These guys are on the right track. It’s interesting… on the one hand, their primary aim is gameplay. Which is laudable, but I don’t feel they really hit the mark. Many of the ideas are worth poking at with a sharp stick, but I don’t feel any of them come together to make a game I’d play for more than about 30 seconds. (On the other hand, I had to tear my girlfriend away from Riff to check out some of the other downloads, so perhaps I’m just jaded…)
Some of their stylistic work is outstanding, though, particularly from Kyle Gabler and Shalin Shodhan (not to be confused with Shodan). Their graphics are pared down to allow them to rapidly prototype many gameplay ideas, yet they mostly don’t look shonky. There are many rich veins of style to be tapped, that don’t require a couple of person-centuries to put together, and they’ve been proving it for some time now…
One thing I’m very curious about… how do they clear their music? Most of their games have great soundtracks, but between the time limits, the variety of musical styles, and professionalism, I don’t believe they “got a friend” to record every track they use. Are they just ignoring copyright and hoping their games are too small for anyone to bother them about it? Or are they sourced from Public Domain or Creative Commons archives? I need to know!