Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?) • Hacker News Board

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#21

Post by scoutt » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 7:57 AM UTC

My father (1951) went through Tandy's Dancing Demon through text adventure games, Lode Runner, Prince of Persia, Doom and modern video games.

He went from black and white mummies movies through Rambo to Matrix.

I (1980) was raised with Lucas Arts games, and you know the rest.

The gap between my father and me is huge. He saw the entire entertaiment industry transforming, from technology and from content points of view.

I've seeing the same things since year ~2000. I am tired of nostalgia, seeing the same things over and over again... The same formula up to the point I can predict how most movies will end.

While I enjoy Ron Gilbert doing Monkey Island again, and retro games, I still expect something more. And it's not coming.

I surely can see there are more modern topics like inclusion and the kind in most American movies and games, but I don't think it's enough for a change in the industry like the ones my father saw.

And Modern tech like deepfakes will only enforce nostalgia... Entertaiment industry is stealing my middle-age.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#22

Post by arc-in-space » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 8:05 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #8

Sorry, I lost patience with the article and its premise about halfway through. Sure many AAA titles are cookie cutter and remakes now. I'd still claim that there hardly ever was a better time for video games. If you only focus on AAA that's your mistake. That said, Nintendo continues to produce innovative games. Breath of the Wild of course sticks out here. We continue to see other phenomenal games like Outer Wilds o…

Absolutely, it's missing the forest for the trees. Interesting indies and mid-sized AA games like what Capcom makes are doing better than ever; every niche genre of games(aside from maybe RTS?) has been having a resurgence in the past ~6 years.

The current range of variety in game design is genuinely mind-boggling. I used to be able to keep up with most things going on in games, now it's essentially impossible.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#23

Post by rtontic » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 8:21 AM UTC

Schroedingersat wrote: post #6

Sorry, can we back up a bit here? I'm stuck on the bit where there is a world where that linkedin post isn't a parody of the absolute worst trends in game designs in the last decade made 100x worse and we're apparently in it? How in the hell do you say that in earnest?

Yeah, I was agreeing with the linkedin post thinking "Oh yeah, this future sounds awful", and then realized that the author is actually presenting it as a good thing.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#24

Post by oblak » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 8:36 AM UTC

Chasing mass appeal AAA is a lost cause. For every Doom or StarCraft, there's 9 WoW expansions, 10 Battlefields, 11 FIFAs, and 12 Call of Duties.

After staying mad at the triple A industry more than a decade, I am finally content. The Boomer shooters scene is thriving. There are countless actually good platformers and puzzles. It's crazy, really.

"2 One thing I really don’t like about the general direction of “indie” games is that they seem more concerned with aesthetics. It’s often aesthetic progressivism mixed with design orthodoxy. A beautiful hand-drawn art style for a puzzle platformer less complicated than Mario."

Aha. If you say so, buddy. Something tells me even the smallest real world hypermarket or big supermarket has more junk for sale than what's on steam/itch.io + consoles combined.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#25

Post by izacus » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 9:15 AM UTC

arc-in-space wrote: post #22

ajmurmann wrote: post #8

Sorry, I lost patience with the article and its premise about halfway through. Sure many AAA titles are cookie cutter and remakes now. I'd still claim that there hardly ever was a better time for video games. If you only focus on AAA that's your mistake. That said, Nintendo continues to produce innovative games. Breath of the Wild of course sticks out here. We continue to see other phenomenal games like Outer Wilds o…

Absolutely, it's missing the forest for the trees. Interesting indies and mid-sized AA games like what Capcom makes are doing better than ever; every niche genre of games(aside from maybe RTS?) has been having a resurgence in the past ~6 years. The current range of variety in game design is genuinely mind-boggling. I used to be able to keep up with most things going on in games, now it's essentially impossible.

Even RTS got their Age of Empires remakes, Iron Harvest and is gearing up for a new Company of Heroes.

And I've probably missed some too - e.g. Total Warhammer / TW: Three Kingdoms might even fit into the RTS bucket.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#26

Post by izacus » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 9:17 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #8

Sorry, I lost patience with the article and its premise about halfway through. Sure many AAA titles are cookie cutter and remakes now. I'd still claim that there hardly ever was a better time for video games. If you only focus on AAA that's your mistake. That said, Nintendo continues to produce innovative games. Breath of the Wild of course sticks out here. We continue to see other phenomenal games like Outer Wilds o…

This - heck, even Last of Us II has done some very innovative storytelling beats (and pissed off a lot of fandom in the process because it wasn't a cookie cutter Hollywood story). Not just AA, AAA games have never really been more diverse.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#27

Post by sparsely » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 9:48 AM UTC

izacus wrote: post #25

arc-in-space wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, it's missing the forest for the trees. Interesting indies and mid-sized AA games like what Capcom makes are doing better than ever; every niche genre of games(aside from maybe RTS?) has been having a resurgence in the past ~6 years. The current range of variety in game design is genuinely mind-boggling. I used to be able to keep up with most things going on in games, now it's essentially impossible.

Even RTS got their Age of Empires remakes, Iron Harvest and is gearing up for a new Company of Heroes. And I've probably missed some too - e.g. Total Warhammer / TW: Three Kingdoms might even fit into the RTS bucket.

None of those are really adding anything new though - they'd definitely fall into the nostalgia/copy bucket.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#28

Post by dgb23 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 9:49 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #8

Sorry, I lost patience with the article and its premise about halfway through. Sure many AAA titles are cookie cutter and remakes now. I'd still claim that there hardly ever was a better time for video games. If you only focus on AAA that's your mistake. That said, Nintendo continues to produce innovative games. Breath of the Wild of course sticks out here. We continue to see other phenomenal games like Outer Wilds o…

Niche and indie video gaming is exciting these days.

Just an example are strategy/survival/simulation mashups, like They are Billions, Factorio, Oxygen Not Included, Frostpunk.

There are quite a bunch of innovative hardcore puzzle games out there. Fresh approaches to single player RPGs. Beautiful and varied click and point adventures. The list goes on.

Whenever people complain about the dullness and cash grabbing of video gaming I feel like they miss a huge entire category of games that are made by people who care deeply about them.

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#29

Post by izacus » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 10:15 AM UTC

sparsely wrote: post #27

izacus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even RTS got their Age of Empires remakes, Iron Harvest and is gearing up for a new Company of Heroes. And I've probably missed some too - e.g. Total Warhammer / TW: Three Kingdoms might even fit into the RTS bucket.

None of those are really adding anything new though - they'd definitely fall into the nostalgia/copy bucket.

If you're this reductive, then nothing in the world adds anything new and it's all nostalgia. With that attitude you'll never enjoy anything new - maybe, like OP, you're just old?

Re: Game Design Mimetics (Or, What Happened to Game Design?)

#30

Post by Aerroon » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 10:15 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #8

Sorry, I lost patience with the article and its premise about halfway through. Sure many AAA titles are cookie cutter and remakes now. I'd still claim that there hardly ever was a better time for video games. If you only focus on AAA that's your mistake. That said, Nintendo continues to produce innovative games. Breath of the Wild of course sticks out here. We continue to see other phenomenal games like Outer Wilds o…

>That said, Nintendo continues to produce innovative games. Breath of the Wild of course sticks out here.

Can you explain what's innovative about Breath of the Wild? Open world RPGs aren't exactly a new concept. Their 598th copy of Pokemon isn't that groundbreaking either. Pokemon Go was, but that was more Ingress than Pokemon.