[RM2K3] HOW TO MAKE AN INTENTIONALLY TERRIBLE GAME?

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I am redoing The New Earth as a parody game. It was already bad, what with glitches, horrible monster/hero battle balance, and a nonsensical plot.

I need to know however, how I can make it worse. Much much worse. Yes, you heard right, not how to make it better. In terms of technical details, it should work (I'm not interested in glitches unless they are funny, like completely random weather). But right now, it's merely lackluster, not truly godawful.

So I need tips. Music, art style, features, etc.

I have got a save point that involves you chasing around a fairy because on map saving is largely disabled. But this just isn't bad enough.
Kloe
I lost my arms in a tragic chibi accident
2236
The GOTY2014 (Quest Twilight Prince Prophecy Chronicles) is a great example of a good 'bad' game! Stuff like the random pictures of that guy from Twilight and the hillarious typos, makes that game shine as a great example of a bad game done well!
I could explain it, but I can do so later. Feel free to read my review.
A lot of the stuff would depend on what your game is trying to do. Does it have battles? Party members?
What would the "norm" be for the games? What are annoying quirks that come up in the genre?
Exaggerate and twist the norm, and overblow the usual quirks or annoying things you know from your childhood classics.

Like OoT's owl. SLOW TEXT, and do you want me to repeat this? The first option is YES, so if you are skipping, you are there to wait again. Skip and hopefully catch the no-pop-up. (Densetsu no Kusoge did this, tho it also built a lot on a certain shit snes game or sth as a base)

https://rpgmaker.net/games/6425/

Play it.
Trihan
"It's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly...timey wimey...stuff."
3359
Make everything deal pitiful amounts of damage and miss often. Only allow saving at specific save points and put them right at the beginning of dungeons so that if the boss kills the player they have to start over or backtrack to save before the fight. Spring boss fights on the player with little prior warning and don't build up to them. Have villains that just appear from nowhere with no justification or explanation. Write dialogue that is basically just the characters describing in painstaking detail everything that is currently happening.
That sounds fun terrible actually! : D
Just uh, make sure the battles don't drag on for too long, I'd say. Even with that, else it's just ragequit.
- Style clash.
- Mismatched sprites.
- Pointless and unnecessary crafting system.
- Default windowskin.
- Memes and references directly in cutscene dialogue.
- Entire dungeon of lava tiles.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Make normal maps and then just fuck up the tileset used
Weird, I've never had trouble making terrible games by just doing what comes naturally.




(seriously though, no one wants to play an "intentionally bad" game, they want to play a good/funny game in disguise as a bad a game, and humor is hard... why would you ever want to make a terrible game?)
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Psy, I've never seen you make a terrible game. Where are these terrible games you've made? So far, every game of yours I've played, I've given a 4 star review or better.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=psy_wombats
(seriously though, no one wants to play an "intentionally bad" game, they want to play a good/funny game in disguise as a bad a game, and humor is hard... why would you ever want to make a terrible game?)

This. I don't like the idea of "it's a parody so let's make it terrible." A good parody would be fun and interesting to play despite the weirdness. If you just make a terrible game even worse, and the player goes "ugh" and turns it off after five minutes, then what has been accomplished?
I agree with Unity, I'm not sure why you would want to make a terrible game. Feels like a waste of time but here is my suggestions. Except the obvious of making it ridiculous hard, f'ing up the graphics etc. You could deny the player rewards, large dungeons with tough boss that hardly gives any experience or just some useless item. Side dungeons that result in nothing, quests that result in useless rewards or doesn't progress the story at all.

Something else that annoys me is a lack of feedback. Make skill and battle animations as plain and boring as possible, same with cutscenes, just have characters stand still and spew lines after line of dialogue at each other. Also, put ascii smilies in every line of dialogue.
author=unity
author=psy_wombats
(seriously though, no one wants to play an "intentionally bad" game, they want to play a good/funny game in disguise as a bad a game, and humor is hard... why would you ever want to make a terrible game?)
This. I don't like the idea of "it's a parody so let's make it terrible." A good parody would be fun and interesting to play despite the weirdness. If you just make a terrible game even worse, and the player goes "ugh" and turns it off after five minutes, then what has been accomplished?


To be fair, I am trying to make it technically correct. I have bothered to improve turn-based system so that it works smoothly, and most of the graphics and tilesets are better put together than original. I want it to be bad in terms of overall aesthetic, challenge, and mindset.

