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[Don Andy]

I don't think people make retro games because it's a hip thing to do or because everybody is trying to rip off be inspired by Cave Story.

It's more of a "cost-effective" thing (with the cost primarily being time here). Small time devs that do this stuff in their free time neither have the time nor the capacities to shoot for super deluxe polished HD graphics.

At least that's how it is for me. Should I use "retro" graphics, it's because it is the "easiest" form of art that is most widely accepted without being put off as shitty (shitty graphics = shitty game, as this community so politely informed me)

Although retro 3D seems to slowly become a new trend, too.

[Valter]

But I didn't say I'd rather people not make games than make metroidvanias -- all I said was that I think it's a bad trend and I hope indie games get over the retro obsession eventually. I was afflicted by it myself so I know firsthand how it feels and how much it can limit you. I think it'll happen, I just don't know how long it'll take.

What's with this obsession that retro is bad? People like to make good games. Metroidvanias are good games. If you don't think so, that's probably a personal taste, but enough people like Metroidvanias for people to continue making Metroidvanias. I hardly think it's a "trend". It will last as long as gaming and indie gaming lasts, because it's one of the most entertaining mediums of gaming, like the FPS or RPG. It's not as prolific in the mainstream world, but you can see its popularity reflected in the games that most people include in their "top indie games" lists, like Cave Story, La Mulana, Bonesaw, Lyle in Cube Sector, and Iji. Metroidvanias and 2D Platformers to me are the strongest front of indie gaming. Those two genres contain the best games that Indie has the offer, for me.

You make it sound like Metroidvanias are some kind of craze that all the developers are getting into these days, but will pass over in time. That's almost entirely wrong, mostly because you've targeted the entirely wrong genre. The genre you seem to be describing is the shmup. Shmups are technically and conceptually easier to produce for developers making their first game. They're also, no matter how well-intended, an innovative dead-end. The most interesting innovation in shmups in recent history has been the "Scraping" maneuvers, allowing you to charge power by purposefully putting yourself into danger. Other than that, I haven't seen a single fascinating new innovation in the field for about as long as I've been playing shmups. With the exception of a few very seriously developed shmup games (like Shoot the Bullet and some other high-profile titles), the shmup genre is an innovative sinkhole.

[Craig Stern]

Innovation does not equal influence; it just makes it easier to tell when someone has exerted an influence on subsequent games.

[Valter]

That doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of influential Metroidvanias because those Metroidvanias are very good. I don't see what's wrong with good metroidvanias.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think it's a bad trend

It's a bad trend that people are being inspired to make games?

I'm not sure how you are getting that out of anything I've said. I think you should read the full sentence in context, and not clip something like that out.

That doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of influential Metroidvanias because those Metroidvanias are very good. I don't see what's wrong with good metroidvanias.

What's with this obsession that retro is bad? People like to make good games. Metroidvanias are good games. If you don't think so, that's probably a personal taste, but enough people like Metroidvanias for people to continue making Metroidvanias.

But I just said I enjoy retro games and have made them. How are you interpreting that to mean that I don't like them? I just don't like the trend, that doesn't mean I don't like the games.

You make it sound like Metroidvanias are some kind of craze that all the developers are getting into these days, but will pass over in time. That's almost entirely wrong, mostly because you've targeted the entirely wrong genre. The genre you seem to be describing is the shmup. Shmups are technically and conceptually easier to produce for developers making their first game. They're also, no matter how well-intended, an innovative dead-end. The most interesting innovation in shmups in recent history has been the "Scraping" maneuvers, allowing you to charge power by purposefully putting yourself into danger. Other than that, I haven't seen a single fascinating new innovation in the field for about as long as I've been playing shmups. With the exception of a few very seriously developed shmup games (like Shoot the Bullet and some other high-profile titles), the shmup genre is an innovative sinkhole.

I agree with this in part. I think platforming is just as dead, but I agree that shmups are dead. To me, there are basically four big genres that indie games would be better off moving away from: platformers, shmups, RPGs (especially jRPGs), and adventure games. Each of those was almost entirely explored by mainstream game companies back in the 80s, each of them has tens of thousands of games already, and there isn't much you can add to those genres that hasn't already been done in those tens of thousands of games. I think they're good genres to make a first game in, simply because it's easier to make a game in a genre that's been so heavily explored: you have most of your work already done for you, there's very little "design" involved, it's just a matter of creating slight variations and sticking to formulas that work, and bam, you have a fun game.

I'd disagree about scraping slightly though: I felt that Shoot the Bullet was a very innovative shooter in that it involved no shooting, instead you just avoided bullets and took pictures of the bullets and the bosses. It's pretty innovative to play a shmup that feels like a shmup but where the player does not shoot.

[Problem Machine]

I'm not sure how you are getting that out of anything I've said. I think you should read the full sentence in context, and not clip something like that out.

If you're not sure how I'm getting that then perhaps you should reread what I posted before. The fact that the people in question are inspired to make games and that they're inspired to make games like Cave Story both come from the same source. You can't pick and choose between them.

