7DFPS favourites
Heya! I saw this out of 7DFPS and though it was super interesting, and raised some interesting questions for me:
http://7dfps.com/?action=games&id=162
The interaction is super cool, but is the interaction more of a hinderance than something suited for the task at hand? Should the game be throwing obstacles in your way because of the way it controls/works, or should it be throwing obstacles in your way that aren't the way it controls/works? :)
What else did you see from 7DFPS? :D
http://7dfps.com/?action=games&id=162
The interaction is super cool, but is the interaction more of a hinderance than something suited for the task at hand? Should the game be throwing obstacles in your way because of the way it controls/works, or should it be throwing obstacles in your way that aren't the way it controls/works? :)
What else did you see from 7DFPS? :D
Comments
In general I think it's hard to make general statements about controls as obstacles... in many cases it's a bad idea, moving the focus from the actual gameplay, but I would say in some games this is justified. For example, (in theory, at least), any control scheme can be AI assisted to make it easier. How much fun would platformers be if you could not miss a jump becuase you are still mastering the controls? (That said, personally I dislike platformers that are so very specific about where you should push buttons).
I think the image posting on this forum are borked : http://7dfps.com/shots/520f041e8b388.PNG
The time in the game only moves when you move. I haven't encountered this particular mechanic before, it seems like it's got a lot of potential. For a 7 day jam the game it is executed really well, but I'd think they'd have to improve the execution a lot if they were to take this further (I feel like it's a little bit in that uncanny FPS valley).
Still... it's a really *cool* game!
Oh and I just figured out how the image worked - you have to change the extension to lower case - upper case won't work... Dunno why!
(ok it looks like their server doesn't see lower case and upper case as the same, some linux/windows thing. I could link images from my dropbox)
A Cosmic Forest:
http://7dfps.com/?action=games&id=155
Thanks for pointing that out @Tuism
http://superhotgame.com/
If what I see in that video is the entirety of the gameplay, then I'm not entirely convinced that it would likely support a particularly long game. However, if either the game is kept fairly short, or there are other elements incorporated into the game (such as the various forms of temporal manipulation or the time-power immune enemies in Braid) then this looks as though it could be quite fun.
(I would like to see a little more colour, personally; while the stark colour scheme might well be a good idea for gameplay purposes, I'll admit that I find it a little off-putting, a little empty-feeling.)
I think people will look back on these few years as the time when any indie could slap some cool mechanic up in Unity and people will go crazy over it.
I'm talking specifically about Superhot which had grown from a small test game made in 7 days to a game with it's own .com domain, presskit, greenlight page and ubiquitous donation link, while making the likes of Cliffy B and RPS falling over themselves in rapture.
Now I'm not saying it's bad or wrong or any less than awesome - it just concerns me that I dont get it. Yes the concept is unique, but that in itself doesnt make a great game, and why this concept specifically? There are plenty of equally novel concepts floating around, ranging from amazingly funny to technically impressive.
So enjoy the 'golden age' of indie games while it lasts, before the market becomes too flooded with unity tests and simple one-trick games...
I think that all you're seeing is selection bias. Successful indies are the ones that can build a concept fast and turn any attention that concept gets into more attention and, eventually, funding to produce a complete game. That means that the pattern of "simple" prototype to viral success to donation page/greenlight to completed game is going to be seen over and over again. I don't think it really matters what games are doing it, only that the pattern itself is much more successful than other patterns, provided the prototyping stage is iterated enough times with different prototypes and positioned in various places that make getting attention more likely.
I'm not even sure what "too flooded" means in that context. It implies an equal share of attention based on number of games available and that hasn't been the case since games per platform exited the single digits.
However in trying to answer your question I now realise that it is partially my fault - as I've become more interested in the indie scene, I've started subscribing to sites and feeds I wouldnt have otherwise been reading, and I'm getting lost in the sheer amount of indie games getting developed these days.
That still doesnt answer my original gripe though: Why Superhot went viral when other (more deserving in my mind) games went unnoticed. You're saying that in order to get this sort of attention, you have to:
1. Have an at least mildly interesting game mechanic or twist
2. Produce a prototype quickly
3. Market it well to social media
Because of the increased number of indie games out there (what I might call a 'flooded market'), you cant just produce a fun game any more - it has to be quickly brought to market, and spread across as many social channels right from its inception. Correct?
Have you been looking for games that had a viral element or spark of success and didn't capitalise on that? What do those look like?
