The Use and Abuse of Old Game Styles (REBONE!)

[Guest]

I know this is only tangibly related to the topic and was already covered in full detail by the twitter user tacticalfiend/busterbeam, but what do the Amarnites think of Hi-Fi Rush?

To me, the fact that a Platinum/Capcom-lite game with a fugly Netflix CGI anime & surface level Jet Set Radio and Fooly Cooly aesthetic is hailed as a soulful underdog game says to me the absolute states of gamers.

[PIGSAW]

So, the other day I realized I should be treating SLAYERS X the same way I'd treat a game I like and researching the creator rather than the product— and holy shit was I right about fucking EVERYTHING:

[...] Issue is, since they can't (not like they'd want to) get away with doing it like Postal 2 (which is basically still libtard bullshit anyways), they have to dial up only the scatological ZOGshit 'cause the "waycism" (and violence, SLAYERS X only uses dumbass fake guns to further undercut violence) would be a no-go. [...]

https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/152...8721435651



Oh, you didn't know? SLAYERS X, the game obsessed with SHIT and ANAL, is a "Christian" game— just like Hypnospace Outlaw and Dropsy:

Dropsy began on the Something Awful forums in 2008 as a choose-your-own adventure game illustrated by Jay Tholen about a clown named Dropsy; forum commentators would suggest what the character would do and the choices would be illustrated and added to the story. The character originated from a platform game created by Tholen in 2004. [...]

[...] but for this game to have been made by goons or goon-adjacent means they did in fact live through the '90s and '00s consciously and should have a better understanding of these eras than I do (since goons are on average older than me).

Okay, so Tholen's a confirmed goon. Well, how much of a goon is he?



Jesus fucking Christ. Historical document here— alternating between TIGSource, SomethingAwful, and "Weird Twitter" while working on "pixel art" and listening to some 'Ensemble of Pots & Pans Falling Down' prog rock high technical nonsense (the goon is always a failed academic; even when they're not— and their love of technicality and "nonsense" are crucial to understanding them, but all of this should eventually just go in a SomethingAwful Autopsy thread)...



https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/680605211904315392



https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/139...8801498112

SLAYERS X begins to make a little more sense.. except he's saying that things are worse and more corporate now, which he's right— which he shouldn't think, and he definitely shouldn't understand this:



https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/155...8378641409

That goons are enraged by the sight of anime, which is retarded and comical. But while him being a goon is important, I'm more interested in him as a "Christian":

Hi folks. My name is Jay Alan Tholen Jr. I was born in Florida on February 25, 1987. [...] On sundays you'll find me hanging with my other Dad about 30 miles down the road at New Testament Church in Brandon. [...]

http://web.archive.org/web/2009051008343...holen.net/

(Older iterations of his website look good, 2007 - 2009. Incidental though.)



https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/127...0483953670




https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/111...2423753729



https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/126...6271353859

Yeah, okay, so uhhh... sin is when.. worldly matters? I <3 nigger? ..and never read the Bible— especially not the Old Testament, where it's more violent than Madness Combat. Right.



https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/166...0560984065

And here's him talking to the HDoom faggot (that put in some faggot coding so you can't run Brutal DOOM and kill his fapbait monsters).

Y'know, after close to 20 years of gang-stalking a circus of nigger faggot freaks online, it's incredibly rare that I ever come across a person I still find confusing— as in, someone I can't easily slot into a category of retard I've seen before. I'm pretty used to vivisecting goons due to how much interference they run for shit I don't like, as well as interfering with shit I do— and having known a decent amount of them back in the FYAD days when they did anything creative or funny, and this guy is a fucking anomaly.

But I think it might be my fault:



https://twitter.com/jaytholen/status/910227025016889345

A friend of mine had pointed out something we both often do is misattribute cultural specifics from BYOB to all of SomethingAwful— of course there's plenty of overlap, but the "Beardo" type faggot that I see Zoomers at war with on Twitter I believe originates on BYOB.

So, Jay Tholen is: Pro-1A (as a mechanism for POZ), anti-2A (or any level of violence, even in the Bible), pro-porn, BYOB goon, Christcuck (who's only interest in Christianity is to use it as a mechanism for POZ), shit fetishist (maybe I should just say pro-shitting)? As a person, this makes no fucking sense— but from the reverse SLAYERS X does.

---

[...] Warhammer 40,000: Agents of Death was developed in the late 1990's by Polish developers and scrapped by 2000. Standing on the shoulders of giants such as Quake, Half-Life, Unreal, Goldeneye, and in the shadow of the much-hyped upcoming Duke Nukem Forever, had this came out I imagine it would have been quickly forgotten (much like its more-successful replacement Fire Warrior), yet fondly remembered for the architecture and design that was pulled off. [...]

Looks awesome, I love the color palette— Quake is a better reference/platform than DOOM for 40k anyway, since it's dark-fantasy-military-gothic just like 40k (whereas DOOM is sci-fi horror, only a little gothic). Those screenshots remind me of the old commercial for Twisted Metal: Black:

[...] It's like night and day. As Agents of Death was never finished, we will never know the extent of how far they would have depicted the Warhammer 40,000 setting, but we can see a glimpse in the beta footage with cathedrals, temples, Imperial Navy ships, Imperial Guard bases, industrial towns. I feel immersed by its honest portrayal, much like the aforementioned Space Marine game. [...] Perhaps its the silence and ambience of the beta video that has no enemies and the player is simply strolling around the levels that does it some favours, because I want to stand in awe and appreciate the world around me. [...]

