3 Indie RPGs with "bad" game designs that are better than AAA
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Lets explore the designs of indie RPGs Barony, Stoneshard and Drova Forsaken Kin, and dig into how "bad" game design can actually lead to more engaging and fun gameplay.
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Did you know a guy named Michial Kim? He was on my ship back in the navy.
Those games share a thing. They are not meant to be played by everybody
You would be surprised, but AAA games also not ment to be played by everydoby. Only those who can be monetized in any way.
Exactly, when you make a game for everyone you may make something many people will find alright, but nobody will love it.
not only do we optimise the fun out of games as players, designers are guilty of this too.
As a result, the brains of the modern player have been smoothed out.
Happy to see other people talk about Stoneshard. The injury/pain system is very unforgiving, but it forces players to prepare beforehand and interact with the games different systems, which I like.
I just wish they would release updates more often :(
@@AndrewChambersDesign true, but at least when they do update the game it's always quality work. And they're based in Ukraine/Russia, which is possibly the worst possible combination of countries a dev team could be made of right now so I don't really blame them
Oh 💯, no blame, just like, i want more!!! Its amazing what they are accomplishing.
@@AndrewChambersDesignrel
The injury system makes fights go differently and allows some strategy even in a turn based game. For instance if you cripple someone's arm, they will have accuracy and fumble penalties- meaning if you cripple a high damage enemy you can then more safely engage them in melee- but if you cripple the leg, you're better off using crowd control skills on them. This is just one example of how the system makes fights fun.
I've seen an instance in recent game Stalker 2, where some players were complaining about mutants being hard to kill and don't give any loot. They were stating this as an oversight in design, while completely missing the point of this desicion. It was intended to funnel players in to certain mindset and playstyle that is not involving "farming" everything on sight like it's an MMORPG or something. Resources and ammo are limited, you are not supposed to search a fight every time you see something.
This is a phenomenal example of behavior training. Players have been trained to expect gear when they kill, as opposed to understanding that the enemies serve a different role.
Great point.
small issue in original stalker it was a big thing where u could sell parts of mutants....
@@karmicbacklash "They were stating this as an oversight in design, while completely missing the point of this desicion. "
One small issue is that only the one had mutant part selling but the other 2 did not. The modded versions do which most ppl hold their vision of stalker from, which is not base stalker.
There are even NPCs that will tell you that mutants don't give any loot, which kind of drives home the point that one should be selective about when to fight.
Its not over polishing, it is hand holding. But new gamers have gotten so used to this hand holding (under the guise of respecting player's time) that they down vote any game where they have to think or experience an adventure. Many don't play games for the grand adventure, but rather it's about the numbers increasing in the game.
You might have a point there. Factorio is highly polished but doesn't feel bland to me.
One of your best videos to date. Thank you!
I think it was Sid who said there are 4 types of decisions: risk vs reward ("useful but at what cost"), temporal ("useful now useless later"), situational ("useful if XYZ"), and expressive ("i don't care if its useful i LIKE it"). The Barony example you highlighted perhaps touches on all four.
Thanks so much, that means alot.
Great stuff.
Would you, by any chance, have a talk or interview or something, where Sid talks about this in more depth?
@@stephan553 Yes search for "Sid Meier's Interesting Decisions" GDC talk from 2015. He lists these four at around the 8 minute mark.
As an RPG lover I've been thinking this for ages. There's something so charming and beautiful about the absolute jank of older and indie titles that demands more of your mind to decipher, which as you mentioned is a barrier of entry to people who wouldn't be interested in the game anyways, but is capable of making the game more familiar and endear itself to players who ARE its target audience.
Everything in this video is so eloquently and beautifully articulated to properly sing the praises of rpg jank.
As an aspiring solo dev, i gained so much insight by this talk. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
You need to try Kenshi.
It's so full of rough edges it mught as well be a sea urchin.
And it's one of the best games ever made.
This comment not only accurately defines Kenshi, but it also made me chuckle aloud in agreement. You have made my day. Thank you.
Facts. Kenshi one of the greatest games ever, even with it's lumps.
I love kenshi and it has some amazing mods.
One of my greatest worries with Kenshi 2 is that it will be either much more polished, or will have "intentional jank". But yes, the current Kenshi is a masterpiece. Elin/Elona is similar in this regard.
wanted to mention Kenshi, but you did. only a comment to concur.
