This cross-generation argument is easily settled; Sum says he and Crossy Road co-creator Matt Hall were influenced by both games. It's part of the growing trend to distil the essence of arcade classics and give them a casual gaming revamp, appealing to a modern audience looking for bite-sized gaming on their phone while waiting for the bus. Crossy Road's accident-prone chicken has an average life expectancy of less than a minute but, unlike the days of arcade gaming, you're not granted three short lives and then accosted for more coins. In fact, the game is free to download to your smartphone or tablet, with Sum and Hall making money from players happy to pay for extra characters to cross the road – from the Loch Ness Monster to South Korean rapper Psy, of Gangnam Style fame, who unlocks dance mode. Similar to Flappy Bird, the arcade-style concepts of levels and lives are stripped away; you just keep crossing roads until your chicken meets a sticky end and then you start again. The chicken doesn't tend to survive long, which works well when you've only got a few minutes to spare. You might look at it as the Twenty-20 cricket of gaming, distilling it down to a frantic run chase which will appeal to new fans even if it upsets traditionalists. Crossy Road developers Andy Sum and Matt Hall at their workstations. Rather than taking offence, traditional game studios are embracing the casual gaming trend. After the success of Crossy Road, Japanese gaming giant Bandai Namco approached the Melbourne team and asked for a casual gaming remake of Pac-man – one of the world's most iconic arcade games.

Great arcade games like Frogger and Pac-man relied on challenging and engaging gameplay rather than fancy graphics, which is why the concepts work so well as bite-sized casual games. Even blocky graphics are back in vogue, Sum says, but the appeal of these new games is more than just nostalgia. "The idea isn't for the chicken to look hyper-realistic and go on an epic adventure, the idea is for the game to be quick and fun to play," he says. "You're supposed to laugh when the chicken gets collected by a speeding truck, then jump back in and try again." "Next year we're certainly going to see a lot more funny games which make you laugh, with the trend towards short gaming experiences which you can jump straight into while you wait for the bus. People forget how hard some of those old arcade games were – they're actually a great fit when you've got a few minutes and you don't want to live forever." Sum and Hall are co-founders of Melbourne game development team Hipster Whale, based out of The Arcade – a collaborative workspace in Southbank which is home to two dozen small game studios. Frogger: inspiring a retro craze.

A game-making veteran, 40-year-old Hall worked at major studio Tantalus Media before it and several other large studios shed most of their Australian staff during the global financial crisis. Rather than throwing in the towel, Melbourne's talented developer community banded together to form dozens of small independent studios – coinciding with the arrival of Apple's iPhone and a booming demand for games. Hall started his own one-man studio KlickTock Games working from home in Ballarat, but collaboration is common in the close-knit community. Hall formed Hipster Whale with Sum to make Crossy Road, and the two developers have also teamed up with Ben Britten and Matt Ditton – two of the founding members of The Arcade – to form Mighty Games. Size is no impediment to success and Mighty Games hit it big with Shooty Skies, a follow-up to Crossy Road. Shooty Skies rocketed up the US iTunes store game charts, tussling for the top spot with gaming giant Electronic Arts' Need for Speed: No Limits, which was also made in Melbourne by St Kilda's Firemonkeys Studios. Pac-man: set for a Melbourne remake. Credit:Greg Bakes Hall commutes into town several days a week to his desk at The Arcade in Southbank, working with Sum and the others on their big game ideas for 2016.

