Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo presented together with Andy Schatz (MONACO) and Adam Saltsman (CANABALT) at the Independent Games Summit this year. Their talk “Savvy Indie Solutions to Difficult Development Problems” posited three unique approaches to game design. Holowka’s focus was on holistic game design, where lengthy development times were endured so that the sum of the parts or overall vision remained the center of attention.

You began your talk by pointing out that reviews will separate a game into its components in a way that would sound ludicrous in a movie review. Do you find this habit of compartmentalization is symptomatic of the way people think about games?

Alec Holowka, Infinite Ammo: It’s not necessarily that reviews are the problem, but it is an example of how people go about discussing games in a formal context, as if they’re just a bunch of things stuck together.

Were there vital issues you wanted to address at this particular time, or was it more of a summary of what you had learned over time?

It was a little of both. This year a lot of people at the Independent Games Summit were there to say “games are only this one thing,” especially during the rants. “This is what games are. They aren’t anything else.” To me that notion is shortsighted. In talking to developers I wanted specifically to say, “Here’s this wide open space. Go find your own thing that makes you excited about making games and explore that.” Basically it was a positive, inspirational message to do what you want.

Do you see Marian as unexplored territory?

Yeah, it’s complicated because it has a number of different systems that are all hopefully going to interact well with each other. There’s a core gameplay mechanic, there’s a narrative element to it, and then there are all these other gameplay systems that will hopefully overlap in interesting ways, such that the player feels this is like a living, breathing world.

One of the things that Aquaria did fairly well was it had a certain degree of mystery, where you were not sure exactly what the rules of the world were. Even the story left certain things open to interpretation.