There is a difference between communicating clearly what you want me to know and playing the game for me. When the design turns into giving the player step by step instructions, it's no longer a game it's completely the chore the designers worked up
Yup. and on the flip side, a game that is too rough, sandboxy, or refuses to give the player enough cues is often just a game where the player has to try to guess what obscure bs the devs demand of us with no hints.
How is Stoneshard's healing system a rough edge? It's more like one of the well crafted systems of that game, something like in STALKER Anomaly GAMMA.
The exploration discussion kind of made me think of Morrowind (2002). Unlike later Bethesda games, there where no quest markers and destination descriptions could be rather vague e.g. "go west" (how far ?) or "I will wait near big rock outside of town" (there where multiple rocks). In some cases one would even have to travel to a nearby town and then ask the locals for the final destination.
Morrowind is also a game where reading books, talking to NPCs and generally snooping around will give you insights into what is going on. It is e.g. completely possible to unwittingly aid the current corrupt Fighters guild leadership, if one simply does as one is told.
Drova is a gothiclike that was really hyped up in that community. There is a reason why people in germany and eastern europe are still making total conversion mods for a 20 year old game. Many old school players are looking for immersive experiences.
I also like to think of leaving in the rough edges as “trust your player”. As you point out, AAA often has a bad habit of not giving players room to think, and instead hand-holds them throughout the entire experience.
Let players work things out! It’s immensely more satisfying and creates more memorable moments.
One interesting and quite intentional rough edge that comes to mind is how in the game Doors of Trithius there are bunch of crafting skills but using each of them requires it's own crafting station and you can't just make those on your own so you either hope to find the right type randomly in a dungeon or visit a relevant shop in a town but towns aren't guaranteed to have the type of shop you want so you end up caring and paying that much more attention to what shops each town has and being happy or sad depending on the result. Also crafting things is something you usually don't do just once but multiple times so as you revisit particular towns and shops to do your crafting you are also each time reminded of your history with that particular place(of items bought, quests done and so on) making you feel much more connected to the world than if you could just craft stuff wherever.
I recently tried "reintroducing" some more of these rough edges to a playthrough of Starsector by combining it with a journaling-style RPG. It's wild, especially in more "open world" games, how much of the enjoyment comes from feeling like you're actually inhabiting a space, rather than just playing a game. I think these rough edges can really help sell the "realness" of game worlds.
In ttrpg design, we talk about "amusement park games", where so much of the edges have been sanded off that the game doesn't feel like a world any more, it feels like an amusement park.
Been Playin Stoneshard since the first release of early access hell a long journey,they tend to do weirdly funny thing like "we gonna drop this new skill that supposed to be hard to utilize" but people managed to find a way to make it the strongest build that ever existed, like the old Battle Trance Staff and the old Berseker Tradition that tied to being naked to get pretty big buffs.they indeed does smooth things here and there, but the true nature of this game was the easily exploited things the community discovered,and it's one of the reason Stoneshard will only became a better game going up on releases, yes there are tons of small slightly annoying bugs but thankfully the devs was responsive,this game needs more recognition.
Also the lingering feeling of Magic is stronger than us is really profound i this game.
Great and amazing points! The factor of "surprise" and "unknown" and "consequent tension" is a major part of a whole Memorable-Experience. I just love my first playthrough of Battlezone(RTS 1999) game for exactly that reason!
A great example of this kind of jank being good is the magic/enchanting system in Outward. To do certain enchantments you have to: go to a forest at night during a fog event, put certain incenses (not super easy to find recipes for) at certain cardinal points of an enchanting circle, and put the enchanting scroll with the item on a pedestal. The whole process actually feels arcane and mystical. That game has a lot of these mechanics, so it's not for everyone but I had a great time playing it
I think a good way to smooth some edges but leave some interesting roughness is in the difference between what is obvious to the character vs. what is obvious to the player. If I have a quest in the starting village that says "you left your family sword at the blacksmith for repair, it should be ready now, go pick it up." That should be marked on the map because my character has lived his whole life in that village and he was the one who dropped off the sword. It actually breaks immersion for me and feels unrealistic that I should have to work hard. If I heard a rumour that there is a secret cache buried at the base of an ancient oak tree somewhere in the Misty Mountains, that should be unmarked (though depending on how famous the Misty Mountains are, they should at least be named). It feels really dumb when the exact location gets marked on the map.
