How do you feel about new games that mimic the graphical limitations

I think when they nail it, the game is great (depending on gameplay of course). Shovel Knight did a great job imo. I remember not buying it because I thought it was just on the fad train of that was pixelated dogshit, but then I heard a few of its themes on YouTube and decided to give it a shot. Glad I did, but that is about the only one I can think of that really achieved a NES feel to me. If there are any other ones that were well done, I'd love to know.

>>3434150
>If there are any other ones that were well done, I'd love to know.
Maldita Castilla

but they're pretty much the exceptions, yeah

The company that made that game in the op is great. Oniken is awesome except for the switched around controls

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>>3434157
Rokko-Chan is another exception, but it's essentially a fangame so I'm not sure how to categorize it.

>>3434136
It's really a big sea of low quality material blurring the sight of what's gold. I don't think they're nostalgia-bait. Most of them are probably what resulted from the good intentions of people who just didn't have the talent.

>>3434150
>>3434197
Good choices.

There ain't nobody who can convince me PC La-Mulana isn't better than the HD remake.

>>3434136
I like em. They actually are retro. Unlike what thia retarded board thinks is retro.

I think its a challenge to make a fun, balanced, engaging game with the limitations of the old consoles. Sticking to the limitations is part of it.

Other wise, its just like shooting rabbit with a bazooka.

I do enjoy retro-styled games, but never as much as the actual thing.

>>3434136
A joke.

What could be done in under 5MB is now being done with about 5 GB.

The people who coded those old games were masters of their trade. Doing crazy shit to make their visions a reality.

Today it's just easy mode. Like redneck engineering. Just slap more shit on until it works!

I can't stand them anymore.

All those games feel like bad imitations of old games. And the indie "developers" usually do that not because the old games they are aping were good, but because the indie developers are stupid fanboys doing what they like, not what is really good. And because they can't do anything different. They don't think as creators, but as stupid fanboys and waste their times aping old games instead of creating new things. But they are too untalented to create new things. Crap creating more crap.
They don't really stick to limitations, they just superficially try to imitate old games. And they don't understand how retro games had gameplay. graphics and music variety They don't understand games at all. They just like games and try to break down retro gaming into "platforms, RPGs, Metroidvanias".

Also, they try to emulate the same games, always the same fucking games. Megaman, Castlevania, "~le Mario 8-bit mushroom", Zelda, but nothing that really needs skill to tackle, like a fighting game.
I don't want another game "inspired" (shameless rip-off) by Castlevania. I already played Castlevania. I'm playing Castlevania for about 25 years.
I'm not nostalgic to "play something like that again". How can I be nostalgic for an old game if I never really stopped playing them?

They are the greatest cancer of indie games. Even worse than the SJW crowd. We need less fanboys in gaming.

>>3434517
>What could be done in under 5MB is now being done with about 5 GB.
There are bloated retro styled games that are as large as 5GB?

I'll believe you when you throw down some examples.

>>3434536
Why the hell would someone emulate retro fighting games? Take off your nostalgia glasses, retro fighting games fucking sucked.

>>3434541
I don't have any. Because I couldn't care less about "retro" style games. But the concept is still true to form.
Name me a new "retro" style game that is under 5MB. And fucking awesome.
I'll wait.

>>3434536
>doing what they like
>they just like games

>worse than the SJW crowd

Man, chill out. You sound really bitter.

>>3434543
Late 90s fighting games literally reached perfection.

>>3434543
Street Fighter Alpha 2 was the shit.
Mortal Kombat was great fun.
Hell, even Killer Instinct had it's moments.
Then there was Clayfighter 63 1/3.
So many hours wasted on that game.

>>3434545
The Rockman 7 demake is about 4MB zipped if that counts

It's not really that surprising that retro styled modern games take up a lot more space than actual retro games, they're trying to emulate the aesthetic but there's much less work involved in simply leveraging existing toolkits than in rolling your own optimized versions of everything like in the old days

>>3434550
>street fighter alpha
capcom still milks it
>mortal kombat
still being milked, pretty close to classic
>killer instinct
same shit

and that's it. no more gems from the past being ignored by the devs (don't use SNK shit here - Neo Geo style fighting games are still plentiful, we just lack the creativity from neo geo days for their rosters)

the few decent retro games are still around. the rest of the crap (pit fighter, ballz, primal rage, clayfighter, kasumi ninja, rise of the robots and etcetera) is forgotten for a good reason

>>3434556
I suppose my gripe is more about the skill of those making the games, then the games themselves.
Because you had to be clever as the devil to make your vision a reality. So there was a lot more invested into the finished product. Instead of just a fanboy version of something that is cobbled together to be "close enough" to what you wanted.

>>3434545
>I don't have any. Because I couldn't care less
Well this thread is exactly what I thought it would be.

>>3434136
It's nostalgia-bait but if it's done really well when there's nothing wrong with it, the problem is that the vast majority of indies defaulting to pixel art are doing so out of laziness since it's an easy entry-level for programmer art. The work that I admire from classic games were doing the best they could with what they had, now we have better hardware at our disposal I'd rather see others doing the same. As an artist I find that doing low-res sprites takes me just as much time as doing high-res ones, so I'm better off seeing how fancy I can get with the latest techniques.

>>3434536
Bitter old man I like it.

>>3434541
I think the point is that the tools and the hardware are capable of a lot more of what they are beign used for, even the mapping tools.

2D games went out of style too quick and in a bad moment, when the hardware was optimal and the talent was there, 3D shitted on game developing, because it was trendy on 5th gen, the PC-FX failure it's a sad testament of that.

The metroid remake and Nintendo's backlash it's a good example on how popular and desirable 2D gaming still is, but you can't justify to charge gross amount of money for games that could be run on a Game Boy advance.

I wasted 15 bucks on the Ghost Song project, I know that it is a metroid clone, but it looks fucking beautiful, better than metroid actually.

>>3434557
There's plenty of obscure fighting games that are really good, the asura series, daraku tenshi, advanced variable geo 2, for example.

One of my favorite games, it's samurai spirits 3 on the GB, it controls perfectly, does everything the MVS version does, but it's a tiny port that nobody played, graphics don't make the game, gameplay does and GB games make that point more clearly than anything else, the metroid 2 remake it's been popular because the original GB gameplay and level design were good enough.

>>3434605
>There's plenty of obscure fighting games that are really good
no there aren't
there are two, maybe three hidden gems top
there are way, way more crap and you know it

fighting games used to suck and be borderline unplayable. don't delude yourself. no one wants Street Fighter I back

>>3434517
I don't like throwing this word around a lot but you gotta be really fucking autistic to bitch about file size when it comes to all the things to be upset about modern games aping older ones.

>>3434570
Programmer here. While hacking together a solution in a limited-resources no-libraries situation is indeed admirable, you'd have to be terminally retarded or inept to actually develop anything from scratch these days unless doing it for educational purposes.

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>>3434612
I agree that there's a lot of crap, but most them are more playable than the original virtua figther.

But when they're good, you can keep playing them forever, same with good platformers or beat em ups (or whatever the fuck we are calling them this days).

That's why I like the GB samurai 3, it's easy to overlook, because all of the GB figthing games are bad, you never expect one to be good.

We seriously need more decent original 2D fighters, I play skullgirls and it's not even that good, but at least is original.

>>3434517
You realize the reason faux retro games are "bloated" is because of uncompressed resources, right?

Music files are typically the main cause. They don't use sound channels. No one uses midi anymore.

No way is it 5GB, these type of games rarely go over 100mb.

>>3434636
>We seriously need more decent original 2D fighters
guilty gear, blazblue, that touhou game, persona arena, dogma

they still exist, the problem is that most of them are animu uguu bullshit. if you don't like anime then you will miss it

>>3434620
This. Why would it make any different if Megaman was 200 KB or 20 MB? Complaining about the unseen back-end of a video game is retarded.

Who the fuck plays video games solely based on how inconvenient they were to make? Any given NES game could be perfectly replicated with Game Maker or some other engine, and it wouldn't make them any better or any worse.

>>3434570
I think maybe you idolize the people who made your favorite childhood games. In your mind, they're pretty much wizard god people instead of geeky late 20-30 year olds.

But now it makes you sick to imagine someone your age, or younger, made a game they've always wanted since they were kids.

They won't get my respect unless they're unimaginable wizard gods!

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>>3434136
I like them.

>>3434643
>dogma
What's that? Google returns nothing.

>>3434718
Hot DAMN that palette range is bullshit.

>>3434723
It's inspired by darklands not NES games.

>>3434723
I'd agree but I don't rightly know what it's supposed to be emulating.

I like them better than Brown and Bloom Procedurally Generated FPS 9000.

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>>3434643
>animu uguu bullshit

I play those too, they're hit and miss, vanguard princess for example looks incredible but the mechanics are overly complicated and unbalanced.

>>3434720
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqbYO-capno

>>3434701
That's ridiculous, back when 2D gaming was the mainstream, the games needed to have a quality to sell, you rarely see that amount of quality in the gameplay, but it is there, like shovel knight, it's just a good game not an easy coup out.

Ghost song is an example on how I wish for modern 2D games to look like, using a lot of modern techniques, but with that timeless 2D graphics style.

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>>3434723
>>3434731
I think it's fair. It's at 320x240 instead of 320x200 unlike actual Darklands so it's not true emulation but there are no overlapping pixels or anything.

I'm bitter, old and proud of it.

>>3434546
If every publisher was as "bitter" as me, we would have a better scenario.

Now it's too easy to get into gamedev. Before only real professionals could do it. Now any nostalgic hipster piece of trash can do it.
But fans aren't developers.

Like before, painting was only for skiller artists. Now, any wanker can slap some stupid collages and doodles and say it's art.
Sonic is Mona Lisa. Art. Had some flaws here and there, but it was real art made by a skilled professional who did it with a professional mindset.
Indie 2D "retro" crap with awful pixel-art are Deviantart "art". Done by some idiot who wanted to emulate something he likes just because he can.

I don't pay for fanart.

>>3434543
They don't emulate fighting games because they can't, not because they do not want to do it.

>>3434612
Only gimmicky fighting games like Mortal Kombat and its clones or 3D fighting games like Tekken 1 and 2 and some other Virtua Fighter clones sucked (Heaven's Gate, Fighter's Impact.
We had plenty of good fighting games in the nineties, like almost all Capcom ones. And it takes skill to develop a game like those.

But I don't want an indie game aping old games. I want something new comparable to old games.
Indies don't get the thinking behind old games.

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>>3434748
Another screenshot.

>>3434746
Nevermind that looks like shit.

>>3434643
>that touhou game
i love that thing, underrated af

Japanese indie games are better than western ones on technical level.
Japanese usually knows how to draw and animate. They also usually put maximum effort in their games.

But japanese indie games also cling to their developers taste too much, so we get awesomely animated ~uguu crap and animu visual novels.

>>3434764
The only kind of indie dev I can think of that wouldn't make a game to his taste would be one trying to get-rich-quick by making some Zombie Flappy Bird bandwagon shit.

>>3434746
I remember playing that Dogma game with my friends over a decade ago. Found it on GameHippo.

It was pretty fun with a pal, but those sprites don't look as good as I remember.

>>3434136
>>3434598

I wouldn't be at all upset to see games mimic n64/ps1 aesthetics. Yeah, it's common to see it as just really bad graphics, but I actually liked the look of those games as much as 2d sprite games. It feels unique, especially with all the over emphasis on "realism" or cel shading that 3d games have these days.

>>3434786

I really like the look of simple 3D models and pre-rendered backgrounds. A lot of the JRPGs from that era look charming.

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>>3434786
Yeah some 5th gen games had a really cool aesthetic to them. Die Hard Arcade is one that usually springs into my mind due to the wide bright variety of colors you see in each room.

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>>3434795
FF7 and FF7 nes remake.

They both look like crap.

