5 ms·

Playing old games is not enjoyable anymore (they are symbiotic with old hardware) but playing old style games adapted to nowadays hardware is. From the top of

Playing old games is not enjoyable anymore (they are symbiotic with old hardware) but playing old style games adapted to nowadays hardware is. From the top of my mind: curious expedition, stardew valley, undertale, freecol, dwarf fortress (...)

dkersten 8y ago
Can you talk a little more about what you find enjoyable about these types of games versus new style games? Is it that they have more depth in their mechanics? Is it their presentation? Something else entirely? I know this might be a rather hard question to answer.
- veli_joza 8y ago
  Here's my take. Back in 80s there was no established concept what video game was supposed to play like, so developers experimented much more than today. Some of those experiments didn't belong to any established genre (Seven Cities of Gold, Civilization, Harvest Moon) but managed to get huge following. Modern remakes aim to bring back same spirit and open-endness of those games, but with UX improvements, more streamlined gameplay, multiplayer and other nice features we came to expect from games. Another improvement over classics is more open development process with fascinating dev logs, creators requesting feedback and with suggested changes making it into future version.
  - dkersten 8y ago
    It sounds more like a case for indie games rather than for old-style games. That is, games that aren't afraid to try new, different, unconventional things.
- galfarragem 8y ago
  > Is it that they have more depth in their mechanics? I think it might be related with it. I like that old games are more a 'game' and not some kind of virtual reality. E.g. Chess is an abstraction of a battle at most, not a copy of it and Physics don't need to be always realistic just because we have more capable hardware.
  - dkersten 8y ago
    Do you enjoy storytelling games? For me, there are a few different kinds of games that I enjoy for different reasons: There’s the pick-up-and-play games that don’t try to be anything other than a fun activity. Usually they’re somewhat abstract and have simple gameplay with a lot of replayability. The Tetrises of the world. This sounds largely like what you’re referring to. Then there’s the games that try to challenge you to hone your skills. This could be multiplayer games that could be seen as digital sports in some ways or it could be single player games that are all about challenging you to master the game (eg Dark Souls if you ignore the pvp like I mostly do). Racing games could also fall into this category. Then there’s the sandbox style games. They give you a few gameplay systems to play with and let you loose in a large play pen. This are the typical open world games or otherwise open ended games. Finally, there’s interactive storytelling. Some are more virtaul reality simulation than others and some have deep gameplay while others have very shallow gameplay. These games are more about the storytelling though, so it doesn’t always matter. In recent years, I personally think that (some) games have actually surpassed movies in storytelling ability. Of course, many games are some combination of these and some pull it off better than others. You can have deep or shallow versions of all of these too. I guess what I’m wondering is: do you have any interest in the other three types of games I mentioned and if not, how come? (I know, again, its not an easy question to answer) Also, do modern indie games tick your boxes?
    - galfarragem 8y ago
      In general I like games that are a good/interesting/fun abstraction of reality. This normally implies interesting mechanics and sugestive graphics. I normally prefer simulations, rpg, strategy and rogues. But never too realistic, unrelevant details should be wiped away, as an extreme example, what's the point of playing an ultra realistic simulator of a restaurant? It would be better to get a job doing that and earn some money. Note also that I don't consider myself a gamer, I only play occasionally. Yes, modern indie games are the only modern games I play.
      - dkersten 8y ago
        Thanks!
- dragontamer 8y ago
  Old-school games (and they can be recent: Factorio is an "old-school" game despite being made somewhat recently) are about depth of gameplay as opposed to breadth of gameplay. A game made by a huge team is certainly an accomplishment. Take Final Fantasy X, XIII, or XV for instance. There's a huge world to "explore" (linear, but its still a huge world) with many characters, well voiced lines and a huge variety of enemies to face. But its very "wide". There's so much to do, but all of it feels shallow. Now compare it to recent "retro" games like Factorio, or Minecraft... or the truly early games like Missile Command, Centipede, Tetris. These games have an incredibly small core. In the case of the earliest arcade games, you never stop doing the same loop (Ex: Tetris: its 7-types of falling blocks and nothing more). Its harder to make these kinds of "deep but simple" games today. See the "Threes and 2048" controversy for example. 2048 became the more popular version, even if the primary game loop was invented by the Threes developer. Breadth however, can only be replicated by AAA-studios. And don't get me wrong: breadth of gameplay is perfectly fine. I enjoy Final Fantasy XIII and other AAA-titles (Witcher 3, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption...). But major studios focus on breadth instead of depth: breadth is what their audience wants and only AAA-studios can deliver it. Indies don't usually have huge hopes to hit it big: there are exceptions like Flappy Bird, Minecraft and Factorio. But for the most part, Indies aren't going to make much money. And in the case of Flappy Bird, the "designer" more or less took the concepts of the Flash Helicopter games, ported it to iOS and put a Mario-like pixel art skin on it. Flappy Bird, despite being a commercial success, is arguably everything wrong with the indie market today. Lets be frank: Flappy Bird is just that generic Newgrounds "Helicopter" game that has a billion clones, except Flappy Bird has Mario-look-a-like graphics. I mean, its a good gameplay loop. But the core design was certainly not made by the Flappy Bird author. Also: don't get me wrong. There's a lot of depth in AAA games sometimes. Rockstar games has the "deepest" crowd effects and ragdoll physics. The way NPCs in Grand Theft Auto run from gunfire, or grasp at their wounds, or limp after you've hit them... its actually fun to play with the ragdoll effects in GTA5. In my experience, most people play GTA5 as a glorified dollhouse game... trying to launch cars off of ramps into the city or something. There's something fun about what Rockstar Games has done with its crowd-AI and crowd-physics. Nonetheless, GTA5's marketing primarily focuses on the story mode. The many hours of gameplay and such.
