So, I wanted to talk a little about Fez. If you don’t know what Fez is, it’s this “retro themed” platformer create by Phil Fish. If you know anything about retro games, old school, the indie scene etc-etc you most likely have heard of Fez which has been in development for 5 years and is probably one of the most talked about and hyped indie game. I kind of wanted to talk about the concerns that people have with the game, the problems, and the highlights.
The first thing I want to talk about is, does a game designer reflect off the game? Does it, sort of make you sour to the idea if there is a guy out there who is just a complete dick, but he made an interesting game, would you still buy it? I don’t know if that can be answered, because human beings in general are incredibly petty at times. I think the majority of the people out there wouldn’t care, I mean EA and Capcom has been gaming people for years and they still buy their products.
I think specifically, indie designers themselves have an issue with Fez and Phil Fish. A lot of people don’t want him to be this figurehead of retro/indie because of the content of his game, and the fact the guy is a real asshole. i mean, fair enough, he can be a dick, but we as human beings, judge by whatever is being presented to us constantly. If Phil Fish is a dick retro and indie designers must be dicks.
What people often forget is that there are large personalities out there in the great waterly orb called earth. It helps and hurts people.
Now, not all people think this way, but there are plenty. It’s just one of those ignorance is bliss kind of deals. Another thing I notice is people kind of pack retro/indie designers with hipsters. So Basically it’s sending this message
indie=hipster
Which is totally stupid, but like I said, when you put a face and a personality to something, people will think THAT’S how it is. That is human nature. People like Phil Fish feed flames to a fire, because the gaming community is really divided right now. You’ll always see people who play modern games attack people who enjoy retro old school games and the other way around, and stuff that he does and says pretty much enhances that.
If you’re a game designer and you’re a really popular dude, people know about you, expect certain things, I feel it’s your responsibility to try and bring that community together because if it’s modern or retro, we still love gaming regardless. And it’s a shame man, because, I know a lot of indie designers and they’re some of the nicest weirdest human beings you would ever meet. And Phil Fish is a very poor representation of Indie Gamers and Developers.
Have I played Fez? Sure. Are there better indie games out there? Yeah, absolutely. As I said earlier I wanted to address things about Fez.
the only time you should use the phrase “take my money”
-It’s a beautiful game. I love that about the game. People do not realize that just because he used pixel work, does not make it any easier or less detailed. Work like that takes a long time, man, and from what I understand he did a lot of it himself. 5 years, if you factor in, he is your everyday human being, so it sounds about right. people minimize that and forget he is not a game company.
-The style is lifted from Cave Story. It’s silly to try and argue that it’s not. The guy basically took Cave Story graphics. But, a lot of people do that, and I have seen plenty of them floating around.
-It’s a very weak platformer. You don’t die, you rotate the screen and jump around and solve puzzles. Something like this is very boring without other game mechanics like enemies or even death vs reward to compliment it so it’s just an exhausting and boring experience. It’s hollow.
-Replicating old school platformers to the bare minimum.
-I think people thought that Fez was going to be this amazing tribute to retro platforming. It’s not, if you grew up on old school platformers, you understood that death is your best friend. memorizing patterns for hours because a lot of the time, vintage games had “broken” game mechanics and people thought that was challenging. It’s overcoming the game against all odds, the game was literally against you because of poor programming. When you beat a level and moved on to the next stage, you felt pretty accomplished.
I’m sure a LOT of people who thought this might be somewhere in Fez were greatly disappointed. They mad? maybe.
