Fake software look in recent games

[knifeworld]

12 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

That one's hard to judge because it's just a video. On the one hand the textures have very much detail despite their size, but on the other hand what this video does not show is that fake software look with all the drawbacks that normally entails.

Looking back at it now I think you're right actually, it seems to just have a crispy pixellated look.
 

7 hours ago, markanini said:

In contrast, the fast paced shooters that we love from the 90's were straight up AAA titles with cutting edge graphics made by large studios. Sorry if I'm killing anyone's warm and cozy feelings about this but it's a fact. The recent wave of indie shooters are mostly doing something that is out of touch with the titles that inspired them.

That does makes sense tbh, they were cutting edge for their time.
But plenty of the throwback shooters are still fun in their own way I think, not to imply you said they aren't, of course.
Especially ones that, to my knowledge, were done before the trend became big and started to get old, for example: I found Dusk to be a lot of fun to play.

[indigotyrian]

Palette quantization rules. Dithering rules. Software rendering rules. Fixed-point vertex jitter rules. Affine texture swim rules. Vertex-based model animation warping rules. Bitcrushed audio rules. Faithfully recreating an aesthetic that was once enforced through technological necessity is a completely valid (and extremely good) design decision.

 

12 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

The main problem is not making a game with low resolution assets - the problems start if you go out of your way to emulate the limitations of old hardware. I couldn't name a single title where such an approach didn't feel tacky.

 

Good thing I can! Click "play" on this video then read the below list for the best experience.

 

 

Return of the Obra Dinn

HYPER DEMON

AMID EVIL

Ion Fury

WRATH

DUSK

HROT

Gloomwood

HYPER DEMON

Huntdown

Cultic

Phantom Fury

Postal: Brain Damaged

Mercenary Kings

Brigador

Compound Fracture

Ys Chronicles

Combustion

Hyperviolent

A Short Hike

Graven

Jamestown

HYPER DEMON

Hellscreen

Prodeus

Supplice

Petal Crash

Coven

Verge World

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge

Valheim

Hylics

Yume Nikki

Devil Daggers

HYPER DEMON

Edited October 20, 2022 by segfault

[Mr. Freeze]

Quake:

 

Amid Evil/Hrot/Dusk:

 

Know the difference! 

[Ozcar]

21 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Quake:

 

Amid Evil/Hrot/Dusk:

 

Know the difference! 

Damn quake graphics did age well 

Its good to see john carmack engine was magic.

[Artman2004]

I've never played these games, but I think one problem with such a style would be trying to spot enemies. The pixelation and filtering would cause enemies to blend in with the environment, making them hard to spot and identify before they attack and possibly kill the player.

[heliumlamb]

Cyberdillo:


Cruelty Squad:


there could be difference

[Biodegradable]

6 hours ago, Artman2004 said:

I've never played these games, but I think one problem with such a style would be trying to spot enemies. The pixelation and filtering would cause enemies to blend in with the environment, making them hard to spot and identify before they attack and possibly kill the player.

 

I can't speak for a lot of the games, but that's definitely not the case with Cultic! All the enemies have varied colours and their colours help them stand out even from long distances, so they never blend into the background during heated combat scenarios like some other games sometimes struggle with.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Biodegradable

[Rykzeon]

CULTIC: Blood Clone

Edited October 21, 2022 by Rykz

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 minute ago, Rykz said:

CULTIC: Blood Clone

Nah boss, say it ain't so!

 

If they cloned blood with 50% success, that's way more impressive than cloning a grown man and iimbuing him/it with telekinesis!

[Marisa the Magician]

The real problem is that people are going around slapping these palette reduction filters on their games without any care for the quality loss, or not even giving it any dithering (come on, dithering is important). At least, if you drew stuff using colors that more closely match the palette, they wouldn't look all grungy and riddled with banding.

[Graf Zahl]

14 hours ago, segfault said:

Palette quantization rules. Dithering rules. Software rendering rules. Fixed-point vertex jitter rules. Affine texture swim rules. Vertex-based model animation warping rules. Bitcrushed audio rules. Faithfully recreating an aesthetic that was once enforced through technological necessity is a completely valid (and extremely good) design decision.

