SORRY, BUT I LOVE THE IDEA OF MAKING FANGAMES.

post=134937
You missed the point as well. MY point was this; in the example of the Chrono fangame above, it was a success. The guy who made the game made it with an intended audience in mind, released it to said intended audience, and intended audience loved it and played the fuck out of it. Mission accomplished.

The Chrono Trigger fangame guy is, by default more successful than a grand majority of us because he did BOTH of the things most people in the community lament about and ultimately fall short on; 1. He FINISHED a game, and 2. He got a LOT of people to play and enjoy it. And honestly, that's what most of us here want. Should we set our standards to be higher? Sure. Should we pander to people by releasing substandard products? No. Should we make games we ultimately enjoy and hope other people will play and enjoy? Yes.

Period.

That's fine if you want to make a random CT fangame. You're using a poor example, kind of... you're making some decent points; maybe I'm just being defensive or something. I don't know. I had something to say about expectations or something but then I lost it.

All I know is that I'd rather release to NeoGAF and SomethingAwful.

...oh wait

post=134953

post=134937
You missed the point as well. MY point was this; in the example of the Chrono fangame above, it was a success. The guy who made the game made it with an intended audience in mind, released it to said intended audience, and intended audience loved it and played the fuck out of it. Mission accomplished.

The Chrono Trigger fangame guy is, by default more successful than a grand majority of us because he did BOTH of the things most people in the community lament about and ultimately fall short on; 1. He FINISHED a game, and 2. He got a LOT of people to play and enjoy it. And honestly, that's what most of us here want. Should we set our standards to be higher? Sure. Should we pander to people by releasing substandard products? No. Should we make games we ultimately enjoy and hope other people will play and enjoy? Yes.

Period.

That's fine if you want to make a random CT fangame. You're using a poor example, kind of... you're making some decent points; maybe I'm just being defensive or something. I don't know. I had something to say about expectations or something but then I lost it.

All I know is that I'd rather release to NeoGAF and SomethingAwful.

...oh wait

I'm just saying in the end, an individual should make whatever he wants to.

Okay.

post=134937
You missed the point as well. MY point was this; in the example of the Chrono fangame above, it was a success. The guy who made the game made it with an intended audience in mind, released it to said intended audience, and intended audience loved it and played the fuck out of it. Mission accomplished.

The Chrono Trigger fangame guy is, by default more successful than a grand majority of us because he did BOTH of the things most people in the community lament about and ultimately fall short on; 1. He FINISHED a game, and 2. He got a LOT of people to play and enjoy it. And honestly, that's what most of us here want. Should we set our standards to be higher? Sure. Should we pander to people by releasing substandard products? No. Should we make games we ultimately enjoy and hope other people will play and enjoy? Yes.

Period.

No one missed your point. We aren't talking about success, we are talking about quality.
Success is measured through things like response, download numbers, sales, etc. Quality isn't really measured at all, or at least it's not quite the same.

WiiSports is the most successful videogame of all time. It's sold over 60 million.
Why has it sold so much? The same reason the Chrono Trigger fangame is popular. Not necessarily because they are good games, and not because they are fangames, because WiiSports is no fangame.

They are people pleasers. The developer(s) look at the target audience and sell it specifically to them. The CT fangame was linked to from a major Chrono Trigger fan website, thus it got many downloads there. WiiSports was marketed to people of all ages, which is why the Wii sold so well. I would never say WiiSport is the greatest video game of all time, in fact, I'd say it's a pretty mediocre game and I got bored of it really really fast.


If you are actually passionate about game design, then you should first care about making a good game. People-pleasing comes later down the line.

post=135019
No one missed your point. We aren't talking about success, we are talking about quality.
Success is measured through things like response, download numbers, sales, etc. Quality isn't really measured at all, or at least it's not quite the same.

WiiSports is the most successful videogame of all time. It's sold over 60 million.
Why has it sold so much? The same reason the Chrono Trigger fangame is popular. Not necessarily because they are good games, and not because they are fangames, because WiiSports is no fangame.

They are people pleasers. The developer(s) look at the target audience and sell it specifically to them. The CT fangame was linked to from a major Chrono Trigger fan website, thus it got many downloads there. WiiSports was marketed to people of all ages, which is why the Wii sold so well. I would never say WiiSport is the greatest video game of all time, in fact, I'd say it's a pretty mediocre game and I got bored of it really really fast.

If you are actually passionate about game design, then you should first care about making a good game. People-pleasing comes later down the line.

IMO, another reason why WiiSports did so well was because it was (or still is idk..) bundled with the Wii. I've played mine once and never touched it again, but that's besides the point I guess.

post=134972
I'm just saying in the end, an individual should make whatever he wants to.

I agree. What really matters is if the individual enjoyed working on the game itself.

Why do you think the Wii sold well?

Because it was, and is, accessible for people of all ages to enjoy. Yes, I'm sorry that HARDCORE GAMERS now share a demographic with their grandmas, but they're the only ones complaining about it; everyone else is too busy having a good time.

I didn't say they were necessarily separate, but they don't go together. I already listed a few examples where people pleasing and quality did not go together. And yes, konjak is very talented. I didn't say fangames are necessarily worse, but if you look at the game, the "it might as well be original" concept applies perfectly to it.

Other than graphics and various "homages," it's pretty unrelated to Zelda. I've played it. The gameplay is nothing like Zelda, being an action platformer, the art style itself is not like Zelda other than the fact that the menus use the fairy and the character is obviously based off of Link. The musical style isn't similar either, except the actual song's motifs are based off of Zelda's. It plays like most action platformers really, albeit very short and polished. The whole game is really just a konjak style platformer with some icing on top that pays homage to Zelda.

It feels nothing like Zelda 2. I thought I was redirected to a remake of Zelda 2. Honest it doesn't feel like a Zelda game at all, exept there is a Link sprite.

This is one of the comments on the game, and it's pretty much what I'm saying. There's no real relation to the Zelda series except the Link-ish sprite and various homages.

post=135044
Now, that boss must have come about as a result of Konjak looking at the Zelda series and thought 'how might I interpret this into an action game?' and came up with that cool Dark Link boss. If the Zelda fangame brainwave had not reached him and he had instead decided to make an original game, that boss would not exist.

What? This is pure unfounded speculation and doesn't mean anything.

And the concept of fighting an "evil" version of your character is really common and has existed across many game series from Mega Man, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy, almost ALL fighting games, Sonic, Metal Slug, etc. etc. The Legend of Princess in general is pretty similar stylistically and gameplay-wise to other konjak games like Ivory Springs and whatnot, so I dunno, it's pretty typical konjak stuff! (not in a bad way.)

Dark Link boss. I thought that was one of the most imaginative things I've seen in an action game.

Can't see how it's imaginative if all he had to do was use a boss from OOT... You know, like he didn't imagine (come up with) the boss.

I'm just going to put my two cents here quickly. What you said about wanting to play Chrono Alter and the fact that you made this topic shows me that fangames can be sort of "unfair" to other games, since people who aren't "indie-gamers" are more than likely going to see a fangame and go for it immediatly, rather than trying something original.