Basically, listen, the game is Cave Story. It’s CS without the challenge, without the risk vs reward, without the enemies, without the obstacles. If you want a better experience, go download Cave Story.
gonzostar asked:
What’s your all time favorite game? :O
well, it’s kind of hard to imagine anyone going “heh i love ff7 its da best gam on earthsphere” and actually taking it seriously. but, there are really people like that, who thinks like “tool” is the best band on earth and will defend it until the end of time. which is kind of disgusting.
i can’t say i have a favorite game, because when you play a lot of games, you get pieces from all kinds of designers, so you like little parts. i like ff7 because of midgar, i like bayonetta because of the pretentious cutscenes, i like ff6 because amano is a visual god, etc. if people actually say they have one favorite game i’d laugh, and they sort of don’t get the whole point of video games.
theres so much inspiration you can take from pieces of many games it’s hard to say “dis game is totes besties”. i mean, back in the snes era your favorite game would jump from chrono trigger to contra to castlevania in the span of a rental. thats how amazing games were.
basically what i’m saying is having a favorite is pretty restricting to you. i’ll just leave this here…
with that being said, there is one game that just blows up my cranium on so many levels that everytime i experience it its just, WRJRGDFGDFGDFGDF. and that my friends is contra hard corp. jesus christ this game:
you have to understand, as a 10 year old kid playing this for the first time and seeing stuff like this happen throughout the whole game, it is like, in a cartoon when a character has bug eyes and then the eyes roll like a slot machine until two dollar signs appear.
when you see this with pixels, and you consider the technology at the time this stuff is what defined games. you can duplicate this sort of thing in 3D very easily, in fact it’s done constantly, but who gives a shit, it’s 3D. you feel nothing after the scene is done, you don’t remember it either. if you watch this closely, in my opinion it is the perfect example of pixel art, art, core game design, and music flowing in harmony to create a unique experience for the player. don’t get me wrong, i don’t totally hate 3D but i honestly believe that technology has really spoiled game designers and made them lazy.
i kind of took two weeks off and just, took it really easy. caught up on a few movies rode the comfy couch for a few days. you know. but at the same time i’ve been letting a lot of things pile up so, if there is a filler post this would def be it.
ya man, i really need to start following more tumblr blogs, but it’s really difficult to find cool stuff that interests me.
for my ol pal rpg for fixing a few blog problems.
Where can i find the rainbow nightmare game with the fox girl and the dude?
that was a very very outdated concept. it was cool, because i got to play around with hand drawn panoramas and fool around. i don’t have the game anymore unfortunately. it’s been purged after my computer literally melted.
unfortunately where the game was hosted, it also went under. i am sorry i can’t help, but i appreciate you remembering DEM OLD DAYZ!
Ahhh that sucks hard. Really enjoyed that game but didnt get a chance to finish it before my old pc crashed. I suddenly remembered it not to loong ago but couldnt find it anywhere. Well atleast i found this site! Looking forward to the next one and thanks for the response!
i’m glad you enjoyed it, and i appreciate your words, buddy! if you enjoyed the old stuff i assure you that the new content will flip your bowtie!
i love-love-love old animation. there is just something incredibly amazing about it to me. very inspirational, ya’ll!
greetings humans and sub creatures, it is your best internet friend “dukegramps”. i want to talk about a few things but i will have to cut it short because i have various head trauma. i have been thinking too hard about what happened to good film after watching lethal weapon 1 and the blood stopped circulating to my head.
as far as “gamcontent” is concerned i will drop a few pieces i am working on. no vidcons though, i am getting kind of tired of those. i’ve talked about this before but, when i am designing a game i add a lot of placeholder concepts and throw them in and eventually get around to working on them later. the main purpose is just, having it exist somewhere for me to find later.
i have a very important character named “the professor”. i did not flesh out this character very much. basically all i said is i wanted a scientist who did a lot of cool scientific stuff. what i did was made the basic concept and threw it in. originally i wrote the character as a male, but flash forward as i am sitting on my couch and had time to define it more, i decided to change the character into a female. to reflect a lot of situations from the main female character. it works on a lot of levels, i do not want to go into detail though.
i had compiled the sprite, concept, and physical portrait that is probably in some aged video. i have to admit it was one of my worst designs and, apparently it’s so bad that i searched my computer to post it here it just vanished like a genie after he grants your third wish.
