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[fqllve]

I'll argue against the complexity of Minecraft. It's complexity lies only in the number of recipes it has. Otherwise its base mechanic is remarkably simple and I think that's what draws so many players to it. Not gonna try that with KSP or DF though.

(or if you go back even FURTHER where games could even be all story).

I'm guessing you haven't played any of Christine Love's games? Or Emily Short's? Or Facade? Or Slouching Towards Bedlam? It's not like those games aren't still being made. (completely ignores the plethora of Japanese VNs for simplicity's sake)

I do think that most games aren't challenging enough to hold my interest, but I'm not sure most of the difficulty of older games was really intentional.

[Frumple]

Though if you want one misconception. The quality of games on average is greater in modern times.

Yet that is because there are less terrible-bad games now adays then in the past.

Eehn. I'd still say it's roughly the same. Maybe slight gains in average quality, but the overall output is even higher so there's a bit of a diluting effect. There's still a lot of terrible-bad games being made, some for commercial sale, some not (flash games, aiee.).

Anyway, vague contribution to the hilarious derail we've gotten into with this thread. Spiderweb games! They do RPGs with decent storytelling and have been for years, kinda' off in the corner doing their own thing steady as can be while everyone else runs around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Then there's stuff outside the English market. Surprising as it may seem to some, perhaps, there's actually a notably large gaming community that isn't english native and fairly regularly slip something impressive into the waters, largely ignored until some kind soul (and likely their group of compatriots) decide to be kind enough to translate it into english. S'generally the japanese that pull that trick, but we get stuff from various european countries and some of the other Asiatic nations as well.

And yeah, as FQ notes, we do have pretty thriving virtual novel or text-based gaming communities running around. I don't indulge myself (Rather just read th'script or somethin'), but I run across mention of it pretty regularly. I'd say there's been several dozen notably good ones that's come out in the last decade or so, and that's just what I've noticed. Development along those lines is still pretty active, if not as commercial as it used to be.

[alexandertnt]

There are plenty of visual novels out there. Even games like To The Moon are all story. They still exist in a non-insignificant quantity.

Dwarf Fortress gets easy when you know what you are doing (which is pretty much true of any game). Its late-game difficulty at this point comes from self-imposed challenges. Much like KSP, where after a while launching payloads into orbit is a pretty straight-forward procedure, along with orbital maneuvers. Building gigantic spacestations etc is where the challenge comes from.

I'll argue against the complexity of Minecraft. It's complexity lies only in the number of recipes it has. Otherwise its base mechanic is remarkably simple and I think that's what draws so many players to it.

Redstone. Had endless fun with it, and certainly more complex than the recipies.

[Graknorke]

Redstone is actually pretty simple. But you can grow from those simple rules into more complex things.

[Neonivek]

Eehn. I'd still say it's roughly the same. Maybe slight gains in average quality, but the overall output is even higher so there's a bit of a diluting effect. There's still a lot of terrible-bad games being made, some for commercial sale, some not (flash games, aiee.).

Actually it has to do with the rise of the internet.

In the past you can have a successful, yet terrible game, simply because the only way to tell if a game was any good was to buy it.

The arrival of gaming reviews, videos, and all that jazz the internet age brought us means that the "absolutely dreadful trap games" have had a severe decline. They arn't gone you can still see the occasional absolutely dreadful commercial Sold in stores games (actually in one of my stores there is a section for "parent trap" games), but it is no where near as rampant as it was back in the day.

completely ignores the plethora of Japanese VNs for simplicity's sake

Which I exclude outright from being considered games. Most of them anyway. Nothing about their quality, it is just that most of them arn't "Games" in certain senses.

Mind you quite a few of them skew even my strict definition to the extent where I wonder why they are even called visual novels (As in they have actual gameplay)

I guess it all boils down to if I think a "Chose your own adventure" on the computer is a videogame. Hmmmm... I'll just say for now I am not accepting them until I come up with a conclusion.

I'm guessing you haven't played any of Christine Love's games? Or Emily Short's? Or Facade? Or Slouching Towards Bedlam?

Actually I was thinking of Zork.

[fqllve]

Actually I was thinking of Zork.

I know what you were thinking of, but those are all more modern interactive fiction games. Seriously, if you haven't you should give Emily Short's games a try, particularly Galatea. For my money it blows Zork completely out of the water.

Which I exclude outright from being considered games. Most of them anyway. Nothing about their quality, it is just that most of them arn't "Games".

Which is why I ignored them for simplicity's sake. Japan would seem to disagree with you though, and Christine Love's VNs certainly couldn't have that criticism leveled at them.

Redstone. Had endless fun with it, and certainly more complex than the recipies.

Touche. But I'd still argue the base mechanics are quite simple.