 

I tend to disagree with that and the more of this stuff from this list you add the more likely it is that your game will be a niche product.

I'd still say that such attitudes may fly well in closed circles revolving around old games - like Doomworld, but the more you want to reach out, the less likely it is that you will impress anybody with it.

 

The real art is not slavishly recreating the memories from one's youth but to blend them with the expectations of a modern audience.

Games that manage this tend to be great - games that don't mostly feel like failed retreads to me.

 

 

 

14 hours ago, segfault said:

Return of the Obra Dinn

HYPER DEMON

AMID EVIL

Ion Fury

WRATH

DUSK

HROT

Gloomwood

HYPER DEMON

Huntdown

Cultic

Phantom Fury

Postal: Brain Damaged

Mercenary Kings

Brigador

Compound Fracture

Ys Chronicles

Combustion

Hyperviolent

A Short Hike

Graven

Jamestown

HYPER DEMON

Hellscreen

Prodeus

Supplice

Petal Crash

Coven

Verge World

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge

Valheim

Hylics

Yume Nikki

Devil Daggers

HYPER DEMON

 

I've never even heard of most of these. I have no idea if that is a good sign or not.

But the ones I do know do not qualify for what I said anyway.

 

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

I found that this only bothers me if there is pixel size inconsistency. For example, if there's a heavily dithered look to textures with chunky pixels, and the game is rendered at 1080p with anti aliasing, it really offends me. But if I crank the resolution/scaling down a bunch so the dithering pixels are the same size as everything else, it starts to feel natural. Maybe that's just me. I can't even play Quake in resolution higher than 720p without it feeling really weird, even in software renderer. Thankfully, many ports have r_scale option to downscale everything. Also, I love the Cultic color palette.

[indigotyrian]

8 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

I tend to disagree with that and the more of this stuff from this list you add the more likely it is that your game will be a niche product.

I'd still say that such attitudes may fly well in closed circles revolving around old games - like Doomworld, but the more you want to reach out, the less likely it is that you will impress anybody with it.

 

The real art is not slavishly recreating the memories from one's youth but to blend them with the expectations of a modern audience.

Games that manage this tend to be great - games that don't mostly feel like failed retreads to me.

 

Since when is a "niche product" a bad thing? And more to the point -- why does art need to be a "product" in the first place?

 

Frankly, if you want to talk about small-scale gamedev, being a "niche product" is excellent because it means you have a loyal core audience. Trying to appeal to everyone, unless you're AAA, is a recipe for disaster.

 

It's been my experience talking to many gamers over the years that nobody outside of the Call of Duty flavor-of-the-month crew that would never be playing your game to begin with generally cares about high fidelity or impressive graphical achievement, but instead care more about a striking and consistent art direction. And simply put, evoking specific moods and tones by opting for a more low-fidelity experience, even one specifically reminiscent of older games, can be an incredibly effective way to set the stage, call to mind past experiences (not necessarily nostalgia-bait), and above all else establish promises about what the game is.

 

(As an aside I haven't seem anyone making this specific kind of argument about movies. Could you imagine someone telling Steven Spielberg that he shouldn't shoot Schindler's List in black-and-white, lest audiences be put off by tacky nostalgia-bait?)

 

Since you haven't seen many of the games I've mentioned I'll go ahead and illustrate exactly why this is important with a select few:

 

 

Return of the Obra Dinn's monochrome palette with a distinct dither effect is specifically a callback to classic Macintosh games like Dark Castle. We're reminded of a specific point in place and time where games focused more on narrative than action, which fits with the game's design.

 

 

Compound Fracture deliberately evokes the PSX with its fixed-point vertex jitter, and smoky dithering. Further, its muted colors rich in earth tones and industrial setting call to mind games like Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid, which dovetails nicely into the survival horror and political intrigue we get to see.

 

 

Combustion also goes for a PSX look but for entirely different reasons. Chunky textures and incredibly saturated colors, paired with the text box UI call to mind Squaresoft RPGs.

