I'm not much of an gamer but I have an Xbox One and bought Destiny last night. The marketing was way too much, but I figured it should be a decent game. Well, it is, its something of a milquetoast Halo-clone shooter with some tacked on multiplayer/MMO stuff, but, my god, the game is drenched in Hollywood-esque overly-done orchestral music, big dramatic overtures, epic-style storytelling, etc. Its a lot of art and music that really doesn't need to be there. Setting the scene shouldn't be this big of a job, nor as serious. Its just a game- Let me play it.
I doubt AAA games will ever go back to not being movie-like, but it just seems like a huge waste of money and time (yet another 10 minute intro to sit through for example). A part of me would just rather dive into a simpler game that gets me to the gaming parts quickly instead of hitting me over the head telling me how awesome the game will be via cutscenes and dramatic scores.
Simplicity can be its own reward and can be just as emotionally fulfilling, as many low budget and simple-graphic indie games have shown. When Destiny is almost forgotten, we won't be reminiscing about its cutscenes or whatever currently popular actors they got to do the voice-overs. We'll be talking about our battles and accomplishments. Shame the focus on these games is more towards the aesthetic than the actual gameplay.
Notch as our collective gaming conscience is kinda nice. I think someone who has a high profile should be saying these things. A lot of lower profile indie guys certainly have, but they don't have the gaming cred to make the front page of HN, reddit, etc.
I think, if you're approaching modern AAA games as games, you're gonna have a bad time. They're not games; they're stories told in the second person (like Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books) where the point of the gameplay isn't fun-as-its-own-reward, but deeper immersion/mimesis to make the story more rewarding. Almost no big-name player in the games industry is really making games per se any more--excepting the companies that just make the same sports/fighting/racing retreads over and over.
Here's another way to think about it: most games companies employ nobody with any training or experience in game design theory (they might give someone the title "game designer", but that doesn't suddenly confer them skills and knowledge they didn't have previously.) So where would you expect novel game mechanics--or even interest in "making games fun"--to come from?
I have the same problem. Somewhere around Team Fortress 2, I just stopped liking modern games for much the same reason. I don't have time to really dedicate to games anymore. I just want to fire it up and get playing.
I've found huge amounts of joy at reasonable prices with Indie Games, retro games and emulation.
I've absolutely fallen in love again with the Dreadnaught Factor for the Atari 5200, it manage to convey a sense of mood and has amazing gameplay, all in just a couple kilobytes.
Granada and Ranger X on the Genesis/MegaDrive are also games I've just discovered.
Ranger X is a AAA title from 1993, and feels innovative and fresh and never gets bogged down in useless cinematics. You fight in the set pieces instead of just watching them. The first part of the game has you tearing along the desert on your robot bike right outside the ruins of an old fortress as you fight enemies while outgoing artillery fire shoots off into the distance over your head.
Granada is an old-school style top down tank shooter with great music that's perfect for a 10 minute game session.
There's hundreds of thousands of old games you can cheaply mine through, and they're well emulated. I play Granada and Ranger X on a portable emulation device for example. My 2006 netbook is more than capable of emulating just about anything up to the SNES era...add in XBOX controllers and hook it up to the VGA input on my TV and it's basically like I'm console gaming again. Except it's better with save states and filters.
There's also tons of great indie games with smart sensibilities and great gameplay. The Humble Bundles come fast and frequent and usually have great games. You can usually score a half dozen games each time for under $7.
There's not big challenge here - just don't buy AAA games.
It seems to me that a lot of people think the old Microprose's and Id's were the AAA of their day and the nature of AAA games has mutated from something simple, fun, and authentic into the horrible monstrosity of today's overblown games.
I rather think that today's AAA games are a new phenomenon that overshadows but doesn't replace the kinds of games & game studios that most of us grew up loving. Those simpler, less overproduced games never went away.
My favorite game right now and over the last couple of months is King Arthur's Gold. There's really no other game that draws me in like it. It doesn't have AAA graphics, it has great pixel graphics, good gameplay and is a lot of fun. That's all it takes for a great game.