>>3434749
>Waaah! Waaah! I hate that anybody on earth can grab some pencils and paper and draw shit, only already skilled artists should be allowed to draw things!

I barely needed to paraphrase you, you're goddamn loony. You have no obligation to play shitty fangames, or even see or hear about them ever in your life because chances are they'd be confined to the depths of YoYo Games or the trash heap of non-Greenlit Steam garbage.

But how is somebody supposed to become skilled at anything without practice? If even one of those people go on to make a good game, there is only something to be gained.

You're also making it sound like there aren't thousands upon thousands of glitchy, shitty, cash-grab retro games that sucked so much ass a baby could have shit them out.

>>3434795
I agree wholeheartedly, I love the janky look of PS1 games. But unlike pixel art, I'm pretty sure that's a 100% nostalgia-fueled opinion and nobody else on earth would look at ultra low-res, wobbly 3D and say "yeah, that looks good".

It's funny that it seems no indie developer can describe their game without citing ANOTHER game.
>"It's like Metroid"
>"It was made to look something like Castlevania. I loved Castlevania"
>"It's a NES-like platform"
>"It was inspired by OutRun"
And besides inspired by old games in graphics, music and gameplay, thematically, when they're not inspired by old games, they're inspired by something the developer liked as a child.
>"It's like that [insert awful shounen here] I liked when I was 10 years old. With there was more animes like that one"

Old games had some of its aspects somewhat shaped by the limitations of the platforms, but "retro" indie games are shaped by the will of their developers to imitate old games. That's one of the reasons they look and feel wrong.
Playstation games aren't low poly just because the designers liked low poly.

I would like to see someone approach low-poly graphics as a style, not trying to ape some old game or console. Approach it like real artists do with simple forms and shapes.

>>3434778
While most indie devs want to fulfill their childhood fantasies AND get rich quick by exploiting (usually fake) nostalgia.
Oh, and there's those who believe they're making ART. They're so trapped into their bubble that they really believe doing crappy pixel art, shitty chiptunes and bad self-questioning poetry is fine, bold and revolutionary art.

At least chinese bootleggers are more honest.

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>>3434805
Try playing it in high-resolution. It's gorgeous. May not be what the developers originally intended, but it's beautiful.
It becomes a new thing.

>>3434834
>bad self-questioning poetry

What are you on about? Did an indie dev shit in your mailbox, or something?

>>3434870
I'm talking about those pretentious "deep" indie games.

Where's that Super Metroid image when I need it?

>>3434834
>awful shounen

Fuck off all anime is for kids stop shitting on shounen to appear more grown up it's pathetic. I bet my asshole virginity you're one of those losers who pretends to hate on DBZ when we all know you think it's the fejewoimggkgmkigopa

>>3434886
Anime is just animation. We have good animation, we have bad animation, but shounens usually are the rock bottom of animation, even for kids.
I don't really care about DBZ. I like some Toriyama character designs, his use of colors, and, of course, his machines, but I don't watch or read his work.

>>3434570
>Because you had to be clever as the devil to make your vision a reality

Why do you believe that making games back then was some sort of monolith like challenge?

There was some impressive stuff done back then, but that wasn't exactly the norm. Not every game was some hardware pushing spectacle.

A few are good games, but most really aren't.
Keep in mind I'm talking about the games as a whole, not just the graphical styles, as it all comes together if you ask me.

The problem is that retro games are a lost art. Devs aren't used to make games like that anymore, and most indie devs who try seem to have prejudices on them and just stick a bunch of clichés together and call it a retro game.
For instance, "I'm going to pretend I put bullshit difficulty because that's so retro, man".

Odallus: The Dark Call, pictured in the OP, was really good imo. It's not just a Castlevania clone, well it is, but it brings something new by being a perfect middle ground between classicVania and MetroidVania.

>>3434940
>but it brings something new by being a perfect middle ground between classicVania and MetroidVania
But that already existed, it's called Circle of the Moon

>>3434136
>faux-retro
They're actually just retro games. By the very definition they are retro.

Some developers do it well, like someone already mentioned Shovel Knight and Maldita Castila. Most don't, but it's just another case of Sturgeon's Law. Personally I think it can be used as a good excuse to replace programmer graphics, if you development team is not really proficient in creating high quality current gen gfx. I thought about creating an RPG on the graphic style of Ultima VI myself just because of how easy it would be to create minimally decent looking sprites for it.

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>>3434536
So much this
originality is an oasis in a desert

>>3434997
I don't think you understand the word retro in the context of this board...

>>3434834
Name droppping is the worst.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw1m2M8JdkU

>>3434136
i don't really care if they aren't abhorrently ugly and the game itself is good

>>3435071
It remind me Yogcast or whatever who did a let's play of Hexen and COULDN'T SHUT THE FUCK UP about MUH DARK SOULS

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>>3434136
Does Artifact Adventure count? It's RPGmaker, but intentionally styled after NES Dragon Quest and Final Fantasies.

Either way, it's whatever as long as the game is enjoyable. I think the style is largely lazy or covering up artistic flaws, but at the same time I don't think that necessarily makes a game bad.

Not retro

>>3434157
>Maldita Castilla
Sorry but Ghosts and Goblins gives me PTSD.

>>3434963
>Circle of the Moon
How come? That game is so clearly a SOTN clone.

>>3434136
Personally I didn't like Odalus,the filters were too much and controls stiff.
I played it for maybe 5 minutes and went back to playing something else.

Does anyone remember when Jeff Minter wrote the Llamasoft Virtual Machine? I don't think it was based on any one architecture, it was just a VM for PC with sprite handling, etc.

Doesn't seem to be much on Google about it though.

>>3434136
There are good and bad ones in my opinion.
What I usually hate about them is when the devs start bending the limitations as they please and still call them "an 8-bit game", "a NES game" or something like that. If you are bending the rules, just call it "retro looking game" and nobody can complain about it. Don't claim your game is something is not.
>Have you ever tried to make your own authentically retro-styled video game?
I've tried a couple of times, and I'm currently working on one, but is very far from finished.

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>>3434136
>>3434157

Odallus looks great though I haven't gotten to play it, Joymasher who did it also did Oniken which is fucking great, everything the developer of Maldita does is great, my personal favorite is his latest, Curse of Issyos, which plays a lot like Castlevania but instead of a classic gothic horror movie theme it has a more Harryhausen sword and sandal greek mythology theme.

Shovel Knight is also an amazing game that has a beautiful mix of old school and modern, it may have the best difficult curve of any game I've ever played, Wayforward and Yacht Club are amazing developers.

>>3435158
I think you're mixing it up with Harmony of Dissonance

>>3435259
Give Odallus a try, it's really good, especially if you like both the classicvania and the metroidvania.

Personally I didn't enjoy Oniken so much. I can't put my finger of it but something just wasn't there.

>Curse of Issyos
Looks interesting.

>>3435259
>Curse of Issyos
Locomalito never ceases to surprise me. He gets EXACTLY what made retro games good to the point of simulating certain awkward features that are no longer present in modern games (Abbaye des Morts being the best example).

>>3435320
And best of all, he does it all for fucking free.

>>3435320

well, from what I remember the jumping isn't as stiff as it was in Castlevania, I can't remember exactly what it was but he kept the feel of it without it being so aggravating, it may have just been that you could jump higher but I remember it being more lenient than that

>>3435321

Well, an updated version of Maldita is going to be commercial, which is good, I'm glad he'll be making money off of his work, he honestly deserves it. Something something sweat of his brow and all that

>>3434169
Second this. I love its NES visuals and Commodore 64 like music. Gameplay is tight as well.

>>3434809
Id have liked a 16 bit remake but that would require skillz

>>3435179
Depends on what they bend. A lot of people fuck up their definitions, like people who think "8-bit" means your sprites are limited to 4 colors because that was an NES limitation.

>>3434997
>>3434310
Alright, what makes those games retro?

>>3435071
Mein Gott.

>>3434570
People who really want to jerk off with sandpaper are making Atari 2600 homebrew

Of course there are tools for that now, so I guess they're still "cheating"

nostalgiafag pandering.

Why the fuck would I play some shitty retrolookalike when I could play actual retro.

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L'Abbaye des Morts is a really fun game made to look and play like a ZX Spectrum game I believe, it's only half an hour long and completely free so I suggest trying it!

>>3434150
I personally feel that Shovel Knight tries a bit too hard and has some overcomplex sprites that muddle the aesthetic.

But that soundtrack

Damn

>>3434136
>new retro-like games
I like them when it's done to consciously limit themselves to do the best in a limited scope, e.g. because they can't spare manpower/budget on modern-level graphics or something.

I tend to like them when it's the devs'personal nostalgia, probably because it touches the same things I liked back then, like making awesome stuff from next to nothing, or purity of form because all the details are noticeable.

OTOH, recent memey retro-fashion can go jump on a dick. Most of what I see is milking nerds with "big pixels, NES reference, look at me I'm so retrosexy~" while the actual quality level is a crapshoot, mostly shit.

>new games on old platforms
I like them, it's always interesting to see what people can do with that hardware and its limits given 20+ years of accumulated knowledge, from UI to game design to coding tricks.
whether they're actually worth playing is a different matter

>>3435404
>no colour clash
dropped

I don't care. I only care if the game is good or not. If it plays good, I don't care if it's nostalgia bait. If it looks good, I don't care if the palette range is wrong or the game is over 5 MB. Why the fuck does that matter in the first place?

I guess sometimes they go a bit overboard with nostalgia pandering, like "we went so retro we have a password system lol!" But I don't care if it's accurate or anything, only if it looks or plays good on its own merit. If I wanted a legitimate retro experience, I'd go play my NES.

I know it's not /vr/, but I'd like to throw Mutant Mudds, Elliot Quest, and Chronicles of Teddy out there for y'all.

Mutant Mudds isn't exactly ripping off any franchise in particular but the aesthetic, music, and difficulty are great. Elliot Quest is similar to Adventure of Link in the overworld/dungeon transitions alone. Chronicles of Teddy, though bugged to all hell, has great pixel art, clever mechanics, and a cozy atmosphere.

>>3435464
>Mutant Mudds isn't exactly ripping off any franchise in particular
The main character is Jeff, from Earthbound, with Porky's clothes.

>>3435470
Um, okay.

Gemini Rue.

>>3435381
>Alright, what makes those games retro?

The premiere definition of the word "retro" was "things that remind of the past or that try to pass as things from the past".

It's by that definition that these games are retro, the first definition of the word.

But all languages still in use evolve, and with time "retro" was also used for things that actually are old. This is the definition that this board use, and which is the most commonly used these days, but that doesn't mean that the first definition still isn't just as right.

This board is just being stuck-up with its definition, even though it doesn't make sense as if we took the rule in the sticky literaly, we could talk about any recent PC game because PCs were created before 1999.

>>3435527
Looks like pixelated vomit desu. Like they intentionally made it look bad (blurry low res with horrible colors) instead of trying to make something pretty while sticking to the limitations of old technology.

>>3435554
>I've never played Beneath a Steel Sky

>>3435558
I have. Though I thought they were going for a more Rise of the Dragon aesthetic. Both games look better than gemini rue anyway.

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>>3435464
>Elliot Quest

>>3435654
What's wrong with Elliot Quest? I think it has a great sense of ambiguity, precise combat, and challenge. The music is very non-retro though.

Have you played it, or do you want to post a file name that is inflammatory rather than address your claim.

>>3434273
I'm sorry.

>>3435692
Not him, but the art honestly look like shit.

>>3435654
>mfw my programmer art is almost better than these graphics
Shit like the eye on the key or the empty hearts or the single-color background bricks is so ugly. How come people don't even notice this kind of art problems? And let's not even mention the energy bar weirdly relegated to the bottom of the screen, or the floating 4x the purpose of which is a complete mystery.

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>>3435654
I mean, it doesn't look very good, but it could easily look worse.

It sort of reminds me of a shittier version of the style Cave Story uses, whose art grew on me after a while.

