"Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

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Viscra Maelstrom
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Viscra Maelstrom »

Angel Island at least looks different enough with its more jungle-ish aesthetic. not re-using the same checkerboard tile-pattern and making everything burn up in the second act certainly helps.
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Reactor
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Reactor »

I think nostalgia pandering and recycling overused crap countless times are two distinct things. I admit, the line between "retro" and "overused" is very thin, but it does exist.
Using 8-bit or cartoonish graphics isn't necessary a bad thing. Certain styled games (like Commander Keen, Shovel Knight and such) wouldn't look pleasant at all with overpumped photorealistic graphics. Also, we all know very well that good graphics a good game does not make. My buddy Zsole says that now developers don't need to force everything within a very small amount of data which'd fit in a NES cartridge, leave stuff out, or don't program extras into a game because of "ze limitationz", it means that 8-bit games could actually have a renaissance. Especially because 8-bit stuff is a gazillion times easier to create even with a simpe MSPaint than 24-bit photorealistic stuff.
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Clownman »

I know this is fairly late but with the rumors of the upcoming Pokemon title being in Kanto and limited to only the selection of first-gen 'mon's (along with not being able to transfer your other ones supposedly), I feel it's worth bringing up here because it's been a hot topic of controversy on my twitter this whole month and I feel, It really reminded me of this specific thread I made.
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Zan »

Any sort of pandering ruins the game for me.
That's why I haven't even played a commercial/triple A title since like 2012 (of course, that doesn't mean all games are a commercial cashcow pander-fest, it's just that this is the trend I guess?)
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Amuscaria »

It all depends if 'Nostalgia" is just a lazy excuse for "lack of effort" or "lack of quality". Nostalgia done right gives Ion Maiden or Dusk. Nostalgia done wrong gives any of those run of the mill "retro" FPS games with mishmash and copypasta resources without a cohesive visual style from stuff you can find on the Unity store.
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Kinsie »

Amuscaria wrote:Nostalgia done right gives Ion Maiden or Dusk.
Dusk's artwork is the 3D equivalent of this:
Image
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Pixel Eater »

Can we have a 'Nostalgia Panda' as our forum mascot? :lol:
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Trance »

Only if we get into merchandising with the Nostalgia Panda Ring.
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Pixel Eater »

Heh, sounds like the mafia!
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by leileilol »

I have to elaborate on what i'm doing for a "2000" game and have to spell it out that this does not mean gratuitously dropping the references to budweiser, The Matrix, NSync, Baha Men, Millionaire, South Park, the Y2K bug and Zero Wing. If Oshry PR'd my game it'd certainly dork out on that cliffnotesing pop culture from before the birth of the "retro old school" FPS fans.

I just want to make the best looking game within tech limitations and 6th gen target specs drawing tech art inspiration from other great looking games of 1999-2000 within reasonable workloads, dammit :( It's not nostalgia pandering if I really am intent to getting anime monster girls with big guns firing on an actual 3dfx card at an ok framerate. I hold a belief on if that works well on '98 hardware, it'll work fine on those recent SoCs.
Kinsie wrote:Dusk's artwork is the 3D equivalent of this:
I think my old not-even-seriously-trying timelapse of making a random low-poly gun in Blender is more on point to 1996 3d weapon design than anything in that.
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by NeuralStunner »

Zan wrote:Any sort of pandering ruins the game for me.
This. It doesn't matter what "trendy" thing it is, banking on that at the expense of due effort is inexcusable. (Even if that trend is as simple as "we're Ubisoft." :v )

Keeping in mind that anything can be called pandering if it's something you don't like in the first place. There was a point where I had to step back and ask myself if my first impressions were overly harsh. (I still go "heh" whenever I see a crafting system crammed into something, though.)
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Chris »

Zan wrote:Any sort of pandering ruins the game for me.
Pandering is nothing more than targeting people's desires. Doom 2016 was pandering to the action shooter crowd who didn't want linear scripted story shooters. Pillars of Eternity was pandering to the CRPG crowd who miss the days of Baldur's Gate. Every game someone expects to sell is an attempt to pander as it's attempting to profit off the desires of others.

It's really only a problem when you attempt to pander to a broader demographic at the expense of the smaller demographic that your game actually targets. Though even then it's not always clear cut.
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by NeuralStunner »

Chris wrote:Pandering is nothing more than targeting people's desires.
That specific word is used for a reason. I think the phrase you're looking for is "target audience".
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Arctangent »

NeuralStunner wrote:
Chris wrote:Pandering is nothing more than targeting people's desires.
That specific word is used for a reason. I think the phrase you're looking for is "target audience".
Unless you're insinuating that the devs want to have sex with the people they're aiming towards, that page doesn't particularly support your point.
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Re: "Nostalgia Pandering" - Does it ruin games for you?

Post by Pixel Eater »

Sooooo, the mascot should be a sexy Panda?
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