68 replies to this topic

[coolgamer012345]

Yes I agree, but not all of it is hard to obtain, or at least, requires an obstinate amount of work and/or time. There's a lot of low hanging fruit, like say, if you're not going to have smooth animations, then at least having animations for each discernable action that the characters take. Jumping up and down, pulling levers, opening doors, etc. Rather than them just looking like they're standing still or walking the whole time. Even a solo guy can make say 2 frame animations for all these in like an hour or two. This is where it can start to look rushed, cheap or lazy, when even the low hanging fruit hasn't been picked.

Fair points, but nobody argued against having animations for each action you do?

[Anthus]

Yes I agree, but not all of it is hard to obtain, or at least, requires an obstinate amount of work and/or time. There's a lot of low hanging fruit, like say, if you're not going to have smooth animations, then at least having animations for each discernable action that the characters take. Jumping up and down, pulling levers, opening doors, etc. Rather than them just looking like they're standing still or walking the whole time. Even a solo guy can make say 2 frame animations for all these in like an hour or two. This is where it can start to look rushed, cheap or lazy, when even the low hanging fruit hasn't been picked.

 

You seem to think that cheapness, as in a small budget, equals laziness. That's what makes your argument such a hard sell. That is also what makes it come off as condescending towards your peers. Just because someone doesn't have enough time within their daily lives to devote 100% of that to making their game doesn't mean they are lazy. A game might take a single person six years as they toil away on it tirelessly in their free time. Time away from their day job, or daily routine. That person probably spent 20-30 hours a week, versus a dedicated team of even as little as three people working at a constant 40/hr a week pace. That's 120 man hours, vs 20 man hours, quite the difference the time makes. And that's a crude example, not even factoring in the insane hours people end up working on this stuff. My point is, time is literally money, especially if you are making a game with no funding, no backers, and no investors. To imply that everyone who wants to make a game can just drop infinite time freely to make their vision is preposterous. And to suggest that someone should spend a decade on muh frames at the risk of their own well being, and sanity is cruel. Some of the most inovative things come from limitations. 

 

We can chop semantics all day about "smooth animations" versus "long animations" and make all our points, but it will come down to the individual. I don't care how many frames something has. It either looks, and feels, and sounds good, or it doesn't. Animation is only one facet of that. You seem to be referencing mostly obscure indie games with these claims of 'games making it to market with horrible animations'. What games, besides Undertale have such shoddy animations? I feel like making a thread about the animation quality of games on a fan game forum was a slippery slope. I think we all agree on some level that games should sound, look, and play well, but did Undertale really suffer as a game without those extra frames? Did it make the story less impactful? Did it undercut the sound track? Did it make game harder cause you couldn't tell what's going on? What games have you played where the gameplay has truly suffered cause of animations? There might be a handful of examples out there, but no one will remember those games in 10 years, cause they are irrelevant in the face of games that are good for multiple reasons, not animation alone.

 

Yeah, the market is saturated. And it will continue to be. As years go by, it becomes more accessible for people to get into making a game. Some people gain a following for a shitty game, an some great games probably go unseen by many forever. The music market is also saturated. That doesn't mean there isn't still good stuff out there, and to say that every artist should be >insert your epitome of musical composition, and why here< is insane. I like that there are thousands of styles, and types of games. If all games focused solely on animation alone, then other areas would suffer. I guess my point is, play what you like, and make what you like, but don't try to tell others that's the way they have, or need to do it. It comes off a certain way, and can be counter-intuitive to the collective creative process.

 

Either a game is good, or it isn't. It's a complex thing. Different people will get different first impressions in different ways. Different people will value certain things in games over others. I am not a professional game developer, and neither are you. We need to realize that. If animations are so important, show me your finished game, that is doing well financially that sells solely on animation alone. It doesn't exist. Cuphead is a bad example for me personally. I think it is a solid, albeit shallow sh'mup at best, that sells cause it has nice graphics. That's not a game I want to play. It's one example, but for me personally I really don't care about graphics here. If Cuphead used Atari 2600 graphics I still wouldn't care cause the core game doesn't appeal to me, and if it was on Atari 2600, it probably wouldn't appeal to you, either.

