JC’s story was finished, Jensen’s wasn’t.

deleted by creator

Same publisher (New Blood), but not the same devs. Dusk is by David Szymanski, Ultrakill is by Hakita.

Take a look at Haunted PS1, the games they published or that are in their compilations are usually close to that era of visuals.

For individual games you have stuff like, Anodyne 2, Cavern of Dreams, Zortch, Worlds, Lunistice, Hypnagogia, and many more. Like someone else said, there are plenty of indie games imitating or taking inspiration from the graphics of the late 90s and early 2000s.

I don’t play AAA games (and haven’t played an ND game since Jak 3) so I don’t have a horse in the Naughty Dog race, but Druckmann’s take on “fun” was a valid one