Various video game stuff not deserving its own thread

[Tangerine]

I also think that forums like these that are populated mainly by grognards have a tendency to overglorify the past and to offhandedly dismiss new games as unworthy or as lesser.

Yes, but also newer games are unworthy and lesser.

[DemoGraph]

Do you often get the feeling like the best games in any particular genre have already been made?. Like there's no point in playing any other RTS besides StarCraft II, no other FPS besides Doom or Quake or Halo, no other platformer besides Donkey Kong Country or Mario World, no puzzler besides Tetris, etc. Have the best games already been made, and everything else is just a cope/cash grab?.

The best rts is Myth

Shadow of the Horned Rat

[nullSector]

Outer wilds is a really great game everyone should play completely blind. The game is very unique in being able to be beaten within 15 minutes by someone with correct knowledge (without even needing any skills beside just basic navigation), from when you start the game, to the end, the only thing that has changed is the knowledge you posses. Perhaps i might be a bit biased due to its space setting, but i definitely like this game a lot.

There was a minor thing which made me think this game was woke at first which was the protag race is genderless. But the game didn't harp on that at all (because of which i often forgot this as well), plus the other species does have binary gender and they are the ones about whom you spend most of the time reading about.

go play it

[Mortadela_Viva]

>Find a game
>Le retro style dungeon crawler
>Internal alarm starts beeping
>Look for developer
>Ugly ***** that advocates for the death of anyone who dares to say it isn't a woman
Every single time, I'm tired.

[SpellSword]

Beyond Sunset finally released its full version.

I thought it was going to be another piece of vaporware, doomed to stay permanently in its unfinished beta(Early Access) state. Good to see a developer making it to the finish line.

As for if the game is any good... I haven't tried it yet so can't comment. This pinned and locked post on steam and the main character being yet another girl boss does have me a little worried:

Beyond Sunset Dev.webp

[wndrbr]

[Acrux]

Prey: Elevator Edition

[TKVNC]

I'd really like a farming game that focuses more on the farming and less on being a romance simulator.

It wouldn't be a farming sim if you couldn't plant your seed.

While many modern farm simulators do have a kid event, most of them are always stuck in just early family stages where the kids never grow past toddler stage, regardless if the game has a years limit.

I think that with enough tech and determination from a passionate dev or devs, a "generational" farming simulator could be made where your first farmer grows old and you then you play as your eldest son who became an adult, which in turn also grows old and then you play as the first farmer's grandson, and so on.

The passage of time could also be reflected in the village structures and the NPCs, too.

It has They/Them pronouns. Interest has plummeted to zero.

Great, now I will have to pirate it and add a mod that fixes it if I want to play it.

FWIW The Guild has had a generational mechanic for years

[KnightoftheWind]

Bit of a random thought, but I'd like to see some classic Arcade titles being turned into open source, public domain games that anyone can download for free and customize to their hearts content. I'm talking Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, Pac-Man, Rally-X, Joust, etc. Games that wouldn't be dependent on emulation or tied to a specific company or copyrighted IP. Now that classic cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse are public domain, you could conceivably replace Mario with Mickey in practically any game the former is in, and Luigi with Minnie and Bowser/DK with Pete. Pac-Man is a little trickier, but his design is so simple he can be replaced with **** near anything. Rally-X is about racing cars, also very simple, and a Joust-clone can replace the winged birds with Pegasus horses or something.

There have been clones of these games in the past (especially for Pac-Man), but none are maintained or explicitly built for this purpose. Point is, It'd be nice to have a foundational set of 100% Free video games that are timeless and always enjoyable, as "generic" as a bottle of Aspirin or a Raggedy Ann doll is now. Ones that can be handed down over the years, free of attachment to any brand or corporation. Yeah Mickey is still very much tied to Disney at the moment, but he can be made just as organic a cultural icon as characters like Alice or Pinocchio are. He can just be 'a' cartoon character, used in any game or movie as the market sees fit. That's the entire point of him being free to use now, after all.

The sooner we cut our dependence from Nintendo and other major brands, the sooner a healthier gaming community can be born. We need to make these corporations irrelevant, if not outright bankrupt. I see talented devs waste their time and effort making fan games for copyrighted IPs, when they can put that effort into better use and benefit everyone long-term.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm talking Donkey Kong, Mario Bros,

lmao

[KnightoftheWind]

I'm talking Donkey Kong, Mario Bros,

lmao

And?, both are classic, timeless games with addictive gameplay. We need to capture these experiences and divorce them from aggressive corporate ownership.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm talking Donkey Kong, Mario Bros,

lmao

And?, both are classic, timeless games with addictive gameplay. We need to capture these experiences and divorce them from aggressive corporate ownership.