the character is upgraded in all aspects and i am pretty pleased with it. the power of the couch. as far as upgrades are concerned i am also working on various old theater scenes i had compiled but didn’t put much into. the rough idea is nice, we will have to see when its finished. i would like to add:
-robots in the chairs clapping or cheering
-victorian royalty sitting on the sides
-an orchestra playing somewhere, maybe a rock band descends from the roof
i will be the first to say the wolf robot looks really bad. i will have to re-construct it later. that is what happens when you rush pixels, friends. you cannot have a tri-dog robot burst onto the stage with really bad pixel work. it aint happenin’ pal!
but yeah, it’s really cool seeing a project evolve constantly. growing expanding and improving. characters change alot and grow. for example lutwig was a totally different character than what he is now. i had originally wrote him as this very uptight knight and he did not quite fit into my design.
but, i did keep some elements from his original design and transferred them. this is why i try to stress going over and make sure everything fits accordingly. it always works in your favor.
last bit of infos/investigationz is i have been doing commission pieces the last few days. i wanted to share my thoughts because a friend and i were talking and she asked if someone paid me 200 dollars for an “applejack” image from my little pony would you do it. i instantly said no. it’s one of those things you cannot explain to someone the level of integrity when it comes to creating personal art.
there are many shades and types of artists. and i am sure there are people willing to do such work for the exchange of funds. i personally refer to those artists as “bads” because any work you produce reflects off of you, and your abilities, level of creation and design. it makes you look like a clown.
i am a picky person about commissions where my art is placed. that is why i have been broke for the past 10000 lightyears. projects need to have something, you need to be able to draw the inspiration from someones ideas in some form. you can just produce a stock image and hand it to them and go “here buddy” and they will be impressed regardless. that is the way of commissions. you need to be able to get behind a good idea. if the idea is good, then the art becomes good. it is a constant bounce of ideas and inspiration.
i cannot express in words the feeling of someone with a decent idea approaching you, willing to work with you and exchange ideas and create something and being compensated for it. it’s just one of the few beautiful moments in life when you create something and someone tells you “this gives me ideas” “this inspires me”
it’s a pretty rare thing, but when it happens, man you’re on top of the world.
but i hate it. my friend is like “ADD THESE TAGS” and i am just like, please i am exhausted already from posting various images and gamedreams.
yeah, like, so clunky. When you have a simple train design, you try to expand ways to make it more interesting. working beyond the scope of a basic concept. that’s why i’m trying to add different elements, like the post before with the helicopter. i want to expand the train concept as much as i can, so, i thought it would be cool to have the characters board other trains. that way you can insert all kinds of different concepts or designs. to make the transition more entertaining i decided to add this.
i like stuff like this, i’ve always been a fan of simple concepts, overblown. a giant robot pops out and the robot moves back and forth very quickly and all you have is to move left or right to avoid a hammer like hand while the timer is going, having it drag you in. i just, feel like having interactive stuff like this in between traditional rpg battles is a nice change of pace. it sucks, because i had to cut a lot of the stuff, and it’s not as animated as i would like it to be, just because of the program. getting away with what you see in the video was actually pretty hard. it took a lot of clever workarounds which i hate. you know, it’s like, i want the robot to have steam coming out of his head, and have snake arms instead, but, i cannot have those. it really brings down the quality.
please say hellot to “donnie”
so, basically I’ve been kind of doing artwork for the upcoming kickstarter page. it’s been taking up a lot of my time, because i feel if i really take the time to dump a lot of visual content in the kickstarter it will do better.
i’m taking babysteps and doing a lot of research before hand because i want to try and get the best results the first time. also, the gamepage is updated a little bit. i have character pages finished finally, uh, it’s really overdue, but hopefully i’ll be able to get ghost to insert it inside the character pages.
current mood: wap wap waaap
like, one of many reasons i post regularly is simply because i think the tumblr looks beautiful. i had woke up to post something and upon clicking the tumblr i was welcomed with disgusting white and various images in weird places.
what am i trying to say? f u tumblr -bird- but yeah, i cannot work under these conditions!
this is warrrrrr!
I had posted earlier about the perks of having prototypes, but there are a lot of bad things about having one too. I want the game to have a lot, and kind of go back to the SNES roots in a way where games had a certain standard and a style to it. For example, every game pretty much on the SNES used some kind of mode 7(8?spppp) effect.
