Kailef
BETA MANAGER
Vanguard of the leading edge
Posts: 424
Played SUNDOG on what OS?: Apple
What year did you first play SUNDOG?: 1985 (I think)
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Post by Kailef on Sept 5, 2015 16:11:16 GMT
I'm very excited to see that this project is still underway. Sundog was one of my favorite games growing up. It drew me in and made me feel that I was in a different world, even though my character was represented by a dot in the Apple version I played. It was amazing that you could do so much with the technology of that time. Today, with so much more power available to us, it's a shame that more games aren't as deep and engrossing as Sundog was.
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nate
Beta Tester
Limping in a ship full of shunts
Posts: 13
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Post by nate on Sept 5, 2015 17:10:29 GMT
There are a lot of people who wish they had that svelt dot-like figure they had back when they were young.
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Kailef
BETA MANAGER
Vanguard of the leading edge
Posts: 424
Played SUNDOG on what OS?: Apple
What year did you first play SUNDOG?: 1985 (I think)
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Post by Kailef on Sept 5, 2015 17:21:52 GMT
Heck, many of those dots were even hollow on the inside! Talk about anorexia....
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Jake
Administrator
Playtesting the latest build of the game
Posts: 385
Home Planet: Jondd
Played SUNDOG on what OS?: Atari ST
What year did you first play SUNDOG?: 1988
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Post by Jake on Sept 7, 2015 20:53:06 GMT
haha good point... I think that taps a really hot issue about modern gaming.
(gets on soapbox)
Today's games are so ultra detailed and graphically precise that the player uses practically no imagination or brainpower. It's like watching a movie - it is a passive visual experience that requires a low cognitive load.
On the other hand, the games from the Golden Age of Computers, with their "svelt dot-like figures," REQUIRED the player's imagination to flesh out the pixels and blobs of color into people and dragons. This engaged the imagination's gears to spin in harmony with the game's machinery, drawing the player actively into the game. The player was not just passively observing the game - the player was an integral, necessary part of how the game functioned. I think it was Infocom, the legendary publisher of text adventure games, that put it best... Their games used the most powerful graphics processor in the world: the human brain. And think about that - anyone who played Infocom's classics has extremely fond, powerful memories of these adventures. If Floyd's unexpected death in Planetfall or the thrill of solving the riddle of Zork's Flood Control Dam #3 were rendered in crisp 2015-style 3D graphics, would they be as intimately remembered and freighted with personal emotion over 30 years later?
It's ironic that the relentless forward march of game technology widens the bridge between the game itself and the player's imagination and emotions, thus robbing the visuals of the human element that made visually primitive games from the 80s far more effective than their modern-day decedents.
(gets off soapbox)
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Kailef
BETA MANAGER
Vanguard of the leading edge
Posts: 424
Played SUNDOG on what OS?: Apple
What year did you first play SUNDOG?: 1985 (I think)
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Post by Kailef on Sept 8, 2015 21:26:10 GMT
I have given nearly the exact same speech to people before! Did you steal my soapbox? Give me that back!
But seriously, I completely agree. That said, let's not forget about the many poorly made games from back in that "golden age". *chuckle* There were plenty, after all! I fondly remember great games like the Zork series and Planetfall, Ultima, Wizardry, Sundog, Spaceward Ho, Dark Castle, The Dungeon Revealed, the list goes on. But there were plenty of games that were awful too.
In defense of the modern era, there have been some well-made games that I really enjoyed. However, the ratios are way off, there's way more junk than there is good stuff. Nowadays games are spewed out of Electronic (F)Arts on a near-constant basis, and most of them can't keep my attention for more than five minutes.
Coding a game is just not the same process any more - There was a time when one guy, or a very small team of guys, could write a game. Now, most people that work on a game just handle a small piece of the pie, physics or character animations or 3d world design or combat mechanic, or sound effects, etc, almost ignorant of what the whole is going to look like when they finish.
That's why I enjoy Indie games so much. They are still written by a small team or even one guy, and generally don't feature eye-popping graphics and instead focus on something interesting or clever like a cool mechanic or an engrossing story.
Anyhow. (/soapbox)
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Kailef
BETA MANAGER
Vanguard of the leading edge
Posts: 424
Played SUNDOG on what OS?: Apple
What year did you first play SUNDOG?: 1985 (I think)
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Post by Kailef on Sept 8, 2015 21:28:04 GMT
Hmm. I probably should have posted this in the other thread you made! I'll do that right now.
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