>>3435654
I was about to give them credit for not using mixels, but then I did a double take and found them.

Why are mixels so fucking hard for indie devs to avoid?

>>3435551
>The premiere definition of the word "retro" was "things that remind of the past or that try to pass as things from the past".
So realistic games are retro, because we had realistic graphics in the past, thanks to FMV crap and digitized graphics like Mortal Kombat.
So any game inspired by an old game is retro too. So we shall become /v/, destroyer of games.

Now pixel-art is a method of drawing but also a choice, a style. But in the past pixel-art was the ONLY method available to create video game graphics.
"So, it's retro, it's a callback to that early gaming age"
NO. Pixel-art never stopped being used. Pixel-art never became something relegated to the past. Every generation has pixel-art games. If some NES-aping indie pice of trash
Saying pixel-art is retro is like saying the simple act of drawing is retro.

Pixel-art is only associated with retro in the distorted mind of those nostalgia dolts and indie developers.

Actually. using Mortal Kombat-like graphics would be more "retro" than using pixel-art. Although we never really stopped using digitized and realistic graphics (now we use it for textures), the methods using in the early 90's are outdated and no one uses them anymore.
But, again, cinema still uses green/blue screens.

I liked cave story. Played a few ears ago back when it was a free PC game. That's the only modern retro style game I've played.

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Anyone know of "modern-retro" games with the old Amiga grey-amber palette aesthetic, like Cadaver or Perihelion (pic related)?

>>3435771
>a few ears ago back when it was a free PC game
1) It's still a free PC game that just has upgraded versions that cost money for Wii, 3DS, etc.
2) 2004 was 12 years ago and literally over a decade, not a "few ears" ago

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>>3435713
Art is honestly it's weak point, but that is only one example.

>>3435893
I'm just going to say it's been a bit weird for me, since I was developing freeware/shareware long before cave story and xbox live turned it into the "indie scene". So much of the stuff they sell these days are worse than the freeware we use to put out and the community is a lot more commercialized with everyone pimping their wares the second they have a concept.

Is there any indie development communities that still produce games just for fun?

>>3435893
Why are you so angry?

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>>3434557
>Capcom still milks alpha games
>last sf alpha was in 1998
I wish that were true, anon.

>>3434517
Current architecture paradigms have nothing to do with those of the NES days. Actually, people from back then, who didn't expend all these years keeping updated, find modern programming mindbogglingly complex.

In what size is concerned, it means that most of that size is just add-ons, which could be optimized, and twenty years ago they would need to be, but nowadays it makes no sense trying to even reduce it to half.

Of course this all also means that most of the "retro" games are absurd, because they miss all the technological limitations, such as palettes, which were a style mark of older games, and don't even know how to implement them, if they at least know these things existed.

>>3435749
They don't even know what the fuck is that.

>>3435749
what exactly even are "mixels"

>>3435374
Yeah, or draw the sprites in the megaman style using a shit ton of colors and think that's "8-bit" too. That's the kind of shit I hate.

>>3434150
I think Shovel Knight has great art direction and spritework as well as music, but I don't think the game itself is very good.

>>3437147
Megaman himself has 5 colors instead of 3, so I'll forgive NES-styled games that use a couple extra colors here and there since layering sprites was totally a thing in some games.

But if you mean tracing sprites, yeah that's unforgivable.

>>3437125
Mixed sized pixels.

>>3437160
Yeah a lot of games did that kind of layering tricks or planned sprite positioning to get up to 5 or even 6 colors. Pretty clever shit.

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>>3437160
>But if you mean tracing sprites, yeah that's unforgivable.
Like this?
http://deadpixelsthegame.com/#Buy

They not only traced Megaman sprites, but they are selling this crap. This is a crime.

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>>3437183
Yeah, and there is mixels there too.
Check them >>3437125

>>3437183
I'm more bothered by the overlay than anything else. Why make (shitty) pixel art if you're going to dump a bunch of filters on them anyways?

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>>3434550
One Must Fall
Cyberbots
some other Capcom games
Eternal Champions, at least one version

>>3434136
>voxel graphics
>not retro
The 1997 Blade Runner PC Game begs to differ

>>3434543
Stick to Shit Fighter 5 moron

>>3434764
I dunno about that
To me they feel like the same shit mostly except the West has more on the high-end sides of things with games like Cuphead

>>3434898
>but shounens usually are the rock bottom of animation
spoken like a true normalpleb that has watched 5 anime at most and never even read a manga

>>3437206
you complain like you expected them to use an actual programming language instead of game maker or flash

>>3435079
I still wonder if that game has one good ending. The fact that I can't find any meaningful discussion about this game really bothers me. Maybe if you only take the artifact at the beginning and then discard the character who took it?

So now we can all agree those indie games aren't retro and there's no such thing as a retro style?

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>>3434136
Let me say "Hell yeah!" to retro style games. No reason we shouldn't be having any more being made, if they were so great back then, they should still be fine now!

Of course, if you're making retro style games, you should be making them for fitting platforms! Like Raspberry Pi - say, for riscOS, or DOS - making them actual retro games in a significant sense, or Amiga, someone has made a new amiga board, one with a 50mhz 68SEC000 CPU. These have plenty of processing power for retro style games, and hook up to CRT TVs handily.

Of course, some people still are making retro games, like Pier Solar.

But without any known prime platforms for retro style games, the niche has bleak prospects.

>>3439296
Define 'retro style'.

>>3439307
Having many elements in common with retro games, generally most. For example...

-360x280 or lower resolution, or 512x384-800x600 for semi-retro
-chip music - for a strong example, 2 or 3 steps away from just square waves, or like OPL/OPN type synth, though using other classic synthesizer chips would be definitely okay and interesting. Alternatively, especially for fantasy/cartoonish-or-medieval games, classic general midi or classic SNES soundfonts would be fine, even combined together
-untextured 3d with visible polygons
-classic color schemes, like cyan+magentam or amber-monochrome
-noncinematic game flow, freeroaming levels
-lack of online integration, preferably just 4/8 player lan play option and/or split screen
-themes from earlier story-products, not current market-tested safe mainstream trope packages, generally either having a original or skeletal story

So, basically, most of these things, integrated together in a fitting way, often with a cohesive art-paradigm intended. And whatever else along those lines I've missed.

>>3434541
Not really 5 gigs, but Crypt of the Necrodancer is 1.6GB.
Freedom Planet is around 500MB I think?

>>3439446
>-360x280 or lower resolution, or 512x384-800x600 for semi-retro
High resolution dates from the 80's, although very few games used it.

>chip music
We have CD quality music since the 80's. So, CD quality music is retro too. Or those old games with high quality sound aren't retro for you?

>-untextured 3d with visible polygons
Wait... so games with textured polygons aren't retro for you? Ultima Underworld (1992) used textures.

>-classic color schemes, like cyan+magentam or amber-monochrome
Defines 'classic'. We had high-color games in the eighties too.

>-noncinematic game flow, freeroaming levels
Cinematic is a buzzword. But going by the very definition of this buzzword, Dragon's Lair, from 1983, is cinematic as fuck. And retro. Also features high-quality graphics and sound.

>-lack of online integration, preferably just 4/8 player lan play option and/or split screen
Dreamcast was pretty integrated with online. But we had online before. BBS games were online.

>-themes from earlier story-products, not current market-tested safe mainstream trope packages, generally either having a original or skeletal story
The tropes are always the same.

Again, there's no such thing as retro style. So simple graphics and sound are retro even with games from the 80's featuring high-quality graphics and sound?

>>3439541
I never said high quality music could not be used, just that something like the Yamaha FM synths chips, or the old wavetables used were a suitable element for retro style games, like making up the most pronounced part of the sound. And not necessarily even the ones that were actually used in consoles, other synths from that age would be appropriate.

Untextured polygons produced a very marked style. Textured primitive polygons are likely to get a bad reaction, many find them ugly.

Commonly used color schemes back then, particularly the ones that are easily to remember, those that would strike a chord.

Yeah, dragon's lair was cinematic, and so were a few other games like megarace and night trap, but those were oddballs which had the whole title revolving around that special feat.

Dreamcast gets accused of being not retro, it hangs by a thread. BBS games still had limited online-connectedness - the pace tended to be very low.

They do NOT have to be simple, though showing simplicity works, it's much more about being reminiscent of past stylistic Why would you believe that there can't be such a thing as retro style just because step by step how to guides for how to pull it off commendably aren't floating around and at everyone's fingertips?

>>3439446
>360x280
Why this specifically? What used this resolution?

>>3434136
>new games developed for old consoles
we need much more of that

>>3434786
I enjoy the DS a lot, because it has stricter polygon and texture limits than the PS/N64, but more power and generally more resources available.That system is a real challenge for modeling

>>3439296
the Pi is ridiculously powerful, outperforms all of 5th gen with ease. Doing something for DOS is plain masochism

>>3439680
>I never said high quality music could not be used, just that something like the Yamaha FM synths chips, or the old wavetables used were a suitable element for retro style games, like making up the most pronounced part of the sound. And not necessarily even the ones that were actually used in consoles, other synths from that age would be appropriate.
WHY? Seems so arbitrary to say that chip music is retro. It's like saiying pixel art is retro.

>Commonly used color schemes back then, particularly the ones that are easily to remember, those that would strike a chord.
If aping old games is retro, even the new Doom is retro, as it was inspired by the original Doom.
So, every single game inspired by an old game is retro. And they aren't.

Every style present today was used in retro games. There's nothing relegated to the past but the hardware, that's why here we narrow what is retro by hardware.

>>3439968
Yep, DS is awesome, although not retro.

>>3439957
But almost all new games for old consoles suck.

Pier Solar is atrocious.

>>3434136
>How do you feel about new games
Not retro

>>3440060
>WHY? Seems so arbitrary to say that chip music is retro. It's like saiying pixel art is retro.
The requirement is tracker music, or something similar to it, where the music is generated just in time, instead of being a lengthy compressed file.

>>3440071
>But almost all new games for old consoles suck.
which is why we need more games for existing systems. Some are bound to not suck, and it gives developers reasons to deal with the system's limits hands on, instead of just pretending

>>3440106
But what makes this retro if we had "real" music around the same time?

>>3440108
Sadly, those games are just like the shitty faux-retro indie games posted in this thread. Crap made by fanboys aping old games.
We need real developers.

>>3440136
>we had "real" music around the same time?
where? carts and floppies severely restricted the size of audio data. Sample based playback or synthesis was the only way around, regardless of the specific way of synthesis

>>3440136
>We need real developers.
Yes, of course. Though hobbyists can be "real developers". Commercially these systems are dead, and nothing will change that. Maybe some day developers will embrace it as a coding challenge though, like code golf, or unplugged music, or making a silent movie

>>3440136
Could you specify what you mean exactly by 'real' developers? Any retro-styled game made today would be aping old games.

>>3440159
>Any retro-styled game made today would be aping old games.
wrong, very wrong. That's precisely the challenge. Since these consoles were current over 20 years have passed. Developers have grown a deeper understanding on how to deal with that hardware, how to create games. Visual appeal and aesthetics have changed in time. It's the responsibility of a developer to use the given hardware to the best of their abilities to create their game. Blindly aping old games is not part of that. That's why it's so "important" to use the actual hardware, instead of pretending. The limits are not what developers did 30 years ago. The limits are what the hardware can do now.

>>3440159
a real developer in that context would be someone unironically developing for a platform and having the technical skills to get more than a hello world out of the machine. If necessary they should consult graphics artists and sound artists to contribute, not everything needs to be a one man show

>>3435280

I disagree on Odallus being good, just like the last game this team made, Oniken, the gameplay is really fucking dry and bland. Sword combat is awkward, subweapons are too powerful, the music isn't very good, and the final boss is really fucking annoying.

The plot and story is hilarious shitgarbage too.