 

 

It would be very easy and reductive to say Supplice is a Doom clone; it is, but I'd rather focus on the artwork here. Incredibly lovingly shaded art with a focus on solid colors and metallics puts Supplice's art direction squarely in Amiga territory. We aren't just being reminded of classic FPS games, but the art direction itself is specifically recalling a particular platform, one which never actually got a very popular FPS.

 

 

Finally here's Brigador, whose isometric perspective and beautifully baroque artwork depicting a cassette future dystopian urban junta is very specifically a throwback to two of its greatest inspirations: Syndicate and Crusader: No Remorse. Brigador, by design, does not resemble a video game released in 2016 but rather a widescreen fix version of a video game released in 1997.

Edited October 21, 2022 by segfault

[Herr Dethnout]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:55 AM, Graf Zahl said:

These things only get done by people who are stuck in the past and see their antiquated view on aesthetics as an absolute.

For me every such game is a no-go by default. I can understand it for old titles, but for god's sake: Please allow the end user to decide what they want.

Should I ever purchase a game with such a look and find out it cannot be undone I'd request an immediate refund.

I can't avoid thinking that this sound like when the PS1 came out and Journos giving bad reviews on games just for being 2D. lol

I can understand the reason of why you can undone things in games like CULTIC or Prodeus, they will simply look bad without it (specifically the animations).

 

On 10/20/2022 at 3:55 AM, Graf Zahl said:

As for sounds, lo-fi can even be more annoying, especially if that means using a crappy old two-channel stereo mixer.

Of course this is more a problem with modern remasters or source ports of old titles, but not having 5.1 sound on such title can be really disappointing. Ion Fury is the most prominent victim I can remember - since it's based on EDuke32 it also uses the same sound engine - original vintage 90's code with virtually no upgrades whatsoever over the last 20+ years.

I disagree, LO-FI RULZ!

[Herr Dethnout]

1 hour ago, segfault said:

Since you haven't seen many of the games I've mentioned I'll go ahead and illustrate exactly why this is important with a select few:

To add up on this list, here some "AAA" retro-look games.
 

The not-but-almost official Castlevania III sequel, hell, they even used sequenced music to recreate the Konami's VRC6 chip sound (The sequel uses Streamed music, sadly).
 

Not a AAA, but still a great retro-like game, to the point that the Main Composer (Jake Kaufman) made the OST on FamiTracker, lol
 

Remember when CAPCOM released the official sequels of classic Mega Man as a WiiWare exclusive (Nowdays is on everythings thanks to the Legacy Collection lol)? Or that the 9 was so accurate that even has the classic "SFX overrides Music Channels" effect?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRqqaZnllAM

An Homage to the retro Dungeon Crawlers like Wizardry or Eye of Beholder, it has a OST made by the One and Only Yuzo GODshiro (the one who made the ost for SEGA versions of popular Dungeon Crawler games, Street of Rage and Shinobi) with a PC-98 FM Style.

[RDETalus]

2 hours ago, segfault said:

Finally here's Brigador

Brigador was very nearly a failure though. It had a launch that attracted zero attention.

The basic point here is that if you want to go "full artist" you need to understand that your game probably won't be a commercial blockbuster, that's all.

[heliumlamb]

22 minutes ago, RDETalus said:

Brigador was very nearly a failure though. It had a launch that attracted zero attention.

The basic point here is that if you want to go "full artist" you need to understand that your game probably won't be a commercial blockbuster, that's all.

that's the thing. nobody's forcing or expecting anyone to like any and every piece of expressive media ever made by humans on any basis. 95% of the people i know in music don't give a hoot about whether or not people like or listen to their work. they just want to make music.

in your example, brigador might have been a failure in the eyes of a market analyst.

in the eyes of someone making games, it's a success, as it is a finished, released game.

the only way brigador, or any thing humans make regardless of medium could have been a failure is if it was worked on and never finished, completely scrapped.