With the game I’m making, I can’t really push anything with the program that I use. It’s frustrating to have a concept, and create almost everything for it, and it’s just clunky, and it doesn’t meet your standards. Anyway, I base a lot of stuff from SNES games, I want to kind of re-visit some of the aspects of that era’s game design and implement it into my own project, because I think they were frickin’ awesome.
Basically, during dungeon encounters I want things to be really interactive, and have a lot going on, and have things around the character be relevant and important, not just being a simple backdrop. Just to get more to the point, I am a fan of BattleToads game mechanics with racing, and fighting, and they did a lot of different stuff so, in the video it’s similar in concept but that’s it.
It sucks, because it’s really clunky, the movement is really limited. I look at it and it’s just something that can be really good if I wasn’t held down by the game engine itself. That’s kind of why I’m trying to find ways to roundup funding in the future. Like, I can’t even show the helicopter fully, because I can’t animate the propellers, the engine is not really capable of that. I want so much for this tiny-tiny part of a dungeon and it sounds silly but, it is about making most out of a simple concept. I can’t use snake arms, so I can’t have the helicopter have robot arms and throw cars, and items and crates at the hero to dodge, I can’t have the helicopter pull up on the side and shoot a machine gun and have her dodge that.
There are a million things I would do with this if the engine would let me. The most frustrating thing about it is, that it can be done if I had a different program. It’s not like I’m asking for the game to be in 3D or something ridiculous, just a little bit more freedom and wiggleroom for design.
Basically, IMADBRAH!
I-dododododododewww not ever post pencil work, but I was rocking on my couch tonight listening to to some good tunes and I decided to go hey, I’ll post pencil stuff. The reason I don’t post many pencil sketches or whatever, is mostly because I don’t like using pencils. Like, my thing is markers and pens because the way the ink kind of flows accordingly and the grip and it’s kind of unreliable(I like the weird hand flow create random art thing), because with a pencil you can pretty much get your design down without a problem.
Oh, erasers? I hate em! If I mess up, I just get another piece of paper. But, with the actual portraits of the characters you’re forced to use pencils in some situations. Final art pieces kind of require that you use pencil. It’s just something you can’t get around!
Games GAME GAAAMMEEES!
I have people I talk with in regards to game design, I had someone(Ciel) play very early early version of the game, he had some really constructive feedback to playback to me, and one thing he had brought up, was that there were too many male characters in the main cast. This was a very long time ago, and I had noted it accordingly to eventually knock around the idea and kind of think if I should change that or not.
Soooo, months later I was sitting on my couch thinking he was right, and THE POWER OF PROTOTYPES is that can you change content that’s still in development. The problem is, the cast is pretty defined in itself, so I didn’t want to add another character. So what I’m throwing around is actually changing the ninja into a female ninja. I don’t think I would have to change very much in terms of story, backstory, design, etc. Basically the only difference is she has a rack, and apparently people like to have many “babs” to choose from.
Yeah! So, I think this my last video for a while. I kind of just wanted to get a few interesting VIDS floating around webspace for whatever reason. I actually wanted to do some kind of audio thing with me talking about the specific video in regards to design, but like, my mic is messed up for some reason and I just have 0 energies(noEtankleftsry).
Yeah, the scene took like, idk, 4 or 5 days off and on. It is a long process because you need to design things and have them fit correctly, I am specifically talking about the resources. I wrote about the king in an earlier post, but, I wanted to show this to see how creative you can be when you have and create certain characters. I did not write anything first, it was purely design, I wrote everything last, actually. I think I was watching a Stan Lee biography and I guess what they did was give artists some vague idea, they would draw the content and they would write stuff in it last.
I always like the fact that there is a lot of things going on. When you have a king who is just this powerful entity who can do whatever he wants, it sort of writes itself. Like, you just imagine this royal slob laying on a bed while babes are fanning him. And basically that is what I wrote, he is just, Donald Trump except more of a dbag. When you write stuff like this and have it play out visually, it’s less about the writing and more about the things around the character and what he interacts with. Like, he has tables of oil, he has babes in cages, etc and stuff like that makes it so you can get an understanding of his personality without having to pile on tons of writing. 
