INTENTIONALLY BAD GAMES.

The insomnia thing is probably even more cliché than the rebellion thing, dude.

But I feel like you guys are saying the same thing... or at least similar.
Mog is saying games can be good if they use cliché with good presentation. (Which I agree with.)
calunio is saying games can be good if they use cliché with a mix of originality. (Which I agree with.)

While personally, I feel presentation is more important... The "evil empire" cliché you refer to would interest me quite a lot if it was presented with great writing, interesting characters, immersive atmosphere, and new, original twists. The basic premist of the evil empire and the rebellion (or other clichés) can be molded around different things to be original and fun.

post=122054
Well, it's not like that can't be true. A proper usage of an age old, narrative trope can, and is usually better than garbage that's 'original' just because nobody happened to think of it before. A mistake some people make (not just in video games) is the assumption that their concept is automatically better than a cliche because it's 'original'. Cliche's are bad because of bad presentation, the same way something original can suck because of bad presentation. Neither is fundamentally 'better' than the other, in practice.

i actually meant that ive seen people argue that stock cliches are INVARIABLY better than original things, using pretty much the same argument you just did. i dont want to get into this debate again but i should point out that a cliche is not just something that has been used before; its something that has been used again and again to the extent that its effect has been blunted. and originality doesnt particularly refer to things that have never been done before, but to a unique viewpoint behind the work. this is why its silly when people say that everything has been done before: all art is the product of a viewpoint which is unique in that it is formed by a specific context of life and culture that cannot be replicated. only original things are worthwhile in that anything worthwhile is always the product of this unique personal viewpoint.

so yeah, you're right when you say that its possible to make something good which uses old tropes etc, but its a disingenuous argument to make because noone is doing this. you're kidding yourself if you dont think theres a distinction between arranging techniques to better get across a specific viewpoint or idea and adding something new to the pile in the process and just slapping together whatever fantasy cliches or tvtropes articles you thought were cool. if i sound hostile its because i think its pretty dishonest and obnoxious to drag in some bullshit binary choice between "usage of an age old, narrative trope" and "garbage that's 'original' just because nobody happened to think of it before" when these are both completely irrelevent outliers to the discussion. the thing is that while the whole "traditional techniques can still be good" argument is a valid one in theory, in practice it's just used as a kneejerk copout so that people can continue stitching together pieces of generic anime games to make a "new" generic anime game and still feel like they're performing a creative act. there is nothing wrong with this and im not arguing that everyone should invariably just focus on making art all the time but at least admit this is what you're doing instead of dragging in some retarded strawman about TIME-HONORED TECHNIQUE VS SHALLOW NOVELTY in reference to people effectively building the same square-enix fangame over and over, to whom even the idea of shifting to a different kind of unoriginality (noir, say) would be genuinely unthinkable.

basically it just annoys me to see any minor mention of the concept that art could be original immediately lead to this ridiculous hyperdefensive backlash that YEAH WELL ID RATHER PLAY SOMETHING GOOD THEN COMPLETELY NEW when this is not the issue at all!

post=122070
basically it just annoys me to see any minor mention of the concept that art could be original immediately lead to this ridiculous hyperdefensive backlash that YEAH WELL ID RATHER PLAY SOMETHING GOOD THEN COMPLETELY NEW when this is not the issue at all!

Absolutely, but I suppose I interpreted the exact opposite, it annoys me to see any minor mention of 'something we've seen before' hailed as 'GARBAGE I'D RATHER SEE SOMETHING THAT NOBODY HAS EVER SEEN EVER'. I admit this whole thing seems to be a misunderstanding from both sides, so no harm done, right?

Also how dare you debase TVTropes, mister. It is the shit.

post=122071
it is dishonest because this was not an absolutist argument to begin with and everyone suddenly focuses on an insanely distorted cartoon of the discussion at hand

like

okay its like saying "Hmm I wish the rm community had less of an obsessive focus on graphical polish" and then have twelve people jump in to say "heh well id rather play wilfred the hero than a mister big t game WHAT NOW CHUMP"

It's less 'dishonesty' and more of 'something I threw in there' or 'hey we were talking about this but let's shift the topic to this (at least for a second).' Dishonesty implies MALICIOUS INTENT and I don't appreciate that man!

Again, it's less 'dishonest' and more of 'something I threw in there' or 'hey we were talking about this but let's shift the topic to this (at least for a second).' If absolutely nothing else, it was just something I brought up so we can talk about for better or worse. It's one thing if you don't like the direction the topic is going in, but dishonest?

Nobody likes being called a liar, catmitts. I mean, really!

also i take too long so whenever i post youve posted a response beforehand so its not that im going YOU LIIIIIEE when i keep using the word dishonest!!

I keep reading this as Internationally Bad Games.

From the moment I gazed upon this thread, I knew my game would be used as an example. :P

Seriously though, I do enjoy playing deliberately bad games to an extent, even over the ones unintentionally bad. The reason? One actually knows what they are doing, the other doesn't.

In turn, however, the unintentional/inexperienced bad game designer tends to be a better person, because they are actually trying to please someone, where the other isn't. If you think about it even further, the person who is designing an intentionally bad game IS seeking the same goal as the opposite character, it's just a laugh with a different reason.

Ultimately, if you are trying to make an intentionally bad game, I think you have to know what a good game is, and do the opposite. Chrono Trigger took inspiration from nearly everything I hate that some games, especially RM games, do. Trial-and-error game play, unrefined dialouge, use of 1337 speak (dear god...), slow movement, frequent random-encounter battles that only involve a button-mashing strategy, the use of an existing title that does not actually reflect what you are doing for the game itself (I've seen a "Mario fan game" with toilet humor, default maps, no jump system or any innovation to the defaults... Yeah) and overall bad game design. I've seen some "intentionally sucky games" that seem to be a result of a "I give up on trying to make a good game" as oppose to shits and giggles (and in my case, a satisfaction to my slight sadism issues), and that's just plain pathetic.

this is why we cant have nice things

post=122069
It's not dishonest nor obnoxious! I meant every word I said! While there aren't a whole lot of them, there are a few people that I see in TV, movies, writing, etc that think that something original is FUNDAMENTALLY better than than a trope/narrative tool/old storytelling convention. There are people who avoid 'cliches' (if you want to call them that) like the plague in favor of less known adages, but they end up (sometimes) with just some garbage instead. This doesn't happen all the time, nor is it a rule, but the point I wanted to illustrate was that the presentation of an idea, original or no, matters a lot when it comes to the finished product, original or not.

do you have an example to illustrate what you are talking about here? from tv, movies, writing, etc.?

i'm not quite grasping what you're saying here, at least outside of hypotheticals in my own mind (yes, it's possible for me to contemplate originality run amok but i am wondering where this has any bearing in reality).