>>3440179
Most of all I like the aesthetic of old games. If someone makes a new game that's both good and has an authentic retro look, I couldn't give a shit whether they had 'masterful technical skills' and programmed it on an actual NES hooked up to a CRT or made it in Game Maker, because I'll enjoy it. (Hypothetically, I've found very few games that match that criteria).

Are you trying to say retro-styled games should be only be developed on old consoles normal people don't have anymore?

>>3440195
>Are you trying to say retro-styled games should be only be developed on old consoles normal people don't have anymore?
yes. This is not just shitposting, it's my genuine belief. If they want to deal with old hardware limits, they should embrace it. Game dev for these old machines is easier than ever, thanks to powerful IDEs, capable emulators, and years of experience and libraries. Playing these games is easier than ever, also thanks to the emulators.
The styles of these old games were a result of the hardware and taste of the time. Trying to ape these styles nowadays looks fake and even kind of ignorant. Shovel Knight is an example that popped up in the past in these threads, because, while it tries to obey the NES limits, it skips them whenever it's inconvenient. But that's precisely what made the old games special. The devs could skip nothing. They worked to do a game to the best of their abilities, and not to do a particular style. I really do want to see what modern devs can do with old hardware, especially when they explore modern genres or even modern IPs. I do not need, as someone else put it nicely up there, the billionth clone of Castlevania or Final Fantasy. These games are precious because the developers did not blindly copy others, they went their own way. I want modern devs to do the same.

>>3440201
>Trying to ape these styles nowadays looks fake and even kind of ignorant
I want to expand on that point, because for some reason I didn't. What I meant is that retro devs often just imitate the visuals, without understanding why the visuals are that way. So they'll do SD characters, but make them 11x11 or something. Or they'll use extremely few and repetitive tiles of different sizes for different locations. That's not the old style. That's not understanding it, that's not learning from it. And very often these devs have no interest to actually learn about these limits, because that would be hard. That's why I called that development style ignorant. It's all copying, no understanding

I don't mind retro inspired games as long as they put a genuine effort to look the part, but more importantly SOUND and PLAY the part.

Too many indie faggots come up with their shitty metroid/mario/walking simulator/zelda clone with pixel thin limbs and shallow as fuck gameplay and think they're accomplishing something, and it chaps my ass.

At the very least they could try copying the weird and lesser known old games like Faxanadu, Low G Man, or Street Fighter 2010. But who am I kidding, most of those chodes don't even know of those games

>>3440201
I'd like to see some retro-styled games with original concepts too, but nothing about them being NES homebrews makes them any less likely to be Megaman clones. In fact, most homebrews I've played were complete uninspired shit.

>>3440146
Arcades and CD games.

>>3440195
>Are you trying to say retro-styled games should be only be developed on old consoles normal people don't have anymore?
OF COURSE. What else would make those games retro?

There's no such thing as a "retro look", as we always had plenty of different styles. If pixel art is retro, so are realistic graphics. If a new game is considered retro just because of its pixel art graphics, so every realistic game is retro too. If cinematic is modern, so FMV games are modern.

>>3440206
>without understanding why the visuals are that way.
And without needing to do it. I can't understand why the fuck someone tries to emulate NES games in powerful hardware Why not just develop for the real NES?
They're ignorant in about every way. They don't understand games, they don't understand how games were made, they don't understand graphic art, they're just dumb fanboys.

>>3440214
>nothing about them being NES homebrews makes them any less likely to be Megaman clones
I did not suggest or imply that. However, it makes sure they respect their limits, which is worth a lot already. That said, developing for the actual hardware raises the threshold to produce something, so I do believe there is indeed a higher chance the developer will do something more worthwhile, as they're investing some time and resources into it.

>>3440219
>it makes sure they respect their limits
Would you consider a PC game that accurately emulates all the sprite/resolution limitations and palette fuckery of the NES to be alright?

I've been developing something to that effect in my spare time, but I specifically wanted online leaderboards which would otherwise be impossible, so I made it from scratch instead of as a homebrew (not that I know much about actual NES programming anyways).

>>3440252
>Would you consider a PC game that accurately emulates all the sprite/resolution limitations and palette fuckery of the NES to be alright?
possibly, though it's pretty easy to get past the limits and not notice, no? And you get the advantage of completely ignoring cpu limitations

>but I specifically wanted online leaderboards which would otherwise be impossible
While not the same, some older games, like Pro Pinball, "solved" this by providing a code to the player when they got a new highscore. The player can enter that code on a website online, it's verified and posted if valid. Of course people can fuck with it by reverse engineering the encryption applied to the score, but it's at least an option.

Regardless, I can't tell you how to do or not to do your game. The fact that you are doing one at all is pretty cool already. So keep at it and don't let others, including me, tell you how to do it.

>>3439972
That verdict ain't right! Original raspberry pi limps trying to run quake2 and 3, that seems rather dramatically retro.

If they aimed for making something perfectly compatible for pi and cubieboards, that would be an additional limitation.

DOS gets some nice confidence that at least emulators will be there for it without legal danger.

>>3440410
surprising, maybe the ports are crappy.

DOS is brutal because it's not much of an OS. You just get an interrupt table and that's it. So you got to target specific hardware (and rely on the various emulators supporting it), do manual memory management, manual threading, all that mess.
I see no legal danger for console emulators. They're out in the open, no legal action can undo that. That's not even accounting for any legal action to be questionable to begin with.

>>3440416
It's an interesting puzzle! Very relevant questions there, what can a pi run, where are the bottlenecks, and so on.

The Quake2 engine was weakly optimized, it had stuff bolted onto the Q1 engine, to the point that it's not considered a new engine like Id Tech 3. An exaggerated demonstration of such stuff is out there from Alien Arena, which has even newer stuff plopped onto the Q2 engine! Q3 is probably just a little too demanding. Who knows, maybe Q2 with choice bits of Q3 code added in would run well on a pi.

Toolkits for DOS must be possible, and there's a lot of source code optimized for DOS/pentiums/etc that's been released.

The biggest difference for DOS being a viable platform again would be a nice version or distro of freedos, instead of that skeletal one.

>>3439918
ModeX : there's options of 320x240, 360x240, 320x400, 360x400, 360x360. So, from there you run into the question "what resolution would be a decent improvement over 320x200, but still close enough to allow for specific optimizations assuming fallback onto plain VGA would be common?" And 320x400 is just weird, though it would allow for reused HUD art and the like and even sprites by just vertical pixel doubling.

>>3440484
>instead of that skeletal one
DOS is skeletal, that's its nature. It's really not much of an OS. That's its biggest strength, and weakness. Strength, because it means there's very little actual overhead. DOS has no background tasks, and only occupies a little memory. The rest of the hardware is at the disposal of the developer. Weakness, because "abstractions? What abstractions?". You don't get memory management, multi-threading, process isolation, drivers or anything else you'd expect from an OS. You can of course do some of it through libraries, but then you're primarily targeting these libraries, not DOS

>>3440484
just do 320x200 and embrace the low resolution and stretched pixels. mode x was mostly used on rasterizing engines, 13h was plenty for the majority of games.

>>3439446
>untextured 3d with visible polygons
this already implies the use of a rasterizer, which is, at this time, bullshit. Developers were never limited in that regard

>512x384-800x600 for semi-retro
VGA is not semi-retro, neither is SVGA. Also conveniently leaving out color depth. It kind of matters with these resolutions.

>noncinematic game flow, freeroaming levels
yeah, no, not even remotely. point & click is highly cinematic, platformers aren't free roaming, this is pure rose colored glasses nostalgia and wishful thinking

>themes from
stop right there. No theme restriction, none, never. Just because devs at the time had an interest in certain subject, does not mean modern developers must follow the same. In fact, following that one thing leads to bullshit copycat retro bait we have way too much of

>>3440513
>Developers were never limited in that regard
the opposite even. The reality of rasterizers not being superior by default lead to a wide range of creative 3D engines, a lot of them not using rasterized polygons at all. Restricting a developer to rasterizing takes away one of the real strengths of game dev at the time

>>3440497
Of course, the OS is skeletal, but the distro doesn't have to be! Even DOS itself came with various programs, and sure, dosshell was bad in particular ways, but there was a tendency to be accustomed to something like that or Norton Commander or whatever. And windows became kinda standard for dos systems, I'm not saying a duplicate of it is a requirement, but if it doesn't even have something like media player for playing some sort of synthesized music files, a bad impression of it ends up going around. And the use of dos programs went beyond just the wide acceptance of Win3.1, 95 and company still had it under the hood and shared so much of the raw access and primitiveness of it.

And then consider how limited typical dos machines tend to be with devices and options for connecting stuff, lack of USB becomes a glaring hurdle, just look at how by CD is the way for freedos to be installed, which stacks together with lack of availability software side tools. And these do not have to be kernel level things or drivers.

And people afraid of whatever relating to that just stick with dos 6.2 anyway, so there is a huge, blatant niche-deficiency for freedos, which must be absolutely not unique among OSes. So it's almost like it never really existed, even when there used to be computers sold with it as an OS option.

>>3440505
The stretched pixels are perfectly compatible with 360x240, 320x400 and 640x400.

>>3434643
Sf3 is the best 2d fighting game. I dont think anything is really going to out do it for me

Then again, there is no such thing as a truly great fighter, they all have at least one fatal flaw

>>3434136
I hate when they have lighting effects and rotation and other shit that doesn't fit into the resolution.

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>>3434883
This one?

>>3440796
This is why I like when new games are made for older console, it keeps that shit out.

>>3440060
I'm not saying "chip music is retro", I'm saying that what I said would be an element of a game being "retro styled" or neoretro. Of course there's lots of options, like for example something like a nu-metal, skate-punk or grunge soundtrack would be perfectly well suited, if the developers could make it work, that's a judgement they'd be faced with.

I said a specific thing, a blatant sign reflecting a technical trait of a system - common to games across the board there, that's constantly in your face. Very different.

>>3440106
There were a few specific styles of generated music, and actual tracker music is probably the least technically constrained of them. There was also the whole opposite of CD music, but that tended to be a big deal, so when there was that huge ton of prerecorded audio, that invited developers to do something big with it - so that illustrates how it's normal for music to be a big deal in retro style games - one way or another, they would have been putting a very serious effort into it - so obviously sloppy music would be a blatant negating factor for retro style games - unless it was overtly inspired by bad retro games.

>>3440813
Kek

>>3435749
>Why are mixels so fucking hard for indie devs to avoid?
I've always wondered that too. Whenever I see that I get pissed off to no end.

>>3440858
I love how some games like Nuclear Throne and Undertale run in 240p and are then upscaled.

>>3440853
>tracker music is probably the least technically constrained of them
which is why I suggested it. Least technical limitation, that should be something modern devs are comfortable with, but it stays at least true to the old spirit of keeping the audio files small. They can still limit the samples or something, if they insist

>>3435749
wtf are mixels?

>>3434536
>the indie developers are stupid fanboys doing what they like, not what is really good
This is the dumbest thing I've read in a while.

Pray tell, what is "really good"? Why is it bad for someone to make what they want?

>>3440862
Tracker music is great, it reminds me of demos on the Amiga.

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>>3435749
Yeah, fuck mixels.

>>3435968
>Is there any indie development communities that still produce games just for fun?
That mentality died with sites like Newgrounds. People realized there was too much actual money to be made.

>>3440862
But being a well known limitation that there is a ton of material from, it becomes awfully easy to "APE", doesn't it?!? If they used something like VRC6 or OPL4, they have to actually do something creative to make it sound its best, and if they used other synth chips from that era, if they did imitate, it would likely have some sort of non-game sound to it, feeling out of pace or something, so they'd have to adapt that instrument to a game-compatible style.

>>3440912
I suppose mixels means mixed resolution pixels or something? Do people think double resolution would be mixels? You folks are weird

>>3440813
Yes.

>PRIVILEGE 12%
Kek.

>>3440513
>were never limited
Many devs back then were even more limited, licensing existing engines that were quite rigid and let you see the blatant commonality between games.

