SAUCE'S PROFILE

First off, my last thread was a total disaster. I tried to start a discussion, clearly making a mistake including a video of mine, and the response was split down the middle between compliments about the video or how inconsistent the graphics looked. This is my first rpg. Seriously. Though, nobody seemed to believe that.

I was conveniently sitting in chat while people condescendingly accused me of "just showing off." "Oh, he must be so proud of it."

NO REALLY?! If I didn't like my work, I wouldn't have posted it. But spare the B.S. Nobody puts user generated work on the internet, on a community for sharing that stuff no less, without wanting someone to see it. It's like posting a video on youtube of yourself doing something awesome and people saying "oh, you're just showing off." "Oh course I'm showing off! This is youtube!"

Someone else said "anyone could event a cutscene like that, it just takes time" - which is laughable, that can be said of any work that doesn't cost money

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So anyway, back to my intended point of discussion. In the past couple months that I've been in this community, the one thing I couldn't help but notice was that people almost exclusively talk about how the games look. SICK overlays dude. The only other thing discussed is the custom programming work, which made more sense to me.

I was wondering why that's the case. I dunno about everyone else, but I always enjoyed the stories in RPGs. My impression growing up was that they focused on the depth of their worlds just because they can't compete in gameplay with action games, etc. For me, strategy and party development aside, rpgs were like books when I was growing up. I remember stuff like the Arctica Castle opening. Killing Teo McDohl. Stuff sticks with you like any great movie, except unlike other mediums, you get to grow attached to the characters by playing as them.

So when I first saw rpgmaker some years ago, the appeal to me was making my own story in RPG format. Why not write a book? ...well because books are boring to me. I think to myself, man how lame was that ending, THIS is how I'd do it! Now I have the opportunity.

Couple years ago, I saw this website for the first time and tried a couple games that were well reviewed or got some awards or whatever. About all of them were such well produced games, insane attention to detail, etc. I couldn't stay hooked on most of them, though, because the dialogue was brutal. To be fair, of course, they're indie game makers, not writers.

Then I saw a couple games that had non-graphical redeeming characteristics that, for me anyway, totally trumped how bad it looked. One of them was this second mellynd war game. Man was that game ugly. But that story was captivating. Those characters were so developed. They didn't fall into a single voice(the voice of the writer) like other games I saw.

The other game that stood out to me was Rise of the Third Power. It was fairly visually appealing, but that paled in comparison to how colorful the characters and their chemistry were. I said to myself, THIS is what I was looking for! It doesn't even matter what kind of adventure they have, I want to see them do it.

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I know people have limited time to make their games. When I see a beautiful game with sick battlesystems but mediocre story/dialogue, I wouldn't say go fix your dialogue, it blows. Maybe, they're bad at writing, can't help that. I dunno why the reverse has to be true. I can't make all the custom matching graphics that I need to represent the story I've written. Well maybe I could, but I don't have the time and energies for it.

So I ask you. What do you find appealing about making and playing indie games? What do you value in this stuff and why? I wanna hear what y'all think.

edit: holy wall of text, sorry

@ lockez - this game is a comedy, hence the pig final boss, and the joke credits

Amazing, 10 minutes after I posted, we've all degraded into talking about graphics. My attempt at discussion about things other graphics has failed completely. The only one who bothered to say anything on topic is sarcastically mocking me.

Despain, I asked nothing about my graphics( I know they're bad compared to most others), yet you felt the need to comment about that.

I asked what people thought about low quality action scenes in general. And gave an example from my game. This isn't asking for an opinion on my game or cutscene specifically, though you can talk about the video directly if you want.

the dark screen tone is because of youtube or fraps, I dunno why, it's much brighter when I testplay