So far, I have:

  • Characters openly fourth-walling about glaring oddities
  • Generic characters with almost no personality.
  • Nonsensical plot
  • A battleset that is literally just a fire
  • Unbalanced battles
  • While we're at it, ridiculous enemies (I have a battle that involves cows)
  • Stupid or ironic music
  • A pseudo-epic opening that immediately transitions into someone talking about eating mushrooms.
  • A freaking hole that you can jump into and die, in a town.
  • The aforementioned runaway savepoint.
  • I have a maze that honestly has monsters and a boss at the end.


- Style clash.
- Mismatched sprites.
- Pointless and unnecessary crafting system.
- Default windowskin.
- Memes and references directly in cutscene dialogue.
- Entire dungeon of lava tiles.


The first two, I honestly do often. Tried number 3 on Tales From The Reaper. Skipping 4. 5 & 6 I could definitely do.

I also want eye-bleeding window/text mixes. Pink and green. ^_^; And possibly a few laughably done bridges that either start under the tiles or seem to suspend from midair.

The game will be fairly short. And I'm gonna see about reducing grind, since the enemies being annoyingly hard, plus heavy grind is no-go.
Trying to make a terrible game is like trying to make terrible food. It's the easiest thing in the world. Many games are bad enough without even trying. Some of the ideas here are funny I'll admit, but will make the game annoying. Maybe the mission statement should be rephrased to make the best game possible while satirizing bad games/tropes or while donning the aesthetic of being a bad game. Sort of like a videogame equivalent of Girlchan in Paradise.

Also the irony here is that making a purposefully bad game presumes yourself to know what makes a GOOD game, and sadly most people just don't know. Making games that contribute toward this discussion is more valuable imo. Not to sound dismissive or anything. This is an interesting thread to be honest.

Edit: almost forgot. What's wrong with using the default window skin? Should I look into using a different one for my game in VX Ace?

Edit: I had a game idea set in the future that would have an unnecessarily super long opening crawl/intro. Basically just text over landscapes of barren cities/wastelands and outer space explaining the backstory, while music is playing. The idea was that it would go on seemingly forever, for comedic effect. It's not just something I randomly thought of in passing, it's one of the games I was serious about making someday. Not sure where I'd get the artwork though. Backgrounds are much harder to draw than characters, and I can't do painterly styles. Anyway, for the record, the game isn't meant to be intentionally bad, aside from maybe the intro. I just hope most people find the intro to be as funny as I imagine it in my head. Part of the humor would stem from the fact that just when you think it's about to end it goes on even further, or it starts elaborating on minor details in obvious fashion.
Mirak
Stand back. Artist at work. I paint with enthusiasm if not with talent.
9300
I wish people here enjoyed kusoge-type games as much as i do, this way maybe one day we would have an event for people to make the best kusoge they could and i'd participate the fuck out of it and we'd have so much fun if only we didn't have so many people so damn serious about game making here.

Oh well.

One thing's for certain though, it's very difficult to produce something that is intentionally bad while keeping the balance between "bad" and "frustrating to play" at a decent level. If you manage to make something workable and hilarious that, like zeello said, donnes the cape of a bad game but it's actually enjoyable, that is something truly worthy of a round of applause.

It takes skill. It is an art. Not every shmuck can do it that's for sure.
Aye, I am totally with Mirak.
(and well, I did enjoy the first 1/4 of the playthrough of said kusoge game hahaha)

The way I read it, it IS aiming to create a bad game that is enjoyable at its heart. Enjoyable because it's bad. (not being interesting in stuff unless it's funny n all, didn't the opening say that?)

It is an art. Fine trash. Eiken is still one of my most prized anime possessions. And I got it for 20 cents to boot!
Well, okay, Sharknado, there. That's a title people can recognize. There are movies that end up terribad but you cringe because you know it's meant to be serious. In Sharknado you can tell at a glance and in about every scene that they know it's silly, and they're trying to be (with all the good n bad that comes with it).

It's about striking that balance - annoying and glitchy and random, or too predictable, but in a way that makes you laugh at the absurdity instead of ragequit. As such, that also needs to be short enough to not overstay its welcome.
Which is also why a lot of the mechanical balance (battles and such) are a bad place to start imho. There are different tastes for it already (like how I couldn't live through a Craze or LockeZ game cause I can't stand the length of the system, sorry guys!)
Making it frustrating by "needing 1-2 hours to fight an enemy that usually takes one minute" is not gonna be fun, or funny, or anything else for that matter.