>neither is SVGA
Color depth wasn't much of an issue by the time voodoo came around, with how while it outputted 16 bit it internally processed the components as 18 bit. It's kinda obvious that 256 color would commonly go with VGA resolutions, while 65K color was quite typical towards the end of the retro era - which would be awfully tricky to allude to anyway. Though of course non PC color norms are very relevant.

>yeah, no, not even...
But point and click isn't what we got tons of in the modern era, is it? The fading of adventure games has been loudly acknowledged. A prime example of the type of game we get lately is action-rpg with cinematic elements, a filtering together of the most "catchy" elements of those two genres with subtle engrossiveness boosting tricks from others. Platformers too were taken sharply in free roaming directions, pretty legit concept to explore for a "retro style" game.

>stop right there.
Who said themes should be restricted? It's more of an excuse to avoid the current trends, and I said from earlier entertainment-methods, any of them, not specifically the same ones developers back then picked, so, for example, anything from say 50s or 70s books or TV shows that you wouldn't expect today. Doesn't mean they should avoid other themes, who says it's impossible to integrate the two together?

It's not like developers doing retro style games are horribly enslaved, they don't have to do those kinds of games, though if they want to they likely would have to work with limitations of similar sorts with other projects to warm up for taking on such a challenge. So, they'd likely need to create a game where you play as an animal with weak vision, or an adaptation of a 40s audio drama, or make a free roaming rail shooter, etc, without even trying to make it retro-ish.

>>3441356
>Many devs back then were even more limited
I said "were never limited in that regard", because I meant it. Polygons are not the only option. Licensed engines weren't an option either. They happened quite late, mid 90s or so. Before that devs were cooking up their own project-specific engines

>Color depth wasn't much of an issue by the time voodoo came around
VGA at 640x480 has only 16 colors, that's quite a limit. SVGA has 256 colors, which makes dynamic lighting or transparency effects very difficult

>But point and click isn't what we got tons of in the modern era, is it?
and we wouldn't get any if that anon had a say in it, because they ruled out that kind of genre or visual language as not being allowed in that time. I don't care what types of games we get, I care about the type of games we can get. Anon's little bullshit list was arbitrarily denying things that were very real back then.

>Who said themes should be restricted?
The quoted anon, and you do

>more of an excuse to avoid the current trends
current trends are a product of our time. You're swapping "things I don't like" with "things I like", and that's bullshit. Let people do themes and subjects they want. That's what happened back then to, and we had good games because of it.

>they'd likely need to create a game where you play as an animal with weak vision, or an adaptation of a 40s audio drama, or make a free roaming rail shooter, etc, without even trying to make it retro-ish.
No, fuck no. This is something I will not debate on. You do NOT, under no circumstances, dictate anything the hardware did not dictate. Because by doing so, you're falling for the same nostalgia retro imagination trap that all the bullshit games we're currently dealing with suffer from. No imagination, no creative use of what they can do, because they think they must imitate the developers from the days, instead of understanding that a large part of what made these games is simply the environment they're made for.

>>3441857
Wow, you're standing with all the soreness about exagerated retro games, yet you make a big fuss about games from before licensed engines and polygons being *the* proper retro games!

As if 640 by 400 or 480 x16 colors was actually used much. Doesn't seem optimal for much besides... flat shaded polygons.

Who said about what would be allowed in that time? We're talking specifically about "retro-style" games. No one is saying a particular genre is disallowed now(except maybe action-rpg with a dash of adventure thrown in, though even that existed in retro time, worryingly), but if you need it said more clearly/convincingly, remember that there were considerable examples of games that jumped back and forth between genres. Therefore, a retro styled game could be adventure for one stage or a few AND could still be free roaming or otherwise wildly open ended for other parts of the game, and this way all these examples can attempt to enhance each other, rather than somehow getting summoned as rules to block each other with.

Current trends are a product of what the industry feels safe about selling, and subsequently has drilled into people's heads to expect. Retro styled games are a meta-trend, it's a potential window beyond those limitations, though it neccessitates expressing to people cleverly that something is indeed retro styled. And you conveniantly sidestepped the afforementioned other big piece of the picture of people *NOT* talking about themes and subjects, but I guess that doesn't fit into your fairytale land of opinions valiantly running amok?
...

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>>3441857
>>3442094
...
Hah, wow, you can't cope with the principle that devs would presumably be able to sharpen the skills for making games under retro-esque media limitations by making other graphically limited games, like games for 2 or 3 inch screens, so you just declare any games that could be good practice for that to be sick and wrong? And awfully cute that you declare that people can't understand one thing because they conceptualize something else - WTF is that supposed to be, some sort of cosmic notion of fairness? "If you get to see one thing, I'm getting to see something else! (and something better!)"?

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>>3442094
>you make a big fuss about games from before licensed engines and polygons being *the* proper retro games!
You're the one denying retro-interested developers to do what was excessively common at the time, to be creative. You're railroading them into one kind of engine. You're the one telling them that pic related is not retro gaming.

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>>3442094
>Doesn't seem optimal for much besides... flat shaded polygons.
VGA at 640x480x4 is way too slow for any reaction based gaming, it was used differently.

>>3442094
>Who said about what would be allowed in that time?
You did, repeatedly

>We're talking specifically about "retro-style" games.
look at the time. Don't imagine what it's like, look at it. There's diversity in every corner. That diversity is what you deny them.

>a retro styled game could be adventure for one stage or a few AND could still be free roaming or otherwise wildly open ended for other parts of the game, and this way all these examples can attempt to enhance each other, rather than somehow getting summoned as rules to block each other with.
and none of this matters. If you can pull off an open world 3D sandbox on the NES, by all means, do it. It would be outright insane to tell a developer a game is not an NES game because it doesn't do what NES games did 30 years ago.

>the industry
don't give a shit about them. They'd not develop for these platforms

>it's a potential window beyond those limitations
indeed. An opportunity to go beyond the themes and visuals of the 80s and 90s, and do things to the hardware it never thought to do. Yet here you are, telling people that attempt to, that they must follow your design rules, or they're being incorrect. Rules you impose on them based on what you think the hardware is allowed to do. Not what it can do, what you think it's allowed to do. You impose rules on visuals, subjects, genres, the whole lot. That's not how you discover what the hardware is capable of. That's how you end up with terribly dull me-too clones of Metroid or Mario, the shit we're drowning in.

>>3440192
Because castlevania is the staple of stories, right?

>>3442232
>repeating the mistakes of old games is good and makes it retro
That's why those developers fail.

>>3442232

Castlevania kept shit simple at least:

DRACULA IS BACK, GO WHIP HIM TO DEATH

Odallus one tries to do a twist of YOUR SON WAS KIDNAPPED

NOPE SURPRISE HE WAS THE VILLIAN ALL ALLOOOONNNNGGGGGG

and the ending is unsatisfying garbage too, the boss dies, the castle explodes, cut to black, nothing else. Just roll credits.

>>3442245
Nail on the head. Old games had mountains of design flaws, and modern ones that try to "bring back that nostalgia" repeat those same flaws. It wasn't technological limits, it was simply bad design.

Roguelikes, even modern ones, are very bad about this, having shit like separate commands for "Go upstairs" and "Go downstairs" when there are no stairs in the entire game that span multiple floors. Or having [d]oor (worse; [o]pen door and [c]lose door), [p]ull, and int[e]ract,when there is never a situation where more than one of those would apply to any given tile.

Why would you have [d]rink, [r]ead, e[q]uip, or [z]ap wand if they all ultimately do the exact same thing; interact with an item on your person? Because shit design, that's why.

>>3442232
Reminds me of when people said the story of DmC sucked.

>implying that DMC had anything beyond an excuse plot. Same with Resident Evil.

>>3442567

Donte may cry had pretty lackluster gameplay and an extremely unlikeable protagonist.

>>3442559
First of all, you're spot on with your post as a whole. Always, without exception, question design choices. You're welcome to agree with them and follow them, but do question them first. Developers now have 20 years more collective knowledge and collective experience than developers 20 years ago did. That's worth a lot and it would be foolish to preten it didn't happen, in a misguided attempt to be "authentic".

>Why would you have [d]rink, [r]ead, e[q]uip, or [z]ap wand if they all ultimately do the exact same thing; interact with an item on your person?
Minor nitpick on this one: You can equip or use a wand, equip or use a book (spell book, for example, ready it in your off hand, vs. read out the spell), same with potions. Equip puts them on your utility belt, use uses them. Difference being the time it takes to drink a potion from the utility belt vs. getting one out of your bag. You are right about the needlessly distinct actions, but [e]quip and [u]se are ones I would not combine, their application is too different.

With that out of the way, do you happen to know any roguelikes that follow your train of thought and streamline the interface while keeping the general vibe of a roguelike intact?

>>3442186
Stop imagining what I'm saying just because you haven't said much and instead just jumped on something to oppose as a means to act smug about how superior your assesment of what to worship is to that of others, being more on the ball about what retro-ish games were about sure as fuck does not make it commendable for you to worship past games while crying about retro game worshipers.

Where are you getting this mario and metroidvania strawman from? I said that action-rpg blends with a dash of adventure thrown in are standard type today, therefore, not really retro-ist; and I said that open world is a pro-retro-ist feature, and that even a platformer can be made to be open world. Why do you expect to throw a wrench into that example by demanding that an nes game with an additional dose of retro-ism borrowed from another platform would have to be 3d as well as open world?

I never said anything about themes/visuals/styles of the 80s, or about those of the 90s except that skate punk/grunge/nu metal could be used as a valid elemnt contributing to retro-style.

The industry still has thoroughly shaped the way the public metabolises games.

Oh, boohoo, I'm being so oppressive! Because I'm saying that if someone wants to make a game that's pitched as retro style, that they should be looking at all sorts of stylistic marks from retro games, even ones that seem weird or are in some way abstract or that might be oddly fitted(and some other retro-quirks), because I'm saying that makers of retro style games should be making them stylistically tinted in complicated ways, yeah I'm pushing them around and butchering their creativity, huh? What's your problem, you're convinced that if we just worshipped the developer, he would be free to let his soul roam through the gamecrafting arena and would be empowered to squeeze every last precious drop of performance out of all that golden processing power and would be liberated to make the most deliciously enchanting games evar?

>>3442532
>he didn't see the 100% ending
the point was that after a life filled with violence and bloodshed he finally had to pay the ultimate price with his son's innocence being sacrificed

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>>3442180
Why the hell is that relevant enough to be a useful example? It's a damn simulator! That means, it's supposed to be STYLIZED as little as possible, and supposed to squeeze out the maximum realism the hardware can facilitate. That it's under special pressure to avoid any superficial quirks that are tolerated in the era, particularly artsy cliches used to make games endearing. Simulators are of significantly reduced interest relating to any sort of retro-ism because they're recognised as being much less susceptible to era trends.

>>3442182
That doesn't exactly look like a 4 color VGA mode. Maybe this is a more plain top limit VGA mode - unsurprisingly having untextured polygons as the main graphical element, along with similarly common sprites. It's hardly all the wild barrel of surprises you're making it sound as.

>>3440192
Not to mention the jump physics are the worst I've ever played in a 2D game. Literally no sense of weight to the character, he's a piece of paper. There's no momentum at all.

Gaurodan is my favorite

>>3444415
>Stop imagining what I'm saying
You first
>demanding that an nes game with an additional dose of retro-ism borrowed from another platform would have to be 3d as well as open world?
yeah, not what I said

>of the 80s, or about those of the 90s
nobody said "of", >>3439446 restricted the themes, that is all. So the issue would be with "themes typically used in the 80s and 90s. If you're not the anon that posted that, what are you even responding to?

>I'm being so oppressive!

