🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:00:04 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<just...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 1:46:29 AM UTC-7, JAB wrote:
>> On 19/10/2015 21:51, Ross Ridge wrote:
>> > JAB  <nowa...@feckoff.com> wrote:
>
>> 
>> I think using the term retro was a bit wrong when I really meant simple 
>> or cheap compared to what can be achieved.
>
>Some of them deliberately do 'retro' style.  I remember reading some retro
>game maker decided to go to 3d models because it would be significantly 
>less time than making sprites.

The state of graphics tools these days are such that the single choice
of whether to do 3D models versus sprites really has nothing to do
with how much time it takes to produce the game.

In fact while 3D models themselves are structurally more complex, in
many situations doing animation with 2D sprites can be more difficult
thus more time consuming.  

When a developer chooses to do retro graphics, it's for his own
reasons.  Most likely because they are inspired by retro games, are
trying for the demographic that would remember those games (marketing
angle), or some other reason -- not because they want to get it
published faster or are just too lazy to do it any other way.  It's
just a design choice and nothing else.

The reason so many of them have a reputation for sucking has a lot to
do with the fact our eyes have gotten accustomed to better visuals.
However clearly there is a market for games with retro-visuals, as
evident by some of the user ratings for games like Super Meat Boy,
Broforce, etc., so not everyone feels they suck.

It is hard for any newer "retro inspired" title to capture gameplay
time from me, but I think that comes back to the modern revenue model
for games.  

Originally, video games were written with arcades in mind (i.e.
extracting their revenue one coin at a time).  The games that trickled
into the home (early consoles and computer games) were heavily
inspired by what was going on in the arcades, so many of them took on
similar qualities. Arcade games had one primary goal driving their
design -- make the player want one more round, thus pump more coins
into the machine.  

Games that are distributed through Steam, Origin, or mobile app stores
like Apple or Google really have no motivation to take on the
addictive one-more-round qualities of those old arcade games.  They
might have some slight motivation to keep the player playing, but
keeping a player's interest in a game for X number of hours split over
several weeks is a very different design goal.  These days developers
measure success more as a product of word of mouth and online ratings
(i.e. what sort of social buzz did the game create versus how many
quarters it actually extracted from the user's pocket).  

So it results in a very different gameplay experience, regardless of
what the graphics look like.