Having a hero that does 1 damage with each attack, and a sidekick that literally one or two-shots everything, that's far better - add to that that in every cutscene the sidekick fawns over the hero and the hero is the only one in the spotlight, and yer good. For example.
There is something to be said for frustration.

If the game has no tension at all, it is merely boring. It's like they say in the movie Elizabethtown, "As somebody once said there's a difference between a failure and a fiasco. A failure is simply the non-presence of success. Any fool can accomplish failure. But a fiasco...A fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions. A fiasco is a folktale told to others that makes other people feel more alive because it didn't happen to them."

I need a game where people completely hate it, but somehow keep playing because they are so annoyed with it, that they have to beat it. Sorta where it honestly tries to be a decent game, but fails miserably in some key point, resulting in some very flawed game. It should be a parody, while acting like it is legitimately trying for greatness. Does this make sense?

"it honestly tries to be a decent game, but fails miserably in some key point, resulting in some very flawed game. ... while acting like it is legitimately trying for greatness."

That so perfectly describes many professionally released games. =_=
^ e: well, you know what they say: The best comedians are the ones who aren't trying to be funny...

bulma, there's plenty of kusoge out there for... er... "inspiration". And bootlegs. Definitely check out bootlegs (I mean, a bootleg is where I got these sprites for my avatar lol). I believe H-games also have a pretty high "shitty" rate. Also definitely reflect on all the kinds of goofy programming errors you or others have made. Some "beginner's RPG Maker problems" stuff might be some good meta-humor for this kind of site.
Personally I can't think of anything RPG-specific right now, though.
except maybe like 50% or more of everything about the original pokemon game aaayyyyyy

author=Mirak
I wish people here enjoyed kusoge-type games as much as i do, this way maybe one day we would have an event for people to make the best kusoge they could and i'd participate the fuck out of it and we'd have so much fun if only we didn't have so many people so damn serious about game making here.

...

If you manage to make something workable and hilarious that, like zeello said, donnes the cape of a bad game but it's actually enjoyable, that is something truly worthy of a round of applause.
A kusoge event sounds like a freaking amazing idea! XD
However, in regards to the last statement, I think that would technically make it "bakage" instead of "kusoge". Pure pedantry, I suppose, but I think "its not bad it's just completely absurd" and "holy god this is fucking bad how did this even get out the door lololol" is an important distinction to make.
"Ghetto" might be a better term to describe the more bearable kusoge out there than just outright "bad".


I'm not sure how it really relates to this discussion, but I feel the need to bring up the Dungeon Man in Earthbound as a rare meta-example of this in a game. I mean, in an otherwise somewhat standard-quality RPG for its time (better-than-average even, on some fronts), you at one point enter a cave and go through a gaudy block maze with a bunch of random Ducks and "Worthless Protoplasms" for enemies, then you exit and some weird dude is like "I'm the Dungeon Man, did you like my dungeon?". Honestly it's fucking hilarious.

e2: Googling "kusoge" pulls up Ratty's Densetsu no Kusoge by page 3. So, Ratty, how does it feel to be biggish-time? :P
Thanks TurkeyDawg, and everyone else.

I'm gonna try to work on making weather and time horrible. Like absurdly fast or slow.

Oracle of Tao was edging towards bakage. I tried to borrow heavily from the Earthbound standard goofiness. But this is different, I definitely want to make this suck. I honestly didn't realize that maze was supposed to be overly easy. I guess it was, I just noticed the collection of vehicles

Oh yes, I remember Bubsy and Paladin's Quest (I feel old). They forgot about Lord of the Rings (the floppy disk version, it was playable but... terrible music and sorta weird facesets on all of the characters).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UkZPEs9qcY
Harvest Moon 64 game speed fast. And if your char doesn't sleep precisely at 8pm he dies. Or wakes up being robbed of his quest items. Also definitely include a completely stupid mascot character, a kid genius with an insufferable attitude, and a busty bimbo blonde babe who is the obvious love interest of the MC but suffers while the MC sleeps with every floozy this side of Perren. OH! Also excrutiatingly slow text scroll, non-scaling abilities and spells, and a colour pallate that looks like a mutation offspring of the 70s and 80s. Don't forget terrible font that you can't read. At least with comic sans you can read it. >.>

Now to take all these flaws and make a fun or charming game with it. Future Jam event- Difficulty Level: Gradius III threading the needle.

I'm sure if I thought longer I could think of more janky things.
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