9/23/2023 0 Comments A space for the unbound gameplay![]() ![]() The various vignettes between major story beats offer a loving glimpse into Indonesia in the '90s and the relatably mundane problems of ordinary people. Between adventures with Raya, he’s exploring the town: collecting bottle caps, naming and petting every cat he sees, playing games at the arcade, helping local townspeople with their problems, or fending off school bullies. Part of the way A Space for the Unbound lets its mystery pleasantly simmer in the backdrop is through its cheerful portrayal of '90s Indonesia and Atma’s role in it as a young man. Raya has some kind of matter manipulation thing going on, and Atma can “spacedive” into the hearts of people he meets and help them resolve their internal dilemmas. In a story structure that gives off massive Your Name and Weathering With You vibes, Atma and his girlfriend Raya are balancing big discussions of their future and completion of a wholesome bucket list with mutual discovery of strange, magical powers. ![]() With that out of the way, I’d like to formally kick things off by telling you that I spent at least an hour last night ugly crying my way through the end of A Space for the Unbound – a gorgeous pixel art slice-of-life game that’s consumed my evenings for the last several days.Ī Space for the Unbound follows a young man named Atma, who’s on the cusp of adulthood in late '90s rural Indonesia. (And you can catch up on all previous Hidden Treasures columns, including from before this column had a name, right here.) I hope you’ll end up inspired by this column to at least check a few of them out, or if not, to go hunt for some hidden treasures of your own. It’s to shed a little light on the brilliant games inhabiting the spaces between the Marios and the Marvels, and celebrate the corners of this creative industry that don’t always get time in the sun. My goal isn’t to surface to you only 10/10 perfect indie gems, or the next Stardew Valley. I’ll use this space to tell you about my early impressions of it (at least the first few hours, if not more) and chat with its developers about who they are, what they’re making, why they’re making it, and why you should care. So this is Hidden Treasures, a column where every month I’ll introduce you to a small game made by a small team that isn’t otherwise being covered extensively on IGN. And I think IGN has an important role to play in surfacing them. I firmly believe those games are also worth knowing about - not just in passing as part of a showcase or a quick tweet, but with joyful, curious depth and attention. And others are made by developers who overcame immense obstacles to chase their dream of making video games. Some are filling gaps in genres that mainstream gaming has forgotten entirely. Many of them are breaking game design, art, music, and conceptual ground that we never see touched in AAA due to fears of missing sales targets. And yet, every single day, countless innovative, beautiful, moving, strange, clever, and fascinating games are being made that you will never hear about. Sure, occasionally an indie surprise garners a large enough community to hit the mainstream (see Stardew Valley, or Vampire Survivors), but those occasions are very, very rare. ![]() Our audiences desperately want to read about those things, we love to write about them, and there are only so many hours in the day to write, so write about them we do.Īnd yet, the unfortunate inevitability of this is that it often leaves out the truly massive body of work being done by smaller, lesser-known or even unknown creators who don’t have the IP, the budget, the thousand-person studios, or the names to already be known by a mainstream audience. I’m talking about the Marvels, the big PlayStation exclusives, the prestige TV shows, the Marios. With a large audience that rightfully expects us to cover all the biggest beats across games and entertainment every day, combined with the massive size of both industries, it’s inevitable that the vast majority of our resources go toward writing about things people already know they’re interested in. Indie game coverage is always a tricky question to answer, especially on sites like this one. Which means I get to take a moment to wax poetic about what my corner of this initiative is actually all about. My little column today joins a much larger IGN initiative to bring editorial columns of all varieties into the spotlight. I’m proud of that coverage up to today, but today I’m extra proud, because my quiet year-plus efforts are about to get much, much louder. ![]()
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