Invent games from old screenshots - fun thought experiments

[Quadko]

I sometimes think about what game(s) could be invented when looking at old screenshots. Like, what if you ran a competition where screenshots or marketing descriptions or cover art of old games were the source design components. There'd be some fun game designs. I'd probably have a rule that if you knew the original game, you'd lose points for being at all similar.

So often the screenshots look cooler or different than the game. Covers like Stonekeep's or David Wolf: Secret Agent's, or map screens, or backstorys like 2400 AD. These all fire my imagination when searching for old games and trying to help people find their memories. Or browsing through HOTU or MobyGames. Fun stuff.

I've been playing U5 a bit lately, and looking at all the great Ultima extras and artifacts that add to the experience- the game could be totally different but fit and be fun with the same extras.

[dosraider]

Keep in mind that the ol'games were very restricted about what they could give you by hardware.
As in: what would be the benefit of getting a game as Doom that looks/feels/plays like the cover art when you only had a 386 to run it .... ????

In the past your imagination had to fill the gaps of hardware, today you get what you see on the cover art but you may forget your imagination running today's games.

Dunno really if I get what you meant, hopefully did. laugh:

[wardrich]

Dosraider: Some improvements to Doom have made it feel a lot better, though. IE: ZDoom/Skulltag allowing easy multiplayer on custom maps, fluid aiming in all directions (including vertical), and the ability to jump and crouch. The additions make the standard maps a bit easier and cheat-able at times, but it really improves the multiplayer experience.

But I agree with you 100% on us having an imagination once upon a time. See, we didn't have the hardware that we didn't have the hardware that we have available today, so games often came with over-the-top artistic renditions of what we were supposed to pretend we saw. Also, because we didn't have fantastic hardware, games had to rely heavily on story and gameplay. That's why we had so many good games back in those days. Now it's all about graphics and realism... why do we even care about that? If I wanted realism, I'd go outside. Gameplay has taken a huge hit over graphics capability. It's pretty much impossible to lose at games these days, too.

[dosraider]

You won't hear a bad word from me about Doom-Doom ports ....

In fact they prove my point, Skulltag or others couldn't been made in 486 times.
Same goes for Duke3D- eDuke32 etcetera, plenty examples.

But Skulltag-eDuke32 and alike at least somehow keep the fun to play them games, can't be said from most 'modern' games.
There are only a handful more recent games I've enjoyed, Fallout3, F3 New Vegas, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, FarCry ... and that's about it regarding the recent FPS genre.

Ah well, I guess I'm getting old :/

[Quadko]

If I wanted realism, I'd go outside.

Truth, brother! Great resolution, amazing physics model, highly varied artwork. Very impressive.

Certainly I agree about the old capabilities. It's just amazing when a screenshot gave a whole higher level idea or sparked imagination far beyond the game. Or gives an idea of what a cool game could be, totally different than the game it is from.

No real point, I guess, just thinking of the fun I have looking at screenshots and box covers, especially of games I've never played. There is also a good feeling I get for late VGA artwork games, where most of the limitations were gone, but realism hadn't become the goal yet. All the promise and mature development processess from apple II, commodore, and CGA days given the power of the amiga and fast VGA machines.

I'm playing Ultima 5, and I love that about the tileset - gorgeous compared to the earlier iconic games, but still iconic and not yet attempting reality via isometric birds-eye views of U6 - 8. (I love those too, but they are totally different.) I think that's why roguelikes remain popular, and why "realistic" graphic tiles just don't work for them, but iconic tiles can be fun sometimes.

I guess that's why I love classic games and old maps - full of imagination and possibility, and often only partially realized in the game itself.

And now I'm far, far from any point I might have had!

My original point was more along the lines of: what if you were given a frogger screenshot and had to make a game, but the only constraint was it couldn't be about a frog safely crossing back to his lillypad, or cars squishing frogs? Or a screenshot of Civilization, but it couldn't be an exploration and conquest game? What if you gave 10 game design groups that job, and a few weeks to come up with a game design - what might they come up with? Or the same thing with box covers or back stories - "now, come up with a fresh game design that fits this". Good or bad, that was what I had in mind.

I also daydream about how to approach game mechanics to end up with something good yet fresh: a replayable story & combat RPG without grinding or traveling; an interactive adventure game story with no pixel hunting or pathing issues. I love Squidi's 300 game mechanics blog. All good stuff to daydream about while writing business application software and paying bills.

[MrFlibble]

Not sure if this is relevant to the original intent of the topic, but I have a vague memory of how sometimes when I didn't have much experience with games back when I was a schoolkid, often I'd imagine what a game would be either from screenshots seen in gaming magazines or from details of game play related to me by my friends at school, and then I would discover that the actual game was vastly different from I had imagined.

That was rather curious effect, but it kind of faded away as I played more games and more or less knew what to expect from new titles.