I feel like we're reliving the late 80s and early 90s in gaming. I keep seeing new game ideas and getting a lot of nostalgia, like, "yeah, that's something that might have even been in an arcade, or on a PC back when SVGA was a thing."
I love that "the people" can immediately jump back through several generations of graphics or locked in gameplay tropes and still have fun. Jonnathanson's right, there's not a single audience out there, but it's good to see lots of people, whatever portion of the gaming population they are, getting some enjoyment from a lo fi experience and making a successful dev along the way.
Why is that exciting to me?
Because I lived through shooters killing adventure games.
And while I love a lot of shooters, and there's been an adventure game renaissance, it took a long time, and that was kind of a tragedy.
But this isn't just about adventure games, there just needs to be space for lots of genres to thrive. And tech limitations (currently on phones/tablets, then on everything) sometimes seem to help this along in a weird way, people pursuing lots of different ideas to package the most fun in a really constrained environment, without just jumping into a 3d environment because an engine is available for licensing.
That dude is a bit of an ass, but I'll make two concessions...
Bad adventure games are really bad, true. Pixel hunting and verb guessing and odd sequences...
So really I mourn the death of good writing in games, especially comedy. Adventure games aren't the only source of good writing though, nor were all adventure games well written.
But there is still a dichotomy, because you cant have an adventure game without at least trying to write a story, but an FPS can just be quake.
I love that "the people" can immediately jump back through several generations of graphics or locked in gameplay tropes and still have fun. Jonnathanson's right, there's not a single audience out there, but it's good to see lots of people, whatever portion of the gaming population they are, getting some enjoyment from a lo fi experience and making a successful dev along the way.
Why is that exciting to me?
Because I lived through shooters killing adventure games.
And while I love a lot of shooters, and there's been an adventure game renaissance, it took a long time, and that was kind of a tragedy.
But this isn't just about adventure games, there just needs to be space for lots of genres to thrive. And tech limitations (currently on phones/tablets, then on everything) sometimes seem to help this along in a weird way, people pursuing lots of different ideas to package the most fun in a really constrained environment, without just jumping into a 3d environment because an engine is available for licensing.