With over 180 million active players, a soundtrack that most teenagers feel nostalgia about and over 24 major updates Minecraft has become a household name.
However, this game was not developed by a big company. It started as a small indie game created by Markus Perrsson (also known as Notch). Today it is considered the best selling game in history.
For those who don’t play, indie games are video games created by small developers. Often they are purchased at a lower cost compared to games made by developers.
“A few of my favorite indie games are Minecraft and CupHead, I do want to try and play more indie games,” senior Braden Casto said.
In 1963, the first indie game that was made was called Spacewar made by Steve Russell that led to the start of all the popular indie games we know today. Spacewar inspired games like Asteroids, Computer Space and Galaxy Game. Spacewar was actually named one of the 10 most important video games in history, and was also inducted into the “World Video Game Hall of Fame” in 2018.
Indie games have slowly become more popular with the help of the internet and popular YouTube influencers like “Markiplier” and “Jacksepticeye”. Some indie games that got wildly popular are FNAF (Five Nights at Freddys), Stardew Valley, Terraria, Bendy and the Ink Machine and Undertale among others.
“My first indie game was Minecraft that I played with my brother,” senior Kevin Espinoza said.
Esponiza is a fan of indie game’s playing them every day. He prefers indie games to regular games because he believes that indie games have better character development than games created by large companies.
Three of these indie games that were listed above have become so popular that they have movies published or in production. Minecraft, being one of the biggest indie games there is, currently has a live-action movie that comes out April 4, 2025. Bendy and the Ink Machine is also getting a movie in 2025. FNAF got a PG13 horror movie in Oct. 2023, and is getting a sequel in late 2025.
FNAF has inspired people to make more indie games; more than 1,600 fan-made versions of FNAF have appeared on the game market. There are many games that have become popular like FNAC (Five Nights at Candys) that is similar to FNAF but very different. It became popular from YouTubers playing this game.
“I genuinely think that since YouTube is a big media platform so people are going to see that big YouTubers play smaller games and those games will gain a bunch of popularity because people actually see gameplay from the YouTuber like Markiplier,” senior Austin Dexter said.
Other indie games that were inspired by FNAF and followed its lead are Tattletail, Hello Puppets, Bendy and the Ink Machine and The Park. FNAF has inspired many horror game developers to combine both childhood fun with horror elements.
Typically you can find indie games on many different platforms. They can be found on Epic Games Store, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Store, Steam and itch.io. These are just a few places you can find indie games on but be careful especially on itch.io because if you are not the indie game you purchased could cause issues like getting a bug on the device you are using to download it if something says that it’s not safe do not get it.
“I’d say Steam since it’s mainly a place a lot of indie game developers put their games on,” Dexter said.
The typical price of indie games can vary from free to around $40, but normally indie games don’t cost a lot. If they do, it’s probably a very good game.
“Usually indie games are made by a small team, sometimes a one-person team just a person by themselves making a game like Scott Cawthon who made FNAF,” Dexter said.
Indie games have grown to be more known today due to YouTubers, game makers, word of mouth and the internet.
