Why are so many indie games retro-styled?

[Graf Zahl]

12 minutes ago, hybridial said:

@Graf Zahl

 

I still say tech and visual art choices should be seperated, I think you do actively see them as one thing and I just do not. 

 

 

I see the game as a whole. But it can be taken as a given that a game that gets too involved into artistic technicalities will inevitably suffer on the gameplay side - because in those case it is nearly always the technicalities that drive development which tends to miss why people still like these old games and fondly remember them.

 

The most egregious examples would be simulating the abovementioned lack of perspective correction from PS1 or the artifacts of the poor model formats used by Q1 and Q2. These are not cool, they seriously degrade the final product. So in any case, you have to tread a fine line between your artistic goals and not releasing a game that may be received as technically crippled. And it's a lot easier to fail and land on the wrong side of that line.

 

[leodoom85]

Heh.

 

Retro games can be imitated but never be an equal to the original products. Nuff said.

[AlektorophobiA]

There's a line between tastefully done retro graphics like Shovel Knight or Ion Fury, which try to make the best out of their self-imposed limitations, and stuff with no effort, like most indies with a retro aesthetic, most just go to the conclusion that low res/poly = retro without understanding how to properly do art under those limitations, thus making games that just look incorrect, like all the indies that use texture warping to simulate PS1 graphics, yet they tend to have even more warping than those games, while some PS1 devs of the era tried to reduce texture warping as much as possible by adding more triangles to a wall as you got closer to it.

 

Games like Dusk or STRAFE just look ugly to me, not retro, HROT and Ion Fury look properly retro.

 

5 hours ago, Teo Slayer said:

Because the shittier the graphics are, the smaller is the chance to make your PC blew up

That would be the case if indie devs didn't used modern engines with a ton of overhead.

[Bauul]

4 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Products in the 1) category have a chance of a good end result, while products in the 2) category will mostly fail because once developers start to indulge in technicalities and prioritize those over the actual game the final product will inevitably suffer.

 

I don't quite share your zealous certainty on the topic, but I do tend to agree with you. I'm struggling to think of any really successful games that specifically targeted a historical hardware-linked style of graphics.

 

A general example that I never understood is "CRT Filters". Not only do they never look anything like playing on an actual CRT, they almost always make the image look worse, which is totally backwards: aside from the typical low-res, and slight fish-bowl if you sit too close, CRTs look great, especially with light and color reproduction. I don't understand why anyone would deliberately apply a historically incorrect filter just to make their games look worse.

 

11 hours ago, Artman2004 said:

Is it more efficient to make games like that, or is it because it simply looks cool?

 

To further add to the OP question, yes efficiency is a big factor for small teams (I've heard that simply creating modern graphical assets is 75%+ of a contemporary AAA budget) 

 

However, there are plenty of games that target a general aesthetic that could be described as "retro" and it's the very best artistic choice for the game. A recent one that springs to mind was Blasphemous: my hunch is any other art style than grungy-pixelated would detract from the overall aesthetic of the game. 

 

So it can also be a artistic choice as well as a workflow related one.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Bauul

[hybridial]

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

I see the game as a whole. But it can be taken as a given that a game that gets too involved into artistic technicalities will inevitably suffer on the gameplay side - because in those case it is nearly always the technicalities that drive development which tends to miss why people still like these old games and fondly remember them.

 

The most egregious examples would be simulating the abovementioned lack of perspective correction from PS1 or the artifacts of the poor model formats used by Q1 and Q2. These are not cool, they seriously degrade the final product. So in any case, you have to tread a fine line between your artistic goals and not releasing a game that may be received as technically crippled. And it's a lot easier to fail and land on the wrong side of that line.

 

Okay, I think I get what you're driving at and would agree, one should consider the functionality of the game first and foremost, and as someone who does see a lot of modern games as making that secondary to their purpose because the place fidelity above that, I certainly can't say you're wrong here. It's a balance to strike, and I can say I don't go for every weird choice, Cultic looks like it plays okay but the aesthetic doesn't make much sense to me. But maybe it does to others. I would just say there's a market to experiment with both older and newer methods of assets because they are ultimately tools, and it's up to the creator to figure out the best path, remembering that the most important thing in any interactive experience or product if you will is ultimately functionality. 