Great point, something I consider to be a massive failing of (most) indie devs (and real ones, but they have more of an excuse to maintain the status quo) is taking their primary inspiration from finished games— when there's an entire world of unfinished projects you could rip apart and take much weirder influence from:

https://www.unseen64.net/

https://www.youtube.com/user/monokoma

[...] Throughout the video you consistently see sewage and fecal matter in an attempt to replicate the alleged "gross-out culture" that supposedly permeated the 90's. I'm appalled that this retard and the faggots who made this game visualise their childhood like this against all else.

As I bitched about in the animation thread, this was a real phenomenon (one that I found offensive even as a child without an ability to articulate it)— but the most ZOG'd out shit you'd see on TV didn't have THIS much fucking ANAL in it (you LITERALLY go into an ASS in this game— HaHA, WTF is wrong with this faggot?).
I believe I said this before, but he's hyperfocusing on the "gross-out" element of the '90s as a way to circumvent the fact he can't touch any of the other shock elements: making fun of non-whites, making fun of whores, making fun of faggots, violence, and apparently taking yourself seriously in any capacity.

[...] It’s easy to believe that Slayers X was designed by a teenager in the late 90s, because it is aggressively obnoxious in a way that only 15-year-olds are capable of being. [...] As a former dweeby teenager myself, I assumed Slayers X would prove too much to stomach, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many are nauseated by its commitment to the bit. But much like the game’s concept, there are layers to this world that lend it a surprisingly earnest sincerity. While sentient piles of squelching shit and dumb one-liners are obvious inclusions, it’s the game’s world that truly convinces you that a socially outcast 15-year-old designed this game. [...] Don’t get me wrong, this is still a purposefully unpleasant game to spend time with, but that’s sort of the brilliance of it. I’m unashamed to admit that as a teenager who used to wear a dog lead on his baggy jeans in an effort to look edgy, I found Slayers X to be a hilarious depiction of a very specific part of my life. [...]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/slayers...oxious-gem

Duke Nukem is not the "funny quotes man", [...]

[...] that's an invention by that castrati goblin Gianni Matragrano extrapolated from videos of people enjoying his one-liners immortalised on early YouTube.

I've hatestalked Gianni before, I'm glad you already know he's a castrati 'cause that would've been my follow-up response otherwise. Since you posted that, I'll post this:

https://twitter.com/GetGianni/status/153...0886744072

https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss287o

[...] So I stopped doing Duke entirely anyway to be safe. This was a really hard choice to make. The people around me really wanted me to keep doing Duke memes, but I was afraid to piss off JSJ, because well, he's a hero of mine. [...] I expressed that even stuff like Trans Rights I was, at the time, hesitant about doing VO with characters I don't voice because I felt like it might come off more like weak virtue signalling... Since then I've come around to realizing how nice it is for trans folks to see that kind of support, even if it is from my cheap cardboard cutouts of the characters. [...] the way I worded it looks like I don't think Trans Rights is serious and I really hate that I said it like that. I'm sorry about that, and I'm sorry I held back on vocal support there for a while with my silly impressions. I'm a stupid person who overthinks things, it's a dangerous but tragically common combo. [...] Let me tell you what I really think about JSJ...

I think he's great. I think he does legendary work which I clearly take inspiration from, and not just with Duke. I remember starting VO over a decade ago and just listening to voice files for Duke Nukem on YouTube because he sounded so cool. I remember thinking about how cool he sounded when I was a kid playing Time To Kill on my PS1. [...] He honestly reminds me of my mom in that way. I love my mom. He outwardly supports trans rights and similar progressive stuff. That rocks. Despite all his event stuff, cruises (I've never been able to afford a cruise but I hear cruises in general can get crazy), conventions, etc, I've never ONCE heard any wild stories of abuse or grooming or weird sex crimes or anything, which disappointingly feels like a fucking rarity some weeks. [...] I get attention now because I'm a good Lots Of Things, it's because I like memes, it's because I'm always deep in the Retro FPS scene, it's because folks like the characters I voice officially, it's because I try to be honest and down to Earth with folks, it's because I support indies, it's because I have good taste in bad games, it's because folks share my love of Columbo, it's because I support the fuck outta Trans Rights, [...] That's the entirety of my "Duke Related Income". I'd never voice the blonde himbo bastard again if I could trade it for the kind of solid career JSJ has had. I wish I could even go on a fucking cruise, no less produce a business for it like he has. Not that he's rich, but I envy that kind of security. I hustle every month to make sure the bills are paid. No royalties are coming in for me. But I know I'm young, I have a lot of hard work ahead of me to try to get to where he's at. I understand and respect that. [...]

The life and culture around "voice actors" really deserves its own thread— one that @anthony should write the OP for.

Also, WTF is up with "Columbo"? Kantbot and Red Scare-Americans are always talking about fucking Columbo. I never see anyone comment on this.

To summarise, this sodomite is involved in nearly every "boomer shooter" project voicing just about every annoying retard in the game. He seems to have some credits on occasional English Anime dubs across the 90's and 00's, particularly Memories by Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame, but that's a different topic. [...]

