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I love it too, though I wish that along with it there was renewed interest in Gameboy game development. There are GB game-jams, but more-often-than-not the resu

by derefr 4y ago

I love it too, though I wish that along with it there was renewed interest in Gameboy game development. There are GB game-jams, but more-often-than-not the results of those just languish in obscurity rather than seeing any community attention; and so there's no incentive to put any polish into these titles. (There's nobody trying to make anything like David Murray's Planet X3 for the GB scene.) I feel like something that would really kick such an ecosystem off, would be some sort of wi-fi-enabled GB/GBC flash-cart, which boots to Mario-Maker-like UX for downloading, playing, and reviewing (liking/disliking, making playlists of, etc) bite-sized GB/GBC experiences from a community-maintained cloud service; where the supply side of that cloud service would be easy upload integration with tools like GB Studio.

hnlmorg 4y ago
There’s loads of homebrew Gameboy games released each year. One of my friends reviews games and receives lots of new GB and GBA titles. You can also get GB carts that support SD card. I appreciate you’re describing a more complete, end to end, UX but we can already do everything right up to inserting the SD card into the Gameboy cart. With Gameboy emulation as good as it is, you could do away with original hardware for 99% of players too (though for me, the joy of retro gaming is using the original hardware. But I’d never look down on anyone who preferred emulation).
- derefr 4y ago
  I didn't say people don't make them. I said they aren't polished. And by that, I don't mean the gameplay! Rather, I mean that nobody's fabbing GB game carts, printing glossy color manuals for them, putting them in boxes, and shipping them to Kickstarter backers. Nobody's translating these games into 10 languages. Nobody's QA-testing the heck out of them to ensure they don't have any obscure edge-case bugs. Etc. (This was why I brought up Planet X3: it's an example of a modern retro-game that is polished in exactly this sense.) But a desire to go through all the effort to create polished modern GB games, is the sort of thing that requires market demand — a willingness to spend real money to buy new GB games (whether digitally or physically.) No hobbyist game developer is going to spend a year on "things that aren't programming" to make a nice shippable product out of their game, if that isn't going to result in at least breaking even on their effort. And a prerequisite for that demand, is public awareness of the fact that modern GB games are being created — and, more importantly, a public "brand" awareness for the people creating them! Indie game jams are great and all; but they don't create brand awareness. App Stores with "studios with most stars" views create brand awareness. Easily one-click accessibility of the games to allow them to be played on a PC (rather than on a portable with no video-capture support), to enable streamers and content-creators to play them on a whim, create brand awareness. Gamedev tooling that expects/requires a "publisher logo card" to be shown on boot, create brand awareness. Etc. Basically, think of "modern gameboy games" as if they were a thing made by one company, rather than a diffuse community. What would that company be doing to market them? The community can do those things too!
  - laumars 4y ago
    > Rather, I mean that nobody's fabbing GB game carts, printing glossy color manuals for them, putting them in boxes, and shipping them to Kickstarter backers. Maybe not Kickstarter specifically, but they are doing the other stuff. > Nobody's translating these games into 10 languages. That's a little unreasonable ask. Given how little money these games will bring in you can't expect that. > Nobody's QA-testing the heck out of them to ensure they don't have any obscure edge-case bugs. Etc. (This was why I brought up Planet X3: it's an example of a modern retro-game that is polished in exactly this sense.) There is QA testing happening but like with the above, you can't expect smaller operations to pay people to QA. So you end up either having "QA" be demo builds, in which case most people end up with a copy so you can't do the premium carts that you're also asking for. Or you just have to accept that QA is a smaller operation but still have the beautiful hardware copy. Even really well polished games on other platforms with much bigger audiences, like Xeno Crisis for the Mega Drive / Genesis, have had their share of bugs too. Even in the original days of these consoles, when games from big studios with big budgets to spend on testing, we'd still see new releases with bugs-galore. > But a desire to go through all the effort to create polished modern GB games, is the sort of thing that requires market demand — a willingness to spend real money to buy new GB games (whether digitally or physically.) No hobbyist game developer is going to spend a year on "things that aren't programming" to make a nice shippable product out of their game, if that isn't going to result in at least breaking even on their effort. This doesn't even happen with new games on current generation consoles. So I don't understand why you're expecting it to happen with retro-consoles. > And a prerequisite for that demand, is public awareness of the fact that modern GB games are being created — and, more importantly, a public "brand" awareness for the people creating them! I don't think awareness is the problem. I think most people just don't care. If you're a retro gamer you are probably already aware, and if you're not then you're never going to play these games anyway. And I honestly can't blame people for not caring. There's so much content out there these days that GB games (with all the warts that the GB hardware had, by modern day standards) simple aren't going to appeal to most people. I think you're setting your expectations far too high. > Indie game jams are great and all; but they don't create brand awareness Again, there are plenty of releases that aren't the results of game jams.
    - 4y ago