 

I don't think we're at odds really, I enjoy more old school aesthetics but I'm not really asking for games to outright replicate visual limitations, I prefer instead to see the aesthetic super polished up and to take advantage of high performance. I know I've used BallisticNG as an example a few times but for me it is one of the strongest examples I can think of. I mean they added options to customise the look to replicate certain visual limitations but they didn't design around that. Having options is neat, but for me the strongest element is how the performance is flawless, there's not even any discernable popup whatsoever despite the speed of oncoming geometry. It opted to pick a level of complexity and make a flawless and immersive take on it because as I have said, consistency is the most important factor for that. 

Edited September 10, 2021 by hybridial

[hybridial]

36 minutes ago, AlektorophobiA said:

Games like Dusk or STRAFE just look ugly to me, not retro, HROT and Ion Fury look properly retro.

 

I think Dusk looks better than HROT though I wouldn't go as far to call HROT ugly. 

[staticsquidd]

I believe the retro-style phenomenon is a mixture of an appreciation for the past, as well as the fact that retro-style games are generally easier and cheaper to develop. Games like Cave Story, Minecraft, etc. really paved way for the retro style indie genre. Though I do appreciate non-retro style indie games a little more, that doesn't mean all retro style games are uninspired, and vice versa. 

I think though that some games have no more merit than "haha retro style", I think the best retro style games are the ones where it really feels like you're playing an older title, where the developers take into account the technical limitations from that time period. 

Edited September 10, 2021 by staticsquidd

[staticsquidd]

56 minutes ago, Bauul said:

A general example that I never understood is "CRT Filters". Not only do they never look anything like playing on an actual CRT, they almost always make the image look worse, which is totally backwards: aside from the typical low-res, and slight fish-bowl if you sit too close, CRTs look great, especially with light and color reproduction. I don't understand why anyone would deliberately apply a historically incorrect filter just to make their games look worse.

CRT filters should be optional everywhere. I'd love to play the Quake 64 addon in the Nightdive Quake, but it has a stupid CRT filter that you can't turn off, which turns me off. And just what you said, CRTs look fantastic, but people get them wrong all the time and instead of making it look like an actual CRT, it's usually just a lower-res image with curved edges and tiny black lines covering the screen. 

[ketmar]

3 hours ago, hybridial said:

I would suggest Hedon. I am about halfway through the first episode. Zan has put his heart and soul into the game

yayyes! ;-) Hedon is great!

 

3 hours ago, hybridial said:

Zan (as in the game's protagonist) is one of my favourite videogame character designs

yayyesX2! ;-) that's why i ripped her to be able to play Doom and Heretic as Zan. and Zan (the author, not the heroine ;-) gave me the permission to release the thing the second i asked, which makes Hedon even better game. ;-)

 

(p.s.: i'm slowly working on porting Hedon to k8vavoom. you won't beleve how much proper lighting with shadows adds to its atmosphere!)

[ReaperAA]

2 hours ago, AlektorophobiA said:

There's a line between tastefully done retro graphics like Shovel Knight or Ion Fury, which try to make the best out of their self-imposed limitations, and stuff with no effort, like most indies with a retro aesthetic, most just go to the conclusion that low res/poly = retro without understanding how to properly do art under those limitations, thus making games that just look incorrect, like all the indies that use texture warping to simulate PS1 graphics, yet they tend to have even more warping than those games, while some PS1 devs of the era tried to reduce texture warping as much as possible by adding more triangles to a wall as you got closer to it.

 

Games like Dusk or STRAFE just look ugly to me, not retro, HROT and Ion Fury look properly retro.

 

That would be the case if indie devs didn't used modern engines with a ton of overhead.