>he would be free to let his soul roam through the gamecrafting arena and would be empowered to squeeze every last precious drop of performance out of all that golden processing power and would be liberated to make the most deliciously enchanting games evar?
That's what they did 20-30 years ago. So why deny them that now? Don't bother answering. Your post was so thickly coated in sarcasm and faux outrage, you gave up having any kind of conversation, or reflection
indeed, a shame you can't see it

>they should be looking at all sorts of stylistic marks from retro games
You're insisting for them to copy style blindly. I'm suggesting they stick to the hardware and style will emerge.

>yeah I'm pushing them around and butchering their creativity, huh?
indeed you are. You're denying developers to actually be creative within the means of retro development.

>>3444447
>Why the hell is that relevant enough to be a useful example?
Not a single polygon in sight, and it looks miles ahead of everything else available at the time because of it.

>it's supposed to be STYLIZED as little as possible, and supposed to squeeze out the maximum realism the hardware can facilitate
You haven't done many simulators, have you? They're usually the most bare bones visually, because all their processing power goes into the simulation. Apache is an action game.

>Simulators are of significantly reduced interest relating to any sort of retro-ism
That what now? Doing a badass simulator on something as tight as a NES is about as retro as it gets, a developer trying to get the most out of their hardware, to bring the reality of the hardware in agreement with their intention.

>That doesn't exactly look like a 4 color VGA mode
16 colors, 4 bits. You sure you're familiar with VGA?

>having untextured polygons as the main graphical element
there's not a single polygon on that screen

>>3435654
background from a 16bit game while character sprites are not even on the level of early nes action games? i won't even say anything about the pallete.

>>3434136
what are mixels and rixels?
Also, the way these developers misunderstand voxels is insulting

>>3445307
Mixels are when the pixels are of inconsistent sizes, a common mistake in retro-styled games.
No idea about rixels.

>>3445449
Probably rotated shit.

>>3445449
>>3445502
I've seen people on this very board unironically argue that they want nearest neighbor filtered sprites/tiles, but non-integer/gridless positioning of the sprites. They consider grid positioning worse, due to truncation errors when movement speed is fractional (jumpy movement)

>>3445507
what need is there for the actual position of the object to be accurately displayed at high speeds anyway, you could realistically just do hit detection separately from animating it and animate the correct result after the fact as approximately close as is really necessary

>>3440926
Nobody reasonable does, no.

>>3440912
Mixels are non-pixel-grid aligned pixels. Going 2x still aligns to the pixel grid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9z0nvUmMeo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0SoGVsVTkM

>>3435739
As much as I adored Cave Story I can't help but dislike the fad of retro pixelshit games it accidentally started.

>>3446224
>>3446229
Look decent. But what the fuck those games have to do with retro?

>>3445559
>what need is there for the actual position of the object to be accurately displayed at high speeds anyway
the problem is not high speed but low speed. For a scrolling shmup may use variable speed. At 30px/s the movement is exactly 1px every 2 frames, which is smooth. But at 29px/s you get a moment of 3 frames of the same position every second, which is a very noticeable stuttering pattern. Likewise, enemy movement in a platformer, which usually isn't fast, is stuck with certain multiples of px/s to remain smooth. Deviate, and the enemy movement is jumpy.

>you could realistically just do hit detection separately from animating it
it's not about hit detection or precision, it's about the visuals of floating point truncation. Hit detection is completely unrelated

>>3445679
>Going 2x still aligns to the pixel grid
what about 3x? What about 2x and 3x in the same picture? They're not grid-aligned with each other

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So if mixels and rixels are so bad, then what about something like this pic.

I don't really see what the big deal is. As long as it looks like what its supposed to look like, what does it matter how big or small or rotated the pixels are.

>>3435463
This.

>>3446582
that's a 3D game and textures

>I don't really see what the big deal is
When people use oversized pixels they are, in theory, and usually, trying to replicate low resolution displays. If these pixels don't align with the grid, they're violating their own constraint. Same goes for rotation.

Your picture shows low resolution textures. The resolution of the render target is completely unrelated. There is no claim that the texture must be aligned to the render target pixels.

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>>3446582
I think it defeats the purpose of using pixelart in the first place. I suppose it bothers some people more than others, so if you don't mind it- good for you.

>>3446606
>megaman indie fangame
Needs more blur and overlays. Maybe some senseless "deep" text.

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>>3446612
Fine then.

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>>3446630
At least it still looks better than the official FF6 remake.

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>>3434136
is ADOM retro?

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>>3434136
>Have you ever tried to make your own authentically retro-styled video game?
I prototype puzzle games with freetard graphics, but never finish them because I'm a bad person. Making incomplete games that no one will ever play is a game in and of itself.

Limitations and design are interesting in their own right. But as for the aesthetic, as others have said, devs didn't choose the spooky/cyberpunk life, the illusion of color depth when blending with black did. That's not really interesting except from an artist's perspective. Although it probably influenced the direction of some content.

Retro games being gamey is what made them good. Not their look-and-feel. It's like Pavlov with these indies.

>>3446630
What the fuck is that megawomyn transition bullshit? Get that bullshit paranoid cliche out of there!

For fucks sake, he's a damn robot, he needs to transition to mebiman, against the oppresive ANSI commision stealing the last 24 from every thousand of whatever he has, leaving him with a lousy 1000.

>>3446630
Kek
Now that's a indie retro game.

>>3437389
You can avoid mixels in game maker, and probably in flash too. Is not an issue with the engine but with people that don't know what they are doing.

>>3447167
Both Nuclear Throne and Undertale are made in Game Maker, they both even run at 240p, and Nuclear Throne has a bunch of rotation and stuff that still fit into the resolution, it's gorgeous.

>>3440218
>I can't understand why the fuck someone tries to emulate NES games in powerful hardware Why not just develop for the real NES?
They do it because they enjoy the aestethic of NES. Is that that difficult to understand?
Making an actual NES game is difficult and time consuming as fuck, and not everyone has that much free time to learn the language and start making everything from scratch when you can do it easier and faster using modern alternatives.
Making an actual NES game will limit the popularity of your game to people that are into homebrew NES games, and that's it. Make it as a PC and modern consoles game and you will get a ton of people playing it.
I don't see anything bad with that. Some games even got released in both ways, as a PC game with NES aesthetics and then as a real NES game (Retro city rampage and Kira kira starlight)

>>3447171
Exactly what I meant.
If you work at a small native resolution and scale the screen proportionally instead of working with a big resolution and previously upscaled assets, you won't get mixels.

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>>3434136
>Do you think faux-retro games are all lame nostalgia-bait, or occasionally worthwhile extensions of the past?

I think they're usually worthwhile extensions of the past and only occasionally just lame nostalgia bait.

But then I like games that use pixels in their own right and not trying to mimic a specific console or set of limitations.

>>3447185
I know there's some games that avoid mixels and rixels and whatever but still fuck up by having light effects that don't fit into the grid.

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>>3446582
Do Rixels mean left and right, or does it just mean the right?
Also, do mixels only mean when sprites have different pixel sizes, or do they also mean when a sprite isn't perfectly aligned to the grid, so you get pixels that are smaller because they're being covered up slightly?

I'm just here to say both versions of La-Mulana are the best games ever.

>>3447197
The latter case for both of your questions.

Personally I think rotated sprites look terrible whether they're on-grid or not.

>>3447197
Mixel means both things you mentioned
Rixels mean right in your pic.

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>>3447208
Hmm? Is it really a mixel if you have doubled sprites but they're still on the grid proper?

>>3447215
Most people will say yes. I personally think it looks ugly and unpolished, even if Mario did it at some point.

>>3447226
It does look shitty but I figured it wasn't the same thing since it's just how the (low-res) sprite looks and not the result of any weird scaling effect. Ah well.

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>>3447228
There's no standard because neither mixel nor rixel are real graphics terms.

>>3447179
>They do it because they enjoy the aestethic of NES. Is that that difficult to understand?
But that doesn't make a game retro. Is that that difficult to understand?
Saying that pixel art is retro is the same that saying the simple act of drawing is retro. Pixel art isn't something exclusively associated with old games, as developers don't ever stopped using it.

>>3447260
>But that doesn't make a game retro. Is that that difficult to understand?

Actually that is exactly what makes a game retro. Remember, "retro" is it's own word. It's not a synonym for "old" or "classic". Mario 3 is old/classic. Shovel Knight is retro.

>>3434643
I'm sorry but all non-western fighting games are anime. Anime encompasses a wide amount of genres which the big names like Street Fighter and Samurai Shodown fit neatly into.

Maybe you hate (for good reason) the kind of shit that spawns Arcana Heart, but don't be in denial of what the stuff you like is.

>>3434197

I have to play that now

>>3434536
>I don't want another game "inspired" (shameless rip-off) by Castlevania. I already played Castlevania. I'm playing Castlevania for about 25 years.

Fucking this. Stop, no more fucking Metriodvania bullshit! Enough fucking rogue-likes that aren't even rogue-likes anyway. Make something else already holy shit.

>This is my new ga,e. you are a robot gurl because women are underepresented btw, and you have to get to the end of a stage, but instead of shooting a boss, a tired an played out mechanic, I, The Master Game Designer, changed it. You now have to beat the boss in a game of scrabble! and you collect all the letters to use as you play the level, which are randomly given to you as enemy drops and you can only hold so many. There are also RPG elements. I call it "Le Indie Deviant Art Wacky Game" it is a puzzle/rogue-like/action/platformer with pixel graphics and faux midi music because RETRO! XD!

>>3447481
>Make something else already holy shit.
We're not allowed to, >>3434150 says new ideas aren't retro

>>3447260
>Pixel art isn't something exclusively associated with old games, as developers don't ever stopped using it.
This has been my big issue with the anti pixel art brigade

>>3434643

I honestly always wanted to make a fighting game where all the characters looked like something you might doodle in your notebook back in the day. Call it Doodle Fighters.

The thing that keeps most people from making fighting games is that, for one thing, there is a high expectation of extreme polish for them, and a subset of that is the fighting game community is fucking insufferable about balance and nerfing and shit, just look at what they did to Smash.

>>3434746

one of the things I absolutely cannot stand about animu fightan gaemz is the fucking sparks, they use photoshop to make these boring ass spark effects. I miss when they used to draw them.

>>3435079

I bought it because I like that style of game but have not touched it since I found out it has a unseen ticking clock that when it runs out basically fucks you over.

>>3447508
How did you figure that out, and why is that a problem to you?

>>3447481
You know you can just not play the games that don't interest you... right? Personally I still enjoy a well made metroidvania. And the Rougelike genre finally getting really big and expanding and experimenting blending with other genres is fantastic to my eyes.

>>3446630

>the fucking hipster lens filters

FUCKING DROPPED NO MANS SKY WHEN I SAW IT DID THIS SHIT! FUCKING KIDS! THE 80s DIDNT LOOK BLURRY AND FADED! DO YOU THINK THE 1920s WAS IN BLACK AND WHITE! OIuGHIYFGOMDB

>>3447519
>You know you can just not play the games that don't interest you... right?
you know they can't play the games that interest them, because they're not made, since people are doing the other ones instead?

>Personally I still enjoy a well made metroidvania
"fuck you, I have mine" is not a good position

>the Rougelike genre finally getting really big
what's getting big is a derived genre, that has very little to do with the core tenets of roguelikes. Experimentation is fine and welcome, even leaving the genre is fair. Leaving the genre AND appropriating the name though, that's where it needs to stop. Some people rely on the genre as a mean of categorization, and these games are making things needlessly difficult

>>3447270
WTF, dude? I wasn't at all with that guy, but first you people want to call those games "retro-style" and "retro-ist", and now you just flat out expect those games to be what's "retro"?

>>3447515

I read a negative review that mentioned it. It bothers me because I will feel like i constantly going the wrong way or doing something wrong because in 4 hours the king or something will suddenly die and the game will end.

>>3447532
>I will feel like i constantly going the wrong way or doing something wrong because in 4 hours the king or something will suddenly die and the game will end
You play these games to win? To do everything "right"?

>>3447529
There are more games being made now than ever before. If someone seriously can't find anything that's not a metroidvania or a roguelike then they have bigger problems in life than no games they like.

>what's getting big is a derived genre, that has very little to do with the core tenets of roguelikes.

That's not a problem. Anyone wanting traditional roguelikes already has more available that they can master in their lifetime. There are still more traditional roguelikes being made as well, so that part of your complaint is a complete fallacy. Expanding genres is a great thing.

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The Freeware Windows game Lyle in Cube Sector is a game I've always liked. The source code was released a while ago, but since it was made in Multimedia Fusion 2, it would have to be re-implemented to be ported to other platforms, so it's really only good for reverse engineering the physics and whatnot.

>>3447540
>That's not a problem
It becomes a problem when it wants to call itself "roguelike". It's like GTA claiming to be a platformer. You can do it, but you're going to piss off a lot of platformer fans on the way

>There are still more traditional roguelikes being made as well
and it's hard to tell them apart from the others, because they use the same genre name

>Expanding genres is a great thing
shifting, or, dare I say, hijacking them, is not

>>3447530
I wasn't part of that conversation either. Just replying to that part. "Retro-style" and "retro" means the same thing. Retro is a style. It doesn't mean something that's actually old. It means something that imitates something old.

>>3447545
I don't think that's actually a problem for anyone with a brain. It's not hard to read a description of a game or try it for 5 minutes to see if it's something that incorporates the elements of the genre you like.

>and it's hard to tell them apart from the others, because they use the same genre name
Not if you play it for five minutes. Or even look at them. Seriously, is this what people think of as serious problems these days?

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I thought axiom verge was a pretty good 'retro-style' game

>>3447551
Isn't that the one that's only like 2 hours long?

>>3447550
>It's not hard to read a description of a game
it's hard to filter for it.

>try it for 5 minutes
not everybody has that much time (and it's not accounting for the install, download, possibly purchase). Categories are a useful concept, when they're not being distorted

>is this what people think of as serious problems these days
In an abundance of information, information management is important. You're actively advocating meta data pollution. It should be easy enough for developers to mark their game as genre-mix, rogue-lite or whatever the fancy term is this week, instead of making it hard for people to find what they are looking for. Mixing these games makes players of both camps unhappy, wastes everybody's time, is dishonest and unnecessary. It's not a serious problem, you can shove that fallacy up your rear. It's a very bad practice and uncalled for though, and that's what that other anon and I have a problem with.

>>3447529

lawrjkghamgn! I can't stop the anger! I have to post it, you've awakened it in me.

FUCKING ROGUE-LIKES.

so rogue was a game where you appeared on a floor and had basically nothing, you moved around a grid and when you did your enemies also did and you were slowly dieing. The point was that you had to get to the final floor despite everything working against you, and your every step lessened your opportunities, so its really a subset of strategy games.

The fucking games where they randomize your equipment are not "rogue-likes" They're "I'm to fucking lazy to think out and playtest my game!" Why build a fucking level when you can randomly generate it! This shit infects everything. One of my favorite games is mega man, I personally feel that Mega Man is the Quintessential action game. Shoot, jump, dodge, slide, move to the right, and at the end is a very hard enemy. VIDEO GAME. There this game on steam, 20XX or something, I got all excited because steam recommended it, i played the video, looks good! Suddenly I see, not only is this a "Early Access" Game (which is an instant NOPE) but i look at it's tags, it's a rogue like. So basically, mega man, but with out 8 bosses whos abilities are earned and used later on, but instead a random level and enemy generator. GREAT! Thats what I loved about mega man! Having Bubble Bats endlessly come at me! Someone should have told capcom they could have released the endless attack mode as a $20 game!

Oh! look at this cool looking RPG...ROGUE-LIKE! oh how about this Metal Slug inspired title...ROGUE-LIKE! hey now, a game reminiscent of Clock Tower...ROGUE-LIKE! These fucking autistic developers think that the rogue-like genre is this chocolate syrup that makes things good, but you don;t put it on everything holy shit please fucking stop!

>>3447539

i don;t like the idea of something being completely closed of to me just because I didn't realize I was being timed.

>>3447569
you can play the game several times, are supposed to, even
constraints make you value your decisions more
you are not being timed, things in the game happen within some time. That's a difference

>>3447496
>I honestly always wanted to make a fighting game where all the characters looked like something you might doodle in your notebook back in the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOIx_EQ7xko

close enough?

>>3447551

I'm the guy saying I hate metroid-vania shit, and I will attest to this games greatness. also environmental station Alpha.

2 games. but then there are, like 100 more that are barely worth mentioning. there's a new Metroid vania coming out every time I look.

>>3447564
I guess I don't search games by letting a filter do the work for me... Roguelikes are one of my favorite longtime genres. I think it's amazing the resurgence they're having these days all the way from full games to the crazy stuff that comes out of the 7drlc.

There's all kinds of stuff. And yeah, sometimes you look at a game that looks like it might be be one thing and it turns out to be different. But I just don't see that as a real problem. Or at least not one serious enough to get upset about.

But then I should note that I like the way the genre is being experimented with these days so I'm not unhappy if a game I'm checking out isn't the classic definition of a roguelike.

>>3447568
>so rogue was a game where you appeared on a floor and had basically nothing, you moved around a grid and when you did your enemies also did and you were slowly dieing. The point was that you had to get to the final floor despite everything working against you, and your every step lessened your opportunities, so its really a subset of strategy games.

This is one of the most hilarious misunderstandings of what Rogue is that I've ever read.

>>3447573

>a 2D fighter for N64 that never came out in america

Not surprised I have never heard of this. God forbid nintendo ever put this out on VC or anything.

Yeah thats pretty close, Honestly, I was thinking of something slightly worse, like the characters only animating at a low frame rate and looking cruder, the back rounds being line drawings with few colors, sort of like if school hose rock was a fighting game.

>>3447578
>I don't search games by letting a filter do the work for me
the searchbox in your favorite websearch is a filter. Entering "roguelike" in there nowadays, will show you a lot of roguelikes, and a lot of games that aren't. The categorization failed, because some didn't play nice.

>the resurgence
there's none, or very little. What's gaining momentum is a different genre or different genres of games, abusing the name, see >>3447568

>I just don't see that as a real problem
You said yourself, more games are released than ever. Free time is still a limited resource, and getting more valuable with each new game released, which is while categorizing and filtering are so important.

>Or at least not one serious enough to get upset about
You already made clear that your stance is "fuck you, I have mine". You're not suffering from the miscategorization, as it's not a genre you're interested in. People that are, do, and should rightfully be heard.

>I like the way the genre is being experimented with these days
experimentation is fine and welcome, hijacking the name is not. It's disappointing you can't see the difference

>so I'm not unhappy if a game I'm checking out isn't the classic definition of a roguelike
I'd appreciate if I'd find roguelike inspired games when I look for them, and find roguelikes when I look for them. I do not appreciate when these queries blend, making either query useless

>>3447592
>the searchbox in your favorite websearch is a filter.
That's what I mean. I don't look for games by typing "roguelike 2016" into google and hitting the first reply.

>there's none, or very little.
You sir, have not been paying attention to the genre and it's community.

>You already made clear that your stance is "fuck you, I have mine".
To be more accurate, it's "fuck you, I have mine and you could have yours too if you weren't such a big baby and actually looked for games you like with some intelligence."

>>3447596
>You sir, have not been paying attention to the genre and it's community.
What you call resurgence, others call genre name appropriation

>>3447582

your right anon I forgot the best feature, Perma-death. The ultimate game feature for hardcore games who can only have fun if they have to start everything all over again. Pokemon is a boring game right? Well try a Nuzelock run! quick! everyone get on twitch so we can all watch someone handicap themselves in a game made for children! This is so much better then the game a team of designers and programers made! in fact, every new game made should just have permadeath, randomized items, and all kinds of horse shit, why empower the player when you can made every moment of gameplay a struggle to even keep the game going! The most fun! yes please!

>>3447598
Except I'm not talking about "roguelites" and the like. I ignore most of those games when I come across them. I mean the actual roguelike genre is doing very well.

If you are interested, the 7 day roguelike challenge always produces some really interesting games, this year being no exception. Tons of games to check out http://7drl.org/

Roguelikes are still somewhat insular though, if you're interested then join some forums and ask around about games you might like.

>>3447604
I'll admit it's not a genre that's for everyone. But the degree to which it's making you upset is pretty entertaining.

>>3447614
>I ignore most of those games when I come across them
I'd rather not come across them to begin with

>If you are interested
I'm not. There are a few I stick to and come back to every now and then. I just respect the genre, and don't like the fad coders diluting its name and value

>>3447618
you'd be upset to if it's not only a genre you don't care for, but it's infecting all the genres you do care for

>>3447546
Sure. Obviously they're not the same thing, if they were the same thing they'd be the same thing! It's a gateway manoeuver, first you want to call it "retro style", then take another step and call it just "retro". But you already got called out!

>>3447618

I also dislike the huge influz of Female protag in the indie community. However, it doesn't feel like some kind of pro feminist thing and more like a waifu thing.

>>3447626
>I'd rather not come across them to begin with
That's what this really comes down to. You only want to encounter the things you like so it offends you when you see games that don't appeal to you.

What's funny is that you are someone who doesn't care about the genre getting offended that it's not progressing in the way you think it ought to. While I have been a fan of Rogue and it's various descendants for almost 40 years at this point and love what it happening with the genre these days.

>>3447638
>You only want to encounter the things you like
I only want to encounter the things I search for. See >>3447592
>I'd appreciate if I'd find roguelike inspired games when I look for them, and find roguelikes when I look for them. I do not appreciate when these queries blend, making either query useless

>someone who doesn't care about the genre
if you say so

>that it's not progressing in the way you think it ought to
the genre itself is progressing fine. The games outside of the genre hijacking the name making it hard to track though

>While I have been a fan of Rogue and it's various descendants
again, >>3447592
>I'd appreciate if I'd find roguelike inspired games when I look for them, and find roguelikes when I look for them. I do not appreciate when these queries blend, making either query useless
Read what's being said, instead of jumping to conclusions. Think about what's being said, and at least try to understand their position. You do not have to agree with it, if you can't even be bothered to at least understand what they're saying, it's getting a bit rude

>>3447632
Retro and "retro-style" is the same thing. People on this board really need to learn how to use dictionaries.

>>3435437
Where is it seen?

>>3447647
>if you say so
It wasn't me who said it, I was replying to >>3447626
>I'm not

>>3447604
>why empower the player when you can made every moment of gameplay a struggle to even keep the game going! The most fun! yes please!
I'm glad we agree. Nothing feels better than beating a game that actively wants me to lose.

>>3447657
there's a difference between interest and care. You're having an awful lot of difficulties with nuances

>>3434136
I like some of the retro feel. If it captures the simplicity in design yet potential for complexity in gameplay or story, is fun to play, and has a straightforward learning curve like the era it's inspired by, I'd probably play it. Xeodrifter, for example, a game I recently got on 3DS, fits all of that pretty well.

>>3447660
Well I find it pretty fucking weird that you "care" so much about a genre that doesn't interest you. If roguelike elements are making their way into other genres and that upsets you, I'm sorry for you but I don't see it as a problem. Outside of actual rougelikes I play a lot of other kinds of games and haven't had an issue finding ones that don't have those elements.

>>3447568
...so you think anything that has randomness is a Rogue-like? That's a hell of a broad genre.

>>3447705
Tetris is a roguelike according to that guy.

>>3447705

Steam seems to think so too. Apparently Heart Slash, Downwell, and Magicite are rogue-likes

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Are any of you guys actual developers or artists? Or are you just angry, petulant consumers?

I want all of you "anti-pixel-art" fags to go to the site pixeljoint. Go have a look through the hall of fame gallery and also see some of the new art works being put out everyday...

These are artists who enjoy working within the format of pixel art. You CANNOT tell me that they are just "aping" an older style for nostalgias sake, or that its all fake.

