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[Anthony Flack]

I think if you have to have played something before the screenshot is seen to be evocative, then it probably isn't an evocative screenshot.

Those Rougelike screenshots look like a bunch'a coloured ascii jumble to me. Whereas the Shadow of the Colossus screen posted earlier looks like a sad, haunted, gigantic mythical man emerging from the mist in some fantastical land. And I don't think that's simply because I've played SOTC but not played any Roguelikes.

[shinygerbil]

This, to me, is genuinely evocative. I first played this a couple of days ago (despite having known of its existence for years) and while I haven't got far (I have exams, you know) it's pretty amazing so far.

I think if you have to have played something before the screenshot is seen to be evocative, then it probably isn't an evocative screenshot.

If so, please discount that big SOTC screenshot - it really holds no charm for me. Believe me, I'm not trolling; I really think it's just a bit..crap. Firstly, it looks like a cutscene. I have absolutely no sense of connection to the little guy, and I might as well be watching a film. I'd rather a screenshot where you're clearly playing the game and you're looking up at that big thing, and you get a real sense of "oh, shiii-". Also, there's really no sense of movement from the big dude. He looks a bit comical, to be honest, and not in a good way. While I'm guessing that a better screenshot would be much more evocative, right now the only thing I'm thinking is "if I played that game, I might know what they're all going on about."

I'll see if I can post my Dwarf Fortress, but I'll have to boot back into Windows to do it, because it didn't seem to like exporting the fortress under wine.

Oh, and that fake SOTC roguelike (if it is fake, that is) - at first I thought "humph" but looking at it, I think that if the colossus was made a lot bigger, it'd get quite a lot of emotion from me if I played that. Maybe I just have an overactive imagination, but when I'm playing a roguelike I really do have all this fantastic narrative and imagery in my head, which translates into what I'm looking at on the screen. So when I see a bunch of random letters coming towards me at high speed, they really are brandishing sword/axes/spears/whatever, screaming things at me, and when I unleash some magic that turns half of them to a crisp, I really do feel like cackling - until they reach me and tear me limb from limb. So I guess it's all subjective.

[Terry]

I approve of the Photopia screenshot!

[Mark-P]

There's no accounting for taste, huh? I'm very much with xix and Anthony on this - a lot of shots posted here don't even begin to stand alone as things of beauty, and the roguelikes I find hideously ugly and quite contrary to my own goals as a gamesmaker. Nothing more than functional, they're about as exciting to the observer as a spreadsheet.

Maybe there ought to be separate threads for nostalgic, inspirational, unusual, reference screenshots?

Anyway, I'd feel bad posting without bringing some hotness of my own. My relationship with JRPGs is very much a love/hate one, but damn do they ever look pretty. Here goes the classic Seiken Densetsu 3, still a benchmark for pixel art IMO:






Spoiled by being quickly hotlinked in .gif format. But the whole game just goes on and on with the 'damn thats beautiful' goodness.

I want to raid my 'gorgeous pixel art' inspiration folder when I get home. I've been hoping to do some swappsies with the collected sexiness therein.

[Madgarden]

"[26/04/2007 9:14:37 AM] >> Haha, I've been avoiding that thread. May as well argue over what the moon means to you."

[Anthony Flack]

This, to me, is genuinely evocative.

I'm sure, but it's a page of writing! That's like posting a page out of a book and saying it's a beautiful image because, if you read it, it's a great story. All well and good, and yet I can't help but feel that communication is starting to break down at that point. I don't think this was meant to be a controversial topic!

If so, please discount that big SOTC screenshot - it really holds no charm for me. Believe me, I'm not trolling; I really think it's just a bit..crap. Firstly, it looks like a cutscene. I have absolutely no sense of connection to the little guy, and I might as well be watching a film. I'd rather a screenshot where you're clearly playing the game and you're looking up at that big thing, and you get a real sense of "oh, shiii-".

