This is pretty much the same mentality the average gamer had around 1996 that any 3D game was automatically superior to a 2D one because new technology better. But 2D to 3D was an actual quantum leap, not just a new coat of paint on a 17 year old game https://t.co/XrHgSiFlTJ

— Spum (@spumdonor) June 13, 2025

Now, this guy kinda managed to vaguely bring up the whole “OMG 3D” going on with (predominately) younger gamers during the 5th gen, but then he fucks it all up by spouting:

“But 2D to 3D was an actual quantum leap.“

Sure, a real “quantum leap” we had alright. Game design that took step forward and two steps back, the rise of the “cinematic experience” etc. etc.

Ugh…

In that time period, everyone was excited for new tech. My problem is game developers thinking they were now movie directors. Hello Chris Roberts.

Despite my yapping, I’m pretty tight lipped about my own game project. It is a bizarre mix of Final Fantasy 6, Octopath Traveler, Ultima 7 and some who say some Star Control 2 and Mega Man 2 in there as well (how that is, who knows). It’s a massive work, and it is going to be in progress for quite some time. I don’t want to show it because graphics are the weakest part, and the game changes too much. It’s on the graphical level of FF4 PSP but, alas, I am no artist. There is much jank.

What if I were to make an additional project? Something I would make openly and could be shared with you, the beautiful reader?

Here is my idea:

-Game plays like a Final Fantasy 1 (NES).

-Graphics can be so much better than 8-bit. Perhaps Chrono Trigger pixel level.

-Game will be open world.

-Random battles.

-Much of the game will be focused on grinding and getting that ‘cool’ weapon either through saving money or finding a treasure in a dark dungeon.

And those are the only five things I would set in stone.

You might ask, “Why in the world would you choose those as guardrails?”

I’ve noticed a distinct lack of alternatives to that FF1 gameplay style. After FF1, you get FF2 which is no good. Then you go into FF3 and FF5 with all the job system nonsense. With FF4 and FF6, you get the narrative based games. With FF7 onward, you get the 3d.

“But what about Final Fantasy Renaissance?”

What about it? Someone recreated Final Fantasy 1 in Unity and added a bunch of stuff such as additional classes.

My idea is not to ‘recreate’ an older game, but to create a ‘new’ game. I don’t want it to look like a NES game. It’ll look like 16-bit or better.

“But Malstrom,” says the concerned reader. “You are already in one project. Why add another project?”

If Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda could be made at the same time with the same developers, I don’t see why I can’t add in another game.

This will not be a narrative based game. “I need to know the backstory of my fighter. Wah!” Too bad. “But what is the birthday of the White Mage? Is she and the Black Mage dating?” No one cares. This will not be a game about your party members being ‘characters’. This is going to be pre-FF4.

Why the random battles? It takes much, much less development time. I don’t have to make overworld sprites and script them. Also, I think random battles have gotten a bad rap over the years. Is it that random battles are bad or is it that they are stuck in 8-bit Land where jankiness rules? I think they can be made fun. They certainly do add surprise to a gameplay session.

As for Open World, why the hell not? This ‘simple’ RPG is begging for an Open World. Now, I am not sure how to structure this Open World due to the varying levels of monsters. But if we make the world true to itself, I’m sure the monsters will be appropriate wherever they are.

The real question is what game engine should it use? Maybe something like Bakin? I don’t know yet.

If this project did go forth, there would be no due date on it. Much of what you would see would be parts and early access areas of it. I could make an area, say, early parts of levels 1-3. You guys tell me what you think. And the game can be destroyed, reformed, or whatever.

“Is the game high fantasy?” Unknown. It could be high fantasy. It could be anything.

Once I figure out whatever engine, I believe this is a project I could create prototypes very quickly.

Surprisingly, I don’t see any continuation of the FF1 type gameplay style into the modern gameplay world. Anything I see are 8-bit style retreads. We’re not making an 8-bit game.