 

edit: I hope I don't sound like a dick, but this is an interesting subject. 

[Koh]

Well that's why I used the word OR in that list. Cheap, lazy OR rushed. I get your argument, they're working full time or something and using what little free time they get to work on a game. I'm in the same boat, working 40 hours a week and pretty much only having weekends to really feel like I can do what creative things I want to do, without feeling drained. But I wouldn't want any free passes just because of that fact. I want to be judged based on what people think of the quality of the final product I DID end up putting out, versus what's already available to them in the market right mow. How's it look? What worked well? What didn't work so well? What do I do better than the games that inspired my games? What did I do worse?

At Capital One, we have a saying called Continuous Improvement, Continuous Delivery, as we follow the Agile practices of software engineering. You start with MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and iterate on it with polish with continuous releases. Since you can't do exactly that with games (unless you're Ubisoft), aside from demos, you have to think on it. What counts as MVP for a game? This answer will differ from game to game and person to person, but my MVP for any game is, at least, look like you tried, and don't suffer from any of the shortcomings of the games that inspired your game. I shouldn't see a lack of variety in room design or graphics in your 8-bit game. Repeating floor plans like in Zelda 1 and Metroid were a thing of the past since the mid to late NES era.

Edited by Koh, 21 June 2018 - 03:30 AM.

[Haylee]

8-bit and 16-bit by technicality are archaic, but as it's evolved over the years, it's become a style. There's a distinct difference it being lazy and it being tired and cliche. That being said, by definition, making something in the 8-bit or 16-bit style is easier, but then it becomes a matter of the kind of retro style game you want to actually make: something accurate to the times, or just something with that visual style?

 

Yes, it may be easier to do, but given that it's still visually pleasing, I think that's why people are willing to give it a pass. Yes, some are guilty of actually doing it out of laziness, but that doesn't mean all of them are, some genuinely feel the style is pleasing on the eyes, and so they choose to use it, it's really as simple as that. People have even refined the visual style in quite a number of ways, both Stardew Valley and Celeste immediately come to mind. While both would be impossible to run on old hardware, and lack the accuracy of the 16-bit style, they're examples of how it's evolved over the years.

 

I don't really know what's going on in this thread, but I figured I'd just give my two cents on my thoughts on 8-bit/16-bit styled games. Pretty much every handling of the style is a case by case situation, and if you think the style is tired or cliche, then that's not really up to the person making the product, that's up to the consumer to come to that conclusion on their own.

[TheLegend_njf]

Is a Hat in time 16-bit styled?  I know it's a 3D platformer, but...

 

8-bit/16-bit Styled Games/Indie Games.

 

Also, to add to the discussion. I guess this ZC community must be lazy for not moving up to Breath of the Wild gameplay and graphics with our custom quests. 

[Binx]

I'll give an example from ZC: I just finished a 2.54 Day/Night system that doesn't need separate DMaps to work. Very nice polish aspect, I walk around, and the palette changes when it's supposed to. It works great, actually (seriously, totally worth the move to 2.54 JUST to be able to use this system). BUT the lighting/shading for the tileset I'm using on the environmental objects is static lit on the upper-left, shadowed on the lower-right. I *could* (assuming doing so wouldn't cause ZC to lag too terribly) add in an extra bit of code to change all environmental combos to replacement versions depending on the time of day (i.e the lighting would be upper-left in the morning, the default lighting angle for Koten; upper-middle during midday and in the upper right in the afternoon), but is that extra 2-3 hours coding and 6-10 hours redrawing tiles and restructuring palettes going to leave enough of an impact to make it worth doing for the final version, will nobody care, or will it actively take away from the retro feel of the quest? And would that even be enough for someone with your tastes, Koh, or would you expect a designer to put in 4-8 times that amount of time so that they can have each hour shift the lighting just a little? In a highly detailed tileset like DoR, I might recommend actually taking that extra step, but for something like Koten or Classic, it just doesn't fit to have an apparently moving sun, and the simpler system is good enough, arguably better.

