there. This was just a lighthearted way to introduce what I really want to talk about, which is rape.

I spent the better part of the day checking out indie games. And I made a conclusion: I’ll never really get the indie scene until I learn to write code.

I reached that conclusion at the end of the Indie Game Developer’s Rant this morning at Moscone North. The highlight: final panelist Petri Purho used his five minutes of time, not to complain about publishers or tackle the “games are art” question, but to actually make a game. It was a rag doll/Peggle mash-up and it almost didn’t work until Cactus came up and helped him get it running. But nevertheless, we watched as he cut some code in one place and pasted it somewhere else and made a game before our very eyes. The crowd loved it.

Another experience: tonight I caught the launch party for The Path, the deliciously eerie horror game made by Tale of Tales, who also did that joint with the old lady in the graveyard. (Which is up for an award at the Independent Games Festival tomorrow night - and I’m right that IGF is truly Sundance for games now, no?)

The makers of The Path are artists first, technologists second. Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn set out to retell the tale of Little Red Ridinghood and her trip down the path to grandma’s house - and what happens when she decides to veer away and check out the woods instead. I put a couple of hours into it before I came to GDC, and that was nowhere near long enough to plumb the stories and horrors hidden in this game.

The party started at 6, and I made it to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts just in time for the screening. And this was really a screening.