Video games are often dismissed as mere entertainment products created

by faceless corporations. The last twenty years, however, have seen the

rise of independent, or “indie,” video games: a wave of small, cheaply

developed, experimental, and personal video games that react against

mainstream video game development and culture. In Handmade Pixels,

Jesper Juul examines the paradoxical claims of developers, players, and

festivals that portray independent games as unique and hand-crafted

objects in a globally distributed digital medium.

Juul explains that independent video games are presented not as

mass market products, but as cultural works created by people, and are

promoted as authentic alternatives to mainstream games. Writing as a

game player, scholar, developer, and educator, Juul tells the story of how

independent games—creative, personal, strange, and experimental—became a historical movement that borrowed the term “independent” from

film and music while finding its own kind of independence.

Juul describes how the visual style of independent games signals their

authenticity—often by referring to older video games or analog visual

styles. He shows how developers use strategies for creating games with

financial, aesthetic, and cultural independence; discusses the aesthetic

innovations of “walking simulator” games; and explains the controversies

over what is and what isn’t a game. Juul offers examples from independent games ranging from Dys4ia to Firewatch. The text is richly illustrated

with many color images.

Jesper Juul is Associate Professor in the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy

of Fine Arts. He is the author of Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional

Worlds; A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players; and The Art of

Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games, all published by the MIT Press.