Can't it be both? Why does the reverence of indie and/or simple gaming have to come with the denunciation of grand, orchestral-scored games with long storyline cutscenes? Each has their place, each has their intended target.
I love small, single-person-made games; and I love grand $100million dollar games. They each have their ambitions, and both of them are worthy of attention.
This is my problem with many modern games as well, they think they are movies, but the story, characters, actors, music don't quite pull it off. I love the portal/half-life games because they manage to feel movie-like without ever taking you out of the game. You can tell a good story without making a movie.
One of the best resources for indie games with intriguing plots/stories and/or novel mechanics that I've found is Kill Screen[0]. They regularly feature and write about non-traditional or non-mainstream games that push the edges of design, creativity, and emotion in gameplay.
> I doubt AAA games will ever go back to not being movie-like, but it just seems like a huge waste of money and time (yet another 10 minute intro to sit through for example).
I'm not sure, I remember a couple years ago going to a GDC session where a pretty high up executive at, I believe, EA was more or less predicting doom. (This was his own opinion not his employers). Anyway his point was that AAA games are inconvenient for players (short play sessions on low end computers are impossible), and extremely expensive to make (A lot of them are north of $60 million now), and that while expenses are growing exponentially profits are not. So I wouldn't be shocked if AAA games just become so expensive that they're not worth making at that price point anymore, and the giant epic AAA thing becomes more of a niche.
As gaming is getting more money'd we're still discovering the sweet spot for what to do with it.
There are games that take "cinematic" set pieces to great effect, and create a condensed experience that can leave you emotionally drained at the end.
There is the "cutscene every 5 minutes" issue that comes up, but it seems to be an issue mainly in the beginning of games. I feel like the games industry could really use some A/B testing on intros.
Shadow of the Collosus is a game that is only about set pieces yet I will probably never forget it. The gameplay itself was somewhat terrible (some would praise it but you're basically just a cameraman, there's no real decision making in the game).
I find it a little disturbing how many people are commenting saying that Notch shouldn't be wasting his time on such pursuits or that he should really be focusing on something new and big.
You don't become great by doing big things, you become great by doing little things and fooling around and starting projects and then abandoning them when you've gotten everything out of them you want to get. Then, when the big things find you, you will be ready.
I would expect a site called Hacker News to understand this. That most of those comments are at the bottom of the page indicates that many do.
God I miss Doom. To me, the pinnacle of FPS games.
Pick an episode, pick a difficulty, and literally 3 seconds later you've blasted somebody in the face. And the music. Phenomenal. Why is everything orchestral now?
It was a game. Not a semi-interactive movie. You could play it for 30 minutes or 3 hours, didn't matter. Dozens of enemies on screen, shooting you, insane fun.
What did we arrive at? Overly-dramatic, Michael-Bay-inspired "Saving private Ryan"-wannabe's with "realism" and "grit" and a 50 minute intro, with 5-minute levels, separated by 5-minute cut-scenes....ugh.
I would, immediately, pay $60 for a game like Doom, with retouched graphics, Fast-paced, fast-moving, maze-like levels you have to actually explore, with secrets (yes, I know it's not realistic) and just dozens of baddies you can blast to smithereens. And when you die, get this - you respawn in 3 seconds or less. No dying animation, no "Loading..." screen.
I have the exact same feeling about Quake 2. I have a feeling many people feel this way about many different id games. I really felt part of the when playing Q2 in a dark room when I younger. The music and the general dark art direction sucked me in.
I've recently installed the Doomsday Engine (http://dengine.net/) on my Mac and have been replaying through Doom and Doom 2. I also invited a friend over so we can play some COOP and deathmatch games.
It would be cool if more hobbyist game developers started making retro FPS games in the style of Doom or Wolfenstein. It's only marginally more effort than making pixel art platformers, which is a wildly popular aesthetic these days, and I feel that the retro 3D aesthetic has a lot of untapped potential. The Vlambeer game Gun Godz is a good recent example, it's pretty much Wolf3D with a nice art style.