Edited October 22, 2022 by heliumlamb

[StodgyAyatollah]

57 minutes ago, RDETalus said:

Brigador was very nearly a failure though. It had a launch that attracted zero attention.

As is the case for 99% of smaller indie games. In the end it has overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam and sold well enough that they are apparently working on a sequel. The only reason to shoot for making a big commercial blockbuster is if you are a large corpo with the budget for it. Outside of that accepting that a niche market is likely the best you can do as an indie dev may as well be embraced. 

[KillPixel]

It is a relatively niche aesthetic and not easily done well.  It's more than just a filter and bit-crunching, much like black & white cinematography isn't simply the absence of color.  It's a style (and not merely visual), and whether or not it's the appropriate direction of a given project depends on the goals of the developer.  If the primary objective is to have the broadest appeal and sell as many units as possible, then the aesthetic may not be the right pick (I can't imagine Marvel or Transformer movies being as popular if they were black & white or sepia).  That's a valid and practical approach to game dev - it is the norm, after all.  However, targeting a niche audience (yourself included) is also a valid approach.  Again, depends on a variety of factors: goals, resources, desires, etc.

[Herr Dethnout]

On 10/20/2022 at 6:55 PM, Mr. Freeze said:

Quake:

 

Amid Evil/Hrot/Dusk:

 

Know the difference! 

WRATH:

[indigotyrian]

2 hours ago, RDETalus said:

Brigador was very nearly a failure though. It had a launch that attracted zero attention.

The basic point here is that if you want to go "full artist" you need to understand that your game probably won't be a commercial blockbuster, that's all.

 

Brigador's initial market stumble was due to the incoming expectation that the game played like a twinstick shooter, which it very much does not. It had nothing to do with its art direction.

[RDETalus]

53 minutes ago, segfault said:

Brigador's initial market stumble was due to the incoming expectation that the game played like a twinstick shooter

Maybe, but I don't think that was the big reason. The developer was interviewed and he repeatedly stressed that Brigador had a serious issue with visibility. No one knew of the game, perhaps because the media wasn't picking it up, the streamers / youtubers weren't having any effect, the game was released too close to E3, etc...

But even if it were because of the twin-stick shooter expectations, that does sort of go back to Graf's point about appealing to popular expectations. Movement controls are not strictly speaking an art decision, but it is a decision wherein the developers decided they love tank style controls for game narrative reasons even though they might have known everyone else likes twin-stick controls.

 

3 hours ago, heliumlamb said:

in the eyes of someone making games, it's a success, as it is a finished, released game.

Brigador's developers started off saying they wanted to make "their own game their way," but at the same time they did it under strong expectations that they would get paid at the end. It eventually caused the developers a ton of mental stress when the game didn't sell well. I think it's a good lesson in being very clear about what your lofty goals vs. your real world expectations are.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

11 hours ago, segfault said:

why does art need to be a "product" in the first place?

In order for the artist to make money and be able to create more art. That's what a "product" is.

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

20 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

I tend to disagree with that and the more of this stuff from this list you add the more likely it is that your game will be a niche product.

I'd still say that such attitudes may fly well in closed circles revolving around old games - like Doomworld, but the more you want to reach out, the less likely it is that you will impress anybody with it.

 

The real art is not slavishly recreating the memories from one's youth but to blend them with the expectations of a modern audience.

Games that manage this tend to be great - games that don't mostly feel like failed retreads to me.

 

 

 

 

I've never even heard of most of these. I have no idea if that is a good sign or not.

But the ones I do know do not qualify for what I said anyway.

 

Most modern mainstream audiences have garish and ugly tastes and they can go screw themselves and besides, they cant tell a good game if it bit them in the ass.

 

Just because a product isn´t targeted at huge demographic doesn´t mean it wont sell well, hell I´d rather play 50 boomer shooters then touch even single one Ubisoft title.

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

10 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

In order for the artist to make money and be able to create more art. That's what a "product" is.

True but when all you see is a dollar sign when making art then you will end up as big AAA studios so it realy can´t be JUST about product.

