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Developers react to Ouya's defense of Free the Games Fund
Yesterday, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman voiced her support for the company's Free the Games Fund, noting that nothing about the program would be altered. Since then, indie developers have expressed their displeasure over Uhrman's statements. Sophie Houlden, who launched Rose and Time on Ouya in July, announced that she will be pulling the game from the Ouya store. Houlden said that after reading Uhrman's response, "it became very apparent to me that the company does not support indie developers who need the support most, and that they are incapable of ever correcting their mistakes. I'm simply no longer comfortable supporting the company." Free the Games Fund was first announced in July with the intention of encouraging Ouya development by rewarding successful Kickstarter project creators with extra funding in exchange for at least six months of Ouya exclusivity. Two eligible games came under scrutiny as they met their funding goals in late August: Elementary, My Dear Holmes and Gridiron Thunder. While Elementary was recently suspended due to suspicions over Kickstarter accounts that backed the game, Gridiron Thunder was successfully funded, bringing in $171,009 from only 183 total backers. Houlden isn't the only developer backing away from the platform. Kairo developer Richard Perrin noted via Twitter that he "had an Ouya on my desk since launch. Nearly finished porting Kairo to it. Gonna pack that away until a time when they become credible again." In the comments of Uhrman's response to the growing concerns over the program, 100 Rogues Ouya developer Wes Paugh said that "the campaigns that aren't setting off red flags are failing tragically, and that is a real shame, because some of those ideas are ones gaming would greatly benefit from." Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell also criticized Ouya's response in the post's comments, saying it "isn't an acceptance of criticism, or an explanation of how clearly dodgy as hell schemes are being supported by [Ouya] publicly," but that it "reads like a press release from a console company locked into a foolish policy and using aspirational language to shift the blame, weirdly, onto its critics."
Experiment 12 has 12 cooks in the kitchen
Indie games are a common source of experimental ideas that are free to run in the unrestricted fields of self-publishing. Experiment 12 should be a mindmelt then, because it stands as a 12-chapter collaboration between 12 different indie developers. Chapters switch between genres and art styles, moving from retro, side-scrolling platformers to three-dimensional, first-person explorers. Michael Brough, Jasper Byrne, Terry Cavanagh, Jake Clover, Alan Hazelden, Jack King-Spooner, Richard Perrin, Benn Powell, Ian Snyder, TheBlackMask, Robert Yang and Zaratustra all contributed to Experiment 12. The result is a cross-genre game that resonates the strength of each developer in their respective chapter. Players can immediately skip to their favorite developer's chapter at the cost of ruining the game's narrative for themselves. Experiment 12 is available for Windows here, but Terry Cavanagh's website says a Mac version will be available "soonish." It's also free, so what excuse is there to pass it up?
