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The Master System (gen 1) was the only videogame I had during my childhood. The memories of Alex Kidd, Sonic, Shinobi, and the secret Sega snail game are still

The Master System (gen 1) was the only videogame I had during my childhood. The memories of Alex Kidd, Sonic, Shinobi, and the secret Sega snail game are still fresh decades later. Good times.

agumonkey 5y ago
I'm really curious about the mind/neurology aspect of this. How impactful such "limited" games had to our young minds, compared to today's borderline insanely sophisticated video games. There's something that I find more just in old games, they had simpler means to achieve the same goal (fun alone or with buddies, imagination, excitement).
- Arisaka1 5y ago
  I feel like you're having specific genre(s) and their evolution in mind. Consoles barely had any strategy games and even those were sufficiently complex, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms. But in terms of game design I always believed that the more limitations you apply to the player the better (or just easier?) the game designer can come up with engaging tasks for the player.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    not a genre per se, or the action games set if you will, but it does apply to RTS too it's mostly a ratio visual complexity / human effect you had 2d games with limited colors and resolution, yet people would spend 40h+ totally excited on it now you have real time raytraced globally lit terapolygon scenes and you don't play with it more also I feel like advanced kinematics are wasted because games are still about moving in simple dimensions, control a few parameters (aiming guns, staying at distance) .. it's circling around the same interaction patterns. would more sophisticated rendering improve strategy planning and fun ?
genocidicbunny 5y ago
Alex Kidd was my Mario and Sonic. I only had a Master System 2 growing up, so I ended up getting really good at Alex Kidd in Miracle World (side note, I bought the remaster as soon as it was available to pre-purchase because of this.) We couldn't afford many games, so I only had a handful of other ones, like Submarine Attack. In addition, my grandfather was the one who bought the system for me, when I was only 2 years old (I didn't get to play it until much later) and he passed away before I grew up enough to really remember him, but there's a vivid image I do have of my grandfather bringing out the box to give to me, or more correctly, my mom, when we went to visit him. Master System 2 has a warm place in my heart.

The Master System (gen 1) was the only videogame I had during my childhood. The memories of Alex Kidd, Sonic, Shinobi, and the secret Sega snail game are still fresh decades later. Good times.

agumonkey 5y ago

I'm really curious about the mind/neurology aspect of this. How impactful such "limited" games had to our young minds, compared to today's borderline insanely sophisticated video games. There's something that I find more just in old games, they had simpler means to achieve the same goal (fun alone or with buddies, imagination, excitement).

Arisaka1 5y ago
I feel like you're having specific genre(s) and their evolution in mind. Consoles barely had any strategy games and even those were sufficiently complex, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms. But in terms of game design I always believed that the more limitations you apply to the player the better (or just easier?) the game designer can come up with engaging tasks for the player.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  not a genre per se, or the action games set if you will, but it does apply to RTS too it's mostly a ratio visual complexity / human effect you had 2d games with limited colors and resolution, yet people would spend 40h+ totally excited on it now you have real time raytraced globally lit terapolygon scenes and you don't play with it more also I feel like advanced kinematics are wasted because games are still about moving in simple dimensions, control a few parameters (aiming guns, staying at distance) .. it's circling around the same interaction patterns. would more sophisticated rendering improve strategy planning and fun ?

genocidicbunny 5y ago

Alex Kidd was my Mario and Sonic. I only had a Master System 2 growing up, so I ended up getting really good at Alex Kidd in Miracle World (side note, I bought the remaster as soon as it was available to pre-purchase because of this.) We couldn't afford many games, so I only had a handful of other ones, like Submarine Attack. In addition, my grandfather was the one who bought the system for me, when I was only 2 years old (I didn't get to play it until much later) and he passed away before I grew up enough to really remember him, but there's a vivid image I do have of my grandfather bringing out the box to give to me, or more correctly, my mom, when we went to visit him. Master System 2 has a warm place in my heart.