And a game most certainly doesn't have to be brought to market quickly - look at DD for crying out loud. What you need is a story players can tell new players to get them interested IN a fun game that you've made. You still need to make a fun game, you just never could rely on your fun game being picked up by anyone. I'm pretty certain that the idea that building a fun game was all you needed to do at some point in the past is just more selection bias and only looking at the successful games from back then: How can you tell a game was good? It was successful... See what I mean?
@raithza: I think that once you have a reputation as an interesting developer, you can make pretty much whatever you want, provided it's still good. It's the making a reputation part that relies heavily on perceptions of people who can't spend a lot of time on your games up front, so you have to get their attention somehow. There are a bunch of ways to do that: Competition wins, sheer quantity, interesting art, amazing music, novel concepts, smart design, slick controls, etc. But you have to get that initial attention first, then build your reputation, then you can work on whatever.
I mean, when you can kickstarter anything you want just because your name is on it, you're pretty much okay ;)
I'm not complaining though, thats just the way it is - something to take into account if you're aiming for a market hit.
Reality is that competition is and always will be a real thing, unless all the people of the world get "perfect information" - which is in other words "omniscience" - there will always be a battle for attention.
Steam was found on the ideal of free distribution, and then they went to a greenlight system. Imagine if there were no greenlight and every game ever was just published. First of all how much money/resource would that be to maintain? How would you know where any of them are? How would you know which ones are fun? Which you would like? By psychic powers?
Edit: Sorry if I sound a bit harsh, it's just the realist me me thinking... Rather than lamenting it, time would be better spent making yourself better-prepared for it :P
I havent been looking at the industry for long enough to tell, but do you not see a lowest-common-denominator type effect happening with viral indie games? Those that appeal to the widest audience are going to be those that are simple and 'conventional' in a sense? (conventions in indie games being things like 8bit graphics, arcade like effects and sounds, plain lightmapped 3d levels like superhot, grip and receiver)
Take the iPhone app market for instance - in the beginning there was a HUGE vacuum and some enterprising people found that their shitty fart app could make it big because there was simply no competition!
It's my opinion that indie games are in a niche position now - indie games have just started to grab the wider world's attention, and there is *still*, for the time being, a window in which you can make it big with minimal effort. I think that window is fast closing! That's exactly what we're doing! Having a good meaty discussion around it definitely can help you be better prepared for it!
Well, they emerged from the competition by good game mechanic + marketing. How's that different from everyone else and the competitive nature of competition I was talking about?
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Also, of course the most popular thing will be the most mass appeal thing. The words kind of define themselves: "mass appeal". The intellectuals that will appreciate Braid are probably 5%. Cult classics aren't the same as commercial successes. That's also a given in our world.
And that's why it's annoying that things that took WAY more effort (eg. STASIS) aren't generating that type of hype. Why? because of lack of marketing? lack of appeal to a wider audience? Missing the special viral ingredient?
People's tastes are their own, and I think "the effort it took" is among the worst yardstick to try and predict popularity... Sorry, that's just the way it is.
I personally love Superhot. Sure the mechanics may wear thin - BUT that's only because it's a prototype right now. Desktop Dungeons started on something not-so-massive. So did Broforce. And they expanded that scope with development.
In boardgames, there're two parties responsible for a game (especially in card games like Magic and Netrunner). There are the designers, and there are developers. The designers create original ideas, and developers take that idea and give it legs, make more variations on them, and make sure they're balanced in the ecosystem.
Superhot is a design right now, and it'll take development to make it more variations, make sure it's balanced, and have more game. Some designs are undevelopable, some designs are. We, as outsiders, probably would never know more than the original creators do, simply because they know their own game inside out compared to us observers.
If it does well then I think it'll be doing well in spite of it being kind of weird. The core of the game was really solid even in the jam game version, so long as the aesthetics aren't actually off-putting the game can reach an audience. I personally like the minimal/weird aesthetic, but that's not the thing that is making this game noteworthy.
(At the same time, the minimalist style makes this game a massively easier to produce than if it had been realistic and tame, it's definitely a smart move.) I think Super Hot is an example of a deliberately unconventional game with a brilliant twist on FPS mechanics. It's simplicity I think has nothing to do with it's appeal, but has everything to do with the small team's ability to deliver. (I think @Dislekcia also pointed that out)
I'd agree that games like Slender-Clone-8 or Block-Craft etc that follow a successful formula are attempting lowest-common-denominator indie success. But Super Hot doesn't get any free points for being an abstract position-controlled bullet time FPS game with shouty slowmo voices between deaths.