That is basically what it looks like when you're playing the game, but surely whether or not it resembles a cutscene has nothing to do with whether or not it is an evocative image? I think you may be imposing far too much "this is what I think the game ought to play like" onto a simple "this is an evocative image" statement. The player need not be either of those characters.

Also, there's really no sense of movement from the big dude. He looks a bit comical, to be honest, and not in a good way.

You're suddenly going to hold this game to critical standards far higher than you would expect of anything else? I hope you're not sulking! Sure, tastes vary, but calling that screenshot out for looking too crap to fit the bill is pushing the boat pretty far out (I also think it's a purely videogame-related assumption to think that the big guy ought to look threatening; in the game he is like a big, sad, awkward half-man/half-building; a sort of giant Don Quixote. But that's not really the point I guess; it shouldn't be about the games themselves, just the world conjured up by the image). The fact that the big guy looks a little awkward and pathetic to you shows that it's evoking quite well.

I'm sure you guys really do imagine a whole lot of vivid stuff while playing Roguelikes, but a screenshot of a Roguelike is just a bunch of coloured ascii. If it evokes anything, it is surely just that sensation of playing a Roguelike. You may as well say that "##....$..@..." is an evocative image (please don't...)

[Zaphos]

Also, there's really no sense of movement from the big dude.

What does that mean?  How would a still image have more of a sense of movement?  Do you want it to have lots of motion blur or something?

I also don't understand how you expect to have a sense of connection to any character based on a screenshot?
Or why a screenshot with the player character active "looks like a cutscene"?

[GP Lackey]

I'm just going to post some more screenshots then...


Red Alarm turned the eerie, glowing red of the Virtual Boy into an aesthetic choice.  It's like a monochromatic Rez before Rez.

Runner-up Teleroboxer which (probably unintentionally) looks completely nightmarish:

[xix]

Oh god, monotone games...  so good.

I never had a VB, but the GB had some really choice monotone games. There was always something stark about them. When I played Super Mario Land I always thought, "this is missing something." I think it was then that I figured out what distilled meant.

[Gamer_2k4]

I'm sure you guys really do imagine a whole lot of vivid stuff while playing Roguelikes, but a screenshot of a Roguelike is just a bunch of coloured ascii. If it evokes anything, it is surely just that sensation of playing a Roguelike. You may as well say that "##....$..@..." is an evocative image (please don't...)

You could argue that a screenshot of any game is just a collection of colored pixels.  Whether or not a screenshot is evocative is determined (obviously) by the feelings it evokes in someone, not by how realistic it looks.  And you know what? That screenshot of Magic Monsters that I posted earlier definitely evokes feeling in me.  I remember how I had gotten as far as I had in the game, how depressing it was to die after all I had done, but how excited I was that I made it to level 17.  In a game where most new players die before level 4, it's quite an accomplishment to make it to level 17.

[FARTRON]

Enough chat, more shots!

[xix]

I'm sure you guys really do imagine a whole lot of vivid stuff while playing Roguelikes, but a screenshot of a Roguelike is just a bunch of coloured ascii. If it evokes anything, it is surely just that sensation of playing a Roguelike. You may as well say that "##....$..@..." is an evocative image (please don't...)

You could argue that a screenshot of any game is just a collection of colored pixels.  Whether or not a screenshot is evocative is determined (obviously) by the feelings it evokes in someone, not by how realistic it looks.  And you know what? That screenshot of Magic Monsters that I posted earlier definitely evokes feeling in me.  I remember how I had gotten as far as I had in the game, how depressing it was to die after all I had done, but how excited I was that I made it to level 17.  In a game where most new players die before level 4, it's quite an accomplishment to make it to level 17.

People can be compelled by a lot of things. But there is something natural and innate about the compelling qualities of some things more-so than others.

I mean, I can read a lot when I read an algebraic equation. There's quite a lot of information there, emotions, feelings. There's a different balance when I read Y<X versus Y<-X. But compare that to an actual Cartesian graph of the equations, and the graph is just more stimulating.