I’m thinking the battle system to be side view like FF1. However, I am open to tactical like Ultima 4 or 5.

It could be cool if the game world had some systems in it. For example, if you want a boat, you can buy one from a city. Or you could STEAL a boat from pirates when they attack the coast. If Richard Garriott can pull that off on an Apple II in 1985, I don’t see why we can’t do that today.

We’re going to keep things very simple here. We are NOT going to go down the road of narratives. We are NOT going to go down the road of endless classes. The ROAD we are going down is that juicy comforting meaty gameplay of killing monsters, getting gold, upgrading to new gear by buying or finding it in chests, and moving on further into the game world.

“But where is my relationship system, Malstrom? And what about the fishing system? And don’t forget about buying your own house!”

Fuck you, reader. We’re not doing that shit.

I’d like the game to focus on that ‘growth via grinding’ system but also through exploration of a big, beautiful open world. Just doing THIS, alone, would be an achievement.

If people are open to this, I need to find a suitable game engine for it. Then I will whip something up. If anyone has any recommendations or thoughts, let me know.

Not only did the links you posted include many non-sports games, but they lacked any non-EA sports games, of which there were MANY. So I went to GameFAQs and looked up how many sports games were on each system. If you limit it to North America you get exactly 249 for each. Though GameFAQs being what it is, many of these seem to be listed multiple times for whatever reason, so (let’s assume) that’s not quite representative of the actual numbers. But if you further divide by different sports then you get a more accurate picture (and it’s easier to keep track of the totals). Doing that shows us the following: SNES trounces Genesis for baseball (it’s not even close) both in quantity and in having the “big” titles. Genesis beats out SNES by a smaller, but still significant, margin for football, both in raw numbers and in variety (i.e. multiple options for pro, college, “arcadey”). Basketball and hockey are identical between the two in numbers and mostly the same in selection, but if I had to give the edge to either system it’d be SNES for basketball (because 4-player options) and Genesis for hockey (Mutant League Hockey was exclusive and that was cool). Soccer also goes to SNES by a not-insignificant margin, though I don’t think that would have mattered in America in the 90s. Golf and tennis are effectively tied with 1 more golf game on SNES and 2 more tennis games on Genesis. Boxing is also nearly tied in quantity, but SNES had Super Punch-Out!! and that was the only “big” boxing series back then, so I’d say that’s a cut and dried win. Fishing is where either system wins by the most, with games on the SNES outnumbering ones on Genesis several times over. (If you want to count wrestling then that’s almost identical between the two.)

SNES far outpaced the Genesis in its selection of games in certain sports and was virtually identical in its selection of almost all others. The only exception is football. And in all categories, most of the games are multi-platform, so both systems got most of the same stuff. And while EA didn’t support SNES as much, most other publishers supported it MORE, even just talking about sports games alone. And remember that I’m only including North American releases in the above numbers.

Bottom line: The often repeated line that “Genesis had all the sports games” appears to be a myth perpetuated by the internet and the historically inaccurate memories of gamers therein. It’d be more accurate to say “Genesis had all the football games”, which, admittedly, I’m sure did work in its favor in America.

Enough. Genesis had the sports gamers. Genesis was making inroads into the 16-bit marketspace well before Sonic appeared. And it wasn’t through their RPGs. It was largely through their sports titles.

The marketing points to itself.

I will post no more on this subject.

Here is a Retrobird video. Let’s see what he has to say.

It is a mystery to The Game Industry ™ why anyone would keep playing SNES games. Nintendo would look at it and assume, “It is because we are Game Gods ™.” But I think the answer is so much simpler than anything else.

When a ‘remake’ of the 1990s hit Master of Magic was made, I bought it. I played it. And I went right back to the original DOS Master of Magic despite its terrible sound effects and inferior graphics. Why did I do this?

“Nostalgia,” replies the reader. But that wasn’t the case. The remake took too long to play. The original DOS version is more gameplay dense.

