RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@yurisizov/116240441023829664
Your reminder that realism is not a universal creative goal. In fact, realism is rarely the most important art goal, even when it hits the list.
Anyone telling you a machine’s realism matters more than human agency and human choices in creation doesn’t understand what they’re working (read: fucking) with.
This is soul crushing.
@moss when I think of my all time favorite video games list, most of them look like what I suspect most gamers would call "unplayably bad".
Sometimes that was tech limitations and sometimes it was deliberate stylization, but tellingly, those decisions did not make the game any worse.
More tellingly, there is very little on the list that was a "last five years" release and NOTHING has made me crave more frames, polygons, or rayshading...
@GallusLuchnos my partner has similar taste to you! 💜
I like a mix of games, but I always remember most the games with unique creative style. Gris, Hades 1/2 (and Transistor), and Splatoon 2 were each favs for a while.
Horizon series has a big spot in my heart, but I feels like its realism is the thing about it I’m most meh on? 🤔
(Sayonara Wild Hearts I loooove the aesthetics of but I’m bad at & wish I could adjust modes for a better exp 😂 )
@moss yeah I mean there are "newer" games I like that attempt realism. I enjoyed CP2077, RDR2, Satisfactory is fun, etc etc.
But I suspect if those games were still made even if we never invented some of these super high polygon engines, they would still have been "good".
Some studios still know this. The Octopath games are a great example of how the old art can be modernized without needing a computer that can simulate the whole milky way in part *because* high artistry allows you to do things efficiently.
This is part of what was lost as Moore's Law went asymptotic right before it stalled: "more compute" was briefly always a solution for the current gen of developers.
Not to go full old man about it, but back in the day when CDs,DVDs, and cartridge ROMs drove gaming, there was an incentive to avoid bloat. Now, throwing 90gb of texture files into 30 hours of gameplay is considered "top tier" and its your fault as a player if you can't find room for it all.
The indy devs are keeping alive a skillset almost extinct in the big studios.
deer witch
Gallus Luchnos