Quirky Indie RPGs - Depression is optional

[I_Am_Not_Bruce_Willis]

A good but long video on why Sea of Stars sucks.

You ever just look at a game and tell it's off-putting from its overall "style" despite stating it takes inspiration from beloved games? You ever have a moment where you can intuit that a game suffers from the typical "Indie game curse?"

 

[Coolio55]

You ever just look at a game and tell it's off-putting from its overall "style" despite stating it takes inspiration from beloved games? You ever have a moment where you can intuit that a game suffers from the typical "Indie game curse?"

Had this exact reaction to Vallhalla at a games convention while I was - I shit you not - waiting for the YIIK demo to get freed up. (It never did This was all long before it got released too)
Couldn't put my finger on it at the time but it just had this overwhelming unpleasant aura.

 

[I_Am_Not_Bruce_Willis]

Had this exact reaction to Vallhalla at a games convention while I was - I shit you not - waiting for the YIIK demo to get freed up.
Couldn't put my finger on it at the time but it just had this overwhelming unpleasant aura.

VA-11 specifically never really gave me that unpleasent aura you're describing, but yeah.

 

[LucasSomething]

A good but long video on why Sea of Stars sucks.

I watched this days ago, i agree but i watched it on 1.25x speed. It does a great job highlighting how SoS writing isnt just "bad", it's nothing. The protags have no ambition or personality, meta "jokes" pointing out tropes, nonsensical character arcs, plot beats happen out nowhere, foreshadowing is character saying "this will happen later" etc..

One thing they said that hits me is how marketing yourself as being derivative sets yourself to be worse than what you copy and how "i can slog through shit as long as there is a compeling reason".

SoS writing is bad, but really, 95% indie rpg writing is bad or mostly bad and have to get around that with something else with SoS being the production values and nostalgia.

On the other side, Chrono Trigger writing isnt really deep but everyone remembers cause it's just tight and effective. There is no wasted line of dialogue and everything circles back to Lavos.

But indie rpgs can't even do that. Omori's dreams are driven by a random magical girl. 75% of knuckle sandwich is filler. ISAT has nonsical worldbuilding and your friends traumadump you about being aroace or trans. Undertale yellow is literally a fanfic with furry OCs. Bug Fables suddendly invents a villain halfway through cause there was no stakes. Long Gone Days forgets the MC's PTSD and asks me if i want to snipe civilians (as far as i knew) again. Chained echoes has comical amount of traitors and escalation, and also weak dialogue. YIIK is YIIK.

Why is this so hard lol. Only quirky indie rpgs i can think right now with good writing all the way are like, LISA and Jimmy probably (edit: undertale too). Argueably OFF if it counts.

 

[X Prime]

Why is this so hard lol.

The answer is a certain lack of entertainment breadth.

It's the same reason that newer games or anime are so derivative. They're not doing anything that can even remotely be characterized as new. They don't have to dig deep at all for ideas. So they remix what they know has sold in the hopes of hitting something that will also sell.

If all you know is vidya everybody knows you're just going to copy that vidya. Older vidya creators couldn't do that because there wasn't enough of a pool to draw from. They had to draw from foreign movies, books, and so on. It's like how you can practically feel the Saint Seiya in 90% of LATAM cartoon artists.

Sea of Stars just proves that a good-enough presentation can trick people into thinking there's a good story there.

 

[LucasSomething]

The answer is a certain lack of entertainment breadth.

It's the same reason that newer games or anime are so derivative. They're not doing anything that can even remotely be characterized as new. They don't have to dig deep at all for ideas. So they remix what they know has sold in the hopes of hitting something that will also sell.

If all you know is vidya everybody knows you're just going to copy that vidya. Older vidya creators couldn't do that because there wasn't enough of a pool to draw from. They had to draw from foreign movies, books, and so on. It's like how you can practically feel the Saint Seiya in 90% of LATAM cartoon artists.

Sea of Stars just proves that a good-enough presentation can trick people into thinking there's a good story there.

I agree but on the other hand, how can there be so many unoriginal derivative games that cant even ripoff the good classics correctly?

How can Sea of Stars unironically copy Chrono's trigger saving Crono and forget the game isnt about time travel?

How can bug fables ripoff Paper Mario but forget to make a fun present villain like Bowser?

How can Chained Echoes ripoff FF6 mechs and forget that mechs symbolize so much of the Empire's opression and instead have them create huge anachronistic mess (why the fuck people use bows when mechas exist???).

I guess i answered my own question, they ripoff specific parts from different games and miss the point of why they were good... Stuff simply exists in a vaacum.