Gameplay density is a phrase I’d like to see more. Gameplay density is the amount of gameplay decisions, inputs, and reactions a player can do within a segment of time. It is the impact of the player among the game. This time segment shouldn’t be measured in minutes as that is too long. We’re talking about five seconds or so.

What Retro bird talks about with him spending so much time in games just ‘walking around’ is spot on. A game like Link to the Past is more gameplay dense than future Zelda games including Breath of the Wild. The player does more gameplay in ten seconds than in the equivalent time of the Zelda sequels. Note how Nintendo struggled and continues to struggle with all their IPs put into 3d form. But not Mario Kart. Why? It is because racing games are arcade nature by default. There is no mystery as to how to make them gameplay dense when moving to 3d. It is identical to Pole Position.

The early ‘boomer shooters’ really hold up well because they are very gameplay dense. You jump into Doom and start shooting stuff.

I think gameplay density is why gaming keeps snapping back, like a rubber band, to certain forms of gameplay. When the FMV boom was big in the 1990s, it didn’t last (imagine how cool some of that would be with 4k video today!). FMV doesn’t work because it only dilutes the gameplay density.

In turn based RPGs, it was very annoying when ‘long action sequences’, such as summon animations, slowed down the pace of battles. Despite the name, turn based battles need to be fast and snappy. To those who doubt this, try making a turn based RPG with long and slogged out battles. It won’t work. It is not fun.

The paradox of game development is “What is Fun For The Developer is often Not Fun for the player.” And even worse is the opposite: “What is fun for the player is often not fun for the developer.” Too many developers confuse ‘developer density’ with ‘gameplay density’ such as ‘graphics are really amazing’ but player cannot interact with them.

While there are MANY games released each year, here is what you are not being told. Many of those ‘new games’ are buggy, not playable, or poorly optimized. That, alone, is a reason why they do not sell. And after that, the next big reason is that these games are made for the developer and not the player. You see this all the time in indie rpg scene where the game has this convoluted story with a shitty battle system. It is the developer going full retard into fan fiction and literally trapped in his or her world of characters and events.

‘Making a better game’ means more than you would expect. A ‘better game’ could be snappier menus that open and close quickly and look pretty. Persona became infamous because of its menus having ‘personality’. If Zelda: Breath of the Wild type game had better menus, the game would be far better. The innovation Nintendo needs to do in their Zelda is largely overhauling their menu system.

But my point is that if you make something like menus snappy and responsive and clean, it creates more gameplay density which creates more *fun*. But who the hell wants to spend time developing and coding better menus? No developer does. “That’s not creative!” “That’s not world building!” That is why it is not done.

I find modern games unplayable because they are so gameplay sparse. For most of them, you are just walking around in this ‘3d world’. Endless cutscenes are another form of gameplay sparsity.

The reason why 8-bit and 16-bit gaming keeps being eternal is because they are unmatched in their gameplay density.

“But Malstrom,” says the reader. “Those games, like those shitty 8-bit Mega Man games, only use controllers with two buttons. Today’s controllers have like fourteen. Therefore, games today have much more gameplay density.”

No. I could really feel this drop even between the 8-bit to 16-bit generations. There is so much precision and nuance on an actual NES hardware game. I noticed that precision began to go away in the 16-bit Era. And then really went away after that. A game like Super Mario Brothers is extremely gameplay dense because it is not about ‘2d platforming’ as you have to manage Mario’s trajectory which means the speed he is going, the time of when he jumps, how long you hold the jump button, and doing this in such a way of a world full of obstacles and enemies. To those who grew up with the game, they have forgotten this as they have internalized such controls. But there is much going on under the hood.

I think a big reason why certain companies can keep making hit game after hit game is because they have mastered gameplay density. They get that reputation for ‘making good games’ when it is that trust the player has that they will make a gameplay dense product. This goes beyond IPs. It is why no one had a problem between Zelda 1 to Zelda 2 to Link to the Past to Link’s Awakening. Very different games, but all featuring high gameplay density within them.

