Random Gaming Thoughts

[darsparx]

The Atari 2600 port of Donkey Kong Jr. is annoying.

But it has 3 screens! Also less annoying sound than the version of DK, but just barely.

Pretty sure it had 3 screens in G&W4 on gba too (I lost so much time to that collection of mini-games when I somehow got that game...)

[ExedExes]

Game & Watch Gallery 4 is a must have for all GBA collectors. Even though it says 6 games in 1, there's many more....

[Erik_Twice]

I think most harrasers and trolls in video games are fairly young and their number goes down as they get older.

However, there's a fairly well-populated older cluster that includes the most virulent, nasty and otherwise mean people. You can see this in Gamergate, most people I've seen that support it are in their 20s, but if you see pictures of their meet-ups everyone is over 30 years old if not significantly older.

I don't think it's a game thing, though, more of a generational thing because I've seen it in other areas.

Thoughts?

[darsparx]

Game & Watch Gallery 4 is a must have for all GBA collectors. Even though it says 6 games in 1, there's many more....

I'll definitely agree to that, i'm glad that that's one game I've not lost yet somehow Though now I have a urge to go and play dkjr now on it(or heck even fire that's a good one too in both modes)

[RCBH928]

So I was chilling out on the floor next to my stereo today, listening to the music of Sonic 2, and it suddenly hit me that the Arabian feel of the Oil Ocean Zone track was probably not an accident.

I'd never made this connection before.

retro games were made with love, each level is memorable and have unique character to it.

I am not a programmer, but games back then took just as much to build yet they were smaller in size(Sonic is only 21 levels I think). I saw games on iOS/Steam that were developed by two or 3 people. I think Fez was done by 4 people, Meat Boy by 2, and Minecraft by 4?
How come 3-4 people could build games similar to what a multi-million corporation could build 30 years ago?

[alienjesus]

So I was chilling out on the floor next to my stereo today, listening to the music of Sonic 2, and it suddenly hit me that the Arabian feel of the Oil Ocean Zone track was probably not an accident.

I'd never made this connection before.

retro games were made with love, each level is memorable and have unique character to it.

I am not a programmer, but games back then took just as much to build yet they were smaller in size(Sonic is only 21 levels I think). I saw games on iOS/Steam that were developed by two or 3 people. I think Fez was done by 4 people, Meat Boy by 2, and Minecraft by 4?
How come 3-4 people could build games similar to what a multi-million corporation could build 30 years ago?

First off, development teams back then were just as small as a lot of the Indie game dev teams now.

Secondly, and this is really bloody obvious, the equipment to make the games back in the early 90s was a damn sight more expensive than the programs most Indie devs use to make games now. A half decent computer can make a solid game using pretty much only free software. You can get free 3D modelling software, free image editing software and free game engines (Unity 3D). The development systems Rare had to use to create graphics for Donkey Kong country cost a ton, yet the average Windows laptop has more than enough power to do the same nowadays for a very affordable cost.

There's also far more consistency amongst the hardware and programming languages than there was when you were devloping for systems in the 90s running of of very different processors and theres also a higher base assumption for what a PC can do (in the early 90s, a sound card was not even a given for PC developers).

And there's a ton of options of where to publish too (digital distribution through consoles, Steam, mobile and even self published distribution over your own website. Much cheaper than a physical release requiring a bigger print run and higher starting investment.

Do you just like asking the same dumb questions endlessly? It would only take a few seconds to think why this is the case.

[Xeogred]

So I was chilling out on the floor next to my stereo today, listening to the music of Sonic 2, and it suddenly hit me that the Arabian feel of the Oil Ocean Zone track was probably not an accident.

I'd never made this connection before.

I still can't stand that song or level.

[darsparx]

@alienjesus but the thing is though, it seems like these smaller teams seem to take more risks and be more creative than the big corporations do now(it's funny thinking about it, sure the big ones still make a good game every now and then but it's often the smaller ones that give the games that are even remotely decent today in abundance). i wonder what would happen if some of the big corporations started from scratch or downsized to their most creative people...kinda sad how they don't take risks anymore to do stuff that had made them great publishers in the past...

[MrPopo]

If you have a three man team working on a game for two years (and let's say it's full time) then you needed $240,000 just for salaries if everyone's pulling down 40k (which is low, but people in that situation tend to just take a livable wage, rather than what the job market pays). Now let's look at a 50 man team for a big dev over 2 years. They're pulling down 60k, so now just the salary budget is $6,000,000. That's a lot more money that is essentially down the toilet if the game doesn't sell. And that doesn't go into all the ancillary costs that big studios deal with (marketing teams, HR, legal, other support crew) that the game also needs to pay for, while the small team does any of that work in their off time and doesn't have to pay for it.

[darsparx]

Yeah but that seems to be at the cost of either forgetting their popular series or making them so formulaic it's unforgivable(zelda, mario, dk, and pokemon are the only ones even remotely able to pull off that formulaic thing IMO) or heck rushing games to the point they're broken upon release so how good it could've been is sadly missed which is strange...