Submitted 1 week ago by tonytins@pawb.social to games@lemmy.world
“It sounds weird but we try to keep our innovation as low as possible,” the director explained. “We’ll say ‘it’s this game but with that.’ It takes so much time to innovate. Sometimes you find the hidden holy Grail of game design, but often indie developers sit for five years trying out stuff. We’re a studio of 50 people with bills to pay. So we can’t do that.”
If space dwarves drinking, burping, and dancing isn’t innovation then who needs innovation?
Damn, there’s a pebble in my boot.
DRG Survivors is innovative enough for what it is. More importantly it’s well-made and a fun addition to the world of DRG. Does it reinvent the genre? No, but it does some interesting things with its different challenges so it stays fresh for longer than most bullet heavens.
Honestly “it’s this game but with that.” could be a pretty good way to innovate unless you’re totally phoning it in IMO.
Metroid was created when people at Nintendo wanted to combine the skill-based platforming of Super Mario Bros with the exploration of a Zelda game. That ended up being one of the two founding games in the Castlevania genre.
System Shock was created by people who wanted to make a game with the same “emergent gameplay systems as a puzzle/playground” aspect of dungeon crawling RPGs like Ultima, but in a SciFi rather than fantasy setting. What we ended up with was something that combined fast paced shooter gameplay and a tight narrative presentation on the one hand, with letting the player make their own solutions to levels by manipulating open-ended gameplay systems on the other. This is very similar to the situation with metroid IMO, in how it tried to combine two very differnt styles of gameplay. Today we have an entire genre of games inspired by System Shock called immersive sims (though its more of a design ethos than a genre IMO).
The famous level design and exploration of Dark Souls was inspired by the 3D Zelda games, and while I don’t have a source for this its hard for me to believe that the lock-on mechanics and basic idea for the movement weren’t at least a little inspired by Zelda too. Or, in other words, Dark Souls is basically a 3D Zelda game but with the tone and difficulty of their earlier King’s Field series.
Now, I don’t mean to imply that combing two good things is a guaranteed way to get something good. Or even that, if you do hit upon a good combination, that that’s the only thing you need to put into your work. The games I’ve just talked about are all absolute classics and obviously a lot went into that. For example, the genesis of the iconic multiplayer aspect of Fromsoft’s games came about during the development of Demon’s Souls, when Miyazaki was trying to drive up hill in a bad snow storm. There was a line of cars, and when one began to spin it’s tires then ones behind it would intentionly push on it to help it up. This all happened without the drivers being able to talk to each other, and, seeing this, Miyazaki wondered what became of the last car in the line, but knew he would never get an answer since he would never see these people again. It was this experience that inspired the creation of phantoms.
However, what I am trying to say is that taking something you like and understanding what makes it tick, then making it work in a new context, can end up creating something that then seems wildly innovative in that context.
Would you recommend DRG? I’ve heard some good things, but never tried it.
I asked a friend who plays it and he says its good with randoms, but great if you have a crew you regularly game with.
It’s great either way. It has a good community.
It’s extremely fun with friends. I’ve got probably 100+ hours in it
I personally would not recommend it. I’ve played ~20 hours with friends. Despite being a simple co-op game, it has these seasonal battle passes and multiple currencies that I would expect from something like Fortnite / Call of Duty / pay-to-win mobile games. That’s mostly an aesthetic gripe because it doesn’t directly effect the gameplay, but I’m not a huge fan of the gameplay either. Combat is really imprecise/messy, which I’m sure is the point but I can’t get behind it. May be worth to play with friends, but I would not recommend it solo at all. What I can say I really like though is the 3D map tool for the randomly generated caves 🤤 beautiful 3D map
All of those “currencies” are free. There is no paid way to get them. You just have to change which season you are playing to get that season’s scrip. There is no pay to win. There is merely paid skin packs
I’d say try it out to see if you like the gun mechanics and movement/different classes. If you do then you’ll love the game even more when you get to the higher difficulties. If it’s not your thing, you can refund on steam if still under 2 hours of playtime.
Deep Rock Galactic is owned by Embracer Group.
What’s your point? What makes Embracer different than any other gaming conglomerate?
Because Embracer especially has a symptom of bag chasing and layoffs right after. If Ghost Ship downsizes, don’t act surprised.
I would pay $10 a month (ongoing, MRR) to be able to fly their home base ship to different asteroids and occasionally have the bugs invade it. I would play the fuck out of that game.
I guess I know not to buy more from then in that case. I’m tired of playing same slop from different companies that dont want to try anything new. DRG is good game but it also feels like its not living up to its fullest potential, now i know why.
This isn’t DRG, this is DRG survivors
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 week ago
IMO, “it’s this game, but with X” is innovation. It’s certainly more innovative than “it’s this game, again, with absolutely nothing new” like Ubisoft basically does.
makyo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Absolutely. I think most of us are excited for incremental evolution.
And conversely a lack of that is the chief source of my frustration with games. Bethesda is another dev that comes to mind with the loading screen debacle that was Starfield.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 week ago
Starfield was just weird. Like, I expected the load screens and all the other GameBryo/Creation jank. But that’s not what made it disappointing. It was just… Boring. I couldn’t get immersed in the world because nothing about it was interesting once you scratched deeper than the surface. Even the twist ending/NG+ system which is actually kind of a neat idea wasn’t done well (like you might have to go through the game up to 7 times before you even see a difference).
deadcream@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
I honestly did not expect Starfield to have actual flyable spaceships and vehicles. That was a pleasant surprise, so Bethesda evidently has not stagnated completely. The problem is Starfield has issues with many other game elements (like loading screens, mediocre worldbuilding, etc). Also the fact that it was simply a game in a different genre than previous Bethesda games didn’t help. People expected a handcrafted open world a la Fallout 4 but got a kind-of-procedurally generated sandbox.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Its this game but with x is how we got most new genres.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 week ago
I actually was thinking about this the other day with soulslikes as I make my way through Bloodborne. This is an entire genre that isn’t even new. They’re Metroidvanias! The only real difference is that you don’t get tools as like weapons/accessories to reach new areas, you just get a boring ass key that opens a door or a trigger automatically opens a new path. 🤣
False@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It’s evolution rather than revolution. Which is fine, not everything can be revolutionary.
A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 1 week ago
For sure. And I’d say most of us who like roguelikes and DRG both would just enjoy a good, faithful treatment of it that understands the genre. I don’t expect innovation within a genre, I just want a solid implementation.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 week ago
And too much innovation will alienate people anyway. People want something new but at the same time want something familiar. If it’s too out there people can’t relate with it, especially before the purchase, and feel it’s too risky to spend time and money on. And for the people who do try it you still need to convince them to push through the beginning stages of the game. Since very innovative gameplay comes with a steep learning curve and not just skill wise since it breaks conventions there is also a cultural (in the gaming sense) learning curve.