Going further on the concept of gameplay density, the ramifications of the player matters and is critical. Missile Command has ramifications in that if you let bases get destroyed, your game gets harder. Pac-Man has ramifications because the game depends on which pellets you haven’t eaten and where you went on the map. Tetris is more than just fitting a block, it is dealing with the ramifications of all your prior block fitted decisions. It’s not just the player reacting in real-time, it is the player responding to past actions of the player! Certain games such as Civilization are very good at this!

Now that gaming is hitting an audio-visual plateau and the stable of old games is becoming empty of what can be ‘remade’ or ‘remastered’, perhaps we should attempt concentrating the gameplay density. Modern games feel ‘watered down’. They need gameplay density.

I’ve been enjoying videos from Blargis such as the below:

Everything he is saying is spot on. This guy thinks like I do.

One thing this guy does that I wish every game developer would do is that he looked beyond games of this decade. Quake came out in 1996. Blargis was probably born around then. He realized that there was something special in Quake, something that wasn’t being done in games today. So he used a near thirty year old game as inspiration for a new type of game.

“Malstrom, Malstrom,” says the reader condescendingly. “There are no examples of a thirty year old game inspiring new ones. Video games need to be made for the Modern Audience, not these retro freaks who still play these games!”

No examples, huh reader?

Led to Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Led to New Super Mario Brothers DS, Wii, 2, Wii U, Wonder, etc.

Harvest Moon led to Stardew Valley.

Castle Wolfenstein led to Castle Wildenstein 3d which would lead to Doom and then Quake.

Ultima 7 would lead to Elder Scrolls and Divinity games.

Retro games are gold. The error is everyone is focused on remaking or remastering them instead of making spiritual successors.

This will hopefully be the last email I send you on this subject lol.

An emailer said that I was “off regarding the numbers” and then goes on to say the number of SNES units sold was 23.5 million instead of 22? Then they post two conflicting sources of Genesis sales, Wedbush and the NYT (of all things), the former backing the 18 million number and the latter (which is laughable to even be citing in the first place) being seemingly the lone source claiming 20 million. I looked up Sega Genesis sales in North America as a whole and Sega themselves report 19 million (so it apparently BOMBED in Canada and Mexico, I guess). So instead of 18.5 vs. 22 like I originally claimed, it was apparently 19 vs. 23.5? That’s an even WIDER gap! So they emphasized my point while thinking they were disproving it or something. What an odd attempt at a rebuttal.

Another not-sales-numbers-related point regarding the 4th gen in general, and one that I don’t think I’ve ever seen you mention, is that one of the reasons for the success of the Genesis could have been that if you look at the early SNES games, they’re generally either sequels or ports. The only new content tended to come from games showing off Mode 7 or the Super FX chip (Pilotwings, F-Zero, Star Fox). Whereas Sega’s console focused more on new content (if not necessarily new “experiences”). The first couple years or so of the Genesis included Sonic and Streets of Rage, among others, in addition to just the sports games and arcade ports. You often downplay the SNES sports library, but there are considerably more sports games on the system than you might think. In fact, the SNES arguably has the greater variety (not number) of sports titles (there are a shocking number of fishing games, for instance) as well as the big name arcade ports (including vastly superior ports of NBA Jam and Hangtime, among others). But a difference between the SNES and the Genesis in that area is that the SNES relied heavily on a combination of direct sequels to sports titles that were already on the NES (RBI Baseball, Nintendo’s own Play Action Football, Black Bass, etc.) and ports of arcade games (the aforementioned NBA games, Super High Impact, Super Baseball 2020, etc). By comparison, Genesis sports games usually were new series/licenses like Joe Montana or brand new original IPs like the Mutant  League games. For my money, that’s the real edge that Genesis had over SNES: Not marketing or “image” (regardless of Sonic’s popularity as a game, I refuse to believe the character was EVER considered cool and I think the fandom is living proof of that), but just having a stronger and more consistent emphasis on new and original content. For a lot of people, the question wasn’t about “Mario World vs. Sonic”, it was more about “MORE Mario vs. This New Thing That Isn’t Mario And Is Also Pretty Fun”, and the latter, if nothing else, will always have a bright sheen. That would explain why Sonic 2 sold only a fraction (40%) of what Sonic 1 sold, despite having the same controls and lack of text, despite the added multiplayer.