This I didn't know. I thought he was some fag that started in the 2010's with a lotta those other faillennial/Zillennial VA attention whores.

[...] Gianni voices and establishes the mood while Civvie recaps and reviews the end result for wider audiences. [...]

Great point, the inbred social mechanics of this (now) welfare system need to be clearly laid out as such so people can understand why GamerGate failed— and how it this could be rectified.

[...] I'd now say pixel-art, low-poly models and low-resolution textures are what he called "game stuff", that is, they're what the indie game devs use to signal to their chosen audience that this is a "true" game, that they're allowed to enjoy this. I'd wager they'd use this even if it were somehow technically more difficult to implement, simply for the signal value. [...]

Well put.

[...] It doesn't serve much purpose for game design at all. I don't think I can name many games of that ilk in which the choice of graphic style underscored some sort of artistic vision. Hotline Miami may be an exception, you could argue that the top-down pixel art fits the feeling of an 80s arcade games very well. [...]

I consider "da '80s! nostalgia" to fall under "game stuff" (signaling), however, in the case of Hotline Miami— especially Wrong Number, they do amazing shit with it. 'Nam set in Hawaii? That's straight outta a SUDA51 game.



Also, on the subject of "Midnight Animal" and since this is a thread for faux-retro:





It's a damn shame this wasn't finished, I thought this looked even cooler than Wrong Number— like a '00s-y Newgrounds styled Hotline Miami:

[PIGSAW]

[...] This of course by contrast feels like a world made out of paper, but not in a nice Katamari handicrafts way. [...]

This reminds me, something else I hate about SLAYERS X, Boltgun, and generally all "indie" faggotry (it's a huge issue with dumb fucking Americans) is they want to make non-violent-violent games. If Tholen's so obsessed with non-violence why the fuck is he making an FPS (well, we know the answer, self-loathing subversive projection)? Katamari is one of my favorite game franchises precisely because of how GOOD it is as a completely different experience to hyperviolent games:







I think I got Katamari Damacy around the same time I got a used copy of Silent Hill 2 and while I was loving SH2 I had no problem putting it down to play something completely different.
That's how video games are supposed to be, eclectic:















There's a million ways to make games that aren't about violence:



..and you can still make action games (or games with action) that aren't bloody or gory that're actually cool:

[PIGSAW]

[...] This reminds me of the trailer I saw for Secret Little Haven, which is a retro-themed visual novel where the player character is a teenage "trans girl". They even pick the same year, 1999.

[clipped 'cause the forum fucking breaks when I post too many]

Secret Little Haven Release Trailer [...]

Thanks for bringing this up— I actually made a post about this game in the 'Internet Tranny Sociology' thread but it got buried; it'll have a better home here:

An important element (and a failing of YWNBAW) is that the modern troon does not want to be a woman- they want to be a girl.

The AAGP MSPaint Laintard & co. is rooted in the Gen X/Y return-to-childhood cult that we see via various peasant-farmer hoarding of pop culture trash, but for the (usually millennial) troon they wish to rewrite their memories with a fantasy version of the Lisa Frank Y2k "girlhood" which they observed from girls as children and combined with their own experience as outcast boys.

This goes back to what I was saying before, about trannies being obsessed with performing historical revisionism on themselves and their lives. I think the general attraction to "1999" (outside of how it looks, it looks dramatic) is the same thing I said somewhere in one of these fucking posts, they want to go back to 1999 but have it also be 2023. They correctly understand the turn of the century as being more fun, except they're part of the censorship regime that took that shit away from all of us. Same impulse for these niggerfaggots to immigrate to Japan— they just love destroying nice things.

---

The first Super Mario Bros. seems almost slapdashedly put together in a lot of ways, at least visual-aesthetically: "So our game's protag is the gaijin-plumber of our office space, because it's funny. Throw in a bunch of other colorful weird shit like mushrooms and flowers and turtle-monsters to attract the kids, OK now let's get down to business and design the actual mechanics of the game." [...]

It's not completely arbitrary— the Koopa are essentially westernized pop-art versions of Kappa:



..to fit in with Mario being non-Japanese, same reason Bowser takes the form of a more European-style dragon:



It's the origin point of the pop-art style Katamari uses too, and many other Japanese games, which are kind of very modernized versions of Japanese folklore mixed with other folklore from different countries (especially America) that they like.

[...] The enourmous success of the product snowballs into the NECESSARY NEXT PRODUCT they understand themselves to be obliged to pay priors to. The player still should be playing the same Mario, Mushrooms et al, but the mechanics need to differ slightly. The software systems they're dealing with may or may not have increased in complexity. The top-down demands RE: visuals, etc. at this point are another monster, little time to think about it.

This phenomenon is definitely outside the scope of this thread, but it's clearly observable across movies and basically all mass-consumer media products. The snowball has accumulated to a dead-end wherein no genuine progress can be made - "the next Mario" is out of the picture at this point, and so is the next Master Chief or Don Corleone.