Moving on to a more recent topic of discussion, I'm of two minds about the whole 'dead genre' concept. First, I think that 'genre' is not a useful way to think about games during their production. I don't think it's ever productive to try to work within the confines of a genre, because that's limiting your vocabulary as an artist solely to what's been said before. Conceived of that way, all genres are dead on arrival to start with; though they may be expanded, they're just a way to describe already existing games, and aren't (or at least SHOULDN'T be) a mold for new games.

However, second, I think that the most recognizable attributes of games in whatever genre cannot die. They are too simple and elemental to die. I honestly get rather irritated at the idea that broad areas of game mechanics have been 'played out' and that there's nothing left to do. It's like saying that there's nothing more that can be done with jazz forms because jazz has been around for a century! It's STUPID. Sorry, but that kind of close-minded thinking really annoys me, and I think it works against the kind of innovation it claims to foster.

[Valter]

I remembered Shoot the Bullet as I was making the post, and I felt I shouldn't leave it out, since it was a fairly brilliant take on the genre.

I would like to clear this up, though. When you said that it was a "bad trend", I did take it as a condemnation of the genre as a whole. What it sounds like to me (in light of your newest post) is that you prefer innovation in genres rather than innovation in gameplay. You're trying to say that developers should be branching out into new and interesting styles, because even if you have the greatest idea ever, your new Metroidvania game is going to resonate with some other game that has already been created. Is this accurate?

I can't really change my decision not to play MDickie's games, at any rate. While his games are rather innovative within the bounds of Indie Gaming, I don't really think they're innovative in a good way. Edmund's games like Aether and Coil are innovative in a good way, to me, because they try more to innovate in relation to gaming as a whole, mainstream and indie. Edmund's games are unique and interesting even when compared to mainstream gaming as a whole, whereas MDickie's games look more like mediocre fighting games that could have come out ten years ago.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

If you're not sure how I'm getting that then perhaps you should reread what I posted before. The fact that the people in question are inspired to make games and that they're inspired to make games like Cave Story both come from the same source. You can't pick and choose between them.

Yes, but I already agreed with that, why repeat what I already agreed with? I don't think it's a bad trend that people focus on nostalgia when they first start making games. But I do think it is if they forever remain wedded to that, and if nostalgia remains their primary motivation, and if they actively come to reject any game that isn't in the select nostalgic genres they enjoy.

[Problem Machine]

... I don't think that counts as a trend if it lasts indefinitely.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I would like to clear this up, though. When you said that it was a "bad trend", I did take it as a condemnation of the genre as a whole. What it sounds like to me (in light of your newest post) is that you prefer innovation in genres rather than innovation in gameplay. You're trying to say that developers should be branching out into new and interesting styles, because even if you have the greatest idea ever, your new Metroidvania game is going to resonate with some other game that has already been created. Is this accurate?

I didn't mean to single out metroidvanias any more than shmups, jRPGs, or adventure games. They're just the biggest target because they're the most popular genre of those around here, and usually receive the most attention, but the same criticism applies to all of those types of games, yes.

As an analogy, in Europe in earlier centuries there was a conflict between the romanticists and the classicists: the classicists kept making art in old forms and according to formulas going back to the ancient Greeks, whereas the romanticists were more willing to break from tradition in order to achieve a desired effect. So my argument here is basically equivalent to that romanticist argument: sometimes the old forms aren't good enough for what you want to do, and sometimes they can restrict you.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

... I don't think that counts as a trend if it lasts indefinitely.

But it doesn't -- it wasn't always the trend. Back in the early 00s and the late 90s, indie games didn't focus so much on nostalgia. Most of you weren't into the indie game scene back then so understandably it may look as this trend has always been the case, but if you play indie games from BCS (before Cave Story) you'll notice very little focus on nostalgia and more of a focus on other things.

[Bree]

If it's all right, would you be willing to provide a few examples?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I posted a few on the TIGS frontpage a few months ago -- Notrium and a bunch of early Ohrrpgce and ZZT games. I also mentioned Seiklus earlier in this thread (yes, it's a platformer, but it's about as unorthodox a platformer as you can get, since there's no way to die and no enemies and it's all about exploration).

But there are tons more examples: Uplink, Samorost, Grow, Noctis, Stair Dismount, Photopia, Bridge Builder, etc. Indie games were way more experimental then.

[Gr.Viper]

They still are... But such games are harder to see in the neverending stream of remakes.

It would be better if remade games were more varied. There were some things done in the 80-90s that neither the game industry nor the indie developers tired again. Take Hidden Agenda or Floor 13 - one-office political and special service simulators. Take Life & Death (no, Dark Cut is not even close to a sim). Take incredibly detailed Flight Commander 2 (the whole genre is dead). Freelancing in Mechwarrior, coding a script for translator in BAT2 or just sitting back in awe in Cosmology of Kyoto are... well.. gone. But Mario & Co became immortal due to their simplicity.

Noctis

*fixes gaze at one spot, starts scoping for lithium*

Uplink, Samorost, Grow, Noctis, Stair Dismount, Photopia, Bridge Builder, etc.

