Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’m only making business card sized games now

frankforce.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 177 posts

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#131

Post by aedron »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #115
_slyo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather believes that video games are a "scourge" for young men today. I used to think he was old-fashioned for believing this, but I have come around to agreeing with him. I wasted a large chunk of my life on Counterstrike, Arma 3, DayZ Mod, PUBG, and countless console games. _Thousands_ of hours in total. For me, games were more than an escape or simply a way to unwind. For me, they were a well-hidden addict…

> I wasted a large chunk of my life on Counterstrike, Arma 3, DayZ Mod, PUBG, and countless console games. _Thousands_ of hours in total. For me, games were more than an escape or simply a way to unwind. For me, they were a well-hidden addiction. They were an obstacle to reaching my potential. I can't see myself going back to games again and still being as happy as I am now. Substitute "football" or "drinking with fr…

> "football" [...] "drinking with friends" [...] videogames

One of these is not like the others.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#132

Post by watwut »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #115
_slyo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather believes that video games are a "scourge" for young men today. I used to think he was old-fashioned for believing this, but I have come around to agreeing with him. I wasted a large chunk of my life on Counterstrike, Arma 3, DayZ Mod, PUBG, and countless console games. _Thousands_ of hours in total. For me, games were more than an escape or simply a way to unwind. For me, they were a well-hidden addict…

> I wasted a large chunk of my life on Counterstrike, Arma 3, DayZ Mod, PUBG, and countless console games. _Thousands_ of hours in total. For me, games were more than an escape or simply a way to unwind. For me, they were a well-hidden addiction. They were an obstacle to reaching my potential. I can't see myself going back to games again and still being as happy as I am now. Substitute "football" or "drinking with fr…

People did divorced or slacked at work over too much "football and drinking with friends". And too much of both indeed prevented people to reach their potential.

It is not like games would be special in impact when you do it too much. What is special is that most people cant play football that much due to physical limitations.

So when book reading has the same addictive quality that makes one play till night regularly or that makes you yell at kids because they interrupted your play, people complain all the same. It just happen less often with books and movies, because of their shorter length and easier way to space out sessions.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#133

Post by animal531 »

IvyMike wrote: post #37

This is a blatant rip-off of my 17-line c64 basic game, Space Caverns, published in 1986 in Run Magazine. http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=12367&d=24&h=0 :)

You sure you didn't rip off 1982's Horace goes Skiing? :)

I remember the Horace games quite fondly, which usually in themselves were usually just Horace themed remakes of other games.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#134

Post by empath75 »

tomc1985 wrote: post #43
empath75 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he’s making an argument that you can make games with much less code than we do now, not a serious argument that we should only make games that fit on a business card.

Perhaps... but why must arguments always seem to be made on extreme examples?

How else would you know where the limits are?

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#135

Post by billfruit »

_slyo wrote: post #67
skellera wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did this opinion start taking such a hold? Out of all places, I didn’t think HN would be so anti-games but I’ve been seeing more and more people saying this here. Could someone who feels this way expand on why they have such a negative view on games? Just curious if it’s personal, cultural, or something else? Also, is it directed at complex games with storylines, online multiplayer, or mobile games meant to pull…

My grandfather believes that video games are a "scourge" for young men today. I used to think he was old-fashioned for believing this, but I have come around to agreeing with him. I wasted a large chunk of my life on Counterstrike, Arma 3, DayZ Mod, PUBG, and countless console games. _Thousands_ of hours in total. For me, games were more than an escape or simply a way to unwind. For me, they were a well-hidden addict…

What I see not being discussed in such discussions is that Gaming is a high effort activity compared to watching TV. It requires patience, and adaption to delayed gratification, even some discipline to play many games, compared to watching video content.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#137

Post by michaelt »

skellera wrote: post #44
meditate wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally reject "hours of enjoyment" as a metric for value and depth of a purchased game. It's good to hear that you've had positive experiences, but the dark side is that for many it drifts towards being an addictive time-suck that eats money for nothing in return.

When did this opinion start taking such a hold? Out of all places, I didn’t think HN would be so anti-games but I’ve been seeing more and more people saying this here. Could someone who feels this way expand on why they have such a negative view on games? Just curious if it’s personal, cultural, or something else? Also, is it directed at complex games with storylines, online multiplayer, or mobile games meant to pull…

The opinion that "hours of enjoyment" is a poor metric isn't an anti-game opinion; it's just a response to grind-heavy games.

After all, I could double the length of Game X by adding twice as many handmade maps, well written and acted cut scenes, and carefully designed encounters - or I could double the length by adding extra grind.

The former would be something to be celebrated; the latter wouldn't.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#138

Post by billfruit »

jrockway wrote: post #3

> We all know that modern games have become bloated, weighed down by useless features, achievements, anti piracy measures, piles of assets, and other junk. Not only that but developers are constantly taken advantage of, made to crunch for no pay, mass layoffs, etc. Lives have been ruined, and for what? So you could watch your horse poop or play dominoes in an open world game? I am not sure that it's fair to compare a…

And I should say that some games have fine tuned the experience of playing itself to absolutely frictionless level. For eg: Clash Royale, no ads, instantaneous match making(Considering how many games have agonizing lobby waits), 1v1 gameplay, so you need not have any friends available to team up, short games 3mins, varied gameplay(there are a number of cards, news ones introduced quite frequently).

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#139

Post by baud147258 »

baud147258 wrote: post #109
dymk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Videogames have always had "money mixed in", profitable videogame studios are as old as videogames themselves, and your glasses are just rose tinted. I'm not even sure what kind of "old" game you're picturing that you think didn't have "money mixed in" - tetris? pong? goldeneye?

Except than game based on a one-time purchase, without any kind of expectation of recurring revenue from IAP/lootboxes, wouldn't get much benefit from too many dark pattern equivalents/skinner boxes, but rather from being a fun game.

Also I would say it might a difference in priority: one game could be designed to be as fun as possible, which might cause it to be addictive to some player; whereas a F2P game would optimise in addictivness first and foremost, since its business model rely on it.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#140

Post by ytjohn »

muzani wrote: post #83
jrockway wrote: post #3

> We all know that modern games have become bloated, weighed down by useless features, achievements, anti piracy measures, piles of assets, and other junk. Not only that but developers are constantly taken advantage of, made to crunch for no pay, mass layoffs, etc. Lives have been ruined, and for what? So you could watch your horse poop or play dominoes in an open world game? I am not sure that it's fair to compare a…

To each their own. I don't like Overwatch or games like Fallout simply because of the 1500 hours. I like to complete a game within a month or so. Much longer and it feels like work (work is fun too and if I'm going to get good at something, it should at least pay the bills). My sweet spot would actually be games like Rimworld or Kittens. Something that you can find closure in about 20 hours of gameplay. I feel like g…

You might like Waking Mars. It would be a shorter game, probably finish in a week of evenings, and I could see doing it in an otherwise non-productive weekend. The gameplay really sucks you in. Here's the review that got me into it.

https://jayisgames.com/review/waking-mars.php

Post reply on HN