THE FEATURED GAME THREAD

It's the same reason games like The Stanley Parable are often not considered as a "game", because what one expects from a game can vary.

At the end of the day, you interact with it somehow, it's a game. You can use it for all kinds of stuff, but everyone has their preference.

I've never played this "Legendary Legend" game, so I can't attest to how good or bad it does what it does. And I'm probably taking this discussion way out of context regardless, but... I feel many people have a problem telling apart the "medium" from the "games". I agree that if you're making a game, you need to focus on gameplay. Not that the other stuff doesn't matter. Or that the lack of gameplay invalidates the rest. But simply that it would be inaccurate to call a "game" something that it's not a game. In the same fashion that you wouldn't call a poem a novel, or a pamphlet a book, even though they're essentially the same medium.

The interactive medium is still in its infancy and "games" its all we've known so far, so it's an easy mistake to make. But over time we'll have to start taking this into consideration. We'll have to start calling things by appropriate names. Not to pretend to act as gate-keepers for the entire medium or anything* but to avoid misunderstandings, if nothing else.

*Except for those pretentious walking simulators done by hipsters: "Press right to reflect on your mortality". Pfft! Keep those out. I don't care. xD j/k FREEZE PEACH!!!

I didn't find the gameplay bad. Basic, maybe, but not bad. There was enough there to keep me entertained while I followed the heroes through a new world and crazy shenanegans and part of playing a game is experience, not just gameplay. While gameplay can be a huge part of a game and shouldn't be made frustrating, basic gameplay is okay when the story excels and in the case of Legendary Legend the main factor was the story, characters and humour.

The story can be counted as part of the gameplay, people. It's not mutually exclusive. The thief who has that handy dandy steal skill? That's story intersecting gameplay. The old wizard with Alzheimers who can't remember spells, so casts them randomly in battle? Fucking story intruding on the battle. A skilled soldier who can jump over obstacles on maps where the little kid in your party can't? Oh look, more story! Classes based on your character type, with skills to match? Fucking intersection.

Quite frankly I find that basic gameplay with a great story is better than great gameplay with a god awful story (ala FF13-2 whyyyyyyyy).

author=alterego
Well, I mean what I mean. I already gave a couple of examples, and I could give a few more. For example the difference between a soap opera, or a documentary, or a movie, or a porn flick, etc.

Yes, but you haven't given into any examples that pertain to games, so I can't really gauge what you're proposing. You haven't given examples of, say, things that some people think of as properly defined as "games" and others don't.

I'm not against labeling things if there's a clear, reasonable difference between them and the labels are useful. I'm just struggling a little to understand your position here.

Aaah, now I get it. Well, I guess the obvious go-to examples, would be types of 'games' that already -sort of- have appropriate names, like visual novels or simulators. The issue is that it's still difficult to agree where to draw the line exactly, because there's somewhat of an overlap... In the case of visual novels, I believe the term should be strictly used for "games" that only allow you to "flip the page" so to speak. A "visual novel" that allows you to do more than that -should- already be considered a game... even if marginally so.

The amount of interactivity, or why not? a "win-state", among others, sound like reasonable enough criteria to be drawing these lines.

Edit: The same way making the first distinction helps us? Labeling them "not games" and learning from them is not mutually exclusive.

author=Sated

Quite frankly I find that basic gameplay with a great story is better than great gameplay with a god awful story (ala FF13-2 whyyyyyyyy).

I whole-heartedly disagree with this.

Gameplay is what makes something a game in the first place. If you've come up with some awesome gameplay concept then all you can do with that is make a game. You can't exactly write a song or a stage a play or a shoot a film using a good gameplay concept. How the gameplay works defines the game; it's the foundation that you build everything else upon.

Stories, on the other hand, are ubiquitous. If you've written a good story then you could go anywhere with that. Novels have stories (obviously), but so do films and plays and comics and songs and basically anything. I've seen fucking research papers tell stories. Anything can tell a story. A good story can enhance a lot of things, and a bad story can worsen a lot of things, but the story isn't what makes something the thing that it is (unless that thing is actually a novel!)

I kinda sorta disagree with this.

You can have a well-written story with an uninspired battle system. On the flip side, you can have a game with fantastic gameplay but a boring, sleep-inducing storyline that makes you want to skip them. Personally, I'd consider both of those extremes awful. Hell, even if a game had great story and great gameplay, I still wouldn't be ready to sing its praises if there's no cohesion between the two. It's all about how the story and gameplay mesh together.

The unique thing about games is player input. That's not something any medium can exploit to the degree that games do. If you design your game to augment your story, you'll have a fantastic experience. If not, if you have one or the other, then all you have is a game. For many, that's enough. Personally, it's not. If I don't feel like I, as a player, am taking part in the development of the characters, then there's a certain disconnect I feel when playing a game.

Take Final Fantasy 13, for example. Specifically, the character Hope. He's a kid that has been established from the beginning as a whiny, sniveling coward. Yet, when battles start, he pulls out a boomerang and fights on the same level as Lightning, a well trained, older soldier. Sometimes even SURPASSING her in strength! The weak willed child plays exactly the same as a trained soldier. Even if the game could be beaten with more than spamming Autobattle, that's unacceptable to me.

Persona 3 and 4 are examples of what I feel is a wonderful mesh of story and gameplay. Enemies and bosses are designed around the hidden, darker thought of the dungeon's host. Characters who accept their inner darkness will have those thoughts transformed and manifested into Personas that they can use to fight enemies. And, by getting to know certain NPCs and understanding their inner struggles, you can power up your own Persona abilities. It's fantastic, and is the main reason why they're on my top 5 list of favorite games ever. If either the story/characters or gameplay weren't written or designed the way they were, the overall products would have suffered a great deal.

This is all, of course, assuming you're making a story driven game. I doubt Candy Crush clone #24152 cares a lot about strong storyline and complex character development. Since we're primarily focused on RPG Maker games, I assumed as much, but it never hurts to clarify.

I think Sunken Spire was the favorite for the next one, last I checked :D

Thanks everyone who supported Sunken Spire, it means a lot.

Also congrats to Maki and Rach, two featured games only two months apart!

author=kory_toombs
I'm going against the grain and recommending Nora' Tale.

I just played this and it's pretty neat. Totally feature material.