If you feel graphically talentless, read this! | Gamedev Dairy #78
Hacks for learning, productivity, having work-life-passion balance and finally game development!
TL;DR
Recommendations
A dead end for gaming?
Knowledge, or one mechanic to solve multiple problems?
Today, I decided to go the opposite route and start with the recommendations :-)
Recommendations
Apparently, Gamers 50-plus are now 52.4 million strong, and they’re embracing gaming because they feel it’s time well spent.
Mark Brown as we love him returns and talks about why Capcom is the King of remakes.
Why be the best, when you can be the only one? (fascinating and inspiring at the same time).
I would like to recommend I newsletter I subscribed to recently. It’s very fresh. It’s called The Sunset Club, and it’s about lessons from builders who've had to sunset a product or idea. Learn all about the "don'ts of building", how to fail forward, own your story, and find your next big move. Definitely for me 😉 Here’s an article for you to check for yourself.
A dead end for gaming?
I've noticed that a distinct part of my gaming bubble treats new AAA games like some sort of celebrity actors: they read headlines about them, but rarely play them.
Can't blame them. Some of these games don't offer too much; they play it safe so much they become too dull. Some of them become interactive cutscenes (which are best served cold under the query „X all cutscenes") or hold you by hand by not allowing you to think (oh no! those gamers will break my games) or telling you too much (like those maps that lead you from cutscene-A to cutscene-B).
Of course, not all games are like that, but I'm sure you've seen those. Mercifully, I will not talk about failed launches.
Knowledge, or one mechanic to solve multiple problems?
I'm telling you this because I encountered an opinion that puts it to proper words:
Although I could've just turned this issue into a manifesto, but that would be a waste. Instead, I see this as an opportunity for graphically talentless developers like myself.
Just as it is with roguelikes, knowledge-based games might work gameplay-wise, without nice graphics.
Take Taki Tori 2 for example. This knowledge-based Metroidvania bases the player's progress on knowledge about its environment.
Or Breath of the Wild (if you feel intimidated by this 3D work of beauty you can think of its 2D NES-like prototype) in which the player can do a lot of exploring and approach riddles from many angles, and even find multiple solutions to one problem. Shigeru Miyamoto’s (AFAIR) rule for mechanics that solve more than one problem seems to be the answer here.
Games should not be passive entertainment that sometimes gives deep thought or something like that. We have books, and cinematography for that. Wouldn’t you agree?
See you next week ;-)
PS. How did you like the reverse order of this e-mail? Was it better? Worse? Reply and share your thoughts! ;-)