What I'm getting at is that the "Indie-game genre" is so much of an attempt of ressurecting the past. It's largely "reactionary" in the worst sense. Plenty of "Indie games" are fun imo, and basically improvements on their priors, but the mass of them basically fail to achieve any genuine innovation in any direction beyond a "streamlining" of numbers systems and game-physics. They almost all amount to a retrograde sort of cargo-cult attempt at resurrecting "what was better than now".

Excellent post— this gets at the heart of why I considered this thread to be so important on Amarna I and why I wanted to resurrect it.

---

I know this is only tangibly related to the topic and was already covered in full detail by the twitter user tacticalfiend/busterbeam, but what do the Amarnites think of Hi-Fi Rush?

To me, the fact that a Platinum/Capcom-lite game with a fugly Netflix CGI anime & surface level Jet Set Radio and Fooly Cooly aesthetic is hailed as a soulful underdog game says to me the absolute states of gamers.

Actually, Guest you are very correct to bring up Hi-Fi Rush— that's one of the best examples of 'abuse of retro style' that anyone's brought up in the thread so far (which is to say that it's future-tense indie-genre faggotry), because it's ahead of what broke indie troons can accomplish with no money (and no Japanese slave labor). IIRC, all of Buster's points about Hi-Fi Rush are correct— he's generally a very good critic of these things (though he should knock off the faggot both-sides contrarianism) and would probably do well on this forum.

Hi-Fi Rush is a game of extremely high craft quality (as the Japanese at Tango did all the fucking work to realize everything)— as Graph had said "Plenty of "Indie games" are [...] basically improvements on their priors", Hi-Fi Rush does belong to the "indies" not because it is an independant game but because, again as Graph said, it's part of the "indie-game genre". It's a future-tense indie-genre game for the (soon to emerge at a budget) faux-PS2 era, with many, many improvements that were not possible on 6th gen hardware. Problem is it suffers from the same identity disorder as "normal" (broke) indieshit— which is that it goes in circles with technical advancements for a complete lack of artistic or otherwise greater vision.

I can really understand why Zoomers (though it was mostly Zoomers defending it, and a couple soylennial baldheads, but I'm just going to assume they were all mulattos who love to eat garbage and not count them as people) hate Millennials so much, if this dogshit is the reference point for Gen Y.
It's a completely deracinated amalgamation of what were mostly very "edgy" (high pop-art) precious Millennial nostalgic references:



In episode 2 of FLCL "Fire Starter", Mamimi is obsessed with playing Fire Starter:

"Fire Starter", it's a hand-held video game. No one knows how Endsville, the city of devils, was created, but as soon as it appeared, it started to grow, and slowly eat up the world. You are an agent of Canti, the god of the black flame, and you must stop Endsville from destroying the world. Your only weapon is flame: matches, lighters, and fire-bombs. Get the weapons, outsmart the firefighters, hide from the police, torch the city, and purge its devils. But you must be careful; you cannot burn everything. If the entire city burns down, there will be no place to live. Thus, the battle is hopeless: there is no final victory. The only thing you can do is burn and burn and burn. Your highest goal is to receive the personal blessing of Canti, the god of the black flame.

It's (loudly) implied within the episode that she burned down her school in a fit of rage as a younger child.

Obviously Hi-Fi Rush is not interested in the melancholy of FLCL, but it was precisely the melancholy (and the manic juxtaposition of contrasting and clashing styles to it) which attracted Millennials (and everyone else, really) to FLCL: "Endsville" "city of devils" "agent of Canti, the god of black flame" "matches, lighters, and fire-bombs" "outsmart the firefighters, hide from the police, torch the city, and purge its devils" "The only thing you can do is burn and burn and burn." - these details, even if forgotten, are why FLCL became a touchstone of that era.

To quote Graph for a 3rd time: "The snowball has accumulated to a dead-end wherein no genuine progress can be made - "the next Mario" is out of the picture at this point, and so is the next Master Chief or Don Corleone." this is exactly what's offensive about Hi-Fi Rush, for all the labor and spending.. it accomplishes nothing compared to any of what it's referencing:





Which are all highly novel and idiosyncratic works from gaming's "teenage years", typically made with dramatically smaller budgets and worse technology. The other important aspect, and I'll use Jet Set Radio as the example, is that it wasn't really based on other videogames:



https://blushandfreckle.wordpress.com/20...eet-style/

JGR/JSRF were heavily influenced by Akihabara street fashion— most clearly seen now in the old "FRUiTS Magazine", the reason this matters outside of the obvious (it's cool) is that it shows gaming was actually connected to street level culture as well as the avant-garde and cutting edge. Gaming did not sit back in a hole, it actively participated in the world around it.

Jacket>> Takuya Angel
Trousers>> Takuya Angel
Accessories>> Takuya Angel
Point of fashion>> Takuya Angel
Current obsession>> body building

A failing which indie and AAA share is a total disconnection from high or low art— basically all gaming exists in a vacuum of self-referentialism where any forward advancement has been criminalized as it would interfere with gaming as a tech/arts welfare system for women and men who pretend to be women.

[Hamamelis]

I have some budding thoughts on the wider subject of success and imitation in art, that I have so far not managed to bring to a satisfying conclusion. I will note them down in a hopefully coherent and brief manner here, maybe some of you find it interesting or see fault in it.

