Brother Android and miscellaneous walls of text on games and music technology

[Sendy]

A few years ago I played an indie game called Hero Core which featured very minimal and atmospheric quasi-chip music by a guy called Brother Android. Eventually I decided to check out his Bandcamp page and he has some amazing music. He's got that prog thing going on, whilst also being very minimalist, so there's a lot to hear, but it's only ever happing a bit at a time. Quite a cool approach to arrangement.

Anyway, just google Brother Android if your curiosity is piqued. The Black Gate EP is one of my favourites.

[ntom]

Ah yes, Indie Games:
The people who leave the blockbuster AAA games because everything they make is the same and shit, so they start an indie company with 8 bit graphics and chiptune music to be unique and original.

I'm waiting for one of the half million chiptune artists to start programming their own chiptune instead of using a preset in a synth or just bitcrushing a sound


BUT
related to this thread (and kind of make myself sound hypocritical) I do enjoy chiptune stuff, so I'll definitely be sure to check out his music. I'll leave my cynical thoughts on it after I listen to it.

[nasenmann]

What do you mean by "programming their own chiptune"? Open a .txt and type it all up?
If so, there are a few of the "half million" doing just that. Not that it's needed lol.
Using stuff like famitracker might as well be considered higher level programming, or atleast 'scripting'. It's in depth and offers pretty much any sound you could ever squeeze out of a NES.

So yeah the whole thing has become a bit of a fad. Whatchu gonna do.
Personally, i've grown somewhat sick of 8bit sounds over the last years, but i find your hyperbole a bit silly. There still are plenty of artists pushing the chips hard and making incredibly creative stuff.

[3ee]

I briefly checked his stuff on SoundCloud so far...some cool stuff indeed!

[Sendy]

Ah yes, Indie Games:
The people who leave the blockbuster AAA games because everything they make is the same and shit, so they start an indie company with 8 bit graphics and chiptune music to be unique and original.

I'm waiting for one of the half million chiptune artists to start programming their own chiptune instead of using a preset in a synth or just bitcrushing a sound


BUT
related to this thread (and kind of make myself sound hypocritical) I do enjoy chiptune stuff, so I'll definitely be sure to check out his music. I'll leave my cynical thoughts on it after I listen to it.

To be honest, I'm glad we're at a time in gaming where everything doesn't have to be a 3D, realistic, physics driven, photogenic shooting game. To me the lack of fidelity of 8-bit sounds and visuals have the positive angle of being more interesting to the imagination and slightly psychedelic. Once the graphics/realism barrier was broken, there was a glut of 8 and 16-bit style games, because they had been "forbidden" for so long and are capable of so much.

That cynicsism you describe. I feel like that about 90% and growing of electronic music. It's all "how can I copy this sound and get that killer pro sound with the minimum of effort". Whether you're programming a squarewave generator chip or the latest analog board, there's room for creativity, and for mindless conformity. And most of the time people pick conformity, because it's safe.

[ntom]

[GeckoYamori]

Ah yes, Indie Games:
The people who leave the blockbuster AAA games because everything they make is the same and shit, so they start an indie company with 8 bit graphics and chiptune music to be unique and original.

I'm waiting for one of the half million chiptune artists to start programming their own chiptune instead of using a preset in a synth or just bitcrushing a sound

I don't think that's what ex-industry veterans usually do. Simple retro graphics are usually made by people who don't have the resources or can't be bothered to hire good artists.

And this is why I dislike the buzzword "indie" that started getting so trendy from 2007 onward. The market for small independent games has existed for as long as personal computers have. It's incredibly diverse, but this new trendy label has resulted in very narrow projections from a lot of people because a few media darlings happen to look and play a certain way.

[ntom]

And this is why I dislike the buzzword "indie" that started getting so trendy from 2007 onward. The market for small independent games has existed for as long as personal computers have. It's incredibly diverse, but this new trendy label has resulted in very narrow projections from a lot of people because a few media darlings happen to look and play a certain way.

take what I said with a grain of salt
I know that not every indie title is in a retro style, like Dear Ester and basically anything developed on the Unity Engine - I also know that not every game that has a retro style is complete garbage. There are some that look interesting, such as Nidhogg.

around 2:20 is a good place, but the whole thing is good.