On an unrelated note, you recently mentioned how in the 5th generation third parties were “fed up with Nintendo” and that being a reason why PlayStation got so many of them onboard. While that may be partially true in some cases, it should be noted that Sony paid for many of their exclusives including some of the biggest games on the system (a practice Microsoft would obviously take lessons from). N64 was originally going to have Final Fantasy VII until Sony paid SquareSoft millions of dollars to put it on the PlayStation instead (to give just one example of many).

And on a TOTALLY unrelated note, regarding your recent talks of “furries”: We are 100% in the same boat, so I thought you might find it amusing (or not) that “furries” were originally called “furverts“. We knew exactly what those weirdos were all about even back in the day and did not beat around the bush about no goddamn dogfuckers. I don’t mean this was a phrase used personally or even just locally. This was the common term for them. You could find “furvert” used in the pre-(mainstream)-internet days in old publications dedicated to niche hobbies that overlapped with those freaks’ interests enough to have had the misfortune of having to deal with them. But then they spread like a disease online and somehow got everyone else to start calling them “furries” instead and that stuck. But they’ll always be furverts to me lol.

Here is the list of Electronic Arts published games on the SNES.

Here is the list of Electronic Arts games published on the Genesis.

Notice the difference?

Most of SNES EA games came out after 1994. Console War was pretty much sealed at 1994.

I really, really liked Road Rash. It almost got me to buy a Sega Genesis. Hence ‘almost’. If I was more aware of the Genesis library, I definitely would have bought one back in the day. Give me that Starflight, Phantasy Star IV, Gunstar Heroes, Thunderforce 2,3, 4, Ghosts and Goblins, etc. Sonic is also fun. I think all the funky Sega hardware scared me away. It came out with 32X then it came out with CD. It got confusing!

I really, really wish I bought a Turbographx 16 though. That is the REAL 16 bit console of choice! Yummy shmups I still play today. An awesome port of Salamander! Oh yeah!

I’m not why you are saying I never referred to SNES launching with many ‘sequels’ because I did exactly that. SNES launched with many sequels to well known NES franchises. This was great if you were a NES fan. And this is why NES fans think SNES launch is the greatest. But if you were a sports fan, SNES didn’t really have those games.

If you don’t think Sonic was ever considered ‘cool’, I don’t know what to tell you. Market data says he was. Even during the ‘bad era of Sonic’ of the 2000s, he still was well received. Sega knocked it out of the park with the character design of Sonic. No doubt about that.

I hear in the news that Congress may put out a bill that bans American phara companies from advertising on television. I have no love for the pharma companies.

“Does your ailment convince you that health care should be free, Malstrom?”

No. If it was subsidized, the costs would balloon even more out of control. Look at what happened when the US federal government got involved with student loans. Terrible.

Ever since my ailment, I have to get medication twice a day. Failure to do so means I will be having strokes. I know this because I have had strokes. There is scientific evidence saying I did have strokes.

My medication is unusual in phara world. I never go to a drug store to pick it up. My drugs are way too niche for any drug store. No. It is delivered first class to my mail box.

With insurance, my medication costs $75 a month. Without insurance, my medication costs $8000 a month.

There is no way the medicine is that expensive. They are just pills. I would bet it isn’t anywhere near that expensive in other countries.