It seems to me that art creation plays out like pheromone-guided exploration in ant, such that it's easier to go where others have gone before, and easiest where most have gone before. If that seems obvious, then it should also be obvious that a famous pioneer will create a large draw in one direction, because many follow him (i.e. imitate him), and in turn, cause more to follow in that well carved out path. Many small deviations from the original will explore a wider area, but not in a new direction. In art, an example would be Shakespeare basically defining what a modern play is. Many if not all plays after Shakespeare will be Shakespearean, because the influence of Shakespeare's plays on any other playwright is, like the metaphorical ant pheromone, dictating the creative path the mind of the playwright takes when thinking up a new play. Only an autistic creative genius who is basically immune to memetic subversion will go down completely unexplored paths. If his work becomes well known, it will invite imitation, which will form the basis for a new style or subculture.

It would also seem logical that in any specific art form, the possible directions that artists can choose are limited by the modalities in which the art form can be expressed. In video games, "art space" is most limited by game mechanics (using the term loosely here, like "rules of the game"). A lot of game mechanics can be imagined, but most don't work to build a game. You could say that this requirement of interactivity makes video games one of the most limited art forms overall - a video game has to have at its foundation a mechanic that is coherent, interesting, or at least entertaining, otherwise the game will remain unplayed, the art un-experienced. Compare this to a painting that can just "be" - if it's not much to look at, you still have to look at it to realise that.

So if we accept that success leads to imitation, and that video games have a limited set of games mechanics with which developers can create succesful games, we can conclude that at some point, a game mechanic has had its Shakespeare, and that from then on, all developers will have a mental template for games of that variety. To some extent, we have reached this stage already. Let's say that Doom defined FPS (it doesn't need to be true for my point) - then all the following FPS basically explored from where Doom led us, and at some point, small deviations from that original path could not produce new and interesting variation anymore. We would now need somebody to "redefine" FPS, such that new games of that type could explore unknown territory again. But this seems to be impossible, because it would require somebody to take a new direction with game mechanics, and these are apparently exhausted. What remains for new games is further imitation, and because previous imitators have gone further away from the original, the novel approach is, counterintuitively, to come back to the original: Retro style.

This has become muss less concise than I hoped for, I apologise, I wrote this after a long day at work. I will read it again tomorrow and decide for edit or delete then. I know nothing about theatre by the way, if Shakespeare is a bad example, let me know.

[Guest]

I know this is only tangibly related to the topic and was already covered in full detail by the twitter user tacticalfiend/busterbeam, but what do the Amarnites think of Hi-Fi Rush?

To me, the fact that a Platinum/Capcom-lite game with a fugly Netflix CGI anime & surface level Jet Set Radio and Fooly Cooly aesthetic is hailed as a soulful underdog game says to me the absolute states of gamers.

It is one of the ugliest things I have ever seen. Naturally, it was taken up by the Norwood hordes. If anyone wants to milk a market, then it's a perfectly good case study however. 
1.) Nostalgia link (art and music)
2.) Name-brand with loose affiliation (god dev Mikami or whatever his name is.)
3.) Cater to present sensibilities (there are essentially only writing-fags and "gameplay" maximalists in the general market.)

The new Final Fantasy is doing the same thing, except it has an added benefit by having thousands of free marketers from the MMO there to continue doing what they enjoy doing.

I have seen people praise music like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3StKXNbXoc
Which is a good illustration of how powerful name-brands are.

---

It would also seem logical that in any specific art form, the possible directions that artists can choose are limited by the modalities in which the art form can be expressed. In video games, "art space" is most limited by game mechanics (using the term loosely here, like "rules of the game"). A lot of game mechanics can be imagined, but most don't work to build a game. You could say that this requirement of interactivity makes video games one of the most limited art forms overall - a video game has to have at its foundation a mechanic that is coherent, interesting, or at least entertaining, otherwise the game will remain unplayed, the art un-experienced. Compare this to a painting that can just "be" - if it's not much to look at, you still have to look at it to realise that.

So if we accept that success leads to imitation, and that video games have a limited set of games mechanics with which developers can create succesful games, we can conclude that at some point, a game mechanic has had its Shakespeare, and that from then on, all developers will have a mental template for games of that variety. To some extent, we have reached this stage already. Let's say that Doom defined FPS (it doesn't need to be true for my point) - then all the following FPS basically explored from where Doom led us, and at some point, small deviations from that original path could not produce new and interesting variation anymore. We would now need somebody to "redefine" FPS, such that new games of that type could explore unknown territory again. But this seems to be impossible, because it would require somebody to take a new direction with game mechanics, and these are apparently exhausted. What remains for new games is further imitation, and because previous imitators have gone further away from the original, the novel approach is, counterintuitively, to come back to the original: Retro style.

Fundamentally, any constraint on player action is a game mechanic. For example, the definitive constraints of a roguelike are permadeath and stochastic world generation that can't be memorized. The definitive constraint of an FPS is line-of-sight aiming. Essentially these are mathematically boundaries on the virtual world that the game designer defines in concert with supporting constraints according to personal taste, in order to limit the player action space to actions that are fun.