[nasenmann]

Also, if someone's making a highly derivative game, i'd rather have it be 8bit than AAA. Because that way, only 1 or 2 people are spending their time making nothing new, instead of tens or hundreds.
From an ideal perspective that fuses economic and creative considerations perfectly, it's the Triple A's that should be pushing creative boundaries in some regard with every project. Drumming together a hundred people and using their combined energies should always be used to conjure something that the world hasn't seen before.

But that aint how it goes for the most part

[Sendy]

Play Hero Core if you haven't already. It has 2 colour graphics, most of the background is made up of solid white blocks, but a great game with an immersive atmosphere. It's a metroidvania maze shooter with a fairly unique twist on nonlinearity, as you can choose to fight the boss very early on, or wait until you've got all the powerups and the computer monitors, which lets you get the good ending.

Another good retro-style game is Forget Me Not, it's basically pacman on acid and steroids, with explosives.

[nasenmann]

Ill give it a try when i feel like gaming (rare these days)
As far as retro indie+metroidvania go, this one is a must:

http://www.remar.se/daniel/iji.php

Great game from a single person.
It looks a bit like Another World with the 2d vector characters.
The music is excellent (and not retro)

[vurt]

is he really a monk?

[nasenmann]

Lol Sendy, Hero Core is by the same dev as Iji. Too funny.

[Sendy]

Yeah, he's just a really good game developer. Iji is another example of an atmospheric world where the art is borderline ugly (it's "coder art" more or less) and yet - suprise suprise, gameplay and immersion wins out anyway.

People crusading against the "retro" trend have some points, but at the end of the day, all it's referring to is a bunch of technological restraints - NONE of which have the potential to block (no pun intended) excellent gameplay. Pixel art is WAY older than computers, and it's appeal is obvious to me - being able to see the 'atoms' of a world, or look at the world from above like an all-seeing god (overworld-style scrollers) or in cross section from the side (sidescrollers) allow players to perform feats that a more realistic 3D perspective cannot easily afford. They can also lend an air of surreality which can enhance the mind-expanding aspect of gaming (and this to me, is more interesting than 'realism' - eg - what artist would just paint what she sees in front of her, like a camera?)

As for gameplay and background elements being made out of blocks - a lot of game genres are just a lot clearer to play that way - especially puzzlers and platformers. Knowing you can jump 4 blocks high and 6 blocks long lends strategy to platforming in the way that chess is also quantized onto a grid.

Minecraft is also a good example. Love it or hate it, because of the choice to use blocks (albeit 3D ones in this case), the programmer was able to create a whole world to explore - that wouldn't really have been possible if every surface and edge was plotted like a proper 3D model. By making some elements of a model simpler - you can get more complexity in other areas.

Quite simply, a lot of developers have gone back to games similar to those that were made with more limited technology, because those type of games ARE MORE LIKE GAMES! The average modern game can be fun, and pretty to look at/watch, but essentially it's "solve the puzzle/battle scene to advance the plot or see the next movie script or set piece" - usually totally linear and with NO sense of risk because there's nothing to lose when you die.

Re: The concept of "indie developers" - I honestly had no idea the monicker had any cynical connotations. To me an "indie developer" is someone who makes a game on their own, or in a small team, without the backing of a big company. That's what "indie" means in any context, right? Sure, that means many people will just produce pap, but it's not asif the "non-indie" devs aren't just as guilty, if not more so.

The suggestion that blocky retro games are somehow more "original" is stupid, though. Though I don't know anyone who's ever stated that. For me originality is over-rated. Innovation is good but what I really look for in a game is immersion, a sense of danger and exploration, an interesting world, and good world/level design with engaging music. Basing the entire merit of gaming (or any other art for that matter) around "innovation" seems a bit false to me.

[AstralExistence]

Play Hero Core if you haven't already. It has 2 colour graphics, most of the background is made up of solid white blocks, but a great game with an immersive atmosphere. It's a metroidvania maze shooter with a fairly unique twist on nonlinearity, as you can choose to fight the boss very early on, or wait until you've got all the powerups and the computer monitors, which lets you get the good ending.

Another good retro-style game is Forget Me Not, it's basically pacman on acid and steroids, with explosives.

that shit is hard! i never beat it.