The Pharma companies are holding our lives hostage and price gouging us. And this is for the medicine we DO need. What about medicine we don’t need? That is compelling reason enough to ban the advertisements. Screw them.

Where Pharma needs to be banned from is from scientific journals. So much food science and health science have been heavily warped by the Pharma money.

I don’t have a ton to add upon what the other readers have added, I think they mostly all did a good job, but I’ll give some contrast below. 

The main thought I have for you summed up: difficult, but fair. I don’t want my success to come thru RNG dice rolls, or thru grinding a ton thru time. 

By the first part (RNG), I mean i don’t want it to be so hard that the only chance you have at winning is thru luck. Luck as an actual manifested attribute of the game I feel should always account for less than 5% of the experience, otherwise the game begins to feel cheap as your investment in time goes up. It is one reason why I’ve always hated Fire Emblem. I’ve tried many of their games, but l always eventually lose interest, because I feel luck accounts for 50% or more of the experience. The developers gave you “cheats” to “overcome” the bad luck, which actually just increased the amount of time you had facing luck… And for me i find that to be a soul suckingingly bad experience.

The second part (grinding) has already been touched upon a lot by the other readers, and I agree with everything discussed. Furthermore, I actually would prefer that there be a hard cap of grinding that you can do per area, and that in order to progress further, you’re just going to have to “figure it out” or “get good” without any further grinding. Most of the growth should come thru actually progressing past the area barrier (i.e. boss) vs the mob battles. This is also to protect my time investment. Grinding feels like you are “cheesing it”, but if it is difficult otherwise, you (the player) won’t force yourself to “get good” as you’ll take the easy (but boring! and time wasting) option. So i think hard capping grinding per area is the solution in my estimation. 

A couple other responses to the readers’ comments:

 – To me the job of the mini game done well is immersion. i.e. in the town, the mini game in certain stores helps the environment feel more “alive” similar to the effect you get when you visit a fair in real life. The games should be completely optional, short and amusing. I feel Zelda has done these well. 

– Just want to echo that auto leveling the enemies in rpgs is the absolute worst! Although I think the idea of a modicum of growth or change in areas is good as it shows the world is evolving with you, which can help the world feel more alive. The point is that if you’re on the hero’s journey, you should be evolving the most. 

Speaking of that, every evolution of the world should be for a reason organic to it (the story or vibe as you say), and not for a gameplay reason! But I don’t have to tell you that Master Malstrom. You understanding this dynamic so well is the main reason why i will definitely play your game (i am averaging about two games a year for the past decade so that’s a huge compliment). I have lamented for decades how games will sacrifice the logical coherency of their world for “gameplay”. That ruins the experience. 

The Master Reader

Oh dear, everyone. You have been 1uped. We’ve got The Master Reader in the house laying down the email here. How can any reader compare to The Master Reader? (How crazy are the titles my audience grant themselves!)

I’ll share with you this aspect of the ‘organic’ nature.

One defining nature of my game is that I have an established world/universe/narrative goal. It takes place over thousands of years and on multiple worlds. Needless to say, no AAA or AA would ever dare to take on such a topic. Indie game companies also couldn’t take on such a topic. It’s not Star Citizen type insanity. It is more like Final Fantasy 6 to the ninth power type insanity. It is so ambitious, it was a goal bigger than I had any idea of how to accomplish it.

This isn’t an ‘indie game’ project. This is an ‘insane person’ project. Only an insane person would say, “No idea how to make the game or to do it to this scope. But let me start building anyway, and I’ll figure it out…” Indies do not talk this way. But entrepreneurs do.

How does this translate to reality? It’s done several things.

First, it has propelled my craft skills skyward. While most are happy to imitate a 16-bit game with all of the familiar tropes, I’m doing something… else.

Second, it has kept the game quite blue ocean despite the flood of other rpgs. Now, I do some ‘normal’ things but only to troll the player such as start the game with your quaint village and starting slimes. But it is in the fashion of Final Fantasy 1 saving the ‘princess’ as the first thing you do. I hate the tropes. It is time to subvert expectations.

