Design Inspiration Representation

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Otyugra

Guest
It seems to me that game developers are more influenced by Nintendo, and Nintendo console exclusives, than Sega/ Sega console exclusives, early Sony exclusives, modern videogames, arcade games, or old home computer games (such as the Commodore 64). Shovel Knight, for example, plays like a combination of many NES games. Yooka-Layee/ A Hat in Time are very inspired by Banjo Kazooie, Rayman 2, and Mario 64, all Nintendo 64 games. I could name at least five recent indie games inspired by the Mega Man series. There are hordes of Pokemon-inspired games out there today, and more still that are shameless rip-offs. Ittle Dew I and II are both mostly inspired by Legend of Zelda. As a tool, RPGMaker seems directly inspired by SNES and NES rpgs like Dragon Warriors and Final Fantasy rather than Sega console RPGs at the time, such as Phantasy Star I, II, III, IV. OwlBoy is said to be most influenced by Legend of Zelda's dungeon design, though arguably unique otherwise.

More than that, I feel most indie games play like Nintendo games and barrow some of the tropes closer to those console games. A quality video essay I watched on game design pointed out that the platformers on the NES controlled more tightly and slower than Genesis games both from the culture surrounding each brand and because of the differences in code per console. Likewise, art/level design in Sega games tended to be based on simple geometric shapes 3D and 2D with a focus on rounded shapes (or was simply more free form/cartoonish as the case with Earthworm Jim, Toejam and Earl, and Comix Zone), while NES at that same time tended to have player characters that looked more square due to the sprite restraint. Square/cube shapes are more common today (Origin: Super Mario Bros. I, II, III, Bomberman, Mega Man I, II, III, Legend of Zelda I, II, Murasame Castle, etc) (Indie: Castle in the Darkness, Minecraft) than Sega-esque geometry focus (Origin: Vectorman I, II, Sonic I, II, 3D Blast, Ristar) (Indie: Scott Cawthon's pre-FNAF games). In later years, Sega consoles tended to conform more towards Nintendo's styles in order to keep up with competition, and from then on Nintendo's styles became the norm for all to follow in the days of Playstation 1 and onward so it seems.

Even though most indie games aren't directly influences by old games, I would argue that Nintendo's styles have tricked down into what we think of as the "traditional" way to make 2D games. It's uncommon to see games that have an arcade game mentality, though some popular flash games of the early 2010s did. It's rare to find "retro" graphics that take inspiration from home computer limitations, or use old-school vector graphics. "Retro" seems to mean NES 8 bit or SNES 16 bit only.
Like with how RPGmaker takes most of it's influence from Final Fantasy, most free chiptune software is based on the NES or Game Boy; I've yet to find a free composer program that uses a Genesis sound or a Game Gear sound. I find this to be alarming, almost as if it rewrites history before developers even begin their "retro" games. Even if a Genesis song program exists, the more obscure song chips probably don't due to their retroactive lack of popularity.

Do you feel like other developers, or ever yourself, fit this description (of being more inspired by Nintendo games and the culture specifically surrounding them than all other things)? Of course you have the occasional Freedom Planet and Dwarf Fortress, but I would argue that game design based on Sega, home consoles, etc is vastly underrepresented. Do you think different companies have different approaches to game design that can be compared and contrasted? Do you think developers would benefit from looking in more-obsure places to find inspiration on game design?
 
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Ninety

Member
Do you think developers would benefit from looking in more-obsure places to find inspiration on game design?
I mean, the answer would seem to be an obvious yes, surely. Indie design is a hundred times more varied and creative than AAA, if nothing else because their smaller budgets allow for creative risks and niche marketing. But even so there's a lot of repetition and certain tropes are growing quite stale indeed. Taking inspiration from less mainstream consoles or technology mightn't solve this problem entirely, but it could help mitigate it. To be honest, the obsession with Nintendo is probably a lot to do with the kinds of people making games now - many grew up with Nintendo and it had an enormous influence on people in their 20s and early 30s.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I definitely can agree that I conform to this. It kinda feels like while other companies have experimented with more advanced technology than Nintendo, but Nintendo has always had the best game design (especially in their first-party titles, although their strict quality control helped keep third-party games 'the best of the best' as well). So naturally, they're remembered the most fondly. I've watched a whole lot of DOS games LPs (such as Joel's DOS Madness streams where he plays completely random DOS games from a huge ROM library) and a lot of them make terrible design choices like swarming you in enemies on the first screen of the game, before you've gotten a chance to figure out the controls.
 
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Otyugra

Guest
It kinda feels like while other companies have experimented with more advanced technology than Nintendo, but Nintendo has always had the best game design (especially in their first-party titles, although their strict quality control helped keep third-party games 'the best of the best' as well). So naturally, they're remembered the most fondly. I've watched a whole lot of DOS games LPs (such as Joel's DOS Madness streams where he plays completely random DOS games from a huge ROM library) and a lot of them make terrible design choices like swarming you in enemies on the first screen of the game, before you've gotten a chance to figure out the controls.
In the early days, other companies were no doubt trying to use "look how advanced we are" to stay in the race with Nintendo, and I agree that this mentality did nothing to specifically help their game design quality. Nintendo has many, many wonderfully well designed games, largely because they used limitations to hone in on small aspects to focus on. Super Mario Bros. (1985) is about jumping, and running and nothing else. Bonk/BC Kid (1989), which was the TurboGraphx-16 mascot series' first game, was about running, and smashing, and nothing else; I think this is why the series is vaguely remembered, because they honed in on something small and did a good job with it.