by derefr 4y ago

hnlmorg 4y ago

There’s loads of homebrew Gameboy games released each year. One of my friends reviews games and receives lots of new GB and GBA titles. You can also get GB carts that support SD card. I appreciate you’re describing a more complete, end to end, UX but we can already do everything right up to inserting the SD card into the Gameboy cart. With Gameboy emulation as good as it is, you could do away with original hardware for 99% of players too (though for me, the joy of retro gaming is using the original hardware. But I’d never look down on anyone who preferred emulation).

derefr 4y ago
I didn't say people don't make them. I said they aren't polished. And by that, I don't mean the gameplay! Rather, I mean that nobody's fabbing GB game carts, printing glossy color manuals for them, putting them in boxes, and shipping them to Kickstarter backers. Nobody's translating these games into 10 languages. Nobody's QA-testing the heck out of them to ensure they don't have any obscure edge-case bugs. Etc. (This was why I brought up Planet X3: it's an example of a modern retro-game that is polished in exactly this sense.) But a desire to go through all the effort to create polished modern GB games, is the sort of thing that requires market demand — a willingness to spend real money to buy new GB games (whether digitally or physically.) No hobbyist game developer is going to spend a year on "things that aren't programming" to make a nice shippable product out of their game, if that isn't going to result in at least breaking even on their effort. And a prerequisite for that demand, is public awareness of the fact that modern GB games are being created — and, more importantly, a public "brand" awareness for the people creating them! Indie game jams are great and all; but they don't create brand awareness. App Stores with "studios with most stars" views create brand awareness. Easily one-click accessibility of the games to allow them to be played on a PC (rather than on a portable with no video-capture support), to enable streamers and content-creators to play them on a whim, create brand awareness. Gamedev tooling that expects/requires a "publisher logo card" to be shown on boot, create brand awareness. Etc. Basically, think of "modern gameboy games" as if they were a thing made by one company, rather than a diffuse community. What would that company be doing to market them? The community can do those things too!
- laumars 4y ago
  > Rather, I mean that nobody's fabbing GB game carts, printing glossy color manuals for them, putting them in boxes, and shipping them to Kickstarter backers. Maybe not Kickstarter specifically, but they are doing the other stuff. > Nobody's translating these games into 10 languages. That's a little unreasonable ask. Given how little money these games will bring in you can't expect that. > Nobody's QA-testing the heck out of them to ensure they don't have any obscure edge-case bugs. Etc. (This was why I brought up Planet X3: it's an example of a modern retro-game that is polished in exactly this sense.) There is QA testing happening but like with the above, you can't expect smaller operations to pay people to QA. So you end up either having "QA" be demo builds, in which case most people end up with a copy so you can't do the premium carts that you're also asking for. Or you just have to accept that QA is a smaller operation but still have the beautiful hardware copy. Even really well polished games on other platforms with much bigger audiences, like Xeno Crisis for the Mega Drive / Genesis, have had their share of bugs too. Even in the original days of these consoles, when games from big studios with big budgets to spend on testing, we'd still see new releases with bugs-galore. > But a desire to go through all the effort to create polished modern GB games, is the sort of thing that requires market demand — a willingness to spend real money to buy new GB games (whether digitally or physically.) No hobbyist game developer is going to spend a year on "things that aren't programming" to make a nice shippable product out of their game, if that isn't going to result in at least breaking even on their effort. This doesn't even happen with new games on current generation consoles. So I don't understand why you're expecting it to happen with retro-consoles. > And a prerequisite for that demand, is public awareness of the fact that modern GB games are being created — and, more importantly, a public "brand" awareness for the people creating them! I don't think awareness is the problem. I think most people just don't care. If you're a retro gamer you are probably already aware, and if you're not then you're never going to play these games anyway. And I honestly can't blame people for not caring. There's so much content out there these days that GB games (with all the warts that the GB hardware had, by modern day standards) simple aren't going to appeal to most people. I think you're setting your expectations far too high. > Indie game jams are great and all; but they don't create brand awareness Again, there are plenty of releases that aren't the results of game jams.
  - 4y ago