Dreaming of the Amerimaidan: Infinite Fall's Night In The Woods (2017) and the Revolution of Indie Studio Production
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Dreaming of the Amerimaidan:
Infinite Fall's Night In The Woods (2017)
and the Revolution of Indie Studio Production
by Dennis Redmond
Lecturer, Miami Dade College
Full paper: http://monkeybear.info/DreamingOfAmerimaidanPaper.pdf
This presentation: http://monkeybear.info/DreamingOfAmerimaidanPresentation.pdf
Three Main Achievements of Night in the Woods
Revolution in Videogame Production Democratization of entire
independent videogame production
cycle (founding, financing, tools development, testing, distribution, post-release support,
audience reception).
Solidarity with Transnational Audiences First videogame created by a studio
based in the fully industrialized
nations (the creators are from United States, Canada and Australia) which speaks to the
transnational videogame audience from a position of anti-imperial solidarity, rather than
imperial privilege.
Aesthetics of Transnational Realism First work of interactive media to
adequately express the story of the
post-2011 mass revolt of American citizens against the transnational plutocracy, by
narrating the cultural, political and economic perspective of transnational citizen-
workers.Revolution in Videogame Production
● Open source software: Unity, Yarn Spinner
● Open source reception: By 2017, Patreon had an estimated 1 million members, 50,000
active subscribers, and disbursed $150 million to content creators.
● Open source financing: The largest site is Kickstarter, though there are smaller sites as
well (indiegogo.com and a group called Fig). The cumulative total of all funds raised on
Kickstarter rose from $661 million in June 2013 to $3.6 billion by April 2018.
● Games ecosystem: board games, card games (both live and digital), live-action role-
playing games, cosplay culture, collectibles, etc.
Year Total Funding Subtotal: Funding Selected Funded Games
for Games1 for Videogames
2011 $3.3 million $1.1 million Cardboard Computer's Kentucky
Route Zero
2012 $74.1 million $39.0 million Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity,
Stoic's The Banner Saga
2013 $105.2 million $48.4 million Infinite Fall's Night in the Woods,
Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight
2014 $75.4 million $20.1 million ---
2015 $132.9 million $41.1 million Ys Net's Shenmue 3
2016 $122.3 million $15.9 million Witching Hour's Masquerada
2017 $162.6 million $16.6 million Stoic's The Banner Saga 3
2018 n/a n/a Swery65's The Good Life
(July)Production Contributors
Category
Programming Alec Holowka, Jon Manning and Paris Buttfield-Addison (significant
open source contribution by Australian-based Secret Lab)
Art and Scott Benson worked on character design; Charles Huettner and Sven
animation Ruthner created the playable Witchdagger adventure mini-game on
Mae's computer
Writing Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry
Sound Alec Holowka created the main score; Gordon McGladdery, Em
Halberstadt and Joey Van Alten created sound effects
Lore and Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry
world design
Quality Bekah Saltsman and Adam Saltsman (Finji) coordinated production;
assurance Karen Teixeira worked on quality assurance; Luis Correia, Alex Leon
Clatworthy, Peter Dimitrakopoulus, Tyler Coleman, Kai Clavier, MJ
Johns, Lovely Rev, Eileen Mary Holowka, Nikki Lombardo and Tabby
Rose worked as testers
Publicity Chris Dwyer
Game Design Open source programming by Alec Holowka, Jon Manning and Paris
Commons Buttfield-Addison as well as software such as SecretLab's Yarn Spinner;
key role of Finji as producer and coordinator of testing team; platformer
rewritten to move from right to left; humorous mini-games (Holowka's
“Paws mode”, enables everything from character interactions to Guitar
Hero-style music tracks); not one single “fail state” in the game; daily
activity and sleep cycles
Sound, Sound and music by Alex Holowka, Gordon McGladdery, Em
Music, Art, Halberstadt and Joey Van Alten; character design by Scott Benson (role
Animation of animation commons); anthromorphic animals negate stereotypes of
Commons race, sexuality and gender; mixture of straight and gay characters;
influence of Japanese anime (Scott Benson); influence of craft design
(Bethany Hockenberry)
Critical History and teaching commons (Bethany Hockenberry); fan community
Commons outreach (Scott Dwyer) to fans of adventure and platformer games;
critical commons of feedback, reviews and critiques from non-
commercial producersSolidarity with Transnational Audiences ● Night in the Woods is one of the first videogames created by a studio based in the fully industrialized nations (the creators are from United States, Canada and Australia) which speaks to the transnational videogame audience from a position of anti-imperial solidarity, rather than imperial privilege. Category 2008 2018 Internet Audience2 1.5 billion 4.1 billion Players from industrializing nations 50% 75% Videogame Audience3 800 million 2.2 billion Annual videogame revenues4 $21 billion $109 billion Industrializing nations, share of 10% 44% videogame revenues Annual smartphone sales5 139 million 1.5 billion ● Videogames are the electronic literature of the 7.6 billion: Japanese-based Square Enix' Final Fantasy 12 (2006), Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008), Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa (2010) and Danganronpa 2 (2012), and Polish-based CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3 (2015).6
Euromaidan student protest November 26, 2013 ● Ukraine's Euromaidan was the Paris Commune of the early 21st century: The moment when the neoliberal “me” turned into the transnational “we”. [Arab Spring and Occupy: “Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam”: “The people want the fall of the regime”, “We are the 99%”]. ● 2013-2014: The Maidan: http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/01/30/anatomy-of- maidan-virtual-tour-of-the-protesters-grounds). ● Digital commons: Svitlana Krasynska and Eric Martin (2016). “The Formality of Informal Civil Society: Ukraine’s EuroMaidan.” Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. DOI 10.1007/s11266-016-9819-8. Also see: Krasynska, Svitlana, "When Rules and Common Sense Collide: Expressions, Roots, and Impact of Informal Civil Society in Ukraine" (2017). Dissertations. 99. http://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations/99.
