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Johnw1104 on 18 August 2017
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SegataSanshiro said:
Johnw1104 said:

Honestly, making a mascot that is in and of itself really cool and likable is probably one of the most difficult tasks of game design when setting out to do so. For every Mario, Link, Sonic, Master Chief, Kratos and so forth there's probably a hundred+ failed mascots that didn't strike a cord with anyone.

Some, like Mario, looked charming in their time while being featured in revolutionary games and had a massive following by the time of 16 bit graphics. Others, such as Sonic, saw lots of people pass the character around (including marketing personnel) until they settled on a design that best captured the attitude of the time, resources Indie games have no access to.


Most of the best known mascots had teams fulls of some of the best artists and designers in the industry contributing to their look and design. It's very difficult for a small team (sometimes just a single person) to pull off a similar feat, and most indie games are instead looking to impress through a mixture of great, familiar gameplay while bringing a little extra to the table that we've not seen yet. By being familiar, well-crafted, familiar, and introducing some unique mechanic or element to their game, Indies are able to have their game stand out without the need for a true mascot.

That said, there's still plenty (in my opinion) of recognizable Indie characters. I'd say Shovel Knight is instantly recognizable, and Tim from Braid could probably be said to be the mascot of Indie games in general. People were obsessed with nearly the entire cast of Undertale for a while, as well... I'm pretty sure if we started listing off popular indie titles over the past decade we'd find many with memorable protagonists. They'll rarely (if ever) rise to the level of Mario, Sonic, Master Chief and so forth, but that's because in addition to being gaming mascots they've also become corporate mascots akin to Mickey Mouse with Disney. Our exposure to them, at this point, is essentially inescapable.

ROFL! no. Cave Story says hello. I'd even put Gianna Sisters above it. They were the mascot indie platormers decade and more before Braid.

I certainly don't agree with Gianna Sisters, who were really only well known in Europe and were little more than a carbon copy of Super Mario. I agree that the Mr. Traveller is another good representative of the indie scene, but I doubt he's as recognizable as Tim from Braid. I mostly said Braid, though, as it is generally cited as the launching point of the modern indie scene, regardless of how true that is. Obviously there's always been an indie scene dating back to the days of Atari (it's a big part of what caused the industry to collapse in the early 80's), but it was following Braid that the scene really exploded.