nintendo will let you have it from their cold, dead hands

[KnightoftheWind]

lmao

And?, both are classic, timeless games with addictive gameplay. We need to capture these experiences and divorce them from aggressive corporate ownership.

nintendo will let you have it from their cold, dead hands

You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying COPY these games wholesale, I'm saying to create new games that copy their 'mechanics' and intent without violating copyright. Replace Mario with Mickey, Donkey Kong with Pete, and Luigi/Pauline with Minnie. There you go. Create some basic levels with similar gimmicks to the original counterpart, and Nintendo can't do a **** thing even if they wanted to. Nintendo doesn't hold a patent to the game design of Donkey Kong or Mario Bros, and if they did it expired decades ago.

The value in doing this is we'll have a library of games we can pass on long after we're dead, our own canon of fun games that can be ported to any platform or customized as we see fit. No more "Game Pass" or online subscriptions, no DRM, no lawsuits, no limitations. Our own "Mario at home" or "Pac-Man at home".

[rusty_shackleford]

And?, both are classic, timeless games with addictive gameplay. We need to capture these experiences and divorce them from aggressive corporate ownership.

nintendo will let you have it from their cold, dead hands

You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying COPY these games wholesale, I'm saying to create new games that copy their 'mechanics' and intent without violating copyright. Replace Mario with Mickey, Donkey Kong with Pete, and Luigi/Pauline with Minnie. There you go. Create some basic levels with similar gimmicks to the original counterpart, and Nintendo can't do a **** thing even if they wanted to. Nintendo doesn't hold a patent to the game design of Donkey Kong or Mario Bros, and if they did it expired decades ago.

Clones of those games existed when they were still popular arcade games, you can probably find sourcecode for them laying around somewhere

iirc the donkey kong code was leaked some years back anyways tho

[Acrux]

The Popeye game was basically a Donkey Kong clone.

[Stack of Turtles]

Essentially, nobody still wants to play ****** arcade games except for nostalgic autists who want to play them exactly like they were down to rebuilding identical cabinets.

[KnightoftheWind]

nintendo will let you have it from their cold, dead hands

You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying COPY these games wholesale, I'm saying to create new games that copy their 'mechanics' and intent without violating copyright. Replace Mario with Mickey, Donkey Kong with Pete, and Luigi/Pauline with Minnie. There you go. Create some basic levels with similar gimmicks to the original counterpart, and Nintendo can't do a **** thing even if they wanted to. Nintendo doesn't hold a patent to the game design of Donkey Kong or Mario Bros, and if they did it expired decades ago.

Clones of those games existed when they were still popular arcade games, you can probably find sourcecode for them laying around somewhere

iirc the donkey kong code was leaked some years back anyways tho

There are clones, but they were made decades ago, or made in recent years but abandoned. None of them are 'explicitly created' for the purpose of being a 100% Free, Public Domain alternative to these existing games. They're typically made by hobbyist devs, who pay no mind to such an idea. I'm talking about a 'genuine' effort to create 'genuine' replacements to these old games, and be advertised as such on Github or something. The only games I can think of that do anything close to this, are Super Tux and Super Tux Kart. That's pretty much it. And I'm pretty sure Tux the Penguin is technically copyrighted too.

[KnightoftheWind]

Essentially, nobody still wants to play ****** arcade games except for nostalgic autists who want to play them exactly like they were down to rebuilding identical cabinets.

They aren't popular because they are perceived as boring relics by zoomers/gen alphas who were raised on Fortnite slop, and they have barriers of entry. If you want to play Pac-Man legally, you'd have to fork over the cash for a modern collection of Namco games. You couldn't simply download a portable .exe or a phone app and start a game right away, no questions asked. What I imagine are heirloom games, games that can just 'be there' like Chess or Checkers. Our own parallel library of video games .

[rusty_shackleford]

they are boring relics

[Stack of Turtles]

Essentially, nobody still wants to play ****** arcade games except for nostalgic autists who want to play them exactly like they were down to rebuilding identical cabinets.

They aren't popular because they are perceived as boring relics by zoomers/gen alphas who were raised on Fortnite slop, and they have barriers of entry. If you want to play Pac-Man legally, you'd have to fork over the cash for a modern collection of Namco games. You couldn't simply download a portable .exe or a phone app and start a game right away, no questions asked. What I imagine are heirloom games, games that can just 'be there' like Chess or Checkers. Our own parallel library of video games .

They ARE boring relics because the gameplay is designed to make autistic gambling addicts keep sticking coins in the slot. Play games that are actually good.

[KnightoftheWind]

they are boring relics

You haven't played them recently to know that they've aged very well for the most part (not that I believe games 'can' age to begin with). And this idea doesn't mean the games can't be improved upon. You can add more visual flair if need be, so long as it's tasteful.