Aesthetics of Transnational Realism ● Constellation: stargazing with Mr. Chazorov (a.k.a Mr. Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno). Messofanego (Youtube channel). “Night In The Woods -- constellation compilation”. Footage from 5:49 until 9:56. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=sTqFTgA38fM ● Game design realism: right-to-left movement, jumping and platforming, mini-games. ● Player choice realism: path-based quests over twelve days (many are mutually exclusively to enable replayability). ● Acoustic realism: Sound-track plays Holowka's “Dusk Star” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoOxrCqbmg), note parallels to Inon Zur's “Rebuild, Renew” (Fallout 4) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTwOhefBee4)
Three Forecasts Instead of a Conclusion... ● Exponential World: Indie videogame production will scale up dramatically over the next two years, and indie projects will begin to approach the sophistication of triple A studio productions through fan media co-production ● Hubs: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan will be major players in the next phase of the indie videogame revolution ● South Asia's Time Has Come: Mass audiences, online payment systems, and a massive talent pool exist in India
Appendix 1: Internet audiences in the twenty largest industrializing nations, 2017
Internet Users
Largest 20 Nations Population 2018 December 2017
or Regions (millions) (millions)
China 1,415 772
India 1,339 462
Memo item: EU-28 515 434
Memo item: US 325 287
Indonesia 264 1
Brazil 209 139
Pakistan 197 45
Nigeria 191 92
Bangladesh 165 80
Russia 142 110
Mexico 129 85
Memo item: Japan 128 119
Ethiopia 105 16
Philippines 105 67
Egypt 98 35
Vietnam 96 64
Congo, DR 84 5
Iran 82 57
Turkey 82 88
Memo item: both
Koreas 77 0
Thailand 69 57
Tanzania 57 23
South Africa 57 31
Myanmar 53 18
* June 2017 data.Appendix 2: Story paths in Night in the Woods
Time Main path Angus path Bea path Gregg path
Day 1 Return home, participate n/a n/a n/a
in band practice, go out
for pizza with friends
Day 2 Visit Angus to repair n/a n/a n/a
computer
Day 3 “The Party” n/a n/a n/a
Day 4 No specific event n/a “Old Gods of the “Crimes”
Fort Lucenne Mall”
Day 5 No specific event n/a “House Call” “Mechanics”
Day 6 No specific event, dream n/a “Dinner with Bea” “Gregg”
sequence
Day 7 Speak with Gregg at n/a n/a n/a
Snack Falcon, attend
Harfest and participate in
community theater
Day 8 “The Library” and dream n/a n/a n/a
sequence
Day 9 No specific event “The Park” “The Graveyard” “The Historical
(visiting local (ghost-hunting at Society” (breaking into
park) graveyard) local museum)
Day 10 No specific event n/a “Proximity” (visit to “Legends” (visit to
college dance party) donut shop)
Day 11 Play as Mae, then briefly “The Park” (if “The Graveyard” (if “The Historical
play as either Bea or not completed not completed Society” (if not
Gregg (whichever player earlier) earlier) completed earlier)
spent the most time with)
Day 12 Pizza party, and then n/a n/a n/a
“The Hole in the Centre
of Everything”Appendix 3: Timeline
Date Innovation
1990 HTML invented in 1990, Linus Torvalds releases first version of
Linux in 1991, id Software's Doom reinvents digital distribution in
1993
1998 Mass adoption of internet browsers in industrialized nations
2002 Steam democratizes digital goods distribution
2008 Youtube democratizes distribution, mass market of smartphones
democratizes sound and video recording technology
2013 Crowdfunding revolution (Kickstarter founded in 2009 but does not
become a significant source of funding for indie videogames until
2012). Patreon created in 2013, provides key source of income for
independent reviewers (Yongyea, Angry Joe)
2017 Night in the Woods signals the Amerimaidan1. Data: http://icopartners.com/2018/02/kickstarter-2017-depth-look-games-category/ and https://www.statista.com/statistics/310218/total-kickstarter-funding/. 2. Internet World Statistics (2018). https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. 3. Newzoo has estimated the worldwide videogame audience at 2.2 billion, i.e. roughly half the size of the total internet audience. 4. In 2008, annual videogame sales in the industrializing nations accounted for approximately one tenth of world videogame revenues of $21 billion. https://www.mcvuk.com/business/npd-2008-video-game- revenues-top-21bn. By 2017, the industrializing nations accounted for 44% of world videogame revenues of $109 billion. https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market- report-2017-light-version/. 5. Smartphone sales data is from Gartner. https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/910112. https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3859963. 6. For an in-depth analysis of the aesthetic achievements of Final Fantasy 12 and Metal Gear Solid 4, see my own dissertation: Dennis Redmond. “Videogame Culture as Transnational Media: One Neoliberalism, Many Resistances.” Urbana: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2013. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/42362.
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