Limitations improve games

Started by Legend, Mar 31, 2020, 06:48 AM

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Legend

The developer behind Spelunky put out this great post INDIE GAME DEV: DEATH LOOPS

The TLDR of it is that a scaled back finished game is better than a game that never releases.

It's really great and does a good job showing what I went through with VizionEck back then.


I'd take this a step further and say that specific limitations can actually improve games.

There are many examples from old games, such as Mario having a mustache to make his nose visible in pixelart. They're harder to find in modern games however because talking about limitations tends to be bad PR. One exception I can think of is the continuous camera in 2018's God of War. The entire game had to be designed around this new rule set and at least imo it paid off. With The Forged Kingdoms an easy example is my flat world. It was nothing more than a time saving measure at first yet it has made the game significantly more iconic.

Are there any examples you can think of? I don't think it's a super controversial statement to make yet I've had a hard time finding anything specific to it and video games on googl.e

kitler53

i mean, i'd say it a differnt way...

    ==  limitations improve creativity ==


be it games, or music, or architecture, or engineering, or whatever.   when you are facing a seemingly impossible limitation human creativity is at its best.


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Legend

Mar 31, 2020, 05:55 PM Last Edit: Apr 01, 2020, 03:01 AM by Legend
i mean, i'd say it a differnt way...

    ==  limitations improve creativity ==


be it games, or music, or architecture, or engineering, or whatever.   when you are facing a seemingly impossible limitation human creativity is at its best.
It's certainly true with creativity in general but I think videogames are somewhat unique since massive improvements in tech and software are made regularly. Take for example the inverse square root function. Back in the late 90's people designed a super clever "hack" that allowed the function to be significantly faster yet still produce roughly accurate results. Cool wiki on it.

It's an example of limitations improving creativity but it's patched out as hardware improves. Ideally the limitation wouldn't exist.


An example that extends beyond "limitations improving creativity" can be found in this video:


The original Shadow of the Colossus had a unique look to it because it was made with PS2 hardware. The PS4 remake looks great but it looses some of the originality.

If the remake stuck with the original's style it wouldn't necessarily be a more creative game, but it would have been arguably more unique and interesting. The lack of limitations allowed the devs to make the game instead have that AAA shine since it's popular.



Maybe a better saying is "limitations help us rethink what we consider ideal."

the-pi-guy

Apr 01, 2020, 03:27 AM Last Edit: Apr 01, 2020, 04:11 AM by the-pi-guy
The TLDR of it is that a scaled back finished game is better than a game that never releases.
It's really great and does a good job showing what I went through with VizionEck back then.
And yet it never released.
:'(

Quote
I'd take this a step further and say that specific limitations can actually improve games.

There are many examples from old games, such as Mario having a mustache to make his nose visible in pixelart. They're harder to find in modern games however because talking about limitations tends to be bad PR. One exception I can think of is the continuous camera in 2018's God of War. The entire game had to be designed around this new rule set and at least imo it paid off. With The Forged Kingdoms an easy example is my flat world. It was nothing more than a time saving measure at first yet it has made the game significantly more iconic.

Are there any examples you can think of? I don't think it's a super controversial statement to make yet I've had a hard time finding anything specific to it and video games on googl.e
And I'll say it again.  It's absolutely amazing the kinds of tricks that game developers came up with a few decades ago. 
One of my favorite games fits on a 4 MB cartridge:



And yet today, you couldn't even fit a single Gran Turismo car on that. 

But actually that arguably brings me to the example of limitations helping the game. 

The entire turn based RPG genre supposedly only exists because of computational restrictions from back when these games were starting to get made.  I say arguably and supposedly because I often hear that's why these games aren't being made anymore, because those restrictions don't really exist anymore. 

So a genre born out of computational limitations, but they are still my favorite genre of video games. 

darkknightkryta

"Necessity is the mother of all inventions" bonus to whoever knows where I got that from.