There's no limit to the number, shape, or interactions of game mechanics because they're mathematical functions that can be composed arbitrarily. Every FPS is descended from DOOM because it was the game that definitely demonstrated how a designer can use the line-of-sight aiming constraint to cut the virtual world down to an intensely fun core. Then Portal came along and combined the line-of-sight aiming constraint with a new constraint, of levels that are impossible to navigate without spacial manipulation. Portal was descended from DOOM, yet by no means was it limited to small deviations because the designers composed a novel and supremely elegant constraint onto the old constraint that DOOM had definitively introduced to the world. And now it's been 16 years since Portal and not only has nobody innovated on top of Portal's definitive constraint, but short of that almost nobody has even iterated on it; not even the obvious step of recombining portal travel with traditional shooter combat, which would be a hell of a lot of fun.

The fact that we see stagnation isn't proof that there's a finite set of good game mechanics which have all been exhausted, it's just proof that game developers have been more or less unable to tread new ground in the last decade due to some combination of:

-Dispositional lack of will to create novel mechanics
-Intellectual incomprehension of how to use interacting mathematical constraints to shape the gestalt player experience
-Shallow threshold of fun; lack of sensitivity and appetite for the experiences of the hunt, of unrestricted savage competition, of exploring mysteries.
-Commercial nonviability of offering original mechanics to a market of nostalgiac baldsoomers and femcel gatecrashers
-Institutional female/tranny suppression of sexually normal white male creativity

Originality in game design is no easy thing to begin with, either. Like you said, coming up with a new constraining mechanic on player action isn't sufficient. I disagree that most don't work at all to build a game, rather they vary in how powerfully they limit the space of player action, and with which other mechanics they can be effectively combined. Conceivably there may be some mechanics that could have been as genre-defining as those of Rogue or DOOM, but which fell by the wayside because they were born into games that didn't harness them effectively, and so nobody yet recognizes their potential. One must also balance the supporting constraints to catch the results of the new mechanic and shape it into a fun gestalt. It takes real vision and deep insight to do this, so the lower forms of humanity can only imitate what they've seen before, because they have no deep inner world in which to intuit and model new directions to go and effectively refine them. And this kind of talent is extremely difficult to cultivate and execute upon in the face of widespread bioleninist cultural hostility against the talented.

---

I have seen people praise music like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3StKXNbXoc
Which is a good illustration of how powerful name-brands are.

I like the part where it goes "CLUNK tinkle tinkle CLUNK tinkle tinkle CLUNK tinkle tinkle CLUNK"

[Bransle]

This reminds me, something else I hate about SLAYERS X, Boltgun, and generally all "indie" faggotry (it's a huge issue with dumb fucking Americans) is they want to make non-violent-violent games. If Tholen's so obsessed with non-violence why the fuck is he making an FPS (well, we know the answer, self-loathing subversive projection)? 

This is also something that gets me also: I don't like how prevalent shooting, and violence is in general, is in videogames. This is not over some particular distaste for violence, rather than it's a clear sign of the unfulfilled potential of the medium. Movies would have gone nowhere if it was commonly accepted that the main character should annihilate a room full of enemies once every three scenes. 



Yet, here you have them: people with an obvious distaste for violence on a situation where they could afford to "not" be violent in their videogames, choosing instead for working in the genre that, by definition, chiefly allows you to interact with the environment around you through shooting it. Of course, FPS under the "Doom formula" are the easiest genre to get functional: it's basically a robust formula that has been playtested for three decades. Unless you go too "experimental" there's barely any risk to make an offensively bad game: there's many unplayable RPGs, there's no unplayable FPS. It's like trying to make a bad chessboard: no matter what, if it has all the pieces and the right squares you're still gonna be able to play chess on it.



It's also telling that there's no similar revival for more complex "retro" games. Retro-revival has been immediately associated with "Doom clones". It's just Doom with different skins.

---

As an aside, it's important to point out that immediately after Doom, the most apparent direction FPS went towards a greater fidelity. Many popular wads at the time, went Doom was not retro but new, aimed towards creating a world that was real and could be manipulated as such.

[ꦈꦒꦲꦸꦫꦲꦺꦴꦗ꦳ꦲ]

🆃🅷🅴 🅲🅾🅽🅲🅴🅿🆃 🅾🅵 🆃🅸🅼🅴 🅰🅽🅳 🆃🅷🅴 🅰🅳🆅🅰🅽🅲🅴🅼🅴🅽🆃 🅾🅵 🆃🅴🅲🅷🅽🅾🅻🅾🅶🆈 🅸🆂 🅻🅾🆂🆃 🅾🅽 🅼🅰🅽🆈.

🆃🅷🅴 🅸🅳🅴🅰 🆃🅷🅰🆃 🅸🅽 🆃🅷🅴 🅿🅰🆂🆃, 🆃🅾 🅼🅰🅺🅴 🆃🅷🅸🅽🅶🆂 🆆🅾🆁🅺 🆁🅴🆀🆄🅸🆁🅴🅳 🅳🅸🅵🅵🅴🆁🅴🅽🆃 🅼🅴🆃🅷🅾🅳🆂 🅸🆂 🅰🅱🆂🅾🅻🆄🆃🅴🅻🆈 🅽🅾🆃 🅰 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃 🅵🅾🆁 🅼🅰🅽🆈.