Also, these kind of games make it feasible to write a random level generator that actually makes okay levels (there are such generators for Doom), and allow users to create their own levels with custom art styles in a day or so.
I recently made a Wolfenstein like 3D shooter with HTML5/WebGL, called Xibalba[1]. It's based on a 3D Plugin[2] for the 2D Game Engine Impact[3] that I released as open source. With this, it should be really simple to make a similar game.
Also, in case you're interested, I created a making-of video for Xibalba[4] that explains the tech and level editor a bit.
Could you elaborate on how it is only "marginally" more effort to make faux 3D pixel games vs. 2D pixel art games? Seems like it would be quite a bit more complicated to me...
There are a decent amount of developers making games in the Goldeneye-era style. Though most are more creative takes on the genre than clones of retro games (ex: Superhot, Screencheat).
This is inspirational. The guy is just openly doing his thing, experimenting with software and making the process and results very public. Sometimes he ends up creating something cool, sometimes not and I think he just enjoys the process without too much pressure to "succeed".
If you want to learn more about the genesis of Doom/id software, Masters of Doom is a fantastic read (also an amazing audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton).
Interesting that he live streams his development. Do you think that people would be interested in regular / open source development of code being streamed?
If so, how about a Twitch / Hitbox site where there are categories of language / framework / vertical?
I'm sure there are many ways to make live stream in code interesting. But, do keep in mind that Notch's public development is unusually well suited. He is a very much a celebrity in the gaming&dev audiences. Therefore, he draws a large audience. He streams game dev. Therefore he has easy to understand, visual results. He only streams dev in domains where he is already very familiar. Therefore he is always making rapid progress. He only streams coding in environments that have very rapid iteration. Therefore, he can show new results multiple times per minute.
I would be interested in seeing the workflow of other python programmers. So less about watching them program in python, and more a demo of what a certain set of tools linked in a certain manner looks like, when shown by someone with experience. (IE, it's not the same when I try stuff out because I don't have the familiarity.)
>> My current project is a Doom level renderer in Dart/WebGL, implemented with trying not to look at the original source code. Instead, I use an old document from 20 years ago called The Unofficial Doom Specs.
That brings back memories of playing around with WAD files, pulling out graphics and palettes, reading level data and drawing it with LineTo() and MoveTo() calls, and running into all the limits of a 16-bit C compiler (Turbo C)...
For my high school's CS class final project, we made a street brawler using doom characters. All the doom art was captured via opening a game and using print screen, then hoping the sprite was in the right position.
In retrospect, our sprites had their own lofi charm but yea, I never thought to just open up the WAD files.
I'm pretty sure this post is not about Doom at all - it's about Minecraft, and confirmation regarding the recent rumors about Microsoft buying Mojang. He's probably not allowed to talk about the deal, but he's using this post as an allegory to tell Minecraft fans why he's bailing on Minecraft.
Mojang does not exist to make as much money as possible for the owners. As the majority shareholder, I’d know. Every time a big money making deal comes up that would make a lot of money, it’s of course very tempting, but at the end of the day we choose to do what either makes the most sense for our products, or the things that seem like fun for us at Mojang.
This seems to be in conflict with the whole "selling Mojang to M$ for two gigabucks" thing.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|11 years ago|reply
I'm not much of an gamer but I have an Xbox One and bought Destiny last night. The marketing was way too much, but I figured it should be a decent game. Well, it is, its something of a milquetoast Halo-clone shooter with some tacked on multiplayer/MMO stuff, but, my god, the game is drenched in Hollywood-esque overly-done orchestral music, big dramatic overtures, epic-style storytelling, etc. Its a lot of art and music that really doesn't need to be there. Setting the scene shouldn't be this big of a job, nor as serious. Its just a game- Let me play it.