Third, the gameplay progression is not what anyone would expect. This is giving the game ‘surprise’. I did not intend for the game to ‘surprise’. It is following its own drummer beat. But because of that, the game feels consistent because it is playing in its own universe as opposed to a ‘genre’.

“But this is RPG genre, Malstrom,” declares the reader. “You need to follow all the RPG rules and tropes. You need to have your amnesiac hero, your mini-games, Cheeseball bad guys, need to be the ‘chosen one’ for the hero, and the party to all get along that would make Human Resources proud!”

Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, reader, but I don’t care for any of those things. There are enough of those games. We don’t need another. I want to play something different.

“But that’s arrogant!”

Entertainment is not the field for the polite and shy.

“You must make sure nothing in the game offends anyone.”

Screw that! Many things will be offensive in my game. Not deliberately, of course. It is nothing more than holding the mirror to human nature. If someone looks into the mirror and doesn’t like their own reflection, why is that my fault?

“I did accidently have a programming left in by mistake that did ‘level scaling’ to all my enemies. So when I did a playthrough of the game, I was like, “Man, oh man, this is balanced perfectly!!!” hahaha. It felt so challenging at earlier levels. But then I realized I could never outlevel anything. The monsters were leveling with me! Then I discovered the programming mistake. “Oh nooooo!” Hahahaha.”

Admittedly, I don’t know how much work would be involved, but if it wouldn’t take too much effort I think you should take this bug and run with it. Incorporate it into the game as an optional alternate difficulty setting. When players start a new game, they can choose whether to play the game “Standard Difficulty” (how you intend the game to be played, difficulty is basically regulated by the player) or “Scaling Difficulty”/”Story Difficulty” (where the game operates off your ‘level scaling’ bug, players will never have to worry about being under-leveled but will never get to experience being overpowered either). Make clear that players couldn’t change difficulty part-way through, though they could start a new game and choose the other difficulty if they like.

Again, I admit that I don’t know how much extra work would be required to make such a feature function, but if it could be done easily I think you should make it an actual part of the final product.

— Longtime Reader

Difficulty options in an RPG are GAY. The entire idea of the RPG is that you can overlevel past areas if they get too hard.

Level scaling isn’t something I can flip on or off like a switch. And I found it ruined immersion. After ten hours, you return to an earlier part of the game and those starting creatures whoop your ass. How’d they get so powerful? It makes no sense.

Personally, when it comes to video games, I’ve always been much more interested in exploring said game’s world, and how it slowly opens up more and more as you progress, which is why I’ve come to hate when most RPGS (especially post 5th-gen ones) grind the pacing to a sudden halt just so that we get these 10 min.-half an hour unskippable cutscenes with the characters either mouthing out groan-worthy writer jokes/exposition etc., or engaging in these ‘cheap pathos’ moments that are there more to appease critics or youtube essayists than the gamers actually playing them, who’re just wondering when it’ll be over with! 

Another thing is that minigame-type crap that’s more common in a lot of indie RPGs these days. Like I get it, certain gamers aren’t into grindfests and mobs of enemies and all that crap, but I find it even more annoying when in their misguided desire to make RPG battle systems more “interesting”, they just turn the game into poor man’s WarioWare/Mario Party that only serves to muck up the pacing even more, especially if the “minigames” are boring in themselves!

Regarding your game, I’m hoping that Ultima/FF1’s “DnD campaign on steroids” is about as prevalent as the FF6/3!US influence, like a good balanced meal, if you know what I mean. Anywho, best of luck with your game!

You make three points with three paragraphs. Let’s go through these.

In the first paragraph, you talk about the game world opening up but then the pacing stops because of endless soap opera. I think I know what you mean. I actually find most modern RPGs unplayable because of all that.