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ᵂʰᶦˡᵉ ᵐᵃⁿʸ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᶜʰᵃⁿᵍᵉᵈ ᶦⁿ ʰᵒʷ ʷᵉ ᵈᵒ ᶦᵗ, ᵗʰᵉ ᵉⁿᵈ ʳᵉˢᵘˡᵗ ᵗᵉⁿᵈˢ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᵃᵐᵉ. ᴵᵗ ᶦˢ ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ʷᵉ ˢᵖᵉⁿᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ˡᵃˢᵗ ³⁰ ʸᵉᵃʳˢ ᶠᵒᶜᵘˢᶦⁿᵍ ᵒⁿ ᶦᵐᵖʳᵒᵛᶦⁿᵍ ᵉᶠᶠᶦᶜᶦᵉⁿᶜʸ ʳᵃᵗʰᵉʳ ᵗʰᵃⁿ ʳᵃᵈᶦᶜᵃˡˡʸ ʳᵉᵈᵉˢᶦᵍⁿᶦⁿᵍ ʰᵒʷ ʷᵉ ᵈᵒ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ.


ˢᵒ ᶜᵃʳˢ ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵐᵉ ᵐᵒʳᵉ ᶠᵘᵉˡ ᵉᶠᶠᶦᶜᶦᵉⁿᵗ, ᶜᵒᵐᵖᵘᵗᵉʳˢ ˢᵐᵃˡˡᵉʳ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐᵒʳᵉ ᵖᵒʷᵉʳᶠᵘˡ, ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵉᵖˡᵃᶜᵉᵐᵉⁿᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵖᵘᵇˡᶦᶜ ᵖʰᵒⁿᵉˢ, ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵉᵖˡᵃᶜᵉᵐᵉⁿᵗ ᵒᶠ ᶜᵒᵖᵖᵉʳ ᶜᵃᵇˡᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵍˡᵃˢˢ. ᵀʰᵉ ˡᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵇᵘˡᵇ, ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵃˢʰᶦⁿᵍ ᵐᵃᶜʰᶦⁿᵉ, ᵉᵛᵉʳʸᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᶦⁿᵘᵒᵘˢˡʸ ᵇᵉᶦⁿᵍ ʳᵉᵛᵃᵐᵖᵉᵈ ᵃⁿᵈ ᶦᵐᵖʳᵒᵛᵉᵈ.

ᵂʰᵃᵗ ᵈᵒ ʷᵉ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ˢʰᵒʷ ᶠᵒʳ ᶦᵗ?
³⁰ ʸᵉᵃʳˢ ᵒᶠ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᵉᵛᵉʳʸᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ ˡᵒᵒᵏᶦⁿᵍ ᵍᵃʸ, ᵇᵒʳᶦⁿᵍ, ᵇˡᵃⁿᵈ, ⁿᵒᵗ ˢᵒ ᵐᵘᶜʰ ᵖᵘʳᵉˡʸ ᶠᵘⁿᶜᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ʷᵒᵘˡᵈ ˡᵒᵒᵏ ᵇᵉᵗᵗᵉʳ. ᴵᵗ ᶦˢ ᵇᵃᵈ ᵗᵃˢᵗᵉ ᵐᶦˣᵉᵈ ʷᶦᵗʰ ᶜʰᵉᵃᵖ ᵖʳᵒᵈᵘᶜᵗ ᵈᵉˢᶦᵍⁿᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ʳᵉᵖˡᵃᶜᵉᵈ.

ᴹᵒˢᵗ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖᵃˢᵗ ʷᵉʳᵉ ᵈᵉˢᶦᵍⁿᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ˡᵃˢᵗ ᵍᵉⁿᵉʳᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿˢ, ᵇᵘᵗ ᵗᵒᵈᵃʸ ⁿᵒᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ ʸᵒᵘ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᶦˢ ᵐᵉᵃⁿᵗ ᵗᵒ ᵍᵉᵗ ᵖᵃˢˢᵉᵈ ᵈᵒʷⁿ. ᵀʰᵃᵗ ᶦˢ ʷʰᵃᵗ ʰᵃˢ ᶜʰᵃⁿᵍᵉᵈ, ʰᵒʷ ᵉᶠᶠᶦᶜᶦᵉⁿᵗˡʸ ʷᵉ ᵈᵒ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ ᵗᵒ ᵐᵃˣᶦᵐᶦᶻᵉ ᵖʳᵒᶠᶦᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗᵒ ᶜʰᵘʳⁿ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵍᵃʳᵇᵃᵍᵉ.

ˢᵒ ʷʰᶦˡᵉ ᵗᵉᶜʰⁿᵒˡᵒᵍʸ ʰᵃˢ ᶦᵐᵖʳᵒᵛᵉᵈ, ⁿᵒᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ ʰᵃˢ ʳᵃᵈᶦᶜᵃˡˡʸ ᶜʰᵃⁿᵍᵉᵈ, ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᶦᵗ ʷᵃˢⁿ'ᵗ ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ᶦⁿᵛᵉⁿᵗᶦⁿᵍ ᵃ ⁿᵉʷ ˢʸˢᵗᵉᵐ, ᶦᵗ ʷᵃˢ ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ˢᵗʳᵉᵃᵐˡᶦⁿᶦⁿᵍ ᵒᵘʳ ᶜᵘʳʳᵉⁿᵗ ᵒⁿᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ʳᵉᵃˡˡʸ ˢʰᶦᵗᵗʸ.