  - 8y ago
- kipchak 8y ago
  Modern games need to appeal to an increasingly large number of people as their scope and budget increases, their breadth has to increase to appeal to larger numbers of people in order to be more accessible. Smaller games can more easily afford to be less accessible to a wider audience. Checkers for example is very easy for anyone to play, however Chess is more difficult to understand and master but there's a much greater depth of gameplay. Some really great games can do both. Tetris for example is very easy for most anyone to pick up and play, but there's a depth of mechanics that can be explored (t spins, Combos, reading the incoming blocks, hard drops). http://www.tetrisconcept.com/p/start.html http://www.tetrisconcept.com/p/start.html This sort of depth is frustrating when to new players, especially in multiplayer games where it is used against you. It's also wasted development time if few players will ever get to take advantage of it. Older games tend to be more like an instrument in terms of requiring development of new skills which develop into mastery, while new games are often closer to experiences that do not have the same level of highs or frustrations.
  - dkersten 8y ago
    Thanks for the reply. I don’t agree that all old games did this though, some absolutely did, but there were a lot of mediocre games too that didn’t try to push any boundaries and just copied something else that was successful. You see that a lot now with modern AAA games (certainly from many of the big publishers), but not all are like this. A lot of indie games, modern style or old style, have a lot of this because they need to take risks and try unconventional things in order to differentiate. But even some mainstream games try interesting things sometimes. I personally don’t really play multiplayer games, so won’t comment on that. > It’s also wasted development time if few players will ever get to take advantage of it. Maybe. That’s the easy answer, but if you have an otherwise great game, then adding things not everyone will experience helps build a loyal following. For example, the Dark Souls series has entire areas with bosses, which are hidden in often really obscure ways (such that most people would never find them without looking up guides). This is a big draw for some people as it helps with world building, a sense of discovery and longevity. Or how The Witcher 3 has countless hand-crafted and well written side quests (often with stories just as good as the main story, just shorter) — so many that its pretty much guaranteed that very few people will experience them all. The same goes for something like Red Dead Redemption 2. Obviously many developers shy away from doing this, since its seen as wasting money, but not all. I play a lot of indie games, for the reasons that are discussed here, but there are mainstream games which I personally felt meet the criteria just as well. I’ll mention a few of them here: The Dark Souls series — they gambled on making challenging games with deep but hidden lore and lots of secrets to discover. Its one of the few game series’ where I really feel a sense of accomplishment both with the combat and with simply exploring the world or discovering snippets of lore. Bloodborne — same as above. The Witcher 3 — (the entire series really, but the third one is the biggest, most polished and most mainstream one) the writing, quest design and world are all excellent. I spent months exploring the world and it was a lot of fun. The combat was also quite interesting when you play on hard and are forced to make use of all the different mechanics. Red Dead Redemption 2 — similar to The Witcher 3, just great all round design and attention to detail, but it has a lot more interaction with your gang members that I found really nice (eg just having a mundane conversation with your buddy) Detroit: Become Human — they gambled on heavily branching storylines. Horizon: Zero Dawn — great and interesting world, interesting story, interesting combat mechanics (at least if you play on hard so that you can’t just spam shoot) The Last Guardian — the entire game was a gamble, based around your interactions with the AI-controlled creature. Maybe a bit less “mainstream”, but still a recent(ish) AAA game that tried something new and in my personal opinion, succeeded. Kingdom Come: Deliverance — they gambled hard on a realistic world (and everything that includes, such as a lot of dificult mechanics that alienated a ton of people) but in doing this they created an incredibly immersive game. Basically, my point is that there are mainstream AAA games that really push the boundaries and take risks with new things. Some more than others, sure, but they’re out there. Just steer clear of the big studios like EA, Activision and Ubisoft. Beyond that, there are a lot of amazingly creative and innovative indie games out there.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Heh, the "instant on" aspect of old hardware is a big part of the draw for me. Although I agree that there are some excellent modern "old style" games - Cuphead, Undertale, Two Point Hospital, and the recent Wonder Boy remake all spring to mind.