 

Realy why are you Doomworlders arguing in favor of mass market appeal? Did you forget what kind of people were working on DOOM?*

 

 

 

*Yes I also know that some of them were savy bussinessmen, but at the end of the day they still made games that spoke to them artisticaly.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 hour ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Most modern mainstream audiences have garish and ugly tastes and they can go screw themselves and besides, they cant tell a good game if it bit them in the ass.

It's probably not a good idea to start out with a post that looks like it came from r/gaming. The games that they are playing must be good to them, since they pay for them. It's almost like different people like different kinds of art, but I know it's painful when you're forced to look at a bunch of uncultured swine spending money on things they enjoy. Rest assured that they will always be artistically ignorant and that their tastes will never change. Nobody here has ever spent money on one of those dreaded "Call of Duty" things the kids play today, they're all over the age of 35 and only play objectively awesome games like DOOM and Duke Nukem.

 

59 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

when all you see is a dollar sign when making art then you will end up as big AAA studios

If only it were that easy.

 

59 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Realy why are you Doomworlders arguing in favor of mass market appeal?

It's not that people like Graf are arguing for mass market appeal, they're just being realistic. At a certain point, most people have to be able to make money. As @RDETalus said, there needs to be a balance.

 

"Art is not a commercial product, so pay the artist. If the artist cares about money then they aren't creating art so they don't deserve your money."

Edited October 22, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

9 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

It's probably not a good idea to start out with a post that looks like it came from r/gaming.

I´ve just been ventilating my frustrations on how bad things have gotten since 7th generation of consoles where things like payed DLC, on disc DLC´s and preorders exclusive editions started to realy become the norm.

Things had only started to get worse from there on but even those started to pale in comparison to the curent lootboxes and microtransaction that turned many game franchises into massive skinnerboxes.

 

Also I don´t like reddit.

 

Quote

Rest assured that they will always be artistically ignorant and that their tastes will never change.

I know you meant this as a ironic jest aimed at me, but I sincerely believe that many gamers are simply consumed by the massive hype machine and I hold them partly responsible at how bad things have gotten (of course it´s more complicated then that with how corporations were manufacturing their shoping behaviours from their early childhood).

And from the looks of things it looks like that yes, for the most part their tastes will probably not change in the near future or more correctly they will change but only for the worse. Tell me how is it possible that frigin Diablo Immortal, one of the most predatory mobile games, can be even make profit with how much predatory bullshit it shoves in the game, it´s not just the devs that are the problem it´s also a lot of gamers.

 

Quote

It's almost like different people like different kinds of art, but I know it's painful when you're forced to look at a bunch of uncultured swine spending money on things they enjoy.

I´m not upset that they like different things from me, that´s not what I object to, let them spent they money however they like. But when they spend them to wilingly support franchises that actively harm the industry with their practices, franchises that have been shit for years just because they refuse to search for bether, more creative alternatives then that´s where I object and that´s what earns my ire.

 

Quote

Nobody here has ever spent money on one of those dreaded "Call of Duty" things the kids play today, they're all over the age of 35 and only play objectively awesome games like DOOM and Duke Nukem.

I don´t dislike popular games like Call of Duty or Halo, hell I actualy admire them for being realy inovative and I especialy see Halo as being one of the last great mainstream succesor to classic arena shooters like Quake and Unreal from what I played on MCC.

I just don´t like many of the harmfull bussiness decisions that many of these franchises introduced (especialy when we are talking about latter Call of Duty games post MW2/Black Ops 1

[Graf Zahl]

1 hour ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Most modern mainstream audiences have garish and ugly tastes and they can go screw themselves and besides, they cant tell a good game if it bit them in the ass.

 

If you start with that attitude, you have already set yourself up for failure because obviously criticism is not part of the equation and neither is the attempt to reach parts of this audience.

 

 

1 hour ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Just because a product isn´t targeted at huge demographic doesn´t mean it wont sell well, hell I´d rather play 50 boomer shooters then touch even single one Ubisoft title.

 

Correct, but even then you have to compromise a bit.

If you want to do commercial stuff the 'my way or the highway' attitude won't get you far. There's such mundane things as customer service and the possibility of refunds etc.