Or this? http://rigsofrods.blogspot.com/
Cool... they announced an update.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't know, they seem pretty few and far between. But that's possible, yes. It seemed like about half the indie games back around 1999 were experimental, whereas now it's like 1%. But there are a lot more indie games released nowadays than back then, there are about 10-20 new indie game releases per day it seems like, whereas back then you were lucky to get see a new one a day. They also get less attention now. Of all the games currently on the TIGs front page, only one (Closure) is really experimental, the rest use established formulas. Well, arguably two (Toribash), but that one isn't a new release, just a news item.

[Chris Whitman]

Personally, I don't mind if someone decides to knock out a retro game now and then. It's nostalgic and fun, and I don't have a problem with that.

Besides the nostalgia factor, many mainstream games were, in fact, better then (although we tend to ignore the majority of SNES movie license platformers, for example). There are a variety of reasons why this was so. For one thing, if a game was focused around action and reflexes, typically you actually got to play the damn game instead of having a cutscene rammed down your throat every ten minutes.

HOWEVER:

The problem is that it has become a superstition, really. I mean, say you need rain to water your crops, so you do a dance and it rains. From then on whenever you need rain, you just do the dance. Sometimes it rains when you do the dance, so you figure that you did the dance particularly well that day and got some rain.

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.

But for many people it's a crutch. Instead of analysing what makes a game 'good' (for whatever your personal definition of good is), people just adopt the entire mantle of retro platforming, taking both the good and the bad things, and end up with yet another identical game to be thrown on the enormous pile of retro crap. So no one ever expands their horizons, no one ever tries to make the best art they can muster, no one ever really does anything but make the same thing again and again, constantly hoping it will, in a manner of speaking, rain. I don't mind it when someone does a well-thought out, retro styled platformer once in a while, but I do mind it when everyone does poorly planned, hopelessly derivative retro-styled platformers all the time.

Just... game design-wise we are still depending on very basic, well-established methods of creating interest. Almost all games cast you as a little man who has to fight guys. I think that there is definitely a place for that. I enjoy action-platformers and I don't want to see them go away any time soon. However, I can't help but feel that the whole community would be better if people put more effort into branching out and trying to create things which were important and perhaps spanned at least somewhat more of the enormous gamut of human experience.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I agree with that entirely (although I've two things to say about it), but that's a wonderful post, the best in this thread.

Point one: I actually do like cutscenes. Perhaps they're not usually appropriate for action games, but I enjoy them when the story is interesting. Ninja Gaiden is as retro and as oldstyle playable as you can get and had some really great cutscenes (and is arguably the first game to really use them). They can be awesome and add to a game enormously when done right, but I agree that usually they just waste time and are boring now that they've become standard rather than special.

Point two: Although it's true that it's not the low-fi graphics and scanlines that made the games good, I feel that the brain is a malleable thing, and sometimes things which are not inherently pleasurable can become inherently pleasurable through association with pleasurable things. This is a standard idea in behaviorism, with the bell creating the saliva and all that. Fetishes also work in that way. The brain's weird like that.

So I think that has also happened in many people, and that the retro game elements themselves have become inherently pleasurable in many people just through association with pleasurable games, so games which nostalgically contain retro elements and nothing else can give pleasure through association to people who have become wired that way. And I think making games which appeal to that is fairly limiting, because they often aren't pleasurable in themselves, they are mainly pleasurable because they remind people of old games. I mean some games are literally just retro graphics and sounds and have nothing else of value, and people eat it up because of pleasure by association.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

To be honest, I've been put off low-res games somewhat by the attitudes that some people have.  In theory they ought to represent a means of producing more content with less design problems, but more often than not it does seem to be a crutch and people get over excited about every low res thing that ever gets created. The 'what are you working on thread' and 'pixel art' threads are rife with this.

I do really like low res stuff, but like I said, it's rather offputting.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I've noticed that myself. When I talk about

, a lot of people don't really care about the parts of the game that matter to me: the basic idea of the game, the premise, the characters, the world, the creature design, that I'm trying to make a Zelda game without violence, or whatever -- instead they care that it has pretty pixel art.

[Valter]

I've noticed that myself. When I talk about

, a lot of people don't really care about the parts of the game that matter to me: the basic idea of the game, the premise, the characters, the world, the creature design, that I'm trying to make a Zelda game without violence, or whatever -- instead they care that it has pretty pixel art.

That's because the graphics and animations are what the players are going to be looking at for the entire duration of the game. The characters and actions are temporary, and you can put them aside quickly. For reference, a game with a poor storyline can be handled because you don't have to pay attention to the story, and most games allow you to skip cut scenes anyway. Poor graphics, on the other hand, are something you will always be dealing with throughout the entire game. If the game has atrocious graphics, nothing else matters, because players won't be willing to look at it for more than a few seconds at a time.

Graphics, therefore, are the most important. Even the music can be muted if you really don't like it, but the graphics can't be muted or ignored, like other elements of games can be.