Would you play a game that does not strive to have a photorealistic graphics, high polygon count or any exciting effects but it tries to deliver original gameplay and an original story (no orcs, elves or humans whatsoever). The looks of the game are a sort of cartoonish ones (pencil/chalk & paper), deliberately rough with just a few colors (black & white, blue, red and yellow) and low polygon characters. The type of the game is something like third persion action + adventure elements (puzzles that actually make sens), multiple paths to reach a goal and accomplish your mission, lots of random generated stuff. The gameplay concentrates mainly on pure fighting similar to old arcade games with lots of combos. The story won't be about defeating The Most Greatest Evil Villian that ever existed but about fighting and defeating simple, not so exciting and negative opponents, who are just unlucky to encounter you during your quest. Or with few worlds: would you play a game that tries to to be different than modern games in any way looks, gameplay, story, gameworld and characters? :) Is it possible to sell such a game in USA or Europe at all?

I've played a flash game called 'N' quite a lot. Graphics are pretty bland, very few colours (about 5 in total), and it's far more addictive than some games on the store shelves.

Short answer..yes, I might.

It depends on how much fun the game actually is, take a look at Katamari Damacy it doesn't have photorealistic graphics and blood and violence, you just roll a ball around and pick stuff up with it, but it's one of the most original and fun games I've played in a while. You can have amazing graphics and all that crap but if the games not fun no one is going to play it.

I would definatly give a game like that a shot, but I definatly wouldn't buy it unless it was fun to play

While there is certainly nothing wrong with being different, or even weird, nor anything wrong with having low-res graphics, realize that your game will depend solely upon gameplay to make it marketable, and for that matter, playable. Im sure you know this already, so Ill get to the point. You might want to make sure that you have set goals that your player can achieve. Even something as simple as 'beat your own high-score' is sufficient for some replay value, but you will need gameplay thats fun and addicting to support such simple goals.

The perfect example of that is Heli Attack 2 on MiniClip. There is no set goal but to destroy as many helis as you can. But the gameplay is so fun and addicting, that I go back to that game to play it over and over.

Its nice to see someone trying something different though! The mold will be broken some day. :D

Quote:

Original post by Vanke You can have amazing graphics and all that crap but if the games not fun no one is going to play it.

For me Doom3 is exactly like that!

Half-life 2 is not a bad game (to me) but it is neither something new nor something I haven't seen already.

...but people love them both!

I tried Doom3 and after 3-4 levels I threw it away and I wouldn't play it ever again. Then I played Half-life 2 for about 6-7 hours, I got bored and removed it from my system. I might continue playing it someday but it is not #1 on my list. Then I tried The Chronicles of Riddick - I played it all the way to the end and came back for more! This is the shooter of the year for me! At least you can see your legs, you can hear your voice and you can see yourself climbing up stairs. It is not perfect and polished game but it is different! It's not the same old, worn-out crap.

Generally I mean: that people seem to like something because it is famous, because it is beatiful, because it is more of the same (all what Doom 3 and Half-life 2 are). What bothers me that developers don't try do untried stuff. When a games is about a fentasy world - there always orcs and dwarfs, first are alwasy evil, the second are always good.

Quote:

I would definatly give a game like that a shot, but I definatly wouldn't buy it unless it was fun to play

The idea is of course the game to be fun to play but I wonder if enough people would like to play a game that is very different in many respects especially as a gameworld, creatures, characters and not fighting against vilians.

Quote:

I've played a flash game called 'N' quite a lot. Graphics are pretty bland, very few colours (about 5 in total), and it's far more addictive than some games on the store shelves.

Well I'm not talking about a simplistic game, somehow I tend to do complex stuff. I can't keep it simple :(

I wasn't too impressed with doom 3, it was all right, However I loved Half-Life 2, I just found it fun to mess around with the Gravity Gun and the physics engine, I also though it presented the story extremely well, considering how vague the story was, it still kept me wanting more.

It seems you might be getting too ambitious (this is my personal iopinion mind you so take it for what it's worth) I've found that most games I've played that tried to incorporate too many things inot the game world to be unfun. Take Omikron for example it comibined FPS, with a Arcade like fighting system, with puzzle elemtents. It didnt' focus any great deal on all of them and ended up being sub-par in pretty much everything it tried to do. At least as far as I'm concerned.

I don't know if you'veplayed N but it's not really that simplistic, I mean it's got a pretty limited range of stuff the user can do, in fact all you can do is jump and jump off of walls. but the pacing and level design make it extremely hard and a complex game to play but also realy fun. Sometimes less is more in my opinion.

Also I DEFINATLY believe that people will play something that is different, in fact it's different games that eventually define new genres, take Dungeon Keeper for example it was an extremly unique game for it's time that has spawned off multiple games that are almost identical to it (Evil Genius, Startopia). What you need to do is take a chance, you'll never be able to tell if someone will play it until it's made.

Quote:

I don't know if you'veplayed N but it's not really that simplistic

I haven't but I don't belive that flash games could be as complex as an console arcade one (at least I still have to see one).

Quote:

It seems you might be getting too ambitious

That's the ultimate struggle. That's why I'm thinking of an alternative representation of alternative world, so I can save development time on graphics, which should be the most resource consuming part of a 3D project.

But is the American gamer ready to accept something that does not stick to the typical Hollywood-like scheme, to the English-Scandinavian Mythology and to the ethernal Good vs. Evil, human vs. aliens plot?

Prince of Persia: WW game mechanics are a sort of reference for my inspiration, though the original game that always inspired me is: SEGA's Golden Axe.

Quote:

But is the American gamer ready to accept something that does not stick to the typical Hollywood-like scheme, to the English-Scandinavian Mythology and to the ethernal Good vs. Evil, human vs. aliens plot?

I don't see why not take a look at any game in the Sim franchise[Sim city, The Sims etc.], I'm sure there's a million games out there that aren't Good vs Evil.

Although I may not have enough information on what you intend to do but your statement

fighting and defeating simple ... opponents, who are just unlucky to encounter you during your quest. [/qoute]

Makes it sound like you are still going to end up with an Protagonist vs Antagonist system. Whenever you have a system like this where you pit two opposing sides against each other they will almost always see the other side as evil and them as good. It's all relative, in this case since the player is really the only one able to make this distincition they probably will still think that your game is Good vs Evil (or to make it a distinction not based on ideology how about you vs them). Maybe you need to think of a mechanic to erase this distincition, make the game not be you vs them.

Quote:

Original post by NamelessTwo Or with few worlds: would you play a game that tries to to be different than modern games in any way looks, gameplay, story, gameworld and characters? :) Is it possible to sell such a game in USA or Europe at all?

Graphics mean nothing -- as long as they're not horrible. As long as they don't induce seizures, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to them. Good graphics just mean that more people worked on the game. They don't determine whether the game is any good.

It all depends on the gameplay. Is it fun? Does it stay fun for longer than twenty minutes? How deep is the game's strategic value? Does it have style? Panache? Moxy?

Tales of Symphonia (GC|PS2) is pretty much like that, although it does contain elves.. And the story isn't interesting enough and it starts to bore at ~30 hours of gameplay. I'm still on Disc One!

My answer would be yes.