Note that i'm not even asking for top tier writing, but just a concise writing that ties it's characters and themes together. Nearly every GOOD jrpg does this. In Breath of Fire 2, every party member was screwed by a demon in some way. In FF6 everyone hates the empire. In FF9, Vivi literally says they're all made for war but chose not to be. In Persona 4 everyone is a teen wondering if they should be their true self or bow to society's expectations.

But most indie rpgs dont put thought into these things. ISAT has a useless non binary kid because the developer is non binary. Bug Fables has an evil king because we a final boss. Knuckle Sandwich has party members solely because rpgs have those. The Sea of Stars heroes save the world because "its an rpg and that's what rpg heroes do".

It's like devs thought process is "i'm gonna make a game like earthbound/chrono trigger/paper mario/FF6 but with my own OCs!". Most of them also have terrible and detached villains as a result. At least something like LISA actually tries to mix gameplay and themes to tell a story.

 

[X Prime]

It's like devs thought process is "i'm gonna make a game like earthbound/chrono trigger/paper mario/FF6 but with my own OCs!".

Indeed. They're making fanfiction, with proverbial hookers and blackjack.

And, to be fair? It works. Remember, 50 Shades of Grey started as Twilight fanfiction.

See, here's the thing. You're clamoring for good writing. I'm clamoring for good writing. But the absolute, stone cold reality is that most gamers claim they want good writing, but what they actually want are tropes they're familiar with and cool scenes/setpieces.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I watched this days ago, i agree but i watched it on 1.25x speed. It does a great job highlighting how SoS writing isnt just "bad", it's nothing. The protags have no ambition or personality, meta "jokes" pointing out tropes, nonsensical character arcs, plot beats happen out nowhere, foreshadowing is character saying "this will happen later" etc..

One thing they said that hits me is how marketing yourself as being derivative sets yourself to be worse than what you copy and how "i can slog through shit as long as there is a compeling reason".

SoS writing is bad, but really, 95% indie rpg writing is bad or mostly bad and have to get around that with something else with SoS being the production values and nostalgia.

On the other side, Chrono Trigger writing isnt really deep but everyone remembers cause it's just tight and effective. There is no wasted line of dialogue and everything circles back to Lavos.

But indie rpgs can't even do that. Omori's dreams are driven by a random magical girl. 75% of knuckle sandwich is filler. ISAT has nonsical worldbuilding and your friends traumadump you about being aroace or trans. Undertale yellow is literally a fanfic with furry OCs. Bug Fables suddendly invents a villain halfway through cause there was no stakes. Long Gone Days forgets the MC's PTSD and asks me if i want to snipe civilians (as far as i knew) again. Chained echoes has comical amount of traitors and escalation, and also weak dialogue. YIIK is YIIK.

Why is this so hard lol. Only quirky indie rpgs i can think right now with good writing all the way are like, LISA and Jimmy probably (edit: undertale too). Argueably OFF if it counts.

I'll put several factors:
1. The devs aren't interesting people. They are trannies without imagination that copy well known works because they heard they were well known, and use their grooming discord to signal boost. Same as all AAA writers being California middle class faggots.
2. The devs all want to be the next Undertale. Instead of actually making multiple good games without going hard into tropes, everybody tries to break genre conventions without ever doing a single game in that genre.
3. The story those people want to tell is so basic it could be children's TV, since they mentally lack the ability of insight to actually give any depth to the story. Everything is always good guy trannies against evil nazis, or misunderstood trannies. Even supposedly something "deep" like YIIK is just a screed vs. gamers.
4. Modern artists are terrible both as humans and writers, and there's a good reason why better plot indie RPG are based on stock assets in RPGMaker. Hopefully with AI, the monopoly on good game art will be taken from artists and back into the hands of writers.

 

[I_Am_Not_Bruce_Willis]

One thing they said that hits me is how marketing yourself as being derivative sets yourself to be worse than what you copy and how "i can slog through shit as long as there is a compeling reason".

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

I'll put several factors:
1. The devs aren't interesting people. They are trannies without imagination that copy well known works because they heard they were well known, and use their grooming discord to signal boost. Same as all AAA writers being California middle class faggots.
2. The devs all want to be the next Undertale. Instead of actually making multiple good games without going hard into tropes, everybody tries to break genre conventions without ever doing a single game in that genre.
3. The story those people want to tell is so basic it could be children's TV, since they mentally lack the ability of insight to actually give any depth to the story. Everything is always good guy trannies against evil nazis, or misunderstood trannies. Even supposedly something "deep" like YIIK is just a screed vs. gamers.
4. Modern artists are terrible both as humans and writers, and there's a good reason why better plot indie RPG are based on stock assets in RPGMaker. Hopefully with AI, the monopoly on good game art will be taken from artists and back into the hands of writers.