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991), on the other hand, was about a horde of things. It was about:
  • fluid/ fast movement
  • exploration/ choosing a path
  • technology vs nature (SMB was comparatively a surreal incoherent mess when you think about it's theme)
  • representing things that the audience liked (skateboarding, being expressive in ways that would be discouraged by the player's parents [Sonic getting expressively impatient in his idle animation])
  • knowing when to be careful (enemies disrupting flow for better or worse)
  • completion (getting all the emeralds).
Sonic had less focus than your average Nintendo game, but there is a lot to learn from Sonic, as a random example. Unlike Nintendo games, level design is influenced by what a kid desires rather than a core great idea. Sonic levels look like skate parks often, and that agreed with the consumers. Likewise, in later games Sonic would grind on rails. The choice of an animal protagonist was so that they could represent the animal-behavior of an energetic kid. It makes sense for an animal to run around, but it doesn't make sense to see a fat man wearing tight overalls jump high and run for as long as he wants.

Yes, Nintendo has a strict hold on 3rd party, and that was mostly a good thing. Sega, home computers, and even Playstation 1 games were often a lot messier and stranger. They often lacked the quality, but they tended to experiment. In experimentation, you won't find great things at face value but maybe you can find kernels of good ideas that lack proper execution. At least, that's my hunch on the matter.

Another hunch of mine is that a large part of the popularity of Nintendo's style is because they were in first place. Like Ninety said, they influenced the most people because they convinced the most people to buy their games and consoles. I can't help but wonder what today's game design philosophy would be like if Nintendo's revitalization of the gaming industry (with the NES after the crash) was achieved by a different company. If Nintendo never had that name recondition, would they lose their massive influence on game design despite the quality of the design staying the same?
 
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Galladhan

Guest
If Nintendo never had that name recondition, would they lose their massive influence on game design despite the quality of the design staying the same?
I agree with Yal: it's not a matter of popularity, it's a matter of game design quality.
And great game design comes from brilliant game designers (and programmers of course).

I love Atari and Sega as much as i love Nintendo, and i would be happy if more game developers took inspiration from games like Pengo, Zaxxon or Star Wars (the Atari's coin-op, year 1983).

But if i attend a game design course and i ask the teacher: "who's the greatest game designer in history?" i expect to hear "Shigeru Miyamoto", in the same way as i would expect to hear "Alfred Hitchcock" if i asked "who's the greatest director in history?" at a film school.

And, talking about Nintendo value, it's not all about Miyamoto.
Videogame history is filled with stellar game designers, of course, and several of them worked for Sega. But if you took a scale, and you put all Nintendo game designers/programmers on a pan, and all Sega ones on the other one, where the balance would tip?


I've yet to find a free composer program that uses a Genesis sound or a Game Gear sound.
Me too, and i would highly appreciate it, cause i adore Megadrive sounds (especially Yuzo Koshiro stuff and the Devil Crash soundtrack). The "chiptune scene", though, revolves a lot around Commodore 64 SID too, so it's not only NES and Game Boy realm.

Sonic had less focus than your average Nintendo game, but there is a lot to learn from Sonic, as a random example. Unlike Nintendo games, level design is influenced by what a kid desires rather than a core great idea. Sonic levels look like skate parks often, and that agreed with the consumers. Likewise, in later games Sonic would grind on rails. The choice of an animal protagonist was so that they could represent the animal-behavior of an energetic kid. It makes sense for an animal to run around, but it doesn't make sense to see a fat man wearing tight overalls jump high and run for as long as he wants.
Totally agree here. Sonic was "fast and cool", while Mario wasn't.
But... have you played any Sonic episode, which is not the first Sonic The Hedgehog, recently?
I did that, and i had the feeling they weren't great games, after all. Not even very good, i would dare to say.

Talking about 2D platform games, i think that Sega gave its best with games like Ristar and Alex Kidd series (and Flicky too), more than with Sonic. Personal opinion (from somebody who used to like Sonic very much, when he was a teenager).
 
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Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
The Sonic games have always had design flaws, they just were less pronounced a decade ago, I guess? There's a reason most people still claim the first three games are the best (although I guess that's partially due to nostalgia as well). Most people agree that the worst part has always been the cutscenes, and everything since the first Adventure STILL has been heavily story-based.
 
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Galladhan

Guest
There's a reason most people still claim the first three games are the best (although I guess that's partially due to nostalgia as well).
Yep, but i was talking about Sonic 2 and 3, also. They don't play as good as i remembered them.
 
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Otyugra

Guest
The Sonic games have always had design flaws, they just were less pronounced a decade ago, I guess?
For the record, I wasn't trying to declare whether sonic games are better than Mario games; my point is that even games with worse design overall can still have a few good ideas that other games don't have. I didn't grow up with Sonic the Hedgehog, I grew up with the Game Boy Advance version of Mario games, yet I can still appreciate the little things that Sonic games did differently-and-arguable-better even if those aren't better designed as a whole.
 
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