My NPCs are similar to Ultima 7’s NPCs. They can say many things if you let them. But you do not have to talk to them. They are there as part of the world.

I call these ‘cutscenes’ as ‘story scenarios’ as opposed to ‘battle scenarios’. For example, the opera scene in FF6 would be a ‘story scenario’.

My game development experience so far hasn’t been so much as lengthening a cord as it has been filling up a tub with water. As my craft skills increase, it forced me to redo everything. Again and again. It is so much better than what it was! And I’ve only stopped doing that because the crafting is at the point where to continue to do ‘better’ would be way too much time. For example, I was pixel making the battlers. You see the small ones in games like Crystal Project? Mine started out that small. But they got better, larger, less stiff, etc. The next ‘jump’ in them would be to Street Fighter 2 type size and no way will I go there. It is no longer a matter of capability, it is simply a matter of TIME.

I think most ‘story scenarios’ in RPGs are trash. Backwards engineering ones such as FF6 taught me something interesting. They don’t use many words. In FF6, or even Chrono Trigger, the characters ACT as if on stage. If a character is ‘angry’, you will see them jump up and down, make a face, and waggle their fists. I believe a balance is done by the less the player is interacting, the larger the spectacle needs to be.

I also liken cutscenes to the job of how Pac-Man used them. Cutscenes are there as a break, almost a reward, for the player doing an intensive thing such as killing a boss.

I am currently dealing with one part where there is much exposition because it is a part that must be shown. There’s no Humans involved in the scene. The challenge is keeping player’s interest. It is wild enough that it may do so. Maybe I might have to break it apart later on after testing.

We all have ‘ideas’ and ‘the way things ought to be’. But it comes down to play testing after play testing after play testing. If something is annoying to me with multiple playtests, I get rid of it. There are times when you think something works but doesn’t hold up, and vice versa.

A big reason why I am doing a RPG is because I hate how most RPGs are written. I have the arrogance to say, “Let me show you how a real one should be done…” Why am I so bullish? Because the ‘story’ isn’t really a soap opera. It is about Human nature that only a video game can illustrate. Something like Ultima IV.I want a game that makes you THINK. It’s a type of game I’ve been wanting to make for over thirty years. Only recently is it possible to make such a game. No AAA or AA studio would even entertain it. Indie devs won’t even try it. They become hostile when I first mentioned it. Now, with progress, they become more shocked. For example, one indie dev today was being scorned because he has ‘too many RPG characters’ in his game. Too many is nine with a couple of bonus characters. I’m shrinking in my seat because my game currently has over twenty playable characters. The ‘game dev community’ can be dream killers.

So let us discuss your second paragraph: mini-games. I do not believe in mini -games and there are no mini-games whatsoever in my title. So if you love those mini-games, go somewhere else. I see many indie devs put them into their RPGs, and I can’t understand why. Perhaps it is because other RPGs have them so they think they have to do it as well. We do not live in game scarcity I’d rather play another game instead of play a mini-game within a game!

And let us see your third paragraph of Ultima/FF1 D&D Campaign type style. For character testing, I actually included a second mode to my game. I hope to include it for the full release.

The second mode is that you have a choice of over a dozen characters. You choose four. That’s your party.

The goal is to see how far you can get. The game is a type of dimensional dungeons. There is no story. There is little dialogue. The emphasis is entirely on you going forward and the battle mechanics. Yes, iI have created a dungeon crawler n order to balance my characters.

My goal is to be able to take any four selection of characters and have a satisfyingly experience. Currently, there are no ‘jobs’ as the characters are hardline into their class (this might change later on in the game).

I’m going to have to rely on feedback. You can and should only do so much with one game. I think players might appreciate that you are doing something a little different and subvert expectations.

I love FF1 so I recreated it (after a fashion) within that second mode in my game. The battle mechanics are the bass of the RPG song. People hear the ‘story’, but the bass is what delivers. Without that bass, the song is no good.