Similar with mechanics, if I am supposed to be playing as a powerful spellcaster, I should have some idea of what my spells do. If I waste a round in combat casting a charm spell on a wolf, only for nothing to happen because "that spell only affects humanoids", there should have been a tooltip because my character is a wizard with 20 INT and would know that. Basically, anything that would be common sense to a character in-world should be equally obvious and easy to the player. Things that are mysterious in-world, should be mysterious out of world.
A good example to cursed items that can be made viable or even OP using game mechanics and knowledge is the boots of blinding speed in Morrowind. The boots give you a huge boost to speed, but they also blind your character. You need to use spells to increase your spell resistance temporarily before wearing the boots.
The problem I see with bigger companies simplifying their games is that it take away one of the most satsfying aspects in gaming, which is awarding your learning process. Most good games start hard and gets easier to the point of being trivialised once you learn how to play it. Stoneshard is a good example, the game seems almost impossible at first, but eventually you learn your way around and suddenly it doesn't seem so bad. For me the perfect example of this sort of progression through learning is Terraria. First time I played most bosses seemed almost impossible, and them you learn how to fight them and suddenly they are easy! And them they released expert mod and restared that process all over again, and eventually master mode. Companies are afraid to alienate larger audiences, but for me (big, triple a) games are getting worse every year.
Souls games speak to this too.
Drova and Stoneshard are two of my all-time favourite indie titles, so it's great to see them get their shine in videos like these.
Happy to see Stoneshard in the thumbnail. One of my favorite games ever despite still being in early access.
I just downloaded it because i heard it was unforgiving
the game is abandoned, they earned money from early access and thats all
I am only 6 minutes into this and this exactly what I have been feeling with modern gaming. I can barely touch a lot of modern AAA games for the sake of it being too "on rails". I think we, as players, are given way too much information and it keeps us from fully engaging in the atmosphere of the game. We make optimal decisions because we can crunch the numbers and know they are optimal. More hidden information that can be learned via experimentation is sorely lacking. Playing modern games is like someone learning chess while always having the engine on, telling them the optimal move in every scenario. They will win basically every game doing that but it would be entirely hollow.
Outward is another great rpg like this, if you’re looking for something with Gothic/Morrowind vibe that doesn’t hold your hand.
The magic system in particular, it’s gritty and hands-on. Hell you can play the game for ages and not know how one would become a magic user (you don’t get a “mana” bar unless you learn it’s a thing, find out where to go, and choose how much you’re willing to sacrifice to gain that power).
The actual use of magic is very deliberate and ritualistic.
You don’t just start flinging fireballs, for instance.
You use up a resource to draw a circle, a fire sigil on the ground, and for as long as you’re standing inside it (continuously being warmed up, btw) you can use your little fire-starting can trip you had someone teach you and the social powers it into basically fireballs.
I love it so much. It’s one of the rare RPGs that make you _feel_ like a wizard, living the life of one and becoming stronger thru learning more about the magic and getting better at manipulating it yourself.
I'm literally playing stoneshard while watching this video. Love it, it's so unforgiving, and at times, very unlucky. But nothing is more thrilling than surviving with 1hp on permadeath.
A shame it's gotten so many bad reviews because they've failed to hit release dates on their roadmap. It's made by Ukranians and Russians so it's no surprise they've had delays lol
problem with rough edges is that they demand a lot from the player. that might be ok and even commonplace in days past where kids got a game or two throughout the year for birthdays and holidays. but we're waaaaaaay past that kind of market. we are in an era of GLUT. our steam back catalog runs into the thousands... EASILY. nvm the entire back catalog of emulation roms. most games will not be in a position to demand that much from players.
sure, players will accede to something like elden ring. but that is a unique market phenom that indies dare not try to replicate.
sad thing is that it's true - the more you put into something, the more you get out of it. but because of the nature of our current market, this may necessarily be a rare thing that happens only for the few games that have the clout to flex its muscles.
One thing that I want to note is that there are many more games nowadays, and prices have been very deflated compared to purchasing power. Games used to cost a higher proportion of your salary. There were no free games either like league of legends or fortnite. Where I'm getting at is that it was more normal to stick with a game than to jump to the next one.
My understanding is that it is important for companies that players stick with their games.
Rough edges were not a problem for the companies because the players were less likely to switch to another game (since there were less games, and they were more expensive).
good point
This does not feel right. If anything games did not expect you to play one for life until after we had an abundance of choice. I think wow and it’s sub service was a big part of the change but I could be forgetting of some important markers along the way.
I am sorry, but for the first example. If I would have to ask in chat where to find the wife because I could not, when getting the info and finishing it, I would not feel good, I would feel disappointed. And if I where to look and finally actually find it, at the end of it the only thing I would look back on is the time of my life I've wasted on nothing.
I really don't understand why people find obscure quest or games that "don't hold your hand" enjoyable.
There is a small but important difference between not holding your hand and just wasting time for the sake of it.
This is why I love Slice and Dice and the roguelike genre more generally. In slice and dice, an item inflicts "stasis" which prevents your action slots from changing which means you cant boost that action. But, if you apply that item to a single-use action, which tend to have bonus effects, then you can use that "single-use" action indefinitely. The wizard has a single-use spell that boosts the value of all of a character's action slots. You can use use that boost multiple times on your healer so every heal recovers to full health. If that healer has a spell that heals all allies, you can be practically immortal on most turns. I love that "stasis", which is unfavorable in most cases, becomes a run-defining hack.
Outward is another great game to check out when it comes to rough edges.
If you constently treat people like they're dumb they will always stay dumb... that's why I always say to not treat children like children.
Really interesting video. Publishers and devs should take note and stop this endless supply of boring games.
I suggest you try, if you haven't already, 7 Days to Die with the Afterlife mod. I've played nearly all of the games you mentioned and many more and way that difficulty is managed in ways to increase fun without becoming tedious (the downside to your notion here) is done at the highest level I have experienced. Very immersive when there is real exploration, a story you are entirely creating on your own, and a perfect balance creating challenge but no tedium. Valheim comes close here, but it can get tedious at times.
The Witcher 2 has a Dark Mode difficulty that allows you to craft super equipment for each act of the game, but at great expense, to counterbalance the difficulty. If you wear the incomplete armor set, your health will constantly drain, but you also drain health from enemies with each strike. You can do quite well fighting like that, with a black haze around the edges of your screen. I beat the game that way.
i love both Barony and Stoneshard so damn much, and I'm glad they are finally getting the recognition they deserve.
Barony in particular reminds me so much of the WoW LAN parties back in the days, feels so damn cozy and nostalgic.
This was a wonderful video to find and you highlighted some wonderful ideas. I would love to see more of this outside the box thinking as I start my game dev journey. Its a lot to think about, thank you for sharing!!!!
Textbook game design becomes too mundane and familiar to gamers.
There are so many gamers now that the focus should always be on them, rather than players completely new to gaming
As a AD&D veteran i often got asked how the HP Pool should be understood. Mostly from beginners in a time when Computer gaming was only a little nichè. Back then i often thought how much i would look forward to the times when computer RPG's would make the task of keeping track of small and individual wounds feasable.
Yet here we are. They could, they just won't, for the most part, because designers are trying to be good at their job, instead of making the game they are working on a good game.
I've been contemplating my dream rpg for a long time and I wanted it to be heavily loot based with gameplay changing effects on most items. I will certainly be stealing Beramy's appraisal system with a few tweaks. Thank you for highlighting such an elegant solution to the loot inspection problem
Stoneshard.
The pain system, body part damage system, make battle much realistic alot.
If there is only one health bar with HP potion, battle is much boring because just head to head stat check game
but now, you have to be caution, plan
and you have to check what weapon/skill your enemies have
you cant just go all in the fight all the enemies you see ,because your max HP reduce after being hit, you cant heal immediately, you have to divided them into small group, ambush them at corner
if there is tank with archer at backline
you should rush behind some obstacle before fighting the tank ( so the obstacle may block the arrow)
arrow damage is not very high compare with 2H weapon
but the limb damage caused by arrow can cause big trouble during the fight with their melee tank
for example, I wont head to head fighting a 2H axe holder
2H axe holder have super high chance to cause bleeding
and bleeding damage is a super easy to "miss"calculation during the heat of battle
At the end is just a health bar, not one but six or seven.