The least you want with a commercial product is getting yourself into the position that your customers return the product. And the best way to achieve that is to allow some options - even some you may not like yourself. "Take it or leave it" makes it far more likely that you end up with a failure.

 

On topic of those newfangled "boomer shooters" I have to say that most I checked out failed for trying too hard to be old-school.

The makers of these games often fail to grasp what makes old games so appealing to some and focus on the totally wrong aspects of these old games, that nowadays often feel grating with the knowledge of hindsight.
 

In terms of Doom this would boil down to the following:

No, it's not the 8 bit palette or the low resolution or the resulting gritty visuals that kept it alive. It's the fast combat that even can withstand several 100's of monsters.
So what would be more interesting now: Creating a game that recreates Doom's visuals but somehow fails to capture the game's spirit or something that captures the gameplay but upgrades the visuals to more modern standards?
I'd thankfully take a pass on the first kind of game - which is where I see many of these boomer shooters. The second kind of game sounds a lot more interesting to me.

[Kinsie]

 

25 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Tell me how is it possible that frigin Diablo Immortal, one of the most predatory mobile games, can be even make profit with how much predatory bullshit it shoves in the game

Diablo Immortal has made less money to date than Diablo 3 made in its first 24 hours.

 

1 hour ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Most modern mainstream audiences have garish and ugly tastes and they can go screw themselves and besides, they cant tell a good game if it bit them in the ass.

 

25 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

I´ve just been ventilating my frustrations on how bad things have gotten since 7th generation of consoles where things like payed DLC, on disc DLC´s and preorders exclusive editions started to realy become the norm.

Things had only started to get worse from there on but even those started to pale in comparison to the curent lootboxes and microtransaction that turned many game franchises into massive skinnerboxes.

 

25 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

I know you meant this as a ironic jest aimed at me, but I sincerely believe that many gamers are simply consumed by the massive hype machine and I hold them partly responsible at how bad things have gotten (of course it´s more complicated then that with how corporations were manufacturing their shoping behaviours from their early childhood).

 

25 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

I don´t dislike popular games like Call of Duty or Halo, hell I actualy admire them for being realy inovative and I especialy see Halo as being one of the last great mainstream succesor to classic arena shooters like Quake and Unreal from what I played on MCC.

I just don´t like many of the harmfull bussiness decisions that many of these franchises introduced (especialy when we are talking about latter Call of Duty games post MW2/Black Ops 1

Videogames are pretty good, actually.

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

6 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Correct, but even then you have to compromise a bit.

If you want to do commercial stuff the 'my way or the highway' attitude won't get you far. There's such mundane things as customer service and the possibility of refunds etc.

The least you want with a commercial product is getting yourself into the position that your customers return the product. And the best way to achieve that is to allow some options - even some you may not like yourself. "Take it or leave it" makes it far more likely that you end up with a failure.

 

On topic of those newfangled "boomer shooters" I have to say that most I checked out failed for trying too hard to be old-school.

The makers of these games often fail to grasp what makes old games so appealing to some and focus on the totally wrong aspects of these old games, that nowadays often feel grating with the knowledge of hindsight.
 

In terms of Doom this would boil down to the following:

No, it's not the 8 bit palette or the low resolution or the resulting gritty visuals that kept it alive. It's the fast combat that even can withstand several 100's of monsters.
So what would be more interesting now: Creating a game that recreates Doom's visuals but somehow fails to capture the game's spirit or something that captures the gameplay but upgrades the visuals to more modern standards?
I'd thankfully take a pass on the first kind of game - which is where I see many of these boomer shooters. The second kind of game sounds a lot more interesting to me.

Yeah maybe you´re right, it´s just that I want studious to take more risks or try something new. It feels that the industry has been stagnating for years.

 

Quote

If you start with that attitude, you have already set yourself up for failure because obviously criticism is not part of the equation and neither is the attempt to reach parts of this audience.

Maybe it´s I worded it too harsh but it´s the truth for most cases and I stand by my words.