[Koh]

Well that right there I'd think would be a nice attention to detail, but considering the limitations of ZC, I know it's not really feasible in terms of being low hanging fruit.  My expectations basically stop at the low hanging fruit.  Breaking up the repetitive tile look at least a bit, adding more unique animations even if they're just a few frames, like opening doors and pulling levers.  That is where I can see the devs at least tried, but were unable to do more for whatever reason.  Anything less than that is where I draw the line.  It's not just me though, remember this.  I still encourage just looking at reviews of even the popular games like Undertale, several reviews, like maybe 50, and just see what people are saying.  People REALLY like attention to detail, they notice everything.  They notice that there's no splash effect when jumping into water for example, or notice that there's a distinct lack of impactful sound effects when cutscenes or such are playing out.

Edited by Koh, 21 June 2018 - 02:22 PM.

[Binx]

Yeah, but you need to remember something: Reviewers aren't the average gamer. The people who actually write reviews are the types of gamers who DO pay that much attention to detail. The vast majority don't. Don't get me wrong, extra polish on aspects might be something people notice and appreciate, as in my example above. Yeah, it would LOOK much nicer if the sun appeared to move, but most gamers aren't going to miss it if it doesn't. It might be something people notice and go, 'Hey, that's really cool, that must have taken a lot of extra time to pull off." but it's not going to change their overall opinion of the game. All I'm saying is that extra polish, more advanced animations, etc are all NICE things, but they should be the absolute LAST aspect of your game that gets improved. Again, using ZC as an example: I am planning to script a whole bunch of custom actions (I mean, they won't be able to work with Link->Action, but they'll serve the same purpose), because it annoys me, personally, that Link's animation for the bow makes it look like he's chucking a spear, and I don't like that casting is only a single frame, so I'm going to do a custom 3-frame animation for that. I'm doing these things because they're little things that I think will be nice to have in my quest, but you'll notice that pretty much zero quest designers do this, and I've never seen a review complain that Link doesn't look like he's actually holding a bow to shoot it. or that he just stands still while using Din's Fire. Because those elements are considered very minor for these types of games, by the overall gaming community. Most people won't care if your magic boomerang has a sparkle, what they will care about is that it looks and acts like a boomerang. Most people won't care if there's a splash when you jump in the water, but they will care if the sprite looks like it's just walking on top of the water (unless you're playing as Jesus, I suppose).

[Koh]

I can't agree because you're using ZC as your baseline.  I know you're just trying to use it as an example, but the reason you don't see these kinds of comments on ZC Quests is because it's already super niche to begin with, and everyone here already knows the limits around the program for the average quest builder.  In a nutshell, this community, by it's mere existence, is the kind of community that puts gameplay above the graphics.

 

However, outside of ZC's bubble is a totally different world.  I'm not saying you should take, say, an IGN review as gospel.  But rather, if you have several groups of, or hundreds of reviewers/commenters saying the same things over and over in your review section of Steam, it's probably not a coincidence.  There is the saying of course, that you can't please everyone.  So this is why the recurrence is what's important, and not that a singular person or like 5 out of 50 people are saying it.

Edited by Koh, 21 June 2018 - 04:35 PM.

[Binx]

Yes, but we aren't talking about AAA games, here. We're talking specifically about retro-style games, and the gamers who play them, by and large. Again, the people who leave reviews on games, even little 1-paragraph blurbs, are people who put a lot more attention to detail than the average gamer. Most gamers don't say anything about a game unless it's a complaint (actually that can be said about most user-reviewed products), so looking at reviews only can really warp your perception of what people actually want. It's far better to look at overall ratings and category ratings, so you can also see how much weight they put on those specific issues, or if you ARE going to read the reviews, look for specific reviews that talk about issues YOU care about as a player.  By and large, the retro gaming community values function over form in the same way that the ZC community does (also, just as a mention, neither of the things I mentioned that I'm doing custom actions for are particularly hard to do, so your statement about people accepting the "limitations of ZC" doesn't really apply. It's not like I'm talking about Z3 scrolling), because the games they have fond, nostalgic memories of DID have those limitations. And, by and large, the games being discussed here are intended, by their very nature, to be gameplay over graphics. I'd be willing to bet you'd be really hard pressed to find a majority of reviewers of any retro game complaining that there's no splash when you hit the water. There might be a FEW reviewers who make that complaint, but you're not going to find a majority of reviewers for ANY retro-style game that are that concerned with polish. The polish might IMPROVE their opinion of the game, but if it's not there, they're not going to miss it, unless, as I said, it's something that ABSOLUTELY must be in the game. Nobody's going to care that you used 3-frame instead of 6-frame walking animations unless it's specifically brought to their attention. They will care, though, if there's no walking animation, whatsoever.

