Nah. A good game is a game that you've played for most of your life, and you still look forward to playing it. I fucking love Minecraft. I've played it since it came out on the Xbox 360 nearly a decade ago. I just made a gold farm that gets me to 100 exp levels in a few hours that gets more more gold blocks than I'll ever even pretend to have a use for. I'm currently making a rail system to enslave local peasants to harvest my crops. I fucking love this game because I know how I like to play. I need 12 gold for this farm? Time to start a project to gather thousands of gold. Need a few carrots? Better enslave some villagers to make a farm.
I just really enjoy playing this game. It never gets old for me. There are constant updates to make the game better and add new tricks. I've done the same exact builds hundreds of times and I still enjoy making them. It's a weeb basic game, but that's what I like. I build what I want with the people I want without any mission quests. It's fun to me.
Some of the best games have very simple graphics and small worlds. Some games have gorgeous graphics and very short stories. A lot of indie games hit harder/are more fun than big budget games. A lot of the best big budget games have aged horribly, but they're still considered amazing. Some have world's so big you could spend hours just trying to see all of it.
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It's not about what's in the game, it's about how you experience it
Indie games are forced to have cheap art and excellent story telling and mechanics. Indie games are almost always passion projects that are made to be enjoyed while big budget games are made to make more money that their budget. The goals are completely different. It's not exactly a bad thing though. The big guys pave the path for advancement to earn money while the indie guys trail behind with progressively better systems to make enjoyable games.
I mean, sort of. Indie game developers often do go for a more simplistic style due to financial constraints, but it's not always the case.
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Cuphead, for example was an indie game that's been praised repeatedly for it's hand-drawn (or MS paint) graphics, which were the farthest thing from economical you could come across. It's storyline is more or less non-existent (try and save the soul you stupidly gambled away to the devil).
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Subnautica is a much bigger game with gorgeous graphics (though still a fairly simple storyline). UWC is an Indie developer as far as I know that nearly went bankrupt working on the project.
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"Inside" has a very simple style (as did "Limbo"), yet it's also been praised for it's stunning visuals and morbid gameplay. It's storyline is so obscure it's still often debated about wtf was going on to this day.
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Journey was a game that, at the very least, started Indie. I'm not sure what Sony's contribution was to it in the end. But another game with minimal storyline (what story there is is subtle and mostly implied through environmental cues and brief cuts scenes), but it has beautiful graphics as well.
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Still, a lot of the indie companies or developers do have struggles with money and can depend on producing very compelling storyline or characters. Or even just something unique (such as Binding of Isaac).
Those are outliers. Most indie games are 8 bit or 16 bit at best. Minecraft is an example of that. It was an indie game with 8 bit textures. However, it got popular and has likewise expanded. Indie developers can easily make high quality games once their name or brand gains some light. Look at FNAF. It wasn't the worst quality at first, but the sequels got way better after it exploded in popularity. It's just a trend that they have lower quality art. Low quality doesn't mean bad here of course, but it means... something like Minecraft actually. Minecraft is releasing actual textures designed by artists compared to the ones that were made by developers with little to no talent in deisgn. They weren't bad, but they were nothing like a 3D model where there are millions of pixels per square inch.
Or the opposite, if it's for the right reasons. Sans' special attack feels way longer than it actually is, and some moments in NieR: Automata felt way longer than they actually were to me - in a good way, I mean.
Adult life has made me a lot more cynical towards games. Now that I don't have much time to play anymore, I'm starting to get more and more annoyed with dumb shit games do to pad out the play time or just think they're fun or immersive.
I didn't love Red Dead 2. Rockstar seems to not understand that realistic doesn't always equal fun. Why do I have to clean my guns? Why do I have cores instead of just a health and stamina meter? Why do I have to maintain my horse? How come I can't just fast travel from the game map, why do I gotta find a stage coach? If you're only gonna let me fast travel via stagecoach then why are there only like five in the game? How come I have to start a mission at camp and then ride all the way across the map instead of just having the mission start there or load me there? How come I can't eat or change clothes just because my horse is going fast? How come I have to store all my weapons on my horse instead of just having them all the time?
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Edited 5 years ago
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· 5 years ago
All those little things added up and soured the experience for me. I wish I felt different but as soon as I beat the main story I sold the game and bought the Mega Man X collection. Mega Man rarely makes me have to sit through bullshit to get to the fun parts
I just really enjoy playing this game. It never gets old for me. There are constant updates to make the game better and add new tricks. I've done the same exact builds hundreds of times and I still enjoy making them. It's a weeb basic game, but that's what I like. I build what I want with the people I want without any mission quests. It's fun to me.
'
It's not about what's in the game, it's about how you experience it
'
Cuphead, for example was an indie game that's been praised repeatedly for it's hand-drawn (or MS paint) graphics, which were the farthest thing from economical you could come across. It's storyline is more or less non-existent (try and save the soul you stupidly gambled away to the devil).
'
Subnautica is a much bigger game with gorgeous graphics (though still a fairly simple storyline). UWC is an Indie developer as far as I know that nearly went bankrupt working on the project.
'
"Inside" has a very simple style (as did "Limbo"), yet it's also been praised for it's stunning visuals and morbid gameplay. It's storyline is so obscure it's still often debated about wtf was going on to this day.
'
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Still, a lot of the indie companies or developers do have struggles with money and can depend on producing very compelling storyline or characters. Or even just something unique (such as Binding of Isaac).
I didn't love Red Dead 2. Rockstar seems to not understand that realistic doesn't always equal fun. Why do I have to clean my guns? Why do I have cores instead of just a health and stamina meter? Why do I have to maintain my horse? How come I can't just fast travel from the game map, why do I gotta find a stage coach? If you're only gonna let me fast travel via stagecoach then why are there only like five in the game? How come I have to start a mission at camp and then ride all the way across the map instead of just having the mission start there or load me there? How come I can't eat or change clothes just because my horse is going fast? How come I have to store all my weapons on my horse instead of just having them all the time?