[Oyster Sauce]

they are boring relics

You haven't played them recently to know that they've aged very well for the most part (not that I believe games 'can' age to begin with). And this idea doesn't mean the games can't be improved upon. You can add more visual flair if need be, so long as it's tasteful.

I'm sure they'd be fun for 5 minutes

[KnightoftheWind]

they are boring relics

You haven't played them recently to know that they've aged very well for the most part (not that I believe games 'can' age to begin with). And this idea doesn't mean the games can't be improved upon. You can add more visual flair if need be, so long as it's tasteful.

I'm sure they'd be fun for 5 minutes

Play them, then get back to me. I mention these classic Arcade games because they are iconic symbols of what "video games" are. There's a reason people to this day think of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, more than **** like Kingdom Come or Skyrim. While Skyrim has been popular in recent years, it probably won't be long-term. Those games are complicated, with lots of moving parts and heavy system requirements. The classics are games you can run on a rusty old toaster, and these hypothetical games should be too. Doom is another example of an iconic game that will always be associated with the medium, and that has FreeDoom which is great. We need more stuff like FreeDoom, but without any arbitrary licenses whatsoever. No BSD, no GPL. None 'o that.

[Acrux]

they are boring relics

You haven't played them recently to know

Actually I have, because my son got one of those "retro arcade" portable consoles for Christmas last year. I confirm from recent experience that they are boring relics.

[KnightoftheWind]

they are boring relics

You haven't played them recently to know

Actually I have, because my son got one of those "retro arcade" portable consoles for Christmas last year. I confirm from recent experience that they are boring relics.

Well then you're not a true gamer. Even a random ****** off the ****-covered streets of Bangladesh can appreciate the entertainment value of a classic Arcade. They are designed to be enjoyable regardless of skill level, and will be enjoyable a hundred years from now.

[Stack of Turtles]

Play them, then get back to me. I mention these classic Arcade games because they are iconic symbols of what "video games" are. There's a reason people to this day think of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, more than **** like Kingdom Come or Skyrim.

Only 50+ year olds think this.

[Acrux]

You haven't played them recently to know

Actually I have, because my son got one of those "retro arcade" portable consoles for Christmas last year. I confirm from recent experience that they are boring relics.

Well then you're not a true gamer.

Thank G-d!

[KnightoftheWind]

Play them, then get back to me. I mention these classic Arcade games because they are iconic symbols of what "video games" are. There's a reason people to this day think of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, more than **** like Kingdom Come or Skyrim.

Only 50+ year olds think this.

It's true and you know it. These games also have no story context, which is a big plus for my hypothetical project. You couldn't create a "100% Free" alternative to a game like Final Fantasy for instance, because each game is it's own story and there is great importance placed on specific characters and scenarios. But Chess doesn't have a story, Checkers doesn't, and neither do games like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man. Aside from "save woman from ape" or "eat pellets and avoid ghosts". It's perfect.

Edit: Seriously, just play these games. They're FANTASTIC.

[Stack of Turtles]

Play them, then get back to me. I mention these classic Arcade games because they are iconic symbols of what "video games" are. There's a reason people to this day think of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, more than **** like Kingdom Come or Skyrim.

Only 50+ year olds think this.

It's true and you know it. These games also have no story context, which is a big plus for my hypothetical project. You couldn't create a "100% Free" alternative to a game like Final Fantasy for instance, because each game is it's own story and there is great importance placed on specific characters and scenarios. But Chess doesn't have a story, Checkers doesn't, and neither do games like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man. Aside from "save woman from ape" or "eat pellets and avoid ghosts". It's perfect.

Edit: Seriously, just play these games. They're FANTASTIC.

Like Acrux, I've also almost certainly played them more recently than you have
And they're boring relics.

On the other hand, this is fun for a few minutes. I still pull it back out every once in a while.

[KnightoftheWind]

Only 50+ year olds think this.

It's true and you know it. These games also have no story context, which is a big plus for my hypothetical project. You couldn't create a "100% Free" alternative to a game like Final Fantasy for instance, because each game is it's own story and there is great importance placed on specific characters and scenarios. But Chess doesn't have a story, Checkers doesn't, and neither do games like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man. Aside from "save woman from ape" or "eat pellets and avoid ghosts". It's perfect.

Edit: Seriously, just play these games. They're FANTASTIC.

Like Acrux, I've also almost certainly played them more recently than you have
And they're boring relics.

On the other hand, this is fun for a few minutes. I still pull it back out every once in a while.

You ******* are as stuffy as any old boomer. You'll be old and playing Go Fish and watching Downton Abbey before you know it.