[Neonivek]

Not return to Zork... I mean Zork. The game that was entirely in text made in the 80s.

[fqllve]

Look up Galatea dude. Emily Short's games are completely text-based. And she's just one example of the genre.

[Neonivek]

Look up Galatea dude. Emily Short's games are completely text-based. And she's just one example of the genre.

I don't know... I am done with depressing work for a while. (Ohh dear goodness... Every SINGLE Indie adventure game I bought... was depressing. Are people ALERGIC to happy endings?)

For you I suggest watching or playing "The Void" a game about life.

[fqllve]

Oh man. I do need to play that. I loved Pathologic. Thanks for the reminder.

[Neonivek]

Oh man. I do need to play that. I loved Pathologic. Thanks for the reminder.

I do warn you that the game does NOT hold your hand when it comes to the themes of the game.

Almost everything in the game is symbolic and the game will flat out not tell you.

It actually benefits from someone explaining a few things to you.

[SalmonGod]

Are people ALERGIC to happy endings?

I think we're just sick of them.  I know I am.  The expectation for them is still pretty damn strong in mainstream media.  I know plenty of people who believe that they're entitled to a happy ending in any story, and if they don't get it, the story is automatically crap.

[Frumple]

Bleh. Not crap, but unpleasant? Yeah, usually. I've said it elsewhere in relation to classical literature... if I want my nose rubbed in the human condition, I'll turn on the news or walk outside. S'not what I'm looking for when I look for entertainment. I got tired of that when I was in my teens. It doesn't improve my day or otherwise make me a better person when I watch/read/play something that goes to shit. I tried many dozen times when I was younger to get anything but depression or annoyance out of that stuff, and try occasionally still. Doesn't do it for me.

Sufficient excellence in other areas may persuade me to read/play it anyway, but yeah, a down note ending is a negative for me. Most of the time. Occasionally it's hilarious, and I'm down with those.

Ambivalent endings are the best, though, imo. Not only do they tend to be most realistic, from what I've seen, they allow room for the creative space to extend beyond the media in question. You can have an ending that is neither happy nor sad, or, more likely, some combination of the two. Those seem to work out better, for me. More likely to produce decent fanfiction

[fqllve]

I've said it elsewhere in relation to classical literature... if I want my nose rubbed in the human condition, I'll turn on the news or walk outside.

Well, entertainment is all well and good, and important even, but it's not the only goal of a piece of art. As I see it there are three big goals a person can have when consciously trying to make "art" (and infinitely more besides, though they're less common). Art about art, art about beauty, and art about examination. Art is artifice, it's a reconstruction and reflection of the world, so really, it's only natural that people would want to use this artifice to examine the world. Now, you don't have to like it, that's perfectly acceptable, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it either.

I do think that people too often confuse depressing for deep, but I also think depressing events in fiction can create a kind of beautifully detached sadness, that isn't really possible to achieve with real events because those events are real and it's harder to not become emotionally bound to them. I prefer to keep an emotionally varied palette in my fiction, just because I only have about two or three emotions I ever actually express. :p

I wouldn't say Galatea is necessarily depressing though. It's more somber than anything. Not all of its endings are downers either.

[Frumple]

Ehn. It's not so much that I dislike it, per se -- I appreciate the artistry and skill involved, t'be honest, to the extent that can be considered "liking it" -- it's that examinatory art (going by your categorizations and making up a word in the process) of a negative nature hit diminishing returns for me... more than a decade ago. It's basically stopped having any messages or revelations of the world that I haven't seen before (multiple times, to the point of literal nausea a few times). Now it's just... tiring, mostly. My jimmies are no longer rustled by such things, and I could stand without the reminders involved.

I still appreciate the artistic aspect of it, but the beauty only connects in a very distant (and frankly unpleasant to me, in a similar manner that I can comprehend appreciation for guro but it's generally a massive negative point) manner and the examination's pointless from my side of the work. So I avoid unless there's something else exemplary (Like, I dig Franken Fran, going by that same line of thought) about the media in question, yeah.

Like I said, a downer ending or depressive events in general are a negative to me. S'not that it's wrong in any meaningful sense, just that its presence makes me more likely to avoid a particular work. I can still be attracted to a game or elsewise when it's got notable or heavy negative themes, it just takes some compensation from other aspects of it to draw me.

Going by what Salmon mentioned, I'm basically the inversion of what he was talking about, heh. I got sick of unhappy endings and downer themes in general, due largely to (the same sort of) overexposure (SG was referencing). I'm a lot more mellow about it nowadays, but a ways back having to slam my head into that shit for a few years straight almost caused me to drop out of school (did cause me to drop a lit class), and did cause a couple of fairly strong depressive breaks. I got tired of it, yeah.