I doubt AAA games will ever go back to not being movie-like, but it just seems like a huge waste of money and time (yet another 10 minute intro to sit through for example). A part of me would just rather dive into a simpler game that gets me to the gaming parts quickly instead of hitting me over the head telling me how awesome the game will be via cutscenes and dramatic scores.
Simplicity can be its own reward and can be just as emotionally fulfilling, as many low budget and simple-graphic indie games have shown. When Destiny is almost forgotten, we won't be reminiscing about its cutscenes or whatever currently popular actors they got to do the voice-overs. We'll be talking about our battles and accomplishments. Shame the focus on these games is more towards the aesthetic than the actual gameplay.
Notch as our collective gaming conscience is kinda nice. I think someone who has a high profile should be saying these things. A lot of lower profile indie guys certainly have, but they don't have the gaming cred to make the front page of HN, reddit, etc.
[+] [-] derefr|11 years ago|reply
Here's another way to think about it: most games companies employ nobody with any training or experience in game design theory (they might give someone the title "game designer", but that doesn't suddenly confer them skills and knowledge they didn't have previously.) So where would you expect novel game mechanics--or even interest in "making games fun"--to come from?
[+] [-] bane|11 years ago|reply
I've found huge amounts of joy at reasonable prices with Indie Games, retro games and emulation.
I've absolutely fallen in love again with the Dreadnaught Factor for the Atari 5200, it manage to convey a sense of mood and has amazing gameplay, all in just a couple kilobytes.
Granada and Ranger X on the Genesis/MegaDrive are also games I've just discovered.
Ranger X is a AAA title from 1993, and feels innovative and fresh and never gets bogged down in useless cinematics. You fight in the set pieces instead of just watching them. The first part of the game has you tearing along the desert on your robot bike right outside the ruins of an old fortress as you fight enemies while outgoing artillery fire shoots off into the distance over your head.
Granada is an old-school style top down tank shooter with great music that's perfect for a 10 minute game session.
There's hundreds of thousands of old games you can cheaply mine through, and they're well emulated. I play Granada and Ranger X on a portable emulation device for example. My 2006 netbook is more than capable of emulating just about anything up to the SNES era...add in XBOX controllers and hook it up to the VGA input on my TV and it's basically like I'm console gaming again. Except it's better with save states and filters.
There's also tons of great indie games with smart sensibilities and great gameplay. The Humble Bundles come fast and frequent and usually have great games. You can usually score a half dozen games each time for under $7.
[+] [-] jbattle|11 years ago|reply
It seems to me that a lot of people think the old Microprose's and Id's were the AAA of their day and the nature of AAA games has mutated from something simple, fun, and authentic into the horrible monstrosity of today's overblown games.
I rather think that today's AAA games are a new phenomenon that overshadows but doesn't replace the kinds of games & game studios that most of us grew up loving. Those simpler, less overproduced games never went away.
[+] [-] ntaso|11 years ago|reply
https://kag2d.com/en/
[+] [-] mmanfrin|11 years ago|reply
I love small, single-person-made games; and I love grand $100million dollar games. They each have their ambitions, and both of them are worthy of attention.
[+] [-] vlunkr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hbosch|11 years ago|reply
0 http://killscreendaily.com/
[+] [-] overgard|11 years ago|reply
I'm not sure, I remember a couple years ago going to a GDC session where a pretty high up executive at, I believe, EA was more or less predicting doom. (This was his own opinion not his employers). Anyway his point was that AAA games are inconvenient for players (short play sessions on low end computers are impossible), and extremely expensive to make (A lot of them are north of $60 million now), and that while expenses are growing exponentially profits are not. So I wouldn't be shocked if AAA games just become so expensive that they're not worth making at that price point anymore, and the giant epic AAA thing becomes more of a niche.
[+] [-] reledi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rtpg|11 years ago|reply
There are games that take "cinematic" set pieces to great effect, and create a condensed experience that can leave you emotionally drained at the end.
There is the "cutscene every 5 minutes" issue that comes up, but it seems to be an issue mainly in the beginning of games. I feel like the games industry could really use some A/B testing on intros.