When you put screenshots of Roguelikes against screenshots of more compelling games...  it's like arguing that the equation is the same as the graph. They're not. You can argue all day that they're equal, and how in your head that they work better, but you're just working from false assumptions. The standard perspective is tabula rasa, not hardened gamer.

[Zaphos]

I remember how I had gotten as far as I had in the game, how depressing it was to die after all I had done, but how excited I was that I made it to level 17.  In a game where most new players die before level 4, it's quite an accomplishment to make it to level 17.

Isn't that all nostalgia, though?  It's like if someone said, "post evocative pictures" and you posted one of you just sitting in your room doing nothing.  And then when questioned, you said, "I took that picture after I had just built that room with my bare hands!  I used nothing but a toothpick and a single fig tree!  That room means so much to me!"  And that's all fine and good, but not something inherent to the picture so much as your very personal life experiences -- the picture alone is quite dull.
Does it still count as an evocative picture?  Sure, at least to you.  It's just not the sort of more generally evocative picture (some) other people in the thread were interested in seeing.

When you put screenshots of Roguelikes against screenshots of more compelling games...

Should probably specify "visually compelling"?  I don't think the roguelikes are necessarily less compelling games than SotC when you actually play them ...

[Anthony Flack]

I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that Roguelikes are not compelling games; I totally accept that people find them genuinely exciting. But visually, they are entirely symbolic. The scene is entirely in your imagination.

You could argue that a screenshot of any game is just a collection of colored pixels. 

I know, but things would get really silly if you did that. They are pixels of sufficiently small size and range of colours to form a picture of something. You can talk about it in the same way as you talk about any other picture.

Roguelikes, and text adventures, are not really pictures of things; they're purely symbolic, they're language. When they are reviewed, they get N/A for graphics.

Anyway, enough blabber from me! Bring on them pictures.

[Madgarden]

I think you people better go back to basics...

_{Evocative:
Adjective.
Tending to bring a memory, mood, or image, for example, subtly or indirectly to mind: allusive, connotative, impressionistic, reminiscent, suggestive.}


I see no mention of pixels, polygons, video modes, lighting, rock men, or trendy-graphical-stylings-requiring-high-performance-modern-hardware in the definition of "evocative." Roguelike games evoke memories, moods, and the mind's imagery for those who've enjoyed them. That's all that is required to be deemed evocative." Simple, non?

Therefore, either change the title of the thread to "Pretty Screenshots Only!" or kindly cease and desist with the petty naysaying (ie. STFU).

Love ya's!

[guille]

I agree with Madgarden, so I think it could be a good idea if next to your screenshot you post WHY it is evocative to you, so we can see it form your point of view.

When I see a RL pic, it looks like shit, yet it reminds me when I started coding in QBASIC and all I could use was ASCII characters, so, it's horrible, but evocative after all...

[xix]

There are levels here, folks. A picture of an apple is more evocative of a real apple than the word apple. Read up on your Platonic forms, kiddo.

[Xion]

One may be more evockativ than the other, but that doesn't mean the other isn't evockativ, and no one specified what level stuff had to be. Now can we please just keep posting pretty RL screens...?!

[xix]

The "level" is the authenticity. If we want to psot whatever is evn "remotely evocative" we might as well be the ucking indeigamer forums. Also, I'm posting drunk.

Fuckeveryone. IRON MAIDEN IS THE BEST BAND EvER.

[Slash - Santiago Zapata]

Greeeaaat, I'm drunk as well, so this post deserves to be deleted by the mods

Also, just relay your critical frame a bit and you can't deny there's a bit of feeling on these screenshots... you just need to understand the symbols (nothing complicated, as they are a direct language, just as a sprite sheet is (ok, maybe not as straightforward)), and you can feel the moment.

Maybe my first screenshot wasnt too intense (the bat missing the poor rogue), but I can surely feel that colossus over me on the second one!

Also. COLDPLAY THE BEST BAND EVAH