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[Xion]

I love attract modes. And skippable intros. The less necessary they are the better, because games with story and shit you expect some kind of introduction to the setting and stuff, but just random meaningless point harvest games with some unimportant backstory that flashes if you wait on the menu screen for too long are The Best, and I won't understand anyone who disagrees.

[Richard Kain]

The point of the discussion isn't whether indie games require intro sequences or attract modes just whether it would add to the experience.

I was speaking more to the practicality of attract modes. In this day and age, no one just leaves games running at the title screen. When you are finished playing, you quit, no matter what device you're playing on. If you go to the trouble of adding something like an attract mode as an extra feature, 95%+ of users are never even going to realize it's there, just because of how games are played today.

This doesn't apply to introductions, since those usually run the first time the game is played.

[JWK5]

95% of players don't care for them, or you personally don't? Also, a lot of modern games still make use of them. For example:

EchoChrome



Rayman 3 HD



Katamari Forever



SkullGirls



Sonic Generations



Resonance of Fate

[Richard Kain]

95% of players don't care for them, or you personally don't? Also, a lot of modern games still make use of them. For example:

I never said they didn't care for them. I said that they never SEE them. Players these days never linger on title screens, they don't leave their games running until an attract mode has a chance to start. Modern gamers don't wait around for attract modes, whether they like them or not.

Attract modes are most suitable to games placed in a public setting, and never really switched off. That's where they make the most sense, and where the greatest number of people are most likely to see them.

For PC, console, and mobile games, attract modes aren't practical, and the majority of gamers will never even know they are there. That places an extra and unnecessary development burden on their creators. And with as time and budget-constrained as most indie developers are, it is understandable if most of them don't bother with an attract mode.

[moi]

I prefer a short animated sequence, even if it's very generic and unconsequential (a ninja cutting some bamboo or some other shit) rather than a long page of text with a boring backstory of cliches.

that's why altered beast is so immersive. "RAISE FROM YOUR GRAVE", wut wat?, no other explanation is required, raise up and kick some mythological ass.

[JWK5]

...

I disagree, but I'll just leave it at that.



Anyways, you got to love the oldschool attract modes where it looked like the game was being played by someone severely inebriated.

[SirNiko]

I liked the intro to Wild Arms 3. It's a little music-video sort of introduction that reminded me of the opening sequence to a cartoon show, and it even changes as you progress through the game to show the new villains. Another time, just once, the music was replaced with an instrumental version of the tune. It was enchanting. I think I watched the whole thing every time I turned on the game because it was really that good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezkMLIdE-Kg

The intro to Metal Saga was the same way, except the tune was the badass boss fight theme. It actually cuts to some gameplay footage in the middle, which is cleverly edited to look awesome instead of like the stuff JWK posted. It really got me pumped to play every time, and I would always watch it through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_YKfW-vIC8

The Master of Magic intro is legendary in my household. "OLD MAN, YOU SEEK THE SPELL OF MASTERY" is an instant laugh-line.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMNk-YlpuBo

I hate intros like for FF8 or Metal Gear Solid. I want to get straight to the game and learn the story in an interactive way. I feel like some of those intros are just made and forgotten, because the devs assume you'll only watch it once so it doesn't have to be that great.

[C.A. Sinner]

idk if this counts as an "attract mode" but i liked the thing ocarina of time did when you stayed on the title screen for a while where it shows you a montage of tiny snippets of gameplay that doesn't make a whole lot of sense at first, and then, as you play the game you slowly discover what each snippet is. also i guess it was meant to show off the fast loading enabled by cartridge tech because it's rendered in-engine and isn't a "fmv."

im sure other games do that as well (maybe even other zelda games? idk) but oot's sequence is the most memorable for me.

[SundownKid]

If I was going to add an intro sequence, it would *not* be an attract mode - I wouldn't want to waste money from my small budget on something people would skip, unless it was quite simple. (And I'm not developing for the arcade)

[BlueSweatshirt]

Even though they're cool and have a significant function of getting you into the mood when you start a game, they're otherwise kind of frivolous and, by an indie's resources, not a very good investment of time, generally speaking.

[todd]

I didn't know those demo sequences had a name before this thread. I liked Animal Crossing's title screen/attract mode. Sometimes I'd watch it for a bit before getting into my file. http://youtu.be/qn6iiE3qEZ4

[moi]

I think everybody's talking about something different in this thread, but it's cool

[BlueSweatshirt]

Yeah possibly.
I was just speaking about intro sequences in general.

[Schoq]

Anyways, you got to love the oldschool attract modes where it looked like the game was being played by someone severely inebriated.

Without having done any research on this at all I'm going to say that most of those are probably because of inaccurate emulation.

[BlueSweatshirt]

It's OBVIOUSLY a psychological thing to make you feel better about your skill when you're playing and inevitably compare yourself to the skill level shown in the demo seq.