We need some modern games like Lemmings or the "classic" 2D Worms.
HOW did they do that pixel-perfect terrain destruction anyway?
HOW did they do that pixel-perfect terrain destruction anyway?
Noita comes to mind. Also includes some pretty wild fluid dynamics.
> HOW did they do that pixel-perfect terrain destruction anyway??
Usually the terrain is a bitmap, and various effects paint/erase it.
That's like complaining we haven't made a modern Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson or that we haven't remade The Godfather.
If the originals are so simple, accessible, and so good, what more could you bring to the table with a new modern version to guarantee a big sales success to offset the risk and cost of starting such and endeavor when gamers can just play the existing originals.
Not everything needs a reboot/remake, especially if perfection has already been achieved.
That's a weird deduction. Everything can be improved upon. Why do we have loads of modern games like Doom, for example? It was good too, and can be played today on modern systems.
Arguable. I've seen variations of Tetris, but never improvements. Nor do I think you can improve stud poker, or Go.
I like the multiplayer versions over the years. The Tetris Effect is pretty fun, although maybe not strictly an improvement.
I'm a little on the fence about 7-bag, because it's a little too evenly distributed, but early Tetris had some gnarly distribution.
Not to mention that when people say "improved" they usually mean "adding more stuff". More isn't necessarily better.
Some genres, like Worms, just peak much sooner than others, like Doom, and don't benefit from newer graphics or technological improvements. Just like UX design, at some point you peak, and any more changes you try to add for the sake of improvements, just end up making the product worse.
Look at current commercial operating systems or at Reddit. They also made a 3D Worms game a while back and it was a massive flop. Often, simpler is better.
Sure, everything can always be improved an you might hypothetically be able to build an even better Worms game than the original, but since the bar is already so high, you have very little chance of topping it and all the risks of failure.
Serious Sam seems to survive. They tried to continue Doom but it wasn't Doom so much. What else is there?
A decent single player shooter with a story, atmosphere etc.
I believe Far Cry may still qualify but I don't get games that require an account with the vendor (UPlay, Rockstar Social Club and other crap like that).
My favourite iteration growing up was called Dome Wars [3] and it's not even on that Wikipedia list!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_game
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artillery_video_games
It reminds me of rock as a genre. As a teenager, rock stars were everywhere, but there's barely any new rock bands after 2010. It doesn't mean the genre has achieved perfection, but everyone who would be doing rock is now doing something else.
There was a resurgence in Interactive Fiction about 10 years ago, which evolved into AIF (thanks internet), which then disappeared in just 1-2 years, to be replaced by all these Ren'Py games.
There's a huge gap and demand for Guitar Hero type of games, but nobody wants to make them. (Maybe related to the decline of rock, as there's still beat games)
I think there might be a resurgence now or later with Twine and Patreon though.
If you want to have complex backgrounds and terrain textures with pixel-perfect collisions and terrain modification then you’ll likely want to keep separate buffers for foreground and background. Then your game engine would operate on a bitmask for collision and destruction of terrain, and you’d construct the framebuffer by blitting [1] the foreground and background using the mask to select between them.
No blitting required, playfields were drawn by the display hardware at scanout.
You run a zombie invasion, the zombies have attributes not unlike the ones from Left 4 Dead, but the gameplay is pure Lemmings.
https://www.zombienightterror.com (Incidentally the best game I've ever played on an iPad.)
https://www.gog.com/en/game/tin_hearts
Also, it is voxels rather than hand drawn pixel art but I thought Urbek did a great job at feeling like that era of game. It is as much a puzzle game as a builder (there are a number of levels of upgrade that require other buildings within a certain distance).
There's also King Arthur's Gold, which is a free multiplayer game that I'm sure only has like ten players online these days but is an absolute hoot regardless: https://store.steampowered.com/app/219830/King_Arthurs_Gold/
Yes we have.