It's telling that the Sea of Stars wiki is almost empty. What is there to write about the characters or the plot?
Like this:

That's one of the main characters who is a pirate captain, but also secretly a ninja, and even more secretly she's from another dimension, and even MORE secretly she's a cyborg skeleton! But there's really nothing to describe or think about in regards to that character, or any character, because it's not expanded upon and it doesn't even matter.

 

[PunkinMan]

Seriously surprised this game has not been mentioned anywhere
this game took over 5+ years and made over 4x the kickstarter goal and gameplay wise the game is extremely mediocre and feature creep is definitely an issue, most reviews are just prasing the fact that the kickstarter wasnt a complete bust lol

Kickstarter Page
Link \ Archive

Steam Page
Archive \ Link

 

[Coolio55]

Seriously surprised this game has not been mentioned anywhere
this game took over 5+ years and made over 4x the kickstarter goal and gameplay wise the game is extremely mediocre and feature creep is definitely an issue, most reviews are just prasing the fact that the kickstarter wasnt a complete bust lol

Kickstarter Page
Link \ Archive

Steam Page
Archive \ Link

I'm assuming this is a merged thread OP? Was literally mentioned this page and we had a big discussion a few pages back.

I'm still waiting for the developer commentary to find out what the fuck happened with that. Andrew says that when the first chapter was written it was conceived as an entirely different game.
Why the fuck would you willingly toss such an interesting concept? The actual released game is 100% filler like he just wanted to make an RPG but didn't have any specifics in mind. It's like the plot to a niche fetish game - it exists almost out of obligation.
It's all strangely polished too.
I've actually noticed this happening a lot. Complete nothing games with really high production values.

 

[X Prime]

Why the fuck would you willingly toss such an interesting concept? The actual released game is 100% filler like he just wanted to make an RPG but didn't have any specifics in mind. It's like the plot to a niche fetish game - it exists almost out of obligation.

Writing a story is difficult. You can have a basic idea, a beginning, and an end. The idea might even be fantastic!

The problem is almost always everything that gets a person from Point A to Point B in a coherent manner that shows progression. And then, especially when you make a game, you find out that you can kind of substitute that gruntwork with filler, so long as it is cool-looking, humorous, or referential filler. What you describe is the natural result.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Writing a story is difficult. You can have a basic idea, a beginning, and an end. The idea might even be fantastic!

The problem is almost always everything that gets a person from Point A to Point B in a coherent manner that shows progression. And then, especially when you make a game, you find out that you can kind of substitute that gruntwork with filler, so long as it is cool-looking, humorous, or referential filler. What you describe is the natural result.

I dunno, I can understand not having anything of note padding the between the start and the end, but most of the quirky RPGs either have no end, or end in an incredibly gay and generic way. And even the setup are usually just reddit/tumblr-ized versions of more popular games.

 

[PunkinMan]

I'm assuming this is a merged thread OP? Was literally mentioned this page and we had a big discussion a few pages back.

I'm still waiting for the developer commentary to find out what the fuck happened with that. Andrew says that when the first chapter was written it was conceived as an entirely different game.
Why the fuck would you willingly toss such an interesting concept? The actual released game is 100% filler like he just wanted to make an RPG but didn't have any specifics in mind. It's like the plot to a niche fetish game - it exists almost out of obligation.
It's all strangely polished too.
I've actually noticed this happening a lot. Complete nothing games with really high production values.

oops, was searching for it through the bar, probably should have just read

 

[LucasSomething]

I'm assuming this is a merged thread OP? Was literally mentioned this page and we had a big discussion a few pages back.

I'm still waiting for the developer commentary to find out what the fuck happened with that. Andrew says that when the first chapter was written it was conceived as an entirely different game.
Why the fuck would you willingly toss such an interesting concept? The actual released game is 100% filler like he just wanted to make an RPG but didn't have any specifics in mind. It's like the plot to a niche fetish game - it exists almost out of obligation.
It's all strangely polished too.
I've actually noticed this happening a lot. Complete nothing games with really high production values.

It's like Andrew realized he didnt think anything beyond chapter 1-2 but had to make SOMETHING to convince kickstarters that there was an actual game being made. My biggest theory for this is how the freezer dungeon demo (chapter 3) that we see back years ago shown on game conventions was made just for that, because it's completely irrelevant.

Your guy follows a light to the freezer, explore the dungeon, fights a ghost and then leaves. You only meet the ghost again in an even more irrelevant haunted forest where they get you lost as a prank. Nothing here has anything to do with the brightfang gang or 1000 futures or the goblins. You could remove this entire dungeon and nothing changes.


(haha it's funny because i wasted a whole hour on nothing!)