 

Totally agreed. In my opinion, Ion Fury, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin and HROT do "retro" graphics right. The actually look like 90s fps games (low res, pixelated, but charming).

[MclarenUV]

Personally i just think its passion.

i think the devs that create games in a retro style wanted to create a game that reminds them of their childhood and wanted to remind other people of their childhood.

[Bridgeburner56]

I think there are a variety of reasons for the current flood of 'retro styled' games on the market. Bear with my rambling :D

• A lot of these devs grew up in the 80s/90s playing games like Doom, Quake, Mario etc and have a fondness for games of that style. That means that they are going to lean into oldschool art styles and emulate them in their own works.
• A lot of these retro games started out as mods for existing old games so they retain that DNA, even with complete new asset sets. A lot of these games have actually been in development for years, sometimes over a decade.
• The choice of engine does impact the art style. Some are much better suited to sprite based actors and crunchy pixelated visuals
• It is a very popular style at the moment so there's a degree of 'trying to cash in' on a market trend. That being said the overall quality is very high from what I've seen. I'm sure there's a bunch of low effort productions trying to make a quick buck but they sink fast.
• As Bauul said, creating high fidelity assets is insanely time consuming and almost impossible for a solo/small dev team. By going with sprite based/low poly assets you don't have to do anywhere near the level of animation/detail that you would trying to replicate something like Cyberpunk 2077. There is definitely a degree of ease of access with retro style aesthetics.
• You can create a proof of concept very quickly using existing old game assets so you can get to testing out an idea before you've had to sink time/money into asset creation.

But I think the main reason is that a lot of these devs are the passion mappers/modders that have been making content for their favourite game for years. We've hit a confluence of events that means that these people are thinking "huh, maybe I should make a game instead of another mod". It's never been easier to just sit down and try your hand at making your own game, the tools are (mostly) free and easy to get hold of, there's a very strong and helpful dev community thriving in various places, social media means you can promote your work pretty easily and for free, and hosting services are plentiful (Steam, GOG, itch etc).
It reminds me of the garage band wave back in the 90s. Just about everyone knew someone who was starting a band with their mates and jamming in their parent's basement or garage. This has similar creative vibes. This time though devs aren't reliant on signing punishing contracts with big corporate labels like bands were in the 90s.

/ramble

 

[Nikku4211]

Y'know what should happen more?

 

People actually making games for real old retro systems.

 

There's not enough SNES homebrew games. The SNESDev Game Jam did just end yesterday, so I have yet to check out what the people had to offer after 3 months of development.

[ketmar]

there is no Unity with asset store for <S>NES, so no luck. and you can't sell it in Steam, so no luck x2.

Edited September 11, 2021 by ketmar

[Wavy]

39 minutes ago, ketmar said:

and you can't sell it in Steam, so no luck x2.

I mean Micro Mages is on Steam yet it's still an NES game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1065020/Micro_Mages/

[QuaketallicA]

Probably depends on the particular dev, but I'd imagine most of them would've grown up in the 90s and that era is imprinted in their minds as the definitive look of games. (I have a similar feeling towards games of the 00's) Now they finally have a chance to make something like the ones they would've wanted to have as kids.

 

But the argument for pragmatism works just as well. I'm no dev so I can't speak, but I'm sure there's plenty of resources available today in modern engines like Unity/Unreal. Take Verdun for example (does that count as indie? AA or A perhaps?). Very modern looking, but definitely lower budget and obviously won't have bells and whistles of a big budget AAA production that can afford hundreds of the best artists or whatever. I think the pixelated NES/SNES/Genesis and blocky N64/PS1 looks are definitely aesthetic choices. I recently tried this indie title called Minit (free from Epic store for a while) and it's a fun little thing heavily inspired by the original Legend of Zelda, both in graphics and gameplay. The two just go hand-in-hand. That kind of smaller scope game is both the sort of thing a lone dev or small team could realistically make and something that wouldn't make sense with modern graphics.

