CRAZE'S PROFILE

https://twitter.com/GennaBain/status/999785407087808512

Don't know what to say. He was an incredible figure and inspiration for me.

So right now, we just see a jumbled list of notices. You can sort by type, but not my whether they're your projects or not -- when I'm gone for three months for work, it's pretty intimidating to scroll through (especially when I follow a lot of cool projects but also have like 20 game pages of my own).

I'd love a way to sort by "projects i'm dev/tester/etc. on" and "games i follow".

Hey all. Why haven't you played FF1?

This might not seem like a GD&D topic, but bear with me. This is actually more aimed at people who've never had an interest in FF1, because I'm curious what detracted them/you from it.

I'm not gonna make any judgment calls about the game in this OP -- I just want to hear if you haven't played FF1, why not? I think it's an interesting question for people like me who make very mechanics-oriented games, since FF1 has a very simple story (although it is told in some creative ways, but maybe we'll get to that later).

If you have played FF1, feel free to share what you liked about it or what you'd improve, but that's not the goal of the topic. I might do that later on in this one, or make a second one later about what I/we felt it did well and why it might be unattractive now.

Talk about any version you want!

I'm assuming a few things with this topic, for the sake of skipping some of the tangents: our hypothetical project has mostly traditional rest-challenge-repeat pacing, and that towns are mapped out (i.e. not a menu). It doesn't have to be an RPG, just anything with those designated rest/challenge areas.

So, how do you get the best ratio of effort to player experience out of your towns?

In a game like Chrono Trigger, there are some gorgeous town areas, but I feel like you spend 2-3 minutes in each one (the fair aside) before jumping into the next cutscene or dungeon. That's a lot of effort for a fleeting player experience.

Compare that to like the original Final Fantasy, where you'll be returning to each town to save the game and rest up often, as well as pick up the expensive upgrades (magic, gear) over the course of the game. The towns aren't exactly lookers, even for the NES, and some are arguably even too big. There also isn't a lot to do or find except for a hidden shop in one town and Crescent's windy forest with old men in it. So, that's pretty much low effort for mediocre player experience.

And then we have a game like Final Fantasy 12, which only has a few towns but each one is gorgeous, complex, and has a wide variety of shops and bazaars and hunt-related characters and running around yelling you're Basch and etc. That's a lot of effort for lots of positive player experience.

How can we make games that don't require a ton of effort -- because most of us are single devs -- but allow for a lot of player experience out of a sometimes-dull part of the typical rpg or action-adventure? We surely can't recreate Archades or Rabanstre, and putting in the graphical effort to make something as beautiful as Chrono's towns would be silly if we didn't put a lot more stuff to do in them (thank goodness for Sunset over Imdahl, I guess). Making boring FF1 towns is easy, but then... what's the point of having towns if they're gonna suck?

pizza mentioned desks let's share

click for bigger

notes:
-those are playing cards, not cigarettes
-i broke my comb very recently from acting out a move in my game
-that cardboard tube man was made by one of my campers as a statuette of me
-that mona lisa isn't blurry, it's just lenticular
-all that scrap paper has notes on it from gam mak
-i need to go to a coinstar soon