64Digits

Posted by marbs on Oct. 21, 2012, 6:54 a.m.

Do any of you remember this game?

Or perhaps this one?

I was doing some digital archaeology, digging through some files from my previous hard drives. I came across a lot of old game maker games I had completely forgotten about, including the two shown above.

They were made by a guy called Jazzuo, perhaps 5 or more years ago, I can't find the exact date. Unfortunately his website 403 errors, so I took it upon myself to reupload those two games for you here:

Sexy Hiking

Sadist Meets Pacifists

They are really difficult games, with an odd mix of programmer art and 3D rendered graphics, but yet the gameplay I find extremely fun. I just played through the whole of Sadist Meets Pacifists, and a bit of Sexy Hiking.

As I played these games, it gave me a thought. Perhaps I spend too much time trying to get little sections of my games perfect, such as making a smooth menu interface, or making sure the story makes sense; and as a result I neglect making the game actually fun.

I put together a compilation of many of my games, and a trend seems to be that I have become more pedantic as time has passed. My really old games are pretty terrible in terms of graphics and definitely have massive room for improvement in many other areas, but at their core I still find some of them really fun!

I suppose I am getting at two main things in this blog:

-Can you remember other great games/game developers that have been forgotten?

-Does being too pedantic/perfectionist cripple making good games?

Comments

Rez 11 years, 6 months ago

Great blog, marbs. :) I remember Sexy Hiking!

Quote:

-Can you remember other great games/game developers that have been forgotten?

This max guy and Wingboy. Maybe not forgotten, because they certainly never got the recognition they deserved in the first place imo. I recall writing a blog about South on a different site and Cactus said it was good that someone was talking about it, so here I am still talking about it. Go play South! Hopefully both these creators have moved onto something bigger and better in their game making lives…

Quote:

-Does being too pedantic/perfectionist cripple making good games?

Absolutely, but I think it's a balance. When you first make games, you focus on the game aspect (as you said) but as you get better at using your tools, you focus all your time and energy on polish and suddenly the actual game part takes a backseat. However, I think all the great game designers of the original nintendo system were perfectionists, it's just that they knew the root of all their design choices should be fun. I think every game designer goes through a pure polish phase, and then asks themselves this question of fun v. perfection. I know I'm asking myself that constantly as of late. What I've settled on, is that being too perfectionist and not focusing on the big picture (is that one pixel out of place or is it fun?) will entirely cripple your game since the polish has to come in each reiteration, or else you game will crumble as you get tired and it shows.

Amarin 11 years, 6 months ago

Your racing engine… I remember the way it stayed smooth:

if fps < 60 fps = 60;

Praying Mantis 11 years, 6 months ago

Jazzuo is a strange dude. Strange.

But amazing also.

Rez 11 years, 6 months ago

Jazzuo: A Great Man.

BP Scraps 11 years, 6 months ago

I love Sexy Hiking.

Thank you so much, marbs.

Thank you.

svf 11 years, 6 months ago

Hiking be sexy.

BP Scraps 11 years, 6 months ago

I have the sexyest hand.

Cesque 11 years, 6 months ago

WINGBOY. SOUTH. YES.

marbs 11 years, 6 months ago

Thanks for your comment, Rez. I just played those two games you linked, and both were very enjoyable. Though it appears that the download for South does not work at 64D, so I had to download elsewhere.

Hopefully I've passed the point of being too much of a perfectionist. What I found helpful was doing game jams, especially the one I did this summer. Having a time limit really forces you to think "do I really need to get this exact?". Another great thing about time limits is that it forced me to work on parts of the game I would otherwise try to leave as long as possible (such as the GUI), or to solve problems that I thought would take ages. I found that when I put my mind to it, I could usually solve these problems far faster than I thought. It was still an awful lot of work though.