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[Anthony Flack]

Perhaps MDickie is like Ed Wood and you guys are like hipsters who like Ed Wood movies.

[Alec]

Perhaps MDickie is like Ed Wood and you guys are like hipsters who like Ed Wood movies.

OMG I love Ed Wood...

But I like the movie "Ed Wood" more than his films. :\

[William Broom]

The fact that he has a blatant disregard for the standing "rules" of game design (whether its intentional or not) are why MDIckie's games are sometimes more surprising and interesting than well-produced mainstream games.

Really? I didn't see much of a 'disregard for the rules of game desing' in Hard Time. Mostly it just seemed like he was trying to combine elements from GTA and The Sims. Whatever was unusual about the game came from its glitches and all-round shittiness, not from any effort on MDickie's part.

To me, this seems like watching a home movie off Youtube and praising its innovative use of long tracking shots.

[Alec]

The fact that he has a blatant disregard for the standing "rules" of game design (whether its intentional or not) are why MDIckie's games are sometimes more surprising and interesting than well-produced mainstream games.

Really? I didn't see much of a 'disregard for the rules of game desing' in Hard Time. Mostly it just seemed like he was trying to combine elements from GTA and The Sims. Whatever was unusual about the game came from its glitches and all-round shittiness, not from any effort on MDickie's part.

To me, this seems like watching a home movie off Youtube and praising its innovative use of long tracking shots.

That's kind of the same thing that I'm saying, actually. Its like his lack of ability to produce a polished game makes the games more interesting.

I don't really think he's doing it intentionally, but it still leads to interesting moments. But there are more interesting moments in MDickie games than in a lot of other poorly made games... so there's some kind of magic going on there.

[Anthony Flack]

The magic of isolation and mental illness? I can relate to the sentiment.

[Craig Stern]

When a game does something that makes absolutely no sense and the author didn't intend it to, it may be an "interesting moment" in the sense that it's interesting when a pigeon unexpectedly drops a turd onto someone you see walking around on the street. But I wouldn't credit the responsible party with having done something really great.

[Problem Machine]

You would if he took a fly-by shit on Hitler.

[Craig Stern]

Heh. Um, well, if I ever see Hitler walking around the street, I'll probably have bigger problems to worry about than deciding whether God deserves credit for letting a bird crap on him.

[Alec]

Kinda confused by the anger directed towards MDickie and anyone who likes his stuff, actually. I don't see anything particularly wrong with finding it interesting.

[increpare]

I played hard times, and the main thing that bothered me about it were the unfastforwardable cutscenes. Other than that, I thought it was pretty good.

[Valter]

Please don't get me wrong, my only animosity is directed towards MDickie himself, for his regrettably irritating megalomania.

I don't mind niche games, and I play an awful lot of them myself. But even allowing for that, MDickie was so far under the radar for me that I hardly even knew he existed before this thread was made. I had heard passing mentions of Hard Times, but it never looked interesting enough (to me) to warrant a play through. And I'm cool with that. Honest.

But he isn't cool with that. He seems to be obsessed with himself, to the point of totally tuning out every other person in his trade. I can agree that this, because it encourages originality in games. But MDickie seems to have this super-tunnel-vision power that allows him to only see himself when he's making the game, but then he starts touting it around in relation to everything else once he's done.

So he has the advantage of isolation from the potential of derivative gameplay, and that's cool. But he also has the resultant rampant ignorance that causes his "I am the best person ever" rants. When you develop so far outside the norm of even indie game design, you'll probably do some things right that nobody expected. But at the same time, you get more and more of an "apples and oranges" effect when you try to relate your games with any other games.

I'd say cactus is another developer who operates outside the norm of game design, but he doesn't swing the fact around like a chainsaw. Same thing with Edmund. Probably the same with Toady One of Dwarf Fortress. And I'd say Ultimortal is an even better example than MDickie, because he makes really good games that don't follow the restrictions of "standard" development. Iji had highly unusual but excellent graphics. Tower of Elite was a fun puzzle game that operated by fairly unique standards (I haven't ever seen a puzzle/platformer mix that can match the blend that ToE manages). And Garden Gnome Carnage is a deliciously bizarre game with an awesome gameplay design.

So I guess the bottom line is, I feel like MDickie just gets his attention because he's the underdog. There are people who who include even more design innovation in their games, but their games are more popular as a result. And that actually makes them less popular, because MDickie better represents the "indie spirit" with his underdog games.

That's probably an overly bitter analysis, but I can't stand megalomania, anywhere.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I can understand disliking megalomania, but his megalomania is either a psychological problem or something he uses as a style, and there's no reason to hate someone's games just because they have psychological problems or just because they promote their games in a certain way. It seems a bit like hating people who are paranoid, or hating people with schizophrenia. When I've talked to him one on one via email, he's a decent, nice person. He's never spewed as much hate toward other developers as people have toward him in this thread.

[Alec]

I can understand disliking megalomania, but his megalomania is either a psychological problem or something he uses as a style, and there's no reason to hate someone's games just because they have psychological problems or just because they promote their games in a certain way. It seems a bit like hating people who are paranoid, or hating people with schizophrenia. When I've talked to him one on one via email, he's a decent, nice person. He's never spewed as much hate toward other developers as people have toward him in this thread.

I find the whole megalomania thing pretty funny and almost... cute? Its definitely the style he's chosen to go with, and I find it actually makes his games more enjoyable.

One example is how the end credits are always just a list of his name over and over again. 

But the bottom line is I respect him as a creator, as I do many other creators. He makes stuff that I enjoy experiencing.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I enjoy his credits too. When I first saw them I thought: why doesn't he just list the roles and put his name under it, instead of repeating his name over and over for each role? But then I came to like the style of it.

[Craig Stern]

I'm not angry. I just think it's silly to praise someone for producing games that are unintentionally funny because of how glitchy and poorly crafted they are. Unless I misunderstood your point?

[Eclipse]

[...]

The endless tide of retro platformers are a bit like the rain dance. Old platform games were awesome (sometimes), so people hope that if they make something with lo-fi graphics, they'll get something great too. Except that it wasn't the lo-fi graphics that made the games great (after all, those graphics were usually cutting edge at the time), it was gameplay and fun and the desire to make a well-crafted game.
[...]

we need more cutting-edge graphics retro-style gameplay games.

[Inanimate]

New Super Mario Bros. is a great example. And, before it was released, Sonic Unleashed looked like a 2D sonic gone 3D. Then the werehog came... 

But, yeah, more 3D games which feel like retro games should be released. Sadly, that has been reversed, as said in that quote.

[salade]

I don't believe that the reason we are seeing a revewed surge in retro graphics platformers is because of peoples nostalgic attachment to them. I believe it's mostly because of three things:

1)
2) so many people use game maker and multimedia function. for some reason people generally keep graphics in those at lower resolutions.
3) there is suddenly a renewed interest in pixel art.  is perhaps responsible for this too.

[Anthony Flack]

I think people around here routinely overestimate the influence of 

[Alex May]

I thought Pixel invented pixel art! Hence the name? Shows what I know.