TBF, as with difficulty modes, it might be a good idea to adopt 'roughness' (or hand-holding) modes. Some casual players just want to go through the motions, whilst others want to explore.
Fantastic video! I'm glad that we're seeing a big uptick in critics and (more importantly) devs talking about "rough edges." I love games with friction, so it's nice to see that there are devs out there willing to break away from a lot of the 'conventional wisdom' the AAA industry ingrains in its designers and players.
This is a great video! I would love to see you cover Path of Exile´s design decisions in depth since it has been heralding a lot more modern designs for isometric arpgs and the reason for its friction in a lot of its systems from both path of exile 1 and path of exile 2
I would add Battle Brothers to this list it literally tells you nothing you just have to figure out how to grow and maintain your mercenary band. My favorite Indie game of all time.
Always had such a hard time with the visuals though personally.
@@AndrewChambersDesign I did at first too at least with the 'brothers' but it grows on you. Everything is so well done in that game the music the sound effects as well as the writing. The writer even wrote two books in the Battle Brothers universe.
I remember playing NFS Underground 2 and it not having fast-travel so I'd have to drive to the locations of races. At time it was annoying, but also very cool because it forced me to get to know the actual city. And it also lent to some great conversations with friends and talking about routes and landmarks. In the next instalment of the game they introduced fast travel and it was too convenient not to use, so I did, but at the same time the game lost much of its charm and atmosphere for it.
P.S. Drova is awesome!
My favorite recent example of this is in Workers & Resources realism mode. Most city builders allow you to just tear down what you built. You get anywhere from 100% to 0% of the cost refunded, and often it is 50%. So what about not only refunding 0% but, just as in real life, having to get demolition charges, take the structure down, collect all of the rubble and take it to various specialty dumps? This is more than a rough edge. The impact to the game experience is that planning now becomes not just important, but critical. So if you like planning, you don't want to make it easy to not-plan. I see it as a design flaw to allow easily making changes in a city builder. If it doesn't have planning then what is the point?
Made me think of my favorite game: Space Station 13. It's _very_ rough around the edges, not streamlined at all and unapologetically not for everyone, but it's also an experience unlike any other.
Barony's item ID system is an evolutionary step from Wizardry 8.
These are the types of games I play as a game designer too. Indie games have the freedom to make mistakes and are some of the best places to get ideas.
5:05 that's a gamer posture if I've ever seen one
Thank you, Stoneshard is now on my wishlist!
I love games where you need to think and still have some challenge. I often start without tutorial, if the game allows (many city-builders e.g. do this), because I love exploring the game myself first, that was it's more fun for me. I'll only turn play it later when I feel I really need it. There are also games where I turned off the mini map, e.g. in Hogwarts Legacy and Witcher 3, so I can explore on my own, unbiased, instead of going from one interesting location to the next.
I also like it when you don't just magically know everything, but have to try things out. Not really an RPG, but e.g. in Green Hell, a survival game, I love that you have to eat things at least once, to find out if they are actually edible or not and maybe have additional benefits. You also have to try to combine different materials to figure out how to make tools etc., which I think is cool for a survival game.
More games should incorporate body-part damage systems. They encourage way more interesting scenarios and tactical consideration.
Jank can be positive imo. I take it to mean those "rough edges" that like you said give a game character. Just like making art with restrictions can lead to a different creative process.
Awesome video.
Another "rough edge" that I remember is the negative stats on loot in the first Diablo. It made the junk loot more fun and as far as I remember, I was dissappointed to not see it in Diablo 2.
I think a lot of it comes down to style and substance. There are areas of a game that should be as streamlined and refined as possible, such as the UI interactions: ideally with one or two clicks achieving the desired result, but for world design or visual aspects stylistic choices are completely valid and interesting. There the streamlining might be as simple as a short quest serving as a tutorial to prime the player to notice certain things, or maybe a limited "clairvoyance" pulse as a final failsafe.