"Andy and I work well together," Hall says. "We have similar backgrounds in terms of developing games from a young age, but with the 15-year age gap the games he grew up playing were very different than the ones I played as a kid. That's fine, we make a good team – bringing different things to the table – and in some ways I guess that's what The Arcade is all about." Established in 2013 as a spiritual home for Melbourne's thriving indie game development community, The Arcade was the brainchild of Game Developers' Association of Australia president Tony Reed. Seeding funding from the GDAA and a grant from Film Victoria helped The Arcade get off the ground, and it's nurtured a wealth of successful independent game makers. Along with full-time office space and permanent desks, The Arcade offers a hot-desking area where anyone can work for the day. Many solo game developers who work from their bedrooms regularly drop into the The Arcade for the day to bounce ideas off colleagues as well as pick up freelance work. Cementing Melbourne's position as the country's game development capital, it is the first city outside the United States to host the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) – taking over the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre for the Cup Day weekend as part of Melbourne International Games Week. Now in its third year, PAX Australia attracts attendees from around the world and lets local game makers show off their wares. Tinman creators at the Arcade centre in Southbank: Clinton Shepherd, Kamina Vincent, Ben Kosmina and Ben Britten. Credit:Simon Schluter

The communal nature of PAX Australia and The Arcade is a far cry from the days when major studios dominated the local game development industry, says Ben Britten – a founding member of The Arcade who worked with Hall and Sum on Shooty Skies. "The great thing about The Arcade is that it's very collegiate. In the old days the big studios didn't talk, it was always secrecy behind closed doors. Here I can walk down the hall, talk to the other game developers, compare notes and even help each other out," Britten says. "In theory you might think we're all competing for the same customers, but really it's more like us against the world than against each other. You might be a one or two-person team, but when you're part of The Arcade it's like you've got dozens of helpers ready to assist with their expertise." An Academy Award-winning special effects artist and veteran of the Melbourne game development scene, Britten is also co-owner of Tin Man Games, which creates digital Gamebooks – similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure concept. The rise of the internet and a wider range of gaming devices has created an environment where niche independent game developers like Tin Man Games can thrive without needing to chase a mainstream audience. To Britten, the idea of being an "indie" game developer is less about size and more about freedom.

"It's a contentious issue but, in my mind, being an indie is primarily about being the master of your own destiny," Britten says. "The great thing about a vibrant place like Melbourne is that there's space for all those types of game developers, there are people who have a vision and are just focused on one game, but there are others who want to run a business. There's no one-size-fits-all approach." Lauren Clinnick, director of games-focused marketing adviser Lumi Consulting. The flourishing indie scene is also great news for people who don't identify as gamers and aren't won over by traditional blockbuster titles, says Lauren Clinnick – director of games-focused marketing adviser Lumi Consulting, which is also based at The Arcade. The rise of smartphones and tablets has revolutionised the way we buy games, allowing small independent developers to thrive alongside multinational giants. Without the hassles of getting games onto the physical shelves, then chasing a mass-market audience to cover costs, Clinnick says independent developers have the freedom to follow their passions and target a niche audience spread around the world.

"A new generation of game makers is catering to a new generation of potential gamers. Developers have the freedom to explore new ideas and take risks, rather than follow the mainstream crowd," she says. "That's great for new people who want to play games but aren't necessarily won over by the latest blockbuster shoot-'em-up; those people will definitely see a greater diversity of games in the coming years." As game developers change the way they make games they are also changing the way they view their customers. Game making has become a two-way conversation, with many studios appointing a community manager to act as the community advocate within the game-making process rather than simply being a mouthpiece for the business. "Once again this is good news for people who play games and a trend that will grow, particularly in the indie space," Clinnick says. "Listening to players makes game makers more responsive and accountable, especially when they're catering to a niche who have sought them out because they're offering something a little different." Whether you're playing the latest instalment in a blockbuster franchise or a niche game from a bedroom developer, players deserve to be treated with respect and are not there simply to be fleeced, says Hall. Along with new games like Crossy Road, he and Sum also looked for new ways to make money without bombarding players with advertisements or bleeding them dry with constant in-app purchases necessary to complete the game. "We set a trend with Crossy Road because we set out to make something quite different in regards to monetisation – it's free to download and you're not forced to spend money to make progress," Hall says.

"A lot of games are engineered to make as much money per user as possible, but we tried to strike a balance of art and commerce. I definitely think you'll see more of that in the next few years – games that are more fun and feel less like they've constantly got their hand in your pocket."