dkersten 8y ago

Can you talk a little more about what you find enjoyable about these types of games versus new style games? Is it that they have more depth in their mechanics? Is it their presentation? Something else entirely? I know this might be a rather hard question to answer.

veli_joza 8y ago
Here's my take. Back in 80s there was no established concept what video game was supposed to play like, so developers experimented much more than today. Some of those experiments didn't belong to any established genre (Seven Cities of Gold, Civilization, Harvest Moon) but managed to get huge following. Modern remakes aim to bring back same spirit and open-endness of those games, but with UX improvements, more streamlined gameplay, multiplayer and other nice features we came to expect from games. Another improvement over classics is more open development process with fascinating dev logs, creators requesting feedback and with suggested changes making it into future version.
- dkersten 8y ago
  It sounds more like a case for indie games rather than for old-style games. That is, games that aren't afraid to try new, different, unconventional things.
galfarragem 8y ago
> Is it that they have more depth in their mechanics? I think it might be related with it. I like that old games are more a 'game' and not some kind of virtual reality. E.g. Chess is an abstraction of a battle at most, not a copy of it and Physics don't need to be always realistic just because we have more capable hardware.
- dkersten 8y ago
  Do you enjoy storytelling games? For me, there are a few different kinds of games that I enjoy for different reasons: There’s the pick-up-and-play games that don’t try to be anything other than a fun activity. Usually they’re somewhat abstract and have simple gameplay with a lot of replayability. The Tetrises of the world. This sounds largely like what you’re referring to. Then there’s the games that try to challenge you to hone your skills. This could be multiplayer games that could be seen as digital sports in some ways or it could be single player games that are all about challenging you to master the game (eg Dark Souls if you ignore the pvp like I mostly do). Racing games could also fall into this category. Then there’s the sandbox style games. They give you a few gameplay systems to play with and let you loose in a large play pen. This are the typical open world games or otherwise open ended games. Finally, there’s interactive storytelling. Some are more virtaul reality simulation than others and some have deep gameplay while others have very shallow gameplay. These games are more about the storytelling though, so it doesn’t always matter. In recent years, I personally think that (some) games have actually surpassed movies in storytelling ability. Of course, many games are some combination of these and some pull it off better than others. You can have deep or shallow versions of all of these too. I guess what I’m wondering is: do you have any interest in the other three types of games I mentioned and if not, how come? (I know, again, its not an easy question to answer) Also, do modern indie games tick your boxes?
  - galfarragem 8y ago
    In general I like games that are a good/interesting/fun abstraction of reality. This normally implies interesting mechanics and sugestive graphics. I normally prefer simulations, rpg, strategy and rogues. But never too realistic, unrelevant details should be wiped away, as an extreme example, what's the point of playing an ultra realistic simulator of a restaurant? It would be better to get a job doing that and earn some money. Note also that I don't consider myself a gamer, I only play occasionally. Yes, modern indie games are the only modern games I play.
    - dkersten 8y ago
      Thanks!
dragontamer 8y ago
Old-school games (and they can be recent: Factorio is an "old-school" game despite being made somewhat recently) are about depth of gameplay as opposed to breadth of gameplay. A game made by a huge team is certainly an accomplishment. Take Final Fantasy X, XIII, or XV for instance. There's a huge world to "explore" (linear, but its still a huge world) with many characters, well voiced lines and a huge variety of enemies to face. But its very "wide". There's so much to do, but all of it feels shallow. Now compare it to recent "retro" games like Factorio, or Minecraft... or the truly early games like Missile Command, Centipede, Tetris. These games have an incredibly small core. In the case of the earliest arcade games, you never stop doing the same loop (Ex: Tetris: its 7-types of falling blocks and nothing more). Its harder to make these kinds of "deep but simple" games today. See the "Threes and 2048" controversy for example. 2048 became the more popular version, even if the primary game loop was invented by the Threes developer. Breadth however, can only be replicated by AAA-studios. And don't get me wrong: breadth of gameplay is perfectly fine. I enjoy Final Fantasy XIII and other AAA-titles (Witcher 3, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption...). But major studios focus on breadth instead of depth: breadth is what their audience wants and only AAA-studios can deliver it. Indies don't usually have huge hopes to hit it big: there are exceptions like Flappy Bird, Minecraft and Factorio. But for the most part, Indies aren't going to make much money. And in the case of Flappy Bird, the "designer" more or less took the concepts of the Flash Helicopter games, ported it to iOS and put a Mario-like pixel art skin on it. Flappy Bird, despite being a commercial success, is arguably everything wrong with the indie market today. Lets be frank: Flappy Bird is just that generic Newgrounds "Helicopter" game that has a billion clones, except Flappy Bird has Mario-look-a-like graphics. I mean, its a good gameplay loop. But the core design was certainly not made by the Flappy Bird author. Also: don't get me wrong. There's a lot of depth in AAA games sometimes. Rockstar games has the "deepest" crowd effects and ragdoll physics. The way NPCs in Grand Theft Auto run from gunfire, or grasp at their wounds, or limp after you've hit them... its actually fun to play with the ragdoll effects in GTA5. In my experience, most people play GTA5 as a glorified dollhouse game... trying to launch cars off of ramps into the city or something. There's something fun about what Rockstar Games has done with its crowd-AI and crowd-physics. Nonetheless, GTA5's marketing primarily focuses on the story mode. The many hours of gameplay and such.