 

It is kind of ironic though that new (indie) games have graphics from the 80s/90s, and old games from then are getting brand-new graphics of today thanks to endless pointless remasters/re-releases/etc. Both symptoms of a culture grotesquely overdosed on nostalgia.

[QuaketallicA]

14 hours ago, Nikku4211 said:

Y'know what should happen more?

 

People actually making games for real old retro systems.

 

There's not enough SNES homebrew games. The SNESDev Game Jam did just end yesterday, so I have yet to check out what the people had to offer after 3 months of development.

 

Funny you should say that, because I remember reading an article just a few months ago where this guy was trying to make a DOS game that would actually fit on floppy drives and run on PCs of the 90s, not just emulators like DOSBox. He's going to sell both physical "retail" versions where the game is on floppy discs as well as digital copies. Just as vinyl records still attract a certain audience, some buyers are purely interested in the physical nature of it, not just the game itself.

[DannyMan]

Maybe people want to create games based on nostalgia.

[Kokoro Hane]

On 9/10/2021 at 1:11 AM, Teo Slayer said:

Because the shittier the graphics are, the smaller is the chance to make your PC blew up

 

I have to disagree there. Although you'd think retro-style graphics would run awesome on a potato, it is the engine they run on that affects performances. Not only do they take more memory than a game that looks like that should, but they just run poorly on older or low spec machines. I avidly avoid all sorts of Unity games on my laptop because even if it looks like a PS1 port, it runs terrible unless I run it on a higher spec machine. I've seen some games that are shorter, low res, and yet takes more hard drive space and more power to run than the original Unreal game, which looks beautiful and only took close to 600MB. And it runs find on low specs nowadays. So when it comes to not making your "PC blow up", you have to take in consideration your engine of choice too, since a lot of modern engines just aren't always efficient and automatically require higher specs to run. So I personally find engines like Unity and Unreal a poor choice for "retro-style" personally.

 

Aside from why people like to make retro-style, I do not deny they have a sort of charm. I personally like the style myself because I feel like it brings me to another world I feel that more realistic graphics seem to can't, not sure why. Although retro doesn't always mean it looks nice, it honestly depends how it is executed, like any game and style. Like Triple AAA graphics doesn't always means it looks pretty either. But I do think it is often done because there is a charm retro style has that just can't be captured by modern graphics, and the same could be said in a way in the reverse. Modern games have a certain feel that old games couldn't accomplish. So it's also about what the indie devs are trying to go for. Yes, things like budget and manpower do factor in, but there are plenty of devs out there doing it for the purpose of capturing that style. There's a reason a lot of PS1 jams exist lol.

[out_of_service]

It appeals to the people who are stuck in the past. Just like us!

[Noiser]

Lol retro games aren't "failing", that's delusional thinking. Just look how successful Dusk was.

Personally I love the idea of limitations used to create gritty atmosphere (most of the time on a horror context). Things like the PS1 warping, low poly models, color degradation or lower resolutions are an interesting way of evoking tense and surreal landscapes. It's "ugly" in a sense that is supposed to be dirty, but there's nothing wrong with that artistically speaking. Quake for me is a lot scarier with low-poly enemies because they look inhuman and weird - and I'm glad that modern games like Dusk understood the potential on that.

 

On 9/10/2021 at 5:04 AM, Murdoch said:

Yes, i think some developers use retro as an excuse to be ugly. Not the same thing. Ion fury is very retro but still looks great for example. 

That's entirely subjective. What you find ugly may be beautiful for other people. Case in point, Cultic was one of the few games on the Realms Deep that attracted me, but I'm aware you didn't liked. That doesn't mean the developers are trying to be lazy tho, quite the contrary. Sometimes it's necessary a lot of time and effort to create the intended scene for a game (even if it's something you absolute despise).

Edited September 25, 2021 by Noiser

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, Noiser said:

That's entirely subjective. What you find ugly may be beautiful for other people. Case in point, Cultic was one of the few games on the Realms Deep that attracted me but I'm aware you didn't liked. That doesn't mean the developers are trying to be lazy, quite the contrary, sometimes it's necessary a lot of time and effort to create the intended scene for a game (even if it's something you absolute despise).

