The Rise of Indie Game Animation

This was a fun video to make, I hope you enjoy my thoughts on indie game animation.

You get 100 points if you can spot my spelling error in the video somewhere! (Comment the timecode and the error)

This video was funded by my patrons: Bardic-Dragoon, Kyle Worthingto, Nobodyma, Albert, Fernande, Kiyosh, Joshua H, J Bravo, Adrift, Any-mation , Francoyovich, James Zaki, Austin Frey, Augustus, Hinton, Tim Romero, Sid Mysore, mcp , Daniel Retamoza, Minifyre , Erin Brioche, Joseph Maltby, Soundole VGM Covers, Connery Cepeda, SoftGhost, Game Maker's Toolkit, gaijinking, Kennan Ward, Nick DeWitt, CriticaLink, D.B. Root and Ben Williams.

Please consider supporting the channel through Patreon to help improve the quality of research, editing, footage capture, animation and overall production of each episode:

Below is a list of all the games I spoke about in this video:

Have a Nice Death
Narita Boy
Everything
# BLUD
Penny's Big Breakaway
Fez
Limbo
Axiom Verge
Trials HD
Void Bastards
Grow Home
Hoa
Thank Goodness You're Here
No Man's Sky
Donut County
Dustforce
Streets of Rage 4
Wonderboy: The Dragon's Trap
Marvel's Spider-Man
Indivisible
Red Dead Redemption 2
Hi-Fi Rush
God of War
Downwell
Octopath Traveler
Tears of the Kingdom
Shadow of the Colossus
Tomb Raider
Shovel Knight
GRIS
Monsterboy
Doom '16
Gibbon: Beyond the Trees
Inside
Batman: Arkham Knight
Celeste
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Mega Man 11
Sonic Superstars
Hollow Knight
Super Mario Wonder
Metroid Dread
I Am Bread
Cult of the Lamb
Pizza Tower
Berserk Boy
The Plucky Squire
Cosmic Express
Florence
Firewatch
Kung Fury
Mighty Goose
Gonner
The Ramp
Outer Wilds
Townscaper
Neva
Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus
Guinea Pig Parkour
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Ultros
Biomorph
Nine Sols
Animal Well
Anton Blast
Mika and the Witch's Mountain
Mouse: P.I.
Attack on Starlight
Gurei
The Eternal life of Goldman
Scarlet Deer Inn
Duck Detective
Kidbash
Detective Fantasia Exclaimurder
Xeodrifter
Hob
The Witness
Down in Bemud
Valfaris
Aer
Cat Quest
Just Shapes 'n Beats
Strider '14
Minit
Sonic Mania
Iron Corbo
Demon Turf: Neon Switch

[andrewcosmicanimations]

It's very encouraging what you said near the end, about indie devs worrying about their animation styles, and that they should just animate for the sake of it. It's something that has been said before, but it shows how sincere you are about animation in games as a whole.

[bregowine]

I didn’t see Cuphead in the thumbnail and was ready to leave a strongly worded message. Glad to see joke was on me

[wintersnows]

The most charmed I've been lately with a game animation was so small and subtle, but it's when your little crow avatar in Death's Door goes over a small ledge, it briefly flares its wings to slow/steady the fall. That simple thing brought so much life to the character for me.

[samy]

That little nod to The Last Guardian at the end... Such a beautiful title. Keep up the great work man!

[teero]

honestly the effect you made at 7:24 should come as a standard feature for when uploaders include the "more from" thingie in their videos

[gumball]

Team size and how the production is funded is what separates indie for me. Indie games are “normally” small budget that has been crowd funded. Big studio games get funding from the company directly. Thus company games can stay secret longer whereas indie games share progress from the very beginning “normally”.

[lukasgruber]

the stuning animations in the original Ghost Trick on the NDS caught me to get deeper into the game

[dpedreno]

Having the game titles always visible is a must, can’t thank you enough! Great video!

[VideoGameStoryTime]

This is such a stylishly edited video and so well written!

[gigabyte]

I think the point about 'AA' games is really important, given the current industry situation. AAA studios cutting so many jobs puts them in a weaker position to put out good games that sell well and dominate the zeitgeist, while also leaving a lot of good talent sloshing around the sector. I'm kind of expecting the next few years to see fewer AAA releases that have a limited splash, with AA projects being the big beneficiaries. Think about how Hollow Knight made a splash when it came out - that, but potentially on a larger scale. People's appetite for games isn't going to be diminished and good creators aren't going to vanish, so it's just going to be a matter of how talent, quality, supply and demand shift around.

[losalfajoresok]

You're guilty that my wishlist in Steam keeps getting bigger and bigger, keep up your amazing work!

[slgnssp]

The plucky squire looks absurdly good, the transition when they came out of the page felt like a revelation : p

[JB_CY]

A new VGAS video is always a good time :)

[LordBaktor]

Both Ori games are stunning to look at. And once you realize that combat is secondary to platforming in those games, they are a joy to play.

[zerlegend]

I look for some gaming videos and maybe add one or two of the showed games that I didn't play into my wishlist, while I have added a dozen or more just from this video alone and even bought a game on the spot. I like stylish art style in games, and this video was such a treat, keep it up

Edit: I like that you add the name of the game on the video

[jurtheorc]

Yoooo Blud is on here! That's a true delight! I hope Cookie Cutter is here as well, that one's likewise really nicely hand-drawn 2D animated!
(perhaps Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, No Straight Roads and Blud too, though those are 3D rather than 2D but i really like them a lot and want to get word of them out there).
In advance: Thank you for this video as a whole!

[soninhodev]

I have recently started to remake my first ever game, and let me tell you, im a single guy in that project (probably going to bring a couple of more people over as time goes on, but we will see), and i will tell you one thing about that games animation, it is not stylish at all, but it is clever.
Like my player character has not 2, but 3 layers! its quite simple actually, its one for the body, animating thing like walking, jumping, sliding, etc... theres another layer for the arms, which either matches the animations of the body if you do not have a weapon out, or it is used for the weapon when you do have it out, ive done that to allow you to attack and move freely at the same time, than third is a layer for the head, for similar reasons as Thanks goodness you're here.
But it is not just the players sprite that has that layering, i only have 1 enemy desinged by now, but it has 2 animation layers, because of course.

[fatyoshi]

The final part is really relatable, lately I've been making a custom character for yomi hustle and learning to animate, and while my animations are competent they feel not even remotely close to the level of other characters made by way more experienced animators. Despite that though, I'll sometimes post an animation I'm particularly proud of in the discord and whenever I do people always like them and react positively. Comparing your work to that of other more experienced people, in animation or any other medium, can affect your self-esteem and make you see your art as worse than it really is, and it's important to be aware of that and focus on enjoying the creative process instead

[Jonjohnsonandthekinderen]

thx for making these videos man. You are always so genuinely excited about everything animation. It makes me excited for the future!

[Fatih_M]

Blud looks like what i remember those old 90s Cartoon network shows looked like when i was a kid, Something about seeing that Style of Animation in widescreen feels very appealing, a similar vibe to Cuphead in a sense cause seeing those animation styles in a "Full Views" feels very imaginative, like you're stepping away from the "4:3 prison". Hard to explain, but the animation is gorgeous!