Two examples of this are :
Penny’s big breakaway and DUSK from the top of my head.
I’m not sure about you but I think the rise of indie games going with the PS1 aesthetic and other low gfx easy to run games is that the past, despite its flaws, was much better.
I also think there’s a charm with low polygon games and spritework ones, it’s your imagination that fills in the gaps.
And lastly, I think of the simpler times when you play modern indie “retro” games, no bullshit, you pay the devs, you get your game, everyone is happy.
What are your thoughts on indie games going for that nostalgia feel? Any examples to cite?
I enjoy games that go for retro graphics, because with today’s technology they can do so much more with less.
As far as suggestions: any boomer shooter (Selaco, Supplice, Incision), others people have already mentioned in this thread like Signalis and Dread Delusion, and more like Tenebris Somnia which mixes 8-bit pixel graphics with live-action cutscenes.
It also means more people can play on more hardware, it typically focuses the experience, it makes the interactive elements more visually distinguishable from the background graphics, it’s cheaper/faster to produce so less incentive to bloat with MTX to recoup massive investments, the scope is smaller so can be better aligned with a singular cohesive artistic vision, and the limited graphics encourages stylisation and artistic decisions when ‘photo real’ becomes not an option to target.
Also you don’t need to wait 10+ years for a game, just to receive a bloated mess where you only engage with 20% of the content yet had to wait for 100% of the development time, since at that point the investment demands it has to appeal to every possible consumer, only to still get a buggy unfinished release due to the massive scope. /rant. Anyway, indies are great and i love short games too.
Noita, a precedurally-generated fully destructible, with physics, pixel-graphics action rogue-like game where you play as a mage going through the various layers of a dungeon with the use of your spells that one can spell mix and match with a wand system that can provide the player with interesting and wacky spell combinations.
Signalis. you can get the game from humble store and steam.
Signalis is awesome
There’s a game with pre-rendered backgrounds called Alisa. I always really enjoyed the pre-render look. The excitement of reaching a “cinematic FMV” that moves the story in a PS1 game is very different from standard cutscenes.
Out of the new stuff, Dread Delusion comes to mind. Kinda comparable to Morrowind, it’s a quirky first-person RPG. And in terms of graphics, it even has an option to enable-disable wiggly pixels at the edges of textures!
I see it has big mushrooms, I’m sold downloading now
I’m playing through Turbo Overkill right now which has the high-poly model and smooth animations but gritty low-res texture thing going on, and I like it. I’d take stylized textures that are visually interesting over boring photorealistic textures in most cases.
Nightdive’s System Shock remake is probably my favorite example of that same aesthetic.
The Last Door (1 & 2)
Darkside Detective
Thank me later.
I got 30hrs out of Animal Well and enjoyed every moment of it :)
Not sure if it fits your description but the first one that pops up in my mind is Starbound
