They say familiarity breeds contempt – which is why these indie developers working with CRYENGINE are out to do something new.

Whether you’re a fan of sandbox shooters, old-school platformers, or open-world adventures, there’s one key ingredient we all love to see games striving for: originality. We caught up with a trio of indie devs to find out how they’re breaking from convention to ensure their products bring something new to the table.

Alexander Bergendahl, Poppermost Productions

Game: SNOW

“We see SNOW as the new generation of winter sports games. We’ve all seen SSX and Amped, and these games going back to 1080˚ and SkiFree, but they all sort of followed these similar trends. So we said, let’s do something that represents modern gaming. And that meant setting the bar really high – open world, free-to-play, really authentic physics-driven gameplay. It’s been a challenge to build such a big world and such a complex experience with a small team, but having the community constantly supporting us giving us feedback and the resources we need to continue developing the game has made it a lot easier.”

See how SNOW is reinventing the winter sports genre at www.snowthegame.com.

Chris Sprance, Entrada Interactive

Game: Miscreated

“Adding a base-building feature to the game has been huge for us. It’s something that’s really different compared to all the other games out there. We have a very free-form base building system – there are no ‘snaps,’ so you can build the same box eight different ways; you can build anything you want. One of the coolest things is that we have a Base of the Week on our website where people send in pictures of their bases, and some of the bases they create are amazing – just hundreds of hours spent on collecting things and making them. It’s awesome.” 

Check out Base of the Week and more at the official Miscreated website.

Daniel Dolui, Wolcen Studio

Game: Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem

“We give the player many different possibilities and different powers – so we have passive skills that really change the way people play. And we also have procedurally generated powers which will fit the gameplay style of the player. For example, according to your play style, the game will generate unique ‘Apocalyptic Upgrades’ for your character. All of these upgrades will provide a new look and new powers for your character. So, since we don't really want to put any limitations on players, that's the way we hope to introduce lots of possibilities into the game.”

Learn more about the innovative features in Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem here.

Visit cryengine.com/showcase to see more games using the power of CRYENGINE to offer innovative new experiences.