Visually, a problem I try to balance is what is too much, and what is too less. Um, like the scene in the above video if pretty minimum in my opinion. Like, I wanted to added disco balls, lights flashing, drapes of his kings image behind him and the list can go on forever. I can’t really do everything because it is simply not viable in terms of time and technical limitations.
What is funny is, during the constructing process I am almost always unsure of how it will come out, the art pieces feel lacking or the pixels aren’t up to my standards. I had drawn the king and colored him earlier and I was like “oh this is going to look very awful” but I inserted him in and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. So the scene ends up being kind of charming at the end of it all. When I create stuff like this and present it to, like the internet, I want it to have a certain standard when people happen to stumble on it, because it’s more about me putting content out there that is decent, and something that took a lot of time, because it reflects off me. If I had a pong game floating around I would feel really embarrassed personally because I feel like as a creative human we are capable of many things.
My friend suggested to add a lot of really vague and pointless tags and to start using the “upload photo” option on Tumblr to get the buzz going. But like, idk, these functions are kind of awful and they aren’t even relevant (tagssuckyo) and I like to have my own images in a specific place not some uploader I can’t have access to. Whatever ~Squall
I wanted to talk about so much stuff, but I have just been so tired lately. I do not have the energy…
Idk, I am trying to rework my trailer and kind of gearing up to try and generate buzz for it. I have a few exciting things to talk about later if it my plans go accordingly..but dat neva happens.
*does backflip into bed zzz*
http://bitbonton.com/?7867d620
I’m an 80’s kid. Some people might think that makes me a square/fgt. Parachute pants and wild hair was the thing. I like to tell stories before the internet was born. Because in my mind things felt more like an adventure. Now if you want an adventure you just right click “failbook” or wikipedia and tons of useless information is directed to you instantly. I feel kind of lucky because I got to experience things before the wave of technology and the “wab”. Don’t get me wrong the internet is cool, it’s one of my favorite things, but, I also like being able to get lost somewhere and end up investigating a haunted house instead of “streaming it” via cellphone. 
My youth was about games and art. Both were really hard to come by. If I wanted to be inspired I had to go out and connect with other artists or go out of my way to find inspiration. I could not just “right click” art blog.
The first time I saw Amano’s art was on a one piece page on Nintendo Power. I think Nintendo Power was a pretty important part of anyones life that enjoyed gaming. Early Nintendo Power was everyones best friend. Beloved by all, especially me. Nintendo Power had everything you could ever want when it came to video games. What I loved most about the magazine was, the first time I was able to pick up on video game artists. I could not find game art beyond instruction manuals. And there wasn’t any internet so IBFKD.
Nintendo Power had it all, buddy! All dat Princess Peach~
The only way you could get many pieces of Amano’s work is by buying the FF6 full guide. Which was a pile of trash for 20 dollars. But, it had a ton of his work, so I had no choice but to purchase it. Like, 20 dollars was a lot back then for a kid.
Was it worth 20 dollars? Well…yeah.
Nintendo Power had everything going for it. At the time I felt like they really gave readers a lot. The earlier NP I still think this. It was just a general vibe of effort and nobody ever had anything “bad” to say about NP. They had amazing comics, Mario, Starfox, Zelda, Super Metroid. Was a fan of all of the comic artists. Nintendo Power also used original art, some of it was whacky and some of it wasn’t too hot, but it was still great. Nintendo Power was the ultimate source of information when it came to games. I mostly bought them for the art. I would beg and plead for the next issue every month.
If ciel was my neighbor he would come over to view this daily
I couldn’t find art like that anywhere else. So Nintendo Power was a very important part of my life. That is where I got a lot of my artistic inspiration. Before that it was cartoons on tv.
I specifically enjoy this Secret of Mana coverage because the article is written like a journal so you’re actually reading about the main character going on all these adventures. I thought it was incredible.
