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Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 7:14
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It was apparent to me very early on that most games were made of squares. I couldn't really pinpoint a moment where this realisation dawned on me or a time that I had assumed otherwise.Ceilick wrote:I think for myself the biggest loss in "the magic" was after learning how the levels were made with tiles. Somehow this placed a huge limiting factor on what I felt I could expect to see and experience in these games. There was no longer a sense that I could explore and find anything. I could explore and find basically the same kind of things.
I second this.Commander Spleen wrote: ↑Fri May 11, 2018 9:09If anything the realisation that everything was tile based was fascinating and empowering to me. It was amazing that you could create so much complexity out of such simple components. It was when game development took a severe turn toward reality-simulation that I lost interest in the new stuff that was coming out. I still prefer grid-oriented games as they just seem more tidy and well structured than freeform 3D.
I don't think I saw the tilesets until I first started modding at around age 13. And, yeah, exactly as you describe, suddenly what seemed like an unlimited world was not just limited by being tiles, but limited by being constructed all through the same few tiles. And while they can be combined in interesting patterns, I feel like it establishes a ceiling for expectations, and having a ceiling is detrimental to experiencing 'the magic', I think.By the way, are you describing something that you understood when learning modding or was it an earlier disillusioning, disappointing realization from childhood? (This world is made of squares! It's finite and stored electronically! )
This sounds a lot like saying there's a ceiling to literature due to a limited number of characters in a language's writing system. And music boils down to a small set of repeating notes, so even the most creative song is never truly unique.Ceilick wrote: ↑Sat May 12, 2018 17:56I don't think I saw the tilesets until I first started modding at around age 13. And, yeah, exactly as you describe, suddenly what seemed like an unlimited world was not just limited by being tiles, but limited by being constructed all through the same few tiles. And while they can be combined in interesting patterns, I feel like it establishes a ceiling for expectations, and having a ceiling is detrimental to experiencing 'the magic', I think.By the way, are you describing something that you understood when learning modding or was it an earlier disillusioning, disappointing realization from childhood? (This world is made of squares! It's finite and stored electronically! )
Yeah, exactly this, but where its hard to wrap my head around the totality of language or story concepts, and not being particularly musically inclined, wrapping my head around musical notes, tile composition in a Keen-like game is, or so it seems to me, a very graspable. In things I'm less familiar with I can conceive of a ceiling of experience without it really affecting my expectations. Music is still going to sound new to me even if its the same notes in a new pattern because I don't music. I feel like understanding tiling in Keen has, for me, created a predictable experience. Not to say that my mind couldn't be blown by an author's creative use of tiling somehow; I'm aware feeling like there is a ceiling and there actually being one are different.This sounds a lot like saying there's a ceiling to literature due to a limited number of characters in a language's writing system. And music boils down to a small set of repeating notes, so even the most creative song is never truly unique.
I think this is exactly right, and maybe I'm conflating this concept with tiling, but both in official Keen titles and fan works, it seems like our experiences are now expected and/or predictable despite graphical variation and perhaps other forms of variation.For Commander Keen and similar platform games, I would say the limitations are more in terms of how you are able to interact with the game world. The graphical variations are endless, but there are only so many ways you can implement certain types of platform before it just looks like more of the same.
In a closed, finite system like Keen there is bound to be a ceiling somewhere but because of the complexity of all that can possibly be done, it's not likely I will be around to witness it even if I live a thousand years (which I don't imagine happening) and we all push out a hundred mods a year (also unlikely). For me the very limitations of Keen (and what can be done with patching, which like sends the complexity into exponential overdrive) are the foundation of my interest in Keen (1) modding. For me this tile-based world is a relief from the regular one. I'm glad I don't feel fatigue of it because I feel that about more or less everything outside of it.