As the designers of the yubisoft interfaces said when "elden ring" was given the game of the year: "My whole life and what I learned about UI/UX was a lie"
Mordheim probably has a “bad” design, by AAA standard, but man the game goes hard
I have developed such a distatest for hand-holding in games these days, when the tutorial already forces you or basically locks you in and or the game doesn't let me think on my own for a second. Recently I played Stalker 2 and I had so much joy to explore the world on my own, no numbers go big, or meaningless level or stats. you get good gear to put it on, no matter how you managed to get your fingers on it.
What makes it even worse IMHO is when a game does not handhold, you have some 'game journalist' who needs 4h to find the door to the next level and gives it a 4/10 for bad design.
There are also cases of games that got patched to death because of the lack of focusing on a target audience, if you try to make a game for everyone, at the end you have nobody who is interested.
You go to a restaurant and order a good dish, but it is way too salty. Then the waiter tells you: of course, it is not perfect but at the next corner there is this star restaurant where you pay more for the dish and with more salt in it!
There are good games with good graphics and we should not support a shortcoming!
You've hit on arguably the main pain point of modern game design in big productions: game design is too focused on UX these days.
While I do understand the validity of data driven design from a business perspective, I do feel that it alienates core audiences, resulting in this feel of blandness you describe.
I feel like there has been somewhat of an unspoken movement in modern game design to put some friction back in via accessibility features.
It is an interesting way to both improve usability, and bring back the difficulty settings, and would love to see more game designers lean in that direction.
An example of the above is playing Metal Gear Solid V without the x-ray feature;
You can still mark soldiers with your binoculars, but now you need to look at the map to see where they are.
The game even has a somewhat of an hidden map visualization mode to accommodate for this play style.
The extra friction from no x-ray really added to the fantasy of being a solo operative infiltrating an enemy outpost, putting more focus on the planning and scouting rather than on players reaction time.
At the same time I also think that adding extra friction via accessibility settings does add to QA, since you need to make sure that the game hits the intended design no matter which accessibility settings have been selected.
A less successful example of the above is the ability to disable objective markers in Red Dead Redemption 2.
While removing markers does add to the fantasy of the game, it results in a poor user experience since it feels like none of the missions were designed from the ground up with the expectations of mission markers being enabled.
Strangely enough the decision Rockstar made there is to accept that the player is focused on the minimal at all times, and work around that by adding a cinematic auto horse gallop camera.
This is a great video. Subscribed! I hate floating marker design, which feels like visual pollution. Also, I dislike most types of "input assist", which are basically outsourcing gameplay (e.g. lock-on). Mount & Blade and even the Elder Scrolls are good positive examples imo.
I also love the tradeoff design where you gain something at the expense of something and can often bypass issues with synergy. This was used on some KCD's perks (some call that "sidegrades"). It is a shame that it seems they will lean more towards "upgrades" on the sequel.
Could you elaborate a bit more what makes being able to sleep in an enemy's bed you just killed a rough edge, please (at 24:42)? I don't really get why it'd be considered one, seems more like it'd just make sense in general that if there's a bed and sleeping is a feature, that players should be able to sleep in them.
Also a small suggestion, it would be nice to display the game's title when showing gameplay footage (e.g. the section at 3:45).
Thanks for the videos, appreciate them!
I am 99% sure he meant POI’s being unknown dangers that could be a troll or bandit with zero regard to player level.
Sleeping also interacts with one of Stoneshard's more controversial design choices, and that's how you save the game - you have to sleep somewhere or close the game. So, you're not just getting the full heal, you're also getting a save spot. This means the player is going to utilize one of the beds in the camp to sleep basically 100% of the time. Which on top of being extremely powerful, is also quite macabre. And I think that might be the point he's making? This mechanic of POI that are often small camps with some enemies to fight ends up with sleeping there afterwards being a baked in part of the process, and a AAA game would likely have the 'and then sleep in the camp' step removed. Instead, it kinda works for Stoneshard because of how it paints your character's morals (well, lack of) along with the usefulness of it in an otherwise punishing game.
@@trashmyego good point, your save also gets deleted upon reloading the game from an exit save vs a sleep save which is safe.
@@trashmyego Ah that could explain why, thanks both for your comments!
Great great video, man. I'd say the original Gothic games were the kings of what you're saying here. Sometimes the unnecessary mechanic is exactly what makes the game unique and alive.
I'm curious what you think of the item upgrade system in Two Worlds. Adding identical items(same sword visual) with different stats together to combine them felt very satisfying in that game. But I have rarely seen a similar system in games since. Would love to hear you talk about different loot and upgrade systems like Barony's.
I like this reasoning - it leads to an increase in the "player agensy" -
Freedom of choice and facing the consequences of your choice
lmfao I love that the 3 games you mention are 3 of my favorites of the past yr (and longer in the case of SS). I came back to SS recently bc of the Rags to Riches update of course and Drova just came out recently. Barony I found bc of Splattercat. Anyways, those games are the epitome of what I love about gaming. They leave so much up to the player that I get that sense of wonder again that's damn near scrubbed from the majority of games nowadays- just as you said. I love that they arent pandering to EVERYONE. That's why I love indie devs so much now and feel like we are in a golden age again bc of the ability for ANYONE to make games now. Niche games are a thing again and Im all for it. Im so sick of AAA studios and I finally feel like a kid again when it comes to the sheer amount of unique games out there for me. For a decade or so (Id say 2005ish until 2015ish) that felt gone. Here's to the new gaming world order lol. Ty for so thoroughly talking about this phenomena in gaming. Love the content and so glad I found you!
Glad you enjoyed them as much as I did.
i played 3 of this
the most annoying thing in Barony is the Cursed items system but also makes the game more engaging
Stoneshard is just Lack of Content, if something annoys(like the save and travel system) you can just mod it but the game is good as it is
Drova its just short, i hope there's more to it
i want to add OUTWARD on this list
This was a treat to listen to. Thank you! I have been building out concepts for a few games and playing with changing up the standard rpg stats and systems, so your knowledge and perspectives on these diamonds in the rough was really nice to have this morning. Cheers!
Im so glad you found it valuable
blue lock reference.
Stoneshard is the best gameplay ever!
stoneshard, superhard, I agreed.
I bought stoneshard at Feb/2020, unable to get through the game even I put 20 hour in it. Too brutal, grind hard but low efficient, punishing by minor mistake
after latest update - RtR, there are ton of video on youtube, and player online on STEAM shoot up to 8k (which usually ~3xx )
I open the game again afer left it there for 4 years
OMG, addictive!
still punishing, brutal, but reasonable a lot
I love the feel that
I am human, not hero, I am fragile,
The world is brutal, unforgiving,
but I can handle with wisdom, caution and planning.
I am looking forwards they let us create own character
but the speed of updating, is kind of a concern lol
It's not just chat that doesn't get used but also the brain.
Yeah, this is why Morrowind is still a marvelous experience for people who are willing to approach it on its own terms.
Before WoW was a concept..... Ragnarok Online has taken over South East Asian gaming scene.
Have you played Dread Delusion? That's an absolute gem of an indie adventure rpg game.
Very interesting topic here! Modern titles certainly like to overdo "smoothing out" the experience, to the point at wich I am being treated like an infant.
Counterpoint. Sometimes rough edges are just unpleasant. You have to make the process of learning the system fun, and many of the games that are being sold as "Charmingly rough edged" come off as just grating. Barony intentionally slows you down, then punishes you for taking your time with the Minotaur. That ain't my thing. It didn't foster connection between me and the game, It was just irritating. If you put obstacles between the player and what they want to do, you better make getting over those obstacles fun. The MMO secret world had plenty of missions that were not streamlined, but for the most part, figuring out those puzzles were interesting. ADOM has plenty of things that are rough edged, but are fun to figure out.
Oh....and you mentioned Starfeild as being a game that had its rough edges designed out of it..... Can't say i agree.
Fantastic video, especially since it highlights quality indie gems. I found and played Barony because of this, and its fantastic. Thanks
As a designer I truly enjoyed and learned from this episode! Thank you, Andrew,
Glad you enjoyed it!
Leaving a like and a comment to help the algorithm. Nice sums, good 3 games you mention here!
Much appreciated!
One thing I despise about new games is them showing you where everything is. Can't make anything too difficult anymore. Assassins Creed Valhalla is a great example. In old AC games, you had to find hidden treasures. They weren't just pre marked out on the map. In Valhalla every point of interest was pre marked on the map which turned the game into what I started calling "Point to Point" games. I would open my map, find the closest point, run to it, get the thing, and repeat. BORING. Shame for such a beautiful game. The story sucked and they nerfed the game. I quit playing it fairly early.
In fairness, with regards to your WoW example of Mankirk's Wife, you're mostly right that these kinds of quests have been polished down to a much smoother edge, though you overlooked that there are also far more secret quests, unlocks, treasure hunts, and hidden collectables in the game than ever before; many more than ever existed in vanilla, which has led to the formation of massive communities working to unravel them. The big difference is that these conversations don't happen in game anymore, so much as on websites comment sections and Discords; there's certainly a cost to that, reducing the sense of in-game cooperation and community, though it's hard to blame Blizzard for that societal trend - the game has become far too big for Barrens chat.
While I agree that friction is an important and often underappreciated element of design, I also tend to believe that the decision to streamline the leveling/campaign process and move those exploration/discovery elements to more optional areas of the game was the right decision for the majority of players. The friction still exists, just without forcing everyone into it from the earliest stages of the game.
Also in fairness, I beat up on WoW alot but it comes from a place of love not just for the game but also the team. It defines a massive part of my lifes journey.
I should probably do a “everything i fucking love about wow video” one of these days
@@AndrewChambersDesign That's ok; I didn't take it as beating up on WoW, and it did a great job of expressing your point. It just leads into a deeper conversation on the evolving player trends and online resources which prompted those changes... though of course that's a big tangent that wasn't the topic of this particular video!
I LOVE stoneshard. its difficult but its so much fun.
Thanks for the video!
COVER: Realms of Arcania: Blade of Destiny AND Star Trail!!! [SPOILER: The Series does contain coursed items ;-)]
I don't think it's the designers' fault alone. The market eventually demanded easier games because players didn't want to be stuck with "Nintendo difficulty" all the time.
Therefore I stick to the oldies like the Infinity Engine Games, Realms of Arcania, Pathfinder or Ultima.
Love the inclusion of stoneshard!
svarog's dream is another good one.
If he thought a quest in World of Warcraft was hard, don't tell him about Everquest.
Love EQ, and DOAC
Love the video! Would appreciate text on screen in the corner to indicate the name of the game that's currently on screen, maybe just for the first time that game appears on the screen if that's too disruptive? I see many interesting looking games and unsure how to find out their names!
Will try to add that for the next one!
We are so spoiled by indie games right now. It's the best.
The thing is rpg items are not supposed to be perfect, they have benefits and 1 or 2 drawbacks therefore no optimized game.
Exactly as you described the obscure quest, not perfect. Life is not polished rpg games used to magnify this, diablo was great because of what u described
Ive played Stoneshard and its a awesome game, but hard.
If you have time, you should try Svarog's Dream, nice indie rpg game.
Really insightful, loved highlighting the mechanisms of fun and game
Thanks, really appreciate that.
theres this feature on certain mobile game (fk i forgot what it is) its basically roguelite autobattler but you grew your hero passive, but they have limited number of slot and a passive could take more than one slot, to increase the slot you have to get negative passive, they give extra slot in exchange for their negative ability, some are fatal, some can be get aroundit it. is this also "rough edge"? or just a feature
Let's go stoneshard
1. Barony 6:14
2. Drova 17:48
3. Stoneshard 22:56
When your budget is in the tens--if not hundreds--of millions of dollars, you want to expand the accessibility of the game to the maximum possible audience, which means dumbing down the puzzles, quests, mechanics, UI, everything, to a lowest common denominator.
I think this is the wool that many have pulled over their eyes. Gamers prove they like interesting things the most, Elden ring was a massive success but lacks many things that you claim is wanted/needed… which is false.
@@SirCanuckelhead I believe the main issue isn't even that some believe players actually dislike interesting/rough game mechanics, but that the big game companies go for the lowest risk possible. So instead of trying something interesting or innovative, they go for the lowest hanging fruit and go for repeated known mechanics or streamlined to the point of lacking any form of friction/interaction with the players.
@ So the companies think these low hanging fruits are what gamers like/want? That is my point. If ER can succeed without many of these "low hanging fruits", then they are not the fruits you thought they were, that is the wool over their eyes.
I found this thoughtful. I wonder if you've played kenshi. It's One big rough edge.