- 8y ago
kipchak 8y ago
Modern games need to appeal to an increasingly large number of people as their scope and budget increases, their breadth has to increase to appeal to larger numbers of people in order to be more accessible. Smaller games can more easily afford to be less accessible to a wider audience. Checkers for example is very easy for anyone to play, however Chess is more difficult to understand and master but there's a much greater depth of gameplay. Some really great games can do both. Tetris for example is very easy for most anyone to pick up and play, but there's a depth of mechanics that can be explored (t spins, Combos, reading the incoming blocks, hard drops). http://www.tetrisconcept.com/p/start.html http://www.tetrisconcept.com/p/start.html This sort of depth is frustrating when to new players, especially in multiplayer games where it is used against you. It's also wasted development time if few players will ever get to take advantage of it. Older games tend to be more like an instrument in terms of requiring development of new skills which develop into mastery, while new games are often closer to experiences that do not have the same level of highs or frustrations.
- dkersten 8y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I don’t agree that all old games did this though, some absolutely did, but there were a lot of mediocre games too that didn’t try to push any boundaries and just copied something else that was successful. You see that a lot now with modern AAA games (certainly from many of the big publishers), but not all are like this. A lot of indie games, modern style or old style, have a lot of this because they need to take risks and try unconventional things in order to differentiate. But even some mainstream games try interesting things sometimes. I personally don’t really play multiplayer games, so won’t comment on that. > It’s also wasted development time if few players will ever get to take advantage of it. Maybe. That’s the easy answer, but if you have an otherwise great game, then adding things not everyone will experience helps build a loyal following. For example, the Dark Souls series has entire areas with bosses, which are hidden in often really obscure ways (such that most people would never find them without looking up guides). This is a big draw for some people as it helps with world building, a sense of discovery and longevity. Or how The Witcher 3 has countless hand-crafted and well written side quests (often with stories just as good as the main story, just shorter) — so many that its pretty much guaranteed that very few people will experience them all. The same goes for something like Red Dead Redemption 2. Obviously many developers shy away from doing this, since its seen as wasting money, but not all. I play a lot of indie games, for the reasons that are discussed here, but there are mainstream games which I personally felt meet the criteria just as well. I’ll mention a few of them here: The Dark Souls series — they gambled on making challenging games with deep but hidden lore and lots of secrets to discover. Its one of the few game series’ where I really feel a sense of accomplishment both with the combat and with simply exploring the world or discovering snippets of lore. Bloodborne — same as above. The Witcher 3 — (the entire series really, but the third one is the biggest, most polished and most mainstream one) the writing, quest design and world are all excellent. I spent months exploring the world and it was a lot of fun. The combat was also quite interesting when you play on hard and are forced to make use of all the different mechanics. Red Dead Redemption 2 — similar to The Witcher 3, just great all round design and attention to detail, but it has a lot more interaction with your gang members that I found really nice (eg just having a mundane conversation with your buddy) Detroit: Become Human — they gambled on heavily branching storylines. Horizon: Zero Dawn — great and interesting world, interesting story, interesting combat mechanics (at least if you play on hard so that you can’t just spam shoot) The Last Guardian — the entire game was a gamble, based around your interactions with the AI-controlled creature. Maybe a bit less “mainstream”, but still a recent(ish) AAA game that tried something new and in my personal opinion, succeeded. Kingdom Come: Deliverance — they gambled hard on a realistic world (and everything that includes, such as a lot of dificult mechanics that alienated a ton of people) but in doing this they created an incredibly immersive game. Basically, my point is that there are mainstream AAA games that really push the boundaries and take risks with new things. Some more than others, sure, but they’re out there. Just steer clear of the big studios like EA, Activision and Ubisoft. Beyond that, there are a lot of amazingly creative and innovative indie games out there.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

Heh, the "instant on" aspect of old hardware is a big part of the draw for me. Although I agree that there are some excellent modern "old style" games - Cuphead, Undertale, Two Point Hospital, and the recent Wonder Boy remake all spring to mind.