ᵀʰᵉ ᵃˢˢᵘᵐᵖᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ᵗᵃˢᵗᵉˡᵉˢˢ ʳᵉᵗᵃʳᵈˢ ᶦˢ ᵗʰᵃᵗ, "ᵀʰᶦˢ ᶦˢ ʰᵒʷ ˡᶦᶠᵉ ᵐᵘˢᵗ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵃˡʷᵃʸˢ ᵇᵉᵉⁿ!"

ᴾᵉᵒᵖˡᵉ ʷᵉʳᵉ ᵗʳʸᶦⁿᵍ ᵗᵒ ᵈᵒ ʳᵉᵃˡˡʸ ᶜʳᵃᶻʸ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ ʷᶦᵗʰᶦⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵉˢᵗʳᶦᶜᵗᶦᵒⁿˢ ᵗʰᵉʸ ʰᵃᵈ ᶦˢ ˡᵒˢᵗ ᵗᵒ ᵃ ᵇᵘⁿᶜʰ ᵒᶠ ᶠᵃᵍᵍᵒᵗ ˡᵒˢᵉʳˢ ʷʰᵒ ʷᵉʳᵉ "ᶦⁿᶠˡᵘᵉⁿᶜᵉᵈ" ᵇʸ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖᵃˢᵗ.

[Guest]

The ugliness of this new game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has caused me great visceral pain today. It is my fault for perusing poor forums but still...

How do such things proliferate in the first place? What strange impulse drives people towards such ugliness?

[anthony]

The ugliness of this new game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has caused me great visceral pain today. It is my fault for perusing poor forums but still...

How do such things proliferate in the first place? What strange impulse drives people towards such ugliness?

I hate Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.

Jet Grind Radio and Jet Set Radio are very poorly appreciated games revered and appropriated by morons who have no idea what they are or why they're cool. These games are very particular in what they are and how they came to be. They're games based on Japanese cool street culture. They are a result of people taking what was cool in their own time and place and making it into a game, which cartoonishly plays up its styles and trends. And the actual "game" part is simple and built around showing off the "cool".

Now we have Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, which seems to be a product of declaring every incidental piece of the old games sacred without regard for context or intention, and on top of that they're doing the spiritual successor thing and changing random elements (major and minor) to be their own thing. And they seem to have made the thing worse and less coherent with every decision beyond pure ripping off they've made. Because again, they are divorced from the organic source these games grew out of. Why does Not-Yoyo have a big retarded helmet thing? Why are they running with a retarded video game "boost" that makes them float retardedly above the ground like a lazily implemented feature in a half assed Unreal Engine project? Why are there robots? How does this harmonise with the ripping off of how JSRF kind of looked and sounded?

This is what happens when well-meaning idiots think they get a thing, and probably even think they're flattering it with this. All they're doing is showing how far they were from getting it. I understand I'm going over this a lot, why derivativeness is bad. It's very big and bad and gaming so it bears repeating. This is the JSRFvania, every "fans" dream. Look at the Steam "Playerbase" numbers going up. Now is the time if you're a "Jet Set Guy". The new Golden Age of Jetvanialikes.




Apparently these assholes are too cool to just write their interview down. Don't know if I can be bothered with this. Our director is Dion Koster. We might say this game is Western European. Meaning it has craft and taste, but is also spiritually sick. What I'd call the general trend with these people. Dion talks about how he'd just draw a bunch of stuff he likes and have a pile of things he liked making, then start putting visual ideas together. This much is correct at least. He has an internal compass of cool that he follows. But where we appear to have gone wrong is how heavily his ideas are informed by specific past works and how narrow his vision is for making his own ideas real. From the sounds of it this guy is a kind of low culture nerd who drew a bunch of JSRF fanart OCs then built them their own JSRF.

If you generally "like JSRF" I guess this is a Godsend. The thing is new something that's iterated upon. You get JSRF "content" now. You are recognised as an undiscerning maw worthy of attention.

This is back to what I'm always saying. Are you being true to the spirit of JSRF, or anything good, if you're just making it again?



Why don't we ask some guys with shit facial hair who identify as "retro guys"?

[Albicacore]

Woah awesome Y2K typeface. This is a Y2K throwback game by the way! Remember Y2K? No I don't either but I bet it was awesome!

[BillyONare]

How about we mod cyberfunk so it's all white guys and you can spray paint swastikas, stars of david, black suns, etc.?

[NuclearAbsolutist]

How about we mod cyberfunk so it's all white guys and you can spray paint swastikas, stars of david, black suns, etc.?

The amount of manhours required to make sewage like Cyberpunk 2077 or any other made for Mexican warehouse serfs product even acceptable let alone good strikes me as so high you might as well make your own game from scratch. I doubt one could do worse than a soviet design bureau like CD Project Red in the departments of art direction, narrative, overall engine stability "gameplay" music etc. I honestly don't get this kind of proposal and how it's constantly raised, these games aren't fixable by modders(Who are often part of the problem, at least in mindset, look at any modding site and behold the Indian taste on the front page!) And even if they were fixable via modding tools necessity requires what would amount to a total rebuild with little in common with the orginal beyond maybe some concepts in every case.