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Perhaps less, but the market is saturated with old school 3D FPS games too. I’d still buy a new indie release if it wasn’t gay, was appropriately priced, looked well made and fun. I’m a fan of those games and can’t get enough really. The same has to apply to 2D platformer fans.
Funnily enough, I can't find a single one that does the Quake formula. They almost all have the same exact movement set (which ironically, isn't "old school" at all, since they introduce modern mechanics like ledge grab, slide, etc.), but none of them actually try to make movement a core mechanic or use circle jumping (either exactly like Quake, or try to innovate on this).
It's less an "over-saturation", and more of a "I've already seen this a hundred times before, except with a different coat of paint".
You can always clock modern indie games by not only what they are ripping off, but what exactly their favorite part of that thing they are ripping off was.
Its incredibly notable in the Pokemon rip off genre to a comical extent, but its there from Soulslike to the 9 different types of "retro FPS."
If someone were to build a fanservice Quake successor, maybe it would convince Rogan to quit his jumped the shark podcast.
You're right, the glut is mostly in that era of stupid movement. I can deal with ledge grab but don't care for it. Wall running can just fuck off.
It's certainly nothing like 2D in volume, but there's a ton of shit regurgitated in that space too.
I could not have said it better myself.
I still crave a good FPS, but the problem is that there aren't many of them.
Almost every new FPS made in Unreal has horrible performance issues.
A lot of the 2D boomer-shooters try to be ironic or subversive instead of just being masculine, fun, and well-designed.
While there are a LOT of indie games of any particular genre, there aren't many that are good.
Fundamentally the whole video game industry is over-saturated because AAA studios make absolute garbage, hire no one with talent, and games are easier to produce at an individual level than they've ever been.
It's sad we're not getting a Halo kind of universal experience, but the video game crash needs to come to completion before we can get that again.
It's also even worse since everyone starts chasing after already oversaturated and trying to do the same kind of thing.
Not many of these teams and studios ever bother to reach back into their own gaming experiences from the past to come up with inspiration for new ideas.
And on top of that, a lot of new developers have barely played anything beyond trendy shovelware. I've heard a few anecdotal stories of this sort second hand, and it's so jaw droppingly stupid how completely clueless they are about even basic gameplay design.
I think that's an inherent problem of a small team.
If you make something that works, you want to keep developing the skills that contribute to something that works. If you make successful RPG's, you're not sure it's a good idea to spend your time developing a shooter. It's a bit risky to trade time building onto a formula that works, into time building a new formula that you haven't tested.
I think the real solution would be to basically develop different kinds of games. You'll have to build cheap shovelware to test single parts of a gameplay loop that players enjoy, rather than dumping a couple years into a game that people will not like. Meanwhile, your larger 3-5 year project will just have to keep being worked on.
That approach would merely treat a symptom, not the inherent problems that keep cropping up.
The industry's been flooded with a lot of young wannabes instead of genuine gaming enthusiasts. I can't entirely figure out what's pushing that draw though and how these people keep coming out of the woodworks.
Obviously a lot of it has to do with DEI implementations and recruiting programs (both in university programs and with employers). And some of it's bleed-over from other adjacent fields and industries like Hollywood (CGI, writers, etc) and well... artists in general.
Also, sometimes small studios are encouraged to experiment with things like game development jams, to toy around with new gameplay ideas and concepts. I can't say how common that is of course, but it is a thing I've heard of to try and bring everyone up to speed and keep the creative juices flowing.
Hipster game development, and Hipster Leftists genuinely pushing out genuine talent, and trying to bring their idiot friends in. Then, yes, add on top of the DEI bullshit.
Game Jams are super common, but this is the very thing I'm talking about. Participation in many Game Jams will have a Leftist political filter.
Aye, that's another good example too.
Oh that's absolutely true of public game jam events. I was specifically referring to internal game development jams that are solely held within the company/studio for employees to participate in.
Although one drawback with this approach is that while it promotes experimenting with a lot of mechanical parts that can add up to a lot of gameplay, the scope isn't always the ideal test bed or training ground for creating a cohesive and whole game concept.
I'd be interested in a story in that vein
I wish I could go into more detail, but I'm a little reluctant to risk outting a friend. Plus I can't remember a lot of the details well enough to provide a complete picture.
One idea I can convey is how they'd spent an insane amount of time on things like minigames and itemization, and still hadn't bothered to implement any kind of character movement, combat, jumping, etc. Actually iirc, they were still undecided about whether or not to even include jumping.
And I say this even while being thoroughly aware that a lot of game development time does tend to be spent on the framework. Structural stuff to make a lot of the meat of a game much easier to produce (IE, things like NPC generation, damage systems, stuff that's going to be ingrained into a lot of the core gameplay, code-wise.)
Eh they've kind of got a point. There are too many indie side scrollers. I wouldn't be quitting my day job to pursue indie development.
Definitely. Be aware of the survivorship bias logical fallacy.
Someone has to win most lotteries.
Right, I wouldn’t either, and most people shouldn’t. But this guy was clearly exceptional, with an exceptional execution on the genre. Perhaps advice for most people simply doesn’t apply to him.
The game has 140k positive reviews.
The market is saturated with bots.
The war on individual creativity and success is real.
Are you saying the reviews are from bots?
From the modern day X thread.
So this guy shits on Reddit's old take on Hollow Knight, but then still acknowledges that the 2D platformer Steam indie market remains oversaturated a decade later.
But No, that game genre isn't actually overdone, it's just all the other thousands of failures didn't "manage to stand out from the masses".
Meanwhile, this guy is claiming to know which games like Hollow Knight have that secret sauce via the consensus filter and watching a few clips.
Despite not having actually played it. Or any platformer since the SNES era because he's an "early adopter" who burned out on Super Mario.
The thing about the 2D market being "oversaturated" is that anyone can pump out garbage, so there's a lot of it. But that's been true since the 90s. There are loads of bleh games out there, but that just means that you make something quality, and it can stand out from the crowd.
No fan of 2D platformers goes "Oh, there's just too many games. Guess I won't play this new one that looks really good!"
You know I'd forgotten about how bad old games were too until about a year ago I dug out an old CD case I'd really not touched since the early 2000s. The vast majority of it being things I'd copied from friends from the late 90s era. I had a couple of those old shareware CDs full of junk too. The garbage on those is deservedly lost to time. I'm sure they can be found, but no one looks back fondly to playing it, well, ever.
It won't stand out from the crowd unless you have a big publicity fund.
Eh I don't know about that. Look at souls likes. There's way too many out now that even good shit is getting burned out.
Reddit users only approve of DEI LGBT troon shit
10 years ago. was a different place. it was a ron paul place and it was slightly left leaning instead of radical left.
10 years ago is after the start of gamergate. Reddit was not the mildly left libertarian place you think it was in 2015. The beginnings of what we see now were creeping in, and taking the place over. Now, 15 years ago, you might be right, but not in 2015.
I want an AI that I can send after these kinds of posts, when people are proven definitively wrong years later, that tells them to kill themselves for being so confidently stupid and smug.
It's fine to take calculated risks to make a project you love. We got marvels of the arts like that.
But don't come back bitching that you should be entitled to success in getting other people to spend their money on your project just because you tried hard.
If it works-out, good for you. If it dosen't and it's ruining you, reevaluate your priorities. If it's not popular but you still like what you're doing and can manage financially, you do you.