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[Corpus]

Architekt, you seem to be working under the impression that all TIGers have similar opinions to you. You also seem to think that we're all pretentious. Speak for yourself.

As far as I'm aware, Cactus has been a fairly active member of the GM community, including the YoYo Games portal, for a long time.

Also, you can totally complain about the shortness of games.

Most of his games are too short.

I don't believe that, actually, in Cactus' case, but I'm proving a point. HARDCORE

[Alevice]

I dunno, but there seemed to be far more welcoming comments than noobs flaming and such. But yeah, cactus is already well known on gmc, so people are already aware of him. You need an even far more mainstream portal to get the lamerneess you want.

[Lucaz]

I saw just a few bad reviews. Cactus has a very uncommon style you can't expect everyone to like, so there were less than expected.

I still have to play some. Saw Psychosomnium, and tried both Mondo, but never played any of them.

[Alex May]

I don't know where this high and mighty arrogance of the indie gamer has come from but it stinks.

[Corpus]

Don't you understand, haowan? We're inherently better than them.

[Alevice]

I don't know where this high and mighty arrogance of the indie gamer has come from but it stinks.

well, it's quite common to see the average nerd on the internet has to prove their epenis superiority, by exposing his "intellectually superior" (synonym for "big fat nerdy") interests to "lower lifeforms", so they can mock them by failing to apreciate them. Much like this very post.

[Valter]

I don't know where this high and mighty arrogance of the indie gamer has come from but it stinks.

Agree. I'm honestly tired of "abstract" being used to replace "good". People are getting too hoity toity over games and art.

[Alevice]

so yo sayin psychosomnium is abstracted  ripof?

[medieval]

also The Stench has gotten on me.

[dessgeega]

One of the most recurring is of course "too short."   

But they are

too short for what? to make their point? they do that fairly perfectly at the length they are.

[Valter]

Yes, but replayability of the exact same thing is extremely limited, and people just want to play more of his good games. He's already proven his point, now we want to play some more of it. We're just saying that his games would be even more fun if there was more than the usual one level that he implements in each game.

[GregWS]

Alright, I'll retract some of that pretension.  It was a bit strong to begin with, I'll not deny that.

And I don't have any problems with the GMC, it's more the approach YoYo has taken towards GM (casual), and the YoYo site design itself.  I am a GM user after all, and I have tried to find answers to problems on the GMC, with limited success.  I think what started to bother me about it was just how expansive it has gotten.  Of course, there's good things about that, but it's very hard to find the info you need, and I hate creating duplicate topics, so I'd ended up searching through piles of stuff and usually wasting a bunch of time in the end.

I guess one of the reason's I created this thread was because I had been under the (apparently misinformed) assumption that Cactus hadn't been fairly active in the GM community, and that his games weren't on YoYo.  I've been using Game Maker (and been around the GM Community) a lot longer than I've known about TIG, and I didn't ever become aware of Cactus.  That said, after thinking hard about it, I may have bumped into Illegal Communication back then, so I guess he was active, and I just never found all his stuff in one place.  So, I was naturally a little surprised to see his games on a site that I (almost) equate with a flash portal.

And I don't think there's anything pretentious about bashing flash portals, as most of them are devoid of any quality works.  There are definitely exceptions on YoYo, but I just don't like the decidedly casual approach they've taken.  As mentioned in another thread, GM could become the new flash, and gain all the stigma associated with that (as proven by the flash/indie thread).

[cactus]

Anyone who has used game maker for a longer period of time will probably say that YoYoGames and the official Game Maker Community are cesspools. It's not so much as to people becoming pretentious as it has to do with the fact that using GM for a longer period of time will eventually mean that you've grown out of these communities, seeing as most people there are aged nine to seventeen.

Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with teens or preteens, but it gets tiring seeing the same kind of comments and mindsets over and over, and the interesting feedback you get just starts to seem extremely rare after a while. But even worse is that there seem to be very few good games being posted on those forums nowadays (I think yoyogames may be promoting casual games using some kind of subliminal messaging technique that is to blame for this).

And I know my games are too short. But it's either that or most of the games I've made wouldn't have been released at all.

