The Phylactery of Awesome

22nd February 2012

Question with 1 note

bloggothontheroof-deactivated20 asked: Do you think that most games have gone downhill creatively since the eighties and nineties?

Hmmm… That’s a very good question. In short: No. My longer form answer is: I don’t think games have gone downhill, but they certainly have changed. That’s all types of games. Board games have vastly improved. Wargames have changed a bit because there are more of them, you can print out paper minis and terrain, and you’re more likely to get cheaper minis due to there being more companies and rulesets out there. Videogames have been incredibly improved, and I love modern games. Of course, there are some classics I’d like to see re-fitted for today’s systems. Fallout serves as one example for me— I love Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, for instance. Then, of course, there are table top RPGs. Creatively speaking, I think they are just as amazing, except now you can get games from just about anyone. Myself included! I’m working on a couple RPG things right now, one of them being a retro-clone where you play undead (I think I’ll call it “Dolmens and Barrows”). Surfing through sites like RPGNow, I see a massive volcanic eruption of creativity going on.

So, I suppose it depends on what you mean exactly, too. I would love to see more standalone CRPG videogames. The old days of those (Think “Ultima”, “Wizardary”, “Might and Magic”, gold box SSI AD&D, etc) certainly banked on the player’s imagination to fill in the gaps. Now games like Skyrim don’t really require too much imagination (though they are amazing nonetheless). I would rather see exploratory games like Daggerfall or Morrowind coming out. 

I could go on and on and on. So, yeah, downhill? I really don’t think so. It’s more of a creative supernova going on… and I thought that was going on when d20 was going strong, but it seems to be very, very interesting.

I hope I provided an okay— if rambly— answer. Thanks for the excellent question! :)