Unfortunately, when Nintendo64 came out Nintendo Power took a huge dive in quality. It was dropped like a phat beat. The content was poor, the art lacking, I can’t even remember if they added anymore comics. If there was art, it was this poor 3D junk. You have to remember, the early birth of 3D looked like garbage. That’s when I stopped getting issues. I liked NES and SNES game coverage, not 3D. t’was a sad day when I lost interest.
I still needed inspiration. I started to collect PSM, GamePro, EGM, etc. They took the place of Nintendo Power because the magazine could only cover a small fraction of games. Basically if I saw one piece of art in a game mag I would buy it. I don’t collect them anymore. Everything can be found in a few clicks. It’s nice, but it doesn’t stack up to that feeling I had opening up a Nintendo Power and having your mind filled with inspirational concepts.
Every once in a while I’ll look on Ebay for a few earlier issues of Nintendo Power that I don’t have. I pretty much have all of the earlier Nintendo Powers, except for a few. I collected up until the “N64 CAKBLAAK”
I like to think I wouldn’t be as creative as I am today without Nintendo Power. Truffs.
Scrooge Mcduck swims in his gold coins. I swim in my Nintendo Power!
Yeah, kind of a lame filler post. Then again, the most respectful thing anyone can do when they truly enjoy something is to re-visit it. I’m going to post a few videos of game scenes that I felt at the time were just really incredible. I kind of look at games from an artistic perspective, more than HEH LOOK I GET TO SHOO T ZOMBS GAT GAT. It kind of gives you a new level of appreciation for game design in general.
Yeah, FF6 intro. I mean, when you were a 10 year old and you popped this into your Super Nintendo you didn’t know what to expect really. Like, the game starts off with you in giant robots, moving towards a mountain town as it’s snowing, with incredible music playing. You know pretty much at that point you’ll be playing something mind blowing. And yeah, it was. You know at the time nobody really did stuff like that. So it was bold and it’s one of those scenes where you just talk about with people every so often. That at Phantom Train, because a lot of weird 4chan people like to talk about “heh suplex a ghost train”
It’s kind of funny though, because we have games on the DS and they’re still not capable of producing that kind of “effect”. When the technology is obviously available, and handhelds are kind of the place to be for old school pixels. But yeah, as a kid and watching the robots get to the destination. Man, it was cool. It still is. Pretty amazing how they capture the moment for you while credits are rolling.
Yeah. BOF 3. Like, in all regards it’s a pretty standard RPG. Like, my opinion on the BOF series is pretty much one thing, and that’s you play the game to see the creative pixels, and designs you don’t really play it for an RPG. It’s just cool to cruise around and see all of the stuff. I don’t remember playing any BOF game and going “wow…gratz on dat story”
BOF3 intro is like, pretty incredible if you look at it. It’s really unexpected, and the sheer detail that they put into this tiny cave scene is just wonderful. It really got you pumped for the game. Unfortunately the game really isn’t that good, but it’s still one of my favorite games just to look at.
What’s cool about it is several things. The game starts off using unique characters, the basic story of the world unfolds while they’re actually navigating through the mine. What was new at the time was pixels being used with 3D backgrounds. It’s a personal favorite, I think most of the time it worked very well.
The pixel work in BOF3 is just, so-so good. I like the BOF series in general when it comes to visuals because they use these really weird light colors.
Lastly FFTactics. It’s an experience. The whole game is just these incredible cutscenes, amazing music, beautiful art, oh and it just happens to be a game. The sheer amount of detail in this game is just staggering. Thankfully I own it, I play through it maybe once a year. You play certain games and they have highs and lows, but, FFT is just a gemstone. After playing this, you realize how important it is to have characters move and do things while they speak. If you want to just experience constant “rad” factor, purchase this game. FFT is probably my favorite game. It’s funny because it’s not really about the game that I like, it’s the art, the music, the story, and it just happens to have gameplay.
Also, FFT has the best death sound effects ever created in a video game:
[x] y
[ ] n
*praises FFT like it is a dimigod made out of sourworms*
Makes you wonder what happened to games.
