Indie Profile: Size Five Games

There’s two kinds of indies; those that are technically independent, and those that truly boast that oft lionised indie spirit. Size Five Games is, without doubt, one of the latter.

Until recently known as Zombie Cow, Size Five remains one of the most popular indies in the country, having charmed both industry insiders and consumers alike.
A true microstudio, Size Five also continues to be devoted to its platform of choice.

“The core attraction is a lack of barriers to market,” says Size Five founder Dan Marshall of the PC as an ideal platform for indies. “I could make a game next week, upload it, and people would be playing it right away.

There’s no contracts with distributors getting in the way, no approval process, no compatibility nightmare to get through with Microsoft or Sony, for example.”

And, for now, Size Five is equally enamoured by digital distribution.

“Because indie games won’t have the graphical oomph of triple-A titles, you need to focus on a million other things – primarily gameplay, yes, but there’s a long list of things to get right,” says Marshall, adding: “One of those is fitting slightly into that ‘ah what the hell’ impulse buy section, and that’s something that digital distribution excels at.”

Most famous for point-and-click Ben There, Dan That and Time, Size Five has also proved its flexibility in crafting satirical sex-education game Privates for broadcaster Channel 4.