[Melly]

I've had problems in the GMC forums myself. It's just grown so gigantic and filled with useless information that it's a huge chore to find what you need. And yes, most GM users seem to be kids, and obviously you get the kiddy internet behaviour, which is basically everything a kid wants to say but can't in real life because they're reprimanded for it by parents and teachers, and are completely free to express in the net thanks to having no real faces. So yeah, I can understand GMC being called a cesspool.

I also dislike some of the practices of YoyoGames, like their focus on trying to become some kind of casual game portal. Proof of that is the fact that in order to download a standalone version of any game you have to click a tiny link in the bottom right they seem intent on keeping hidden (it won't be readily visible in most resolutions unless you scroll down and it's hardly notable) and when you do press it you get another screen telling you that you can play the game on your browser instead. It won't surprise me if eventually they take away the ability to download the standalone games completely and start giving off 'achievements' for the most popular titles.

Hell, I expect Game Maker to be usable only within the browser through their website in 2 or 3 versions.

[ChevyRay]

And I know my games are too short. But it's either that or most of the games I've made wouldn't have been released at all.

haha, well when you put it that way :D

[AuthenticKaizen]

And I know my games are too short. But it's either that or most of the games I've made wouldn't have been released at all.

haha, well when you put it that way :D

yeah, indeed. better short than never released. thats a good point. 

[laserghost]

I think YoYogames is awesome. I wish I had something like that when I was younger. I'm all for making games and game creation accessible to a broad audience. Sure, there's going to be a lot of low quality stuff coming into existence, but that does nothing to devalue the genuinely good games. How does letting you play it in a browser make it a casual game anyway? If anything it just makes it quicker to get started, which is what I like about the site.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Ahh... the glory of comments on YoYoGames. I love visiting it every now and then only for the sake of what people there write about my and other indie games.

The most expensive game on YoYo Games!
It's beautyful and wonderful!
Dreamly game!
I'm direct it!

I'm totally direct it!

I'm pretty sure I have the most expensive game on YoYo Games, because your game is only 20$ whereas mine is 23$.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

And for what it's worth, I don't think Cactus's games are too short -- most of them are shooters, and who wants a long shooter? I tend to prefer story-driven games and strategy games myself, but Cactus's games appeal to even me, someone who generally doesn't like action games.

Also, I may be the only one in the world who thinks this, but I think "Arms" is my favorite of Cactus's games. It's really amazing (and incredibly short, barely even a tech demo) but I can't believe nobody thought of using the mouse like that before.

[GregWS]

And I know my games are too short. But it's either that or most of the games I've made wouldn't have been released at all.

And this is why I have so much respect for you; you know your limits.  I have piles of unfinished games, all of them because I aimed to create large games and lost interest at some point during the process.  Even though I've been using GM since 2005, I don't have a single game which I would consider finished, and I think that's a real shame.

It was when I got into the indie scene here at TIGs that I quickly came around to the idea of smaller games, with people like you creating small games that were quite good and much loved.  I think Portal also proved that games don't have to be huge; I love that I can play through it in a few hours.

I guess one thing I love about short games is that they can be treated more like movies; the entire experience can be had, and re-had, in a few hours.  Let me elaborate:

Movies are now roughly 2 hours; the entire experience fits in that super convenient time frame.  Most people (even insanely busy ones like myself) can find 2 hours somewhere to fit in a movie, and when the 2 hours is over we can get back to whatever task is at hand without feeling like we're leaving something unfinished.  I personally think short games (at least the well-crafted ones) have much better replayability because the entire experience can be re-experienced in a few hours.  Now, when deciding what I want to do some evening, instead of just thinking about movies or tv, I'll think about whether there are any Knytt Stories that I'd like to replay; any game experiences that I'd like to revisit; any stories I'd like to play through again.  I think this holds true for Portal too; I can experience the whole story in a few hours, and walk away satisfied.  Long games must be played in segments, comparable to watching (plot heavy) tv shows on dvd: you can move right on to the next episode, or keep watching later.  Regardless, the entire experience takes a lot of time, and I think that's one of the reasons I find myself not re-watching a lot of the tv series on dvd that I like.

All of that said, there is definitely a place for long games too, and plot-free long games like Wipeout work great because it is easy to jump in and out of playing them.