Shadow of the Collosus is a game that is only about set pieces yet I will probably never forget it. The gameplay itself was somewhat terrible (some would praise it but you're basically just a cameraman, there's no real decision making in the game).
[+] [-] agumonkey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanb|11 years ago|reply
You don't become great by doing big things, you become great by doing little things and fooling around and starting projects and then abandoning them when you've gotten everything out of them you want to get. Then, when the big things find you, you will be ready.
I would expect a site called Hacker News to understand this. That most of those comments are at the bottom of the page indicates that many do.
[+] [-] zura|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PopsiclePete|11 years ago|reply
Pick an episode, pick a difficulty, and literally 3 seconds later you've blasted somebody in the face. And the music. Phenomenal. Why is everything orchestral now?
It was a game. Not a semi-interactive movie. You could play it for 30 minutes or 3 hours, didn't matter. Dozens of enemies on screen, shooting you, insane fun.
What did we arrive at? Overly-dramatic, Michael-Bay-inspired "Saving private Ryan"-wannabe's with "realism" and "grit" and a 50 minute intro, with 5-minute levels, separated by 5-minute cut-scenes....ugh.
I would, immediately, pay $60 for a game like Doom, with retouched graphics, Fast-paced, fast-moving, maze-like levels you have to actually explore, with secrets (yes, I know it's not realistic) and just dozens of baddies you can blast to smithereens. And when you die, get this - you respawn in 3 seconds or less. No dying animation, no "Loading..." screen.
$60, right now.
[+] [-] bane|11 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmIzCztjSRQ
[+] [-] debt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erbo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IB885588|11 years ago|reply
Still one of the most fun games ever.
[+] [-] cousin_it|11 years ago|reply
Also, these kind of games make it feasible to write a random level generator that actually makes okay levels (there are such generators for Doom), and allow users to create their own levels with custom art styles in a day or so.
[+] [-] phoboslab|11 years ago|reply
Also, in case you're interested, I created a making-of video for Xibalba[4] that explains the tech and level editor a bit.
[1] http://phoboslab.org/xibalba/
[2] http://phoboslab.org/twopointfive/
[3] http://impactjs.com/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEP7zJ9cQfw
[+] [-] thathonkey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaurz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pxtl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawks|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corbinpage|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nogwater|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ac29|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyberias|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minouye|11 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Cultu...
[+] [-] chippy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corysama|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theworst|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zimpenfish|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://algorave.com/
[+] [-] angersock|11 years ago|reply
"Coding With Angersock" could be a thing.
[+] [-] petepete|11 years ago|reply
http://www.reddit.com/r/citybound
[+] [-] krapp|11 years ago|reply
Yes.
[+] [-] jiggy2011|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedino|11 years ago|reply
That brings back memories of playing around with WAD files, pulling out graphics and palettes, reading level data and drawing it with LineTo() and MoveTo() calls, and running into all the limits of a 16-bit C compiler (Turbo C)...
[+] [-] azmenthe|11 years ago|reply
In retrospect, our sprites had their own lofi charm but yea, I never thought to just open up the WAD files.
[+] [-] janitor61|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erbo|11 years ago|reply
Mojang does not exist to make as much money as possible for the owners. As the majority shareholder, I’d know. Every time a big money making deal comes up that would make a lot of money, it’s of course very tempting, but at the end of the day we choose to do what either makes the most sense for our products, or the things that seem like fun for us at Mojang.
This seems to be in conflict with the whole "selling Mojang to M$ for two gigabucks" thing.
[+] [-] wildpeaks|11 years ago|reply
I enjoyed his livecoding streams for Ludum Dare and on hitbox, so I'm sure it's still be fun whatever other project he wants to tackle on next.
[+] [-] ihuman|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CmonDev|11 years ago|reply
PS: less importantly, gonna sell Mojang."
[+] [-] LeicaLatte|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krat0sprakhar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindstab|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fasteo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VikingCoder|11 years ago|reply