the developer behind Braid and The Witness talks about the Indie scene, if games should be fun, and the state of Japanese game development.
Some games test your reflexes. These ones test your delusions of intelligence. In today's feature, Jump Dash Roll lists 11 games that made us feel smarter than we are — however briefly.
I'm generally rather good at puzzle/logic/et al typed games, but The Witness, specifically, made me feel like an obtuse idiot. I got the line puzzle thing for a while, and then the rules became more & more obscure. I gave up without making it particularly far into the game...
Now, I put part of the blame on my own skill, certainly, but also on the game for just...being nothing but 1,000 of the same kind of line draw puzzles the entire time. There are a few cool twists - some I stumble on, others seen in video - but overall, it just wasn't varied enough to make me *want* to overcome the hurdles. It's pretty, but a walking simulator with nothing but line puzzles, and no in-game hint system to help prod you along, was not a winning formula for me at least.
Kudos to those who understood it and felt smart because of it. But this doesn't feel - at least from my experience lol - to be a game on a "make you feel smart, even if you aren't" kinda list.
i was disapointed that there were nothing more beyond the "line" puzzles but i still loved the game. not sure if we could call them in-game hints, but the puzzles are designed to teach you the rules of what you can and can not do. i also like how there was nothing to cheer you up on congratulate you as you progress, it was just about your curiosity and determination. the game treated you with maturity and respect, in a way.
the audio logs were atrocious though and the ending felt totally out of place. still one of the best puzzle game of recent years.
How on earth is "Blue Prince" not on this list? It is, imho, the greatest puzzle game ever made -- I am obsessed with it! I refuse to look up any solutions, making it that much more exciting when I finally crack a puzzle. Highly recommend it to anyone on the fence - an excellent game.
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BLG writes: "Do you know any famous games made by one person? Well, we’re here to educate you on some of the best one-man projects out there."
Nice list.
I’ll add 9th Dawn III to that list. Great game made by one person.
Always Sometimes Monster is made by two people technically, but let’s do an honorable mention.
I’d add HABROXIA 1 & 2 on here as well. Berry does pixel wonders with the Game Maker engine.
Replies(1)
Technically speaking Minecraft should have been on the list. But it's nice to see these single devs thrive.
Theyr is no game made by one man. Theyr is always a team of developers behind them.
However there is always someone who comes up with the idea of a game.
When i would give an example of one man with that idea for me its Hideo Kojima....
No there are certainly games made by 1 person, start to finish. Maybe after it launches and becomes a big enough success the 1 person will reach out for help maintaining it or updating, but games have been made by 1 person.
Unless of course you are being insanely nit-picky and trying to claim "the engine they used was made by Unity" or "the assets they put in were made by someone else"
I think his comments about difficulty in games is valid, especially from an experienced players perspective. Games used to do a lot less hand holding, did a lot less explaining, and were a lot harder than they are today.
That said, I see this as less of a Japanese vs Western developer issue and more of a casual vs experienced player design choice.
It really has to do with the target audience of your game. If you want to make games with mass appeal, which the majority of developers do, then easing up on the difficulty and holding the player's hand might be a good thing. If on the other hand you want to make a game that challenges mature players, which he obviously does, maybe you want less hand holding and more difficulty. Or even better yet, make games with that ever so elusive balance of difficulty (easy and accessible but deep and hard to master).
By the way, what's up with all they anti-Japanese dev stuff going around? This gen they've given us Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Metal Gear 4, Gran Turismo 5, Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, New Super Mario Wii, Skyward Sword, Wii sports, Maramasa, Beyonetta, Vanquish, the Yakuza series, Kirby Epic Yarn, El Shaddi, Siren, RE 5, Folklore, 3d dot game heros, catherine, soon to be RE 6, The Last Gaurdian, etc, etc...Give me a break!
I honestly believe it's completely natural for western gamers and developers to move away from Japanese created games.
But I feel this has more to do with the game market's evolution than anything else. We have a lot larger industry now which caters to a lot wider variety of gamers and with very different tastes in games.
It's only natural then that Western developers would be the best suited to creating games for western audiences.
IMO, this is especially true when Japanese developers try to make games for western audiences by copying western developers. The Japanese equivalents of western games are usually strange interpretations of western culture and tastes, the same way western developers fail to create games the Japanese like. This is especially true for games based on realism or with a heavy emphasis on story telling (currently the trend), which leads to some pretty terrible 'master of unlocking' type dialog and other cultural artifacts which are lost in translation.
etc. etc..