After this i feel brophy realized he had already moved too far from the original premise so he might as well make a generic save the world from evil gang plot. And it's such a shame too because the first chapter is genuinely strong as fuck. It's ironically very subversive as it tricks you into thinking it's about the MC being depressed and not finding a job only to swerve hard into dark comedy, which is surprisingly rare for this genre. There is nothing like that post chapter 2.

Writing a story is difficult. You can have a basic idea, a beginning, and an end. The idea might even be fantastic!

The problem is almost always everything that gets a person from Point A to Point B in a coherent manner that shows progression. And then, especially when you make a game, you find out that you can kind of substitute that gruntwork with filler, so long as it is cool-looking, humorous, or referential filler. What you describe is the natural result.

To be fair, i'd argue it's fine to have "filler" in your rpg as long as it actually enhances the world. LISA is pratically 90% random bullshit but everything is well paced, funny/scary and expands the world building. It helps sell how far Brad is willing to go through to rescue buddy.

KS filler on the other hand feels like 95% of what happened didnt matter. Killing that guy didnt matter, your job doenst matter, the gym freak doesnt matter, protecting the mayor didnt matter, the mayor being kidnapped doesnt matter, the other 2 gym freaks didnt matter, beating the gang didnt matter, beating the final boss didnt matter, suddendly there is a plot twist that reverts everything and we throw the source of the problem at the moon, the end.

What i mean is a good writer can still make "good filler". Omori's dreams dont mean anything while Jimmy's dream convey so much about his family. This the minimum an rpg should do.

 

[X Prime]

What i mean is a good writer can still make "good filler". Omori's dreams dont mean anything while Jimmy's dream convey so much about his family. This the minimum an rpg should do.

Right, what I'm saying is they don't actually have to.

They can and do get away with the Lowtax monkeycheese version of RPG filler writing.

 

[Coolio55]

It's like Andrew realized he didnt think anything beyond chapter 1-2 but had to make SOMETHING to convince kickstarters that there was an actual game being made. My biggest theory for this is how the freezer dungeon demo (chapter 3) that we see back years ago shown on game conventions was made just for that, because it's completely irrelevant.

Your guy follows a light to the freezer, explore the dungeon, fights a ghost and then leaves. You only meet the ghost again in an even more irrelevant haunted forest where they get you lost as a prank. Nothing here has anything to do with the brightfang gang or 1000 futures or the goblins. You could remove this entire dungeon and nothing changes.


(haha it's funny because i wasted a whole hour on nothing!)

After this i feel brophy realized he had already moved too far from the original premise so he might as well make a generic save the world from evil gang plot.

I still think that the freezer chapter could've worked if it actually tied to something important.
The theming is fine. Your boss is already shown to be morally bankrupt - revealing that previous employees have died due to poor working conditions (or WORSE) fits in perfectly.
The only real problem is that it's mostly irrelevant storywise. If you made it so that the ex-employee's history and death had something rooted in the plot's main issue - it would've been fine. A fitting way to discover the "actual" plot.

And it's such a shame too because the first chapter is genuinely strong as fuck. It's ironically very subversive as it tricks you into thinking it's about the MC being depressed and not finding a job only to swerve hard into dark comedy, which is surprisingly rare for this genre. There is nothing like that post chapter 2.

This is what pisses me off the most. It was such a distinguishing feature and a deserved knock at your typical "adulting is hard!" non-plot.
The game had a winning formula of "monster/problem of the week appears - cook and serve" ...why the hell didn't he use it?!

 

[Vecr]

A good but long video on why Sea of Stars sucks.

At 00:49:24-00:50:00

Did I mention that there is a *necromancer* in this game? One who they beat up to get what they wanted out of her. Why the fuck are they not immediately knocking on her door and begging to bring Garl back? Or, threatening her to bring him back? Romaya can drop a lead that bringing people back perfectly could be possible if they acquire another McGuffin. Hell, while Garl is dying, have Zale and Valere triple down, that they will do the impossible, and save an already dead man.

Maybe, maybe.
Either way, you'll get accusations of "fanaticism" and "a totalizing worldview" (technical terms, not important), but if you do it wrong it'll end up like a worse version of Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfiction. Though, maybe people in general should try to think why they find dei ex machina to have better overall vibes than fanaticism, when the former is almost literally impossible in real life, and the entire point of the latter is that it actually does, in expectation, have a non-zero chance of doing something.

 

[Vecr]

Never mind, even Yudkowsky knows not to do that, because it's obviously exploitable.

"Alek's head is still intact," the Lord of Dark said. "You may or may not know, Selena, that everything that a human is, resides in a human's brain. Your lover still exists, Selena; all that is him, still is there. He is simply not breathing, at the moment. After I complete the Spell of Ultimate Power, I'll have the ability to bring Alek back. And I will. Does that work for you?"

https://web.archive.org/web/20200225212406/http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/the-sword-of-good