 

Fair cop. Obviously beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

[lazygecko]

We're probably at a point now where we should just stop using the "retro" nomer to describe the variety of modern games coming out. It's more a sign of the industry as a whole maturing and diversifying. Developers will adopt this style of visuals for any number of reasons and there's just as big of a gulf in production values for that as well with how much effort and detail is put into the presentation.

I mean, you don't really see this type of discourse for other mediums, like bands emulating a 70s sound or movies that are black & white or use practical effects instead of CGI, or filming in 35mm, etc.

Edited September 12, 2021 by lazygecko

[snapshot]

cause making triple a quality games is hideously complex for a solo or a small dev team Lol, easier to just skip all the super time consuming work (eg: PBR workflow, retopology, advanced animations...etc, and money if you hire ui, vfx, sound, modelling artists..etc) for almost every single asset, so they scale back some of their ideas or keep them within the realm of possibility if they want to get anywhere near close to finishing the game, and that's not even going into more specific details like devs vision of the game and engine-choice that can impact what they can and can't do even further.

 

TL;DR - Many indie games are retro-styled because their devs usually don't have the manpower and backing of something like a big aaa studio.

[Graf Zahl]

On 9/12/2021 at 1:41 AM, Noiser said:

Lol retro games aren't "failing", that's delusional thinking. Just look how successful Dusk was.

Personally I love the idea of limitations being used to create gritty atmosphere (most of the time on a horror context). Things like the PS1 warping, low poly models, color degradation or lower resolutions are an interesting way of evoking tense and surreal landscapes. It's "ugly" in a sense that is supposed to be dirty - and there's nothing wrong with that artistically speaking. Quake for me is a lot scarier with low-poly enemies because they look inhuman and weird - and I'm glad that modern games like Dusk understood the potential on that.

 

That's entirely subjective. What you find ugly may be beautiful for other people. Case in point, Cultic was one of the few games on the Realms Deep that attracted me but I'm aware you didn't liked. That doesn't mean the developers are trying to be lazy, quite the contrary, sometimes it's necessary a lot of time and effort to create the intended scene for a game (even if it's something you absolute despise).

 

The main problem is that the general (paying) public will strongly disagree with you - if you develop a game too deeply mired in these things it may create a sort of backlash you may find surprising.

 

Here's a story from a long, time ago, roughly 1998-2000.

Back then the company I worked for was contracted to port a PS1 game to the PC.

There was just one problem with this game: It was written in a way that made it impossible to port to a sane 3D API so the only chance we had was to grab the output of the PS1 transformation code and render it as-is.

For obvious reasons, as the PS1 is blissfully oblivious of the concept of perspective correction (all the hardware itself can do is render a flat 2D triangle without any depth info whatsoever) our port of the game had the same problem.

 

And now take one guess what ultimately sunk this game... It got bashed in reviews (with virtually everybody pointing out the texture warping as its big problem), got poor customer feedback and ultimately disappeared faster from the market than anyone would have expected. And the reason for this was solely that the textures were warping around like crazy. It did not look artistic but simply like crap. All of us developers agreed but we didn't have the budget to rewrite the renderer.

 

You may get a lot of mileage out of old tech, but beware of replicating technical limitations that are totally alien to your customers.

Lack of perspective correction will be worst, because PS1 was the only hardware shitty enough to be outright incapable of doing perspectively correct rendering. I also do not know any people who did not hate this particular quirk of the PS1. (Oh those awful memories of the first Tomb Raider game... :?) You really need a strong retro-mindset to find any appeal here.

 

[Noiser]

3 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

(quote)

Again, I think Dusk success debunks your theory. I mean, I agree it's not a mindset that works on the mainstream\AAA industry. As you said - it's an alien concept to them (which is understandable, that's not what they are looking for). But there's a more diversified public on the indie scene and I think that's the biggest difference from the late 90's and now. You ported a game that doesn't used those limitations with any artistic purpose (and people from that time doesn't had any perspective on that either), so the backlash was more than expected. Now that retro graphics are optional and not a matter of compulsory limits, people can look at them with another eyes and explore all the possibilities that would be unthinkable back then.
 