Edited by Binx, 21 June 2018 - 08:46 PM.

[Koh]

It's far better to look at overall ratings and category ratings, 

This is actually the worst thing you can do.  We have a lot of very simple minded folk in the world, and the ratings are skewed heavily by their actions.  For example "I liked the story, 10/10"  "I hated the music, 0/10"  One extreme and another extreme with no inbetween information to help guide you.  This is why the reviews, at least the ones that are like a paragraph or more, are much more useful to you.  If we go by ratings, then a game like Flappy Bird ends up looking like the best game ever made. However, if we go by the useful comments and reviews, we can more understand what needs addressing and/or fixing in either an update or a sequel.  We can also understand what mechanics work and what doesn't, and what visually needs improving, or what stands out stylistically.

Edited by Koh, 21 June 2018 - 08:55 PM.

[Binx]

I mean, it was one of the most downloaded apps in its time, for a reason. People liked it, a lot. If you're arguing about what makes a successful game, Flappy Bird should be the LAST thing you bring up as a counterpoint.

[Koh]

There may have been a decent number of people who liked it, but I assure you a good number of those downloads wasn't because it was a GOOD game, it was just one of those games that happened to be released at the perfect time, and got lots of word of mouth and social media exposure.  When it came out, and it was the craze at my college for example, everyone was poking fun at it and how stupid it was and looked, and how it looked like it pirated the pipes from Super Mario All Stars.  The drive behind it was to beat each other's score.  I can't remember a single person who thought it was an amazing game, they simply used it as a means to be competitive and brag about their score.  If you go by the ratings now, it's simply an average at best game.  

 

In this regard, you could just sell your soul and make a crappy mobile game if you want to make a quick buck.  This is why there are so many clones of it and so many clone mobile games in general.  They're quick money.  So if that's all your goal is, then sure, shit something out in a day and go be successful.   I'm not personally doing it for the money, I have passion projects I'm working on.  The potential success story money will help me focus on a life of making more, yes, but my goal isn't the money, it's just to put out good playing and good looking games that people can enjoy, while also getting my ideas that I've been sitting on for years out there.  

Edited by Koh, 21 June 2018 - 09:23 PM.

[NoeL]

AFAIK Steam only has "Recommend" or "Don't recommend", so the super enthusiastic simpletons' votes carry just as much/little weight as a carefully examined vote. This mostly gets around the "0/10" problem.

 

If we go by ratings, then a game like Flappy Bird ends up looking like the best game ever made.

It kinda was though, so your argument is a bit moot. It may have been an incredibly shallow game, but it was fun and really popular... which makes it a good game!

 

Ratings and comments are both important metrics though. You just need to be smart about how you use them. A rating will tell you how well your game is being received, and by extension how much tweaking you need to do. If people already like your game, DON'T make major changes to it, even if people in the comments are asking for it. If you change things too much you can potentially upset the silent majority, so don't fix what ain't broke. Comments give you insight into what could be improved but you need to consider every comment with respect to the game you're making. Tons of people might be asking for a specific feature, but if you know that including it would weaken or break the game you shouldn't include it. For example, say you're making a Zelda-like and people want craftable weapons, you need to examine the impact craftable weapons will have on the game's balance before just chucking it in. People are stupid and don't know what they want.

[Deedee]

Watching a video review is the best way to get info on a game form my experience. It was what convinced me from going to "Xenoblade X is an open world game? Pass." to "Oh, wow, this gameplay looks like it's up my alley, I think I'll try it out!".