Re: Why is it so hard?

[Jan Ekholm <chakie@infa.abo.fi>]

On Tue, 13 Jul 1999, Borko Jandras wrote:

>On Mon, Jul 12, 1999 at 11:12:49AM +0300, Jan Ekholm wrote:
>> But, alas, people don't seem to care
>> about games with depth in them (Civ being one exception) anymore... Just
>> 3D gfx, 3D sorround sound.
>
>This sounds like "people suck because they like gorgeous 3D games, which we
>can't make, and don't like games with depth in them, like pac-man, which we can
>make" kind of rant.

No, that's not what I meant. But I'm quite sure I could never put together
a nice-looking 3D game. What I meant was that ~10 years ago there were
much more games with depth in them. There were companies like SSI and SSG
making good strategic games. I remember buying huge amounts of SSI games
for my old C64. Hmm, Civ is getting near 10 years now, and it basically
hasn't changed since that. They crammed a lot of gameplay into 64kb, and
AI:s that were really hard to beat. Todays AI:s aren't half as
challenging, althogh they maybe don't cheat. The computing power of a
modern PC compared to a C64 is enormous, but still the games are simpler
and simpler. The gfx and sound are more compilcated, but they are just
whipped cream on a rotting corpse. 

>People like what they like and if you want to gain either $$$ or popularity for
>your favorite platform by making a game, you'll just have to give them what
>they want.

I would buy more strategic games if there were any good ones. The last
decent one I can remember whas 'Steel Panthers', which also was basically
a PC-version with nicer gfx of the games 'Typhoon of Steel' and 'Panzer
Strike' for the C64. Oh, I'd love to be able to pay for other SSI
goodies too... Anyone up for starting an eternal project of building a
real wargame?

I want to be challenged by a game. I want to see that my money didn't go
purely into developing nice 3D-whatever, but also depth, AI etc. I don't
want a game that can be finished on a weekend.

I think that people are forced to like Quakish stuff mainly because there
are no real alternatives on the shop-shelves anymore. I have been
following this situation for the least few years, and it just escalates in
the wrong direction.

---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
 Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |    CS at Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
    Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, no-one hears you scream