Some artists like working with oil, watercolor, sculpting out of clay. Some like painting digitally while others like working at the pixel level.

That's all it is. It's never been more than that. Pixel artists have been around since the beginning of video games. Did you think those artist would all just die out and no longer work with a format that they like?

You're bashing someone for expressing themselves the way that they want, and you're nitpicking on ridiculous shit like mixels and rixels, which are totally trivial and inconsequential.

Look at this pic, the artist just likes working with pixels, he didn't have to, why is that so bad?

You want indie devs to try something new? Well, what is No Man's Sky? Everybody's shitting on that too (rightfully so). There's plenty of other types of games and art style being done, so crying that they aren't doing new things is pointless.

What matters if its just done well or not. Not the style the artist chose.

Take a look at Devil Daggers artstyle. They wanted to make it look like those old 90s FPSes, how we "rememberd" it, not how it actually was. Who wrote this rule that if you're gonna go for a retro style, you MUST use all the constraints that the old games had to work within? That is so stupid. You can do retro within modern constraints too, there is nothing wrong with that.

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>>3447881
Follow-up post:

Here's something from pixeljoint made a couple days ago. Does it follow ALL the rules and constraints of old games? No and it doesn't have to. Why should it make you so upset?

>>3447881

>Are any of you guys actual developers or artists? Or are you just angry, petulant consumers?

I'm pretty sure this thread is a stealth /agdg/.

>>3447881

>Who wrote this rule that if you're gonna go for a retro style, you MUST use all the constraints that the old games had to work within?

I'm an engineer myself and some of the time creativity comes from limitations. Ofc I am not saying it works all the time but what made retro games fun despite their simple graphics, control options and limited hardware was the ingenuity developers had, to overcome those limitations to make an enjoyable game, or sometimes those limitations were the direct reason why the game was the way it was ( like the combo system in sf2 etc..)

So some people kinda rightfully ask for that when playing games branded as '' retro '', not just another half ass made game with a pixel cover.

like retro city rampage videos, they were really interesting because the guy actually ported the game so it can run on a 486dx66 machine on dos

or you can take a look homebrew nes shit , hacked roms ... many frustrating mario 3 hacks, sor remakes...etc...

so tl;dr I guess retro style unfortunately become a meme style used by literally every '' self proclaimed '' indie-dev in the past 5 years with lots of half-assed shit projects that can't keep up with the arts tyle of a 30yo game that is even less innovative in terms of gameplay and that's what pisses people off I guess

>>3447270
If pixel art makes a game retro, then 3D graphics too. And realistic graphics.

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>>3447573
>>3447496
Also, Rakugaki SHOWTAIMU

>>3448027

As an artist and programmer, I understand your point of view. I've worked on a project where I wanted the palette to be restricted to the NES colors. I enjoyed the minimalism and working within those limits. A lot of artists on pixeljoint use the same type of palette restriction, but there's no hard rule about it.

Just because a caveman uses rocks to carve a rough picture of a bison on a cave wall, doesn't mean I can't make a similar image with oil and canvas and brand it as "primitive cave painting." ...."Oh but you didn't use actual stones to carve it in a real cave, did you?" Yeah, so?

Sorry, but someone has to combat this bullshit. I appreciate where you're coming from though.

It's funny that the definition of the "retro style" that those hack developers like so much is aping old games and using pixel art/chiptune.
That's because there is no such thing as a retro style.

>>3447881
No one here is against pixel art. We're against indie bullshit with bad pixel art and we're against the notion that pixel art makes something retro.

>Some artists like working with oil, watercolor, sculpting out of clay. Some like painting digitally while others like working at the pixel level.
But that's what I said. Saying pixel art is retro is like saying the simple act of drawing is retro.

You can draw anything you want. But it will not be retro.

>>3447920
We're way more serious and hardcore than the /vg/ wimps.

>>3448147
>No one here is against pixel art.
Okay cool.

>We're against indie bullshit with bad pixel art
Alright, I'm with you.

>and we're against the notion that pixel art makes something retro.
Well, okay? But if you took a poll on some pixel art asking "would you label this retro", you will probably be in the minority. Also, why would it matter if it's labelled "retro"?

Anyway, "retro" is an adjective meaning, "imitative of a style, fashion, or design from the recent past." So, what are you arguing here? The definition of retro?

>Saying pixel art is retro is like saying the simple act of drawing is retro.
This makes no sense. Saying "pixel art is retro" would be correct. Saying "drawing is retro" is not correct at all. How are these two statements alike at all?

>You can draw anything you want. But it will not be retro.
Again, makes no sense. One can draw in a retro style. You can also draw in a modern style. Like you can write a poem or you can write prose. I can write in very particular vernacular or dialect, or use contemporary language. "Retro" is an adjective describing something. So, I can draw anything I want... and it CAN be retro, or anything else.

I think your problem is, you don't want it to be labeled as retro, because you feel it violates somethings pure about old games.

Sorry, but pixel art and retro are inextricable terms.

I want more PC-98 styled games like that waifu bartending thing.
It's time for people to accept pixel-dithering and 80's anime girls as the perfect retro esthetic.

>>3445190
>You first
Get real, I only started judging you and judging you in that way after you did so.

>yeah, not what I said

Yup, you did. I said things to the effect that open world and visibly polygonal graphics are particularly appealing bits of retroish-character. And, yes, this does naturally leads to the notion that a firmly-open-world *OR* 3d game on the NES would be prime retro-ish game projects - I can plead guilty to having already implied that! You just had to lump the two of those *together* to paint them as absurd through unfeasibility.

>So the issue would be with "themes typically used in the 80s and 90s.

Didn't say they had to be from the 80s/90s, retroism is retroism, and though games from back then likely related to stories of their time, people either wouldn't notice or wouldn't care about it if the tie in was from earier. But what I DID refer to specifically is preceding decades, like the 50s and 70s.

>I'm suggesting they stick to the hardware and style will emerge.

Pfffft, people do not program for hardware these days, they program for APIs. Though *I* did actually suggest ruddimentarily programming for hardware, specifically a raspberry pi, while still acknowledging that it would likely have to be multiplatform. And it would still presumably be through various APIs, even as I supposed in RISC-OS. And I got dismissed about the DOS suggestion too(if that might credit those programming more closely to the hardware).

>>yeah I'm pushing them around and butchering their creativity, huh?
>indeed you are. You're denying developers to actually be creative within the means of retro development.

Well, then you damn well better watch yourself! Or you know what I might imaginably do? Something really serious, that would get people here all around pissed for it being provoked! Why, I could start "telling" those who make processors, monitors and controllers "what to do"! Uh oh!

>>3448343
If pixel art is retro, 3D is retro, realistic graphics are retro, even digitized graphics are retro. They're all just different methods, not styles.
So, this board is now /v/, because every game is now retro. 3D has been used since the 80's and also never stopped being used. Digitized graphics are used to create textures.

>I think your problem is, you don't want it to be labeled as retro, because you feel it violates somethings pure about old games.
I don't give a damn about that. I'm not nostalgic. What I and other anon we're saying is that there's nothing that makes pixel art retro and there's nothing that makes those indie games retro.
They're inspired by old games? So are almost all current games. Almost all games ever.
They use pixel art? But the developers never stopped using pixel art. Is a 3DS game that uses pixel art retro? Are PS2 games that use pixel art retro? DS games? PSP games?
How can it be a callback to the past if this isn't something relegated to the past?

>>3445204
>Not a single polygon in sight, and it looks miles ahead of everything else available at the time because of it.
Well then, you admit that YOU are willing to define one game as your expectation from an era, while you're positioning yourself as some profound defender against everything being like metroid?

>So why deny them that now?
It's a simulator from a company dedicated to simulators, an extremely particular niche. Just because it's lousy at being accurate, doesn't change that it's the sim niche.
>Apache is an action game.
That up there says commanche.

>Doing a badass simulator on something as tight as a NES is about as retro as it gets
Jaguar sure seems more effectively-retro, maybe because it's just more backwards, maybe because it's more forgoten ... MEH... in the end, that is where coders interested in *programming gymnastics* seem to be going.

>16 colors, 4 bits. You sure you're familiar with VGA?
Nice unarbitrary limitation there, 8 bit x 320 x 200 ... and 4 bit x 640 x 480. 640 x 400 x 4bit might at least be within the same memory limit. Unsurprising/believable that those extra 80 lines of resolution would nudge it towards slowness.

>there's not a single polygon on that screens
No, it's very polygonal, probably because as a sim that gives a good minimal look that orients the player likely at the cost of cost of detail, though it also gives a marked appealing clean look, one reason why retroist devs today still would consider it.

>>3447685
>Well I find it pretty fucking weird that you "care" so much about a genre that doesn't interest you
not surprising. We already established your attitude is fairly egotistical

>If roguelike elements are making their way into other genres and that upsets you
it doesn't. Other genres hijacking the name does.

>Outside of actual rougelikes I play a lot of other kinds of games and haven't had an issue finding ones that don't have those elements.
that was not the disputed issue. The issue was finding roguelikes when looking for roguelikes, and in particular not finding genre blends when looking for roguelikes

>>3447894
>Does it follow ALL the rules and constraints of old games? No and it doesn't have to. Why should it make you so upset?
A dominant aspect of pixel art is limitation, usually in resolution, occasionally in palette, rarely in sprite and tile size/count.
Retro games often use pixel art not to experiment with limitation, but to sidestep quality. They produce pictures that violate basic concepts of pixel art design and composition, things like good palette choice, exaggeration to emphasize shapes and motions and much more.

You will notice that the loudest complaints about pixels in this thread are regarding artwork that violates its own limits constantly, or establishes nonsense limits. Neither example you posted is showing oddly sized tiles, differently sized non-aligned pixels, cheap shading, lack of proportions and so on. That artwork is still fairly useless for games, but that's a different subject.

Anyway, the people crying about pixel art are actually asking for more skill along the lines of what you're posting, artists doing the maximum within the limitations given, instead of blind pixelation, oversized and mismatching pixels and so on.

In other words, you're making a straw man

>>3447881
>Who wrote this rule that if you're gonna go for a retro style, you MUST use all the constraints that the old games had to work within?
same guy that wrote the rule that if you pretend to stick to some self-imposed limits, you have to do it consistently, or your artwork will not look skilled but cheap

>You can do retro within modern constraints too
how? Got a working example?

>>3448129
>doesn't mean I can't make a similar image with oil and canvas and brand it as "primitive cave painting
it kind of does. As artist you should know how much the used tools shape the result. You'll end up with a superficial imitation, that's neither here nor their, and will very quickly face accusations of trying to take the cheap way out.

>>3448419
>absurd through unfeasibility
that's your opinion. I'll reserve mine and let developers do their thing instead.

>what I DID refer to specifically is preceding decades, like the 50s and 70s
and it's bullshit

>people do not program for hardware these days
and I'll happily give them shit for that

>*I* did actually suggest ruddimentarily programming for hardware, specifically a raspberry pi
not retro

>I got dismissed about the DOS suggestion
I said you'd be masochistic to deal with DOS. Plenty of far more pleasant platforms available at that time. If you still want to do DOS, be my guest, and prepare to write a lot of uphill bullshit before even putting out the first bit of eye candy

>>3448447
>YOU are willing to define one game as your expectation from an era
I am giving an example that flies in the face of the flat shaded polygon requirement, showing that this requirement is bullshit. There are plenty more non-poly engines, or engines with partial texturing, or engines with gouraud shading, and so on. You denied them all.

>profound defender against everything being like metroid?
let people make their metroid clones. They're cheaper by the dozen. I'd rather they do something worthwhile though.

>an extremely particular niche
so now niches aren't allowed for retro development too? gotcha

>That up there says commanche.
fuck me, getting the indians mixed up

>Nice unarbitrary limitation there
it's in the specs. VGA has a pretty tight definition

>it's very polygonal, probably because as a sim
we're apparently referring to different images. Might want to post it again for clarification