The thing is, a few years ago a lot of people said that pixel art would not survive on the indie scene. And here we are, it's stronger than ever - with some successful cases even on the big industry (Megaman 9, Sonic Mania). Now we are seeing the first games inspired by the late 90's. I think it's all fine as long as you understand your target audience and have an awareness of the scale of your game. Yes, it will not please everyone and in that sense I agree with you. But that's the case for most indie releases to be honest. Some games also have optional settings to disable or enable effects so that's cool.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Noiser

[hybridial]

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

The main problem is that the general (paying) public will strongly disagree with you - if you develop a game too deeply mired in these things it may create a sort of backlash you may find surprising.

 

I do think the moment you decide you're making a game that isn't AAA most of the "general public" probably won't be interested. 

 

The other big point of indy gaming in the first place is your much, much smaller overhead will make selling to a niche audience viable. Which certainly opens up on making unconventional choices too. 

[lazygecko]

We have an entire generation of people getting into their 20s now who had their formative years in the 2010s when alternative markets exploded. They grew up with games like Minecraft, Terraria etc. without carrying the psychological baggage of the 90s era and these are just viewed as completely normal, popular games to them without needing to label lowpoly or pixel art aesthetics as "retro". Some of them are starting to make games of their own in these styles and don't view them at all as retro throwbacks.

 

This entire mindset was perpetuated by the mainstream gaming press in the 90s and early 2000s when new technological ground was constantly being broken at lightning pace and the press outlets (who were basically just glorified publisher PR outlets as we all know) were completely obsessed with the state of the art and just couldn't help framing any game that wasn't or didn't have any interest in keeping up with the tech arms race as outmoded. This is what shaped the overarching narrative.

But in the long term that was just a pretty specific point in time of gaming history that is long since over at this point, and like I said, we have an entire generation now who have grown up unburdened by this kind of narrow-minded thinking. It's only really people who grew up during the 90s that are having issues shaking this archaic mindset.

[hybridial]

47 minutes ago, lazygecko said:

But in the long term that was just a pretty specific point in time of gaming history that is long since over at this point, and like I said, we have an entire generation now who have grown up unburdened by this kind of narrow-minded thinking. It's only really people who grew up during the 90s that are having issues shaking this archaic mindset.

 

For me I never really had it, honestly. I noticed most genres become less and less diverse and interesting over time. I made a thread here maybe a couple of years ago expressing my frustration with gaming and whilst at the time there was reason for me to be frustrated, the time since then has made quite a difference and I'm very happy with gaming now. 

[Marisa the Magician]

Firstly, I want to mention that I think the graphics of Dusk look terrible and are even more low-detail than Quake 1 of all things, but the game is still good and fun, so I don't mind that.

 

Anyway, I'm personally one to enjoy that sort of style as long as it's done in a believable manner (and you don't make things look bad on purpose). Take for example the modelling and texturing work I've done for my latest mod. All is built under the same constraints Unreal Engine 1.x had (even going as far as to use the same model format), and it manages to not look out of place even though it's all 3D models shoved into a sprite-based game (though, admittedly, the stylized look probably helps too).

 

And here's the thing: I'm not a professional artist, I'm just a programmer. I had zero experience with 3d models and texture painting before I got into this, and learned as I went. There are many things I don't know how to do nor have the time and resources to learn, and I would understand the same applies to many of these developers. You work with what you have and what you know.

 

"Retro style" works because it's simple enough that it doesn't take a monumental amount of effort and experience to build assets in, you could just do programmer art and it'd still be fine. And since we've got decades of history to learn from, their fundaments of gameplay and level design are there to draw from too. Old games serve as a very helpful reference for us aspiring developers. We stand on the shoulders of giants, as they say.