Pixels and the Future of Games: Part 1
Why is everything pixelated?
A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. We were talking about games and I shared some screenshots of a few new games coming out.
I was immeasurably excited to talk about this and get his take on a new indie game called. “Backpack Hero.” What looks like a conventional side-scrolling dungeon crawler roguelike, has this newly added mechanic, where you can sort your inventory in the best possible way to forge your own combat build. Combining packing and combat to make a whole new, interesting adventure!
Unfortunately, upon seeing the images I screen-capped. He just simply replied…
“no, thanks, and WHY IS EVERYTHING PIXELATED?”
Immediately, I thought… well, uhm… er…?
What I replied to it, however, was, that we were somehow starting to regress back to the earlier years but taking modern mechanics and applying this to games. We are just spoiled for choice.
Then it hit me. That is exactly what a lot of indie devs are doing, and it is pure genius!
See, in modern times you have these big spectacles of games blowing your expectations right out of the water, 4K graphics RTX is all the buzz nowadays and if you can’t keep up, you don’t hate yourself enough to not improve upon your current set-up. Here’s the thing, though, Indie devs are making way for something brand new. Retro-futurist games.
Not every PC owner is a PC elitist, we just happened to have PCs because we could afford them, and some of us… erm, myself included are still stuck with some much older parts and hardware so we can’t just AC Valhalla like everyone else.
But let’s circle back, “Retro-futurist gamers?” What on earth is this guy talking about, you’re probably thinking… let me tell you.
Remember the way we thought the future would like in 90’s? Or heck those 80’s futuristic sci-fi films really put a whole other world on display. And I mean 2001 A Space Odyssey a book written by Arthur C Clarke in 1968 painted a picture that really doesn’t compute even now in 2022. Remember Hackers (1995)? The way they portrayed 1995? The film’s ideas were based on Hackers in the 80s, yet it plays out in the 1990s.
These are all retro futurist concepts, it’s the way we imagined the future as opposed to the way it played out.
Now let’s look at how it applies to gaming here…
It really plays out like that… too much of a good thing is too much phrase. As gamers, we have been given this absolutely expansive horizon of content. We’ve played through a lot of it, but we’re becoming overwhelmed by this ever-growing force of improvement.
Our PC’s, Wallets, and sometimes even our bodies can’t handle this over-flexed amount of info to process, so we are doing what animals in nature do when things get too overwhelming. We are running back to our comfort zones.
Back in simpler times, when games were simple, but, we still need to remain interested, even OG gamers like myself will get bored if I have to play only Pac-Man every day. So along comes. Retro meets futurism and here we are in 2022 yet still longing for and playing these old-school games.
The type of things that can compare to the insecure child that only a Windows 95 mother could love, but we in 2022 have embraced this, and not only are we sticking with this but more and more of these games are also coming out every day, which beckons the question, what have these devs to gain from this type of game making?
Let me illustrate this idea using the prime example mentioned earlier:
Backpack hero is a game that brings back the nostalgia of some 90s-based games yet still decides to make something simple that we all take for granted in games and not just expands it but also centers the main gameplay around it. Inventory. You can apply the usual fighting with what you have type of mechanic, or you can start heading to the mason build, and oooh do I love what they did with that!
We are heading to loop and coding territory here, in the simplicity of a pack rat’s backpack!
Think of the possibilities, but not only in this game, I thought… what about other games, the make-up and general coding process… simplified yet modern? Think of what it would be like if…if…
IF…?
Whoa, there! You reached the end of Part 1, my hands are tired.
Cue the CPS jokes. Yeah… tsk, tsk…
Stay tuned for more!
Part 2 coming soon!
Also, I am a gamer, not a developer, but I love the devs so, please show them some love by checking out their game:
