Why are most indie games so dumb-looking/sounding?

[hoopy]

I make a distinction between indie and independent. Indie games are all those obnoxiously quirky puzzle games and so on. Nethack is not an indie game.

Yeah, indie games tend to be insufferable. But even independent games rarely look as good as, say, old Amiga games. It's like nobody knows how to make good video game art these days, or at least nobody who's interested in working on independent games.

 

[MetalCraze]

List would be way to long.
First one that springs to mind though: AI WAR (As always)

Only one game springs to mind? That's an incredibly long list.

In other words - fuck indies, fuck AAAs, support good developers.

You probably are incapable of finding the problem in this statement.

The problem in this statement for you is that in your little world there are only two kinds of games: AAAs and indies. Makes sense - they are very simple games and are made for the casual crowd - so if you don't dig games offering more than 2 cent gameplay it's no wonder you can't see a forest behind the trees.

That's a 1

2 - good games are beyond labels. Both AAAs and indies can have them BUT the amount of them there is next to non-existent because both make them with only 1 thing in mind - money.

I think 'many here' actually pirate from indie developers just as much as they do from AAA devs. I sure as fuck do (Although there are a few choice indie devs i give my money to because i seriously believe they deserve it)

It doesn't matter if one pirates or not. When you make a post about how good game X or dev X is - somewhere it makes someone spend money on that.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Indie games suck it's nothing new.

You really are the biggest dumbfuck on the Codex.

So, list the ones that don't.

List would be way to long.
First one that springs to mind though: AI WAR (As always)

And freeware is also indie btw.. its developed under the same circumstances and me and you both know there is shitloads of good freeware titles.
But if you want to argue that indie games have to appeal to an audience and are therefore separate from freeware I still believe there are shitloads of good titles. Skyway is just a dumbfuck as everybody knows.

I don't know. Somehow, the people who make good freeware/shareware games usually don't call themselves "indie". They just make good games. They don't need a label for it. I'd say that indie is a derogatory short from "independent" that is a good label for sub-standard games and a good way to recognize such games.

 

[Fowyr]

Heh, very true. Frankly, first time I heard term "indie" was on the Codex.

 

[convivialist]

First of all, this was posted in General Gaming, so I assumed it was about indie games in general, not just indie rpgs.

But then when a bunch of gamers try to make games like the ones they love from the '80s and '90s, the Codex shits all over that too?

I've never seen this happen.

The games that they love. Not the games that the Codex loves. Sure, if we talk strictly about rpgs, I can't vouch for any indies because I haven't played any. For that matter, I haven't played many crpgs in general. I came to the Codex because I share the consensus here about the decline in gaming; as for the majority opinion here that crpgs (more specifically, a small handful of the oldest ones) are the only good games in the world, I'm skeptical on that point.

The indie game scene seems to have an abundance of people trying to recapture what games felt like in the '80s and '90s. But, I guess if you care about literally nothing but crpgs, this abundance won't show up on your radar.

 

[MetalCraze]

Indie devs don't know jack shit about games from '80s and especially '90s (where most genres reached the peak of their complexity)

If they did their "80s" games wouldn't have infinite lives and respawns from 5m away before each fucking hole in the ground and retarded tutorial messages every 50 fucking meters. If you think they try to capture some feel you have never played those games.

But making a shitty casual platformer surely is a quick way to make some money.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

No one even mentioned Knights of the Chalice, Underworld, Natuk...

The Codex is really failing of late.

 

[Fowyr]

I wanted to mention Natuk, but it is game from the 90s and can be easily dismissed by local fags.
Also 90s have too many good shareware cRPGs.
Should mention KotC, of course.

 

[visions]

No one even mentioned Knights of the Chalice, Underworld, Natuk...

The Codex is really failing of late.

Underworld, what's that? Not the best name to google.

edit: nevermind, found the demo installed on my harddrive, not really my thing.

 

[PorkaMorka]

I un-ironically enjoyed the visual presentation of Knights of the Chalice.

They didn't try for good graphics but fail like so many 3d games do. They also didn't have horrible webcomic graphics like most other indie games. They just went for a professional, consistent, but low specification look, reminiscent of older professional games. Call it "16 bit professional" if you will.

Compare Warriors of the Eternal Sun to KoTC. (pardon the filter, I was in a hurry to find a shot)

The sprites are extremely similar (as in virtually identical) and while some may prefer the Warriors of the Eternal Sun portraits, KoTC guy did hire a professional artist for his portraits and they're very consistent, if a little weird.

I really have trouble understanding why "16 bit professional" isn't a standard that we're demanding from serious indie games. To me, consistent, professional, not resembling a web comic, these are important. But slightly sub Genesis level graphics are still perfectly enjoyable.

Unfortunately, my argument is weakened by the fact even many of the monocled codex elite were irritated by KoTC's overall presentation (or at least pretended to be irritated by the viewing angle/font in order to avoid admitting they didn't like the simple graphics).

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

No one even mentioned Knights of the Chalice, Underworld, Natuk...

The Codex is really failing of late.

What do these games have to this topic?

 

[ortucis]

Older games were pretty much AAA games of their times. You really can't compare them to current Indie scene even though old games were developed by small teams.

 

[visions]

I un-ironically enjoyed the visual presentation of Knights of the Chalice.

Same here.

 

[mondblut]

The kind of people who refer to themselves as "indie* developers" couldn't make a good game if the continued attachment of their tiny balls to their bodies depended on that. So they take a postmodernist pose and pretend their games are actually intended to be shitstains and that's where their value comes from. Yeah, right.

* - I too insist on making a distinction between the hipster "indie" scene of today with its XBLA/appstore/whatever "15 minutes of fame" shallow agenda and the small teams of yesteryear who aimed to make low-cost but still professional niche games using shareware, self-publishing and similar models. Including some which are still active or are new but continue the old practices and ethics.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Older games were pretty much AAA games of their times. You really can't compare them to current Indie scene even though old games were developed by small teams.

That's why applying the "indie" term to developers who actually make good games in themselves doesn't make sense. Otherwise we could list Ultima V as well.

 

[MetalCraze]

Except that small teams of yesteryear could make a game like Wizardry but shitty hipsters can only make a dull platformer with infinite lives and get warm love because by making a game even shittier than mainstream's popcorn they are sticking it to the mainstream.

One guy could create a whole complex ruleset for RPG, but 2 or 3 guys today can't even make a fun gameplay for a primitive platformer. Fuck indies. They should stop shitting on PC gaming with their crap.

 

[canakin]

Indie games suck it's nothing new.

Many retards here just support them because in their minds liking indie games means opposing mainstream despite them playing every single AAA game that's coming out.

But it's impossible to find as much shit in mainstream as in indie gaming.


In other words - fuck indies, fuck AAAs, support good developers.

This is the truth

 

[Wunderpurps]

No one even mentioned Knights of the Chalice, Underworld, Natuk...

The Codex is really failing of late.

Those are the definition of looking and sounding like shit. Kotc is worth suffering through the terrible graphics but underworld? Get a grip, son.

 

[Mortmal]

Indies are indeed a sea of medicority but saying all indies are is retarded , skyway used to have good arguments before on alpha protocol , but now hes really loosing it.
List of good to great one, and some i dare to say unmissable beating the crap out of AAA titles :
King of dragon pas, KOTC , mount and blade, avernum, geneforge, dominion 2-3,dwarf fortress, minecraft, stonesoup.
I also could dig up older shareware rpgs , like moraffware games, excelsior, or..arh, i am loosing my memory.. it was a top down game very similar to the ultima(think U6), and the follow up was no longer top down but more like a might and magic game...I think it has yendor in the title, tales of yendor, but not sure.

 

[Mortmal]

edit yes i found it:
http://www.accursedfarms.com/forums/vie ... hp?p=95286

http://www.gameport.com/pcgames/adventure/000090.html

http://metzomagic.com/showArticle.php?index=144

 

[hoopy]

Are you both using the same definition of "indie"?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Indies are indeed a sea of medicority but saying all indies are is retarded , skyway used to have good arguments before on alpha protocol , but now hes really loosing it.
List of good to great one, and some i dare to say unmissable beating the crap out of AAA titles :
King of dragon pas, KOTC , mount and blade, avernum, geneforge, dominion 2-3,dwarf fortress, minecraft, stonesoup.
I also could dig up older shareware rpgs , like moraffware games, excelsior, or..arh, i am loosing my memory.. it was a top down game very similar to the ultima(think U6), and the follow up was no longer top down but more like a might and magic game...I think it has yendor in the title, tales of yendor, but not sure.

Don't forget the Ultima 1-6.

 

[Mortmal]

well ultima was a one man job at the beggining but things like U5 and especially U6 had a big team. You could also consider many games of the 80's as indies since it was only one programmer.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

U5 and U6 was still made and published by the same company. It's obvious that it's indie.

 

[Redlands]

Also in this topic, we learn that Codexers apparently can't agree on what "indie" means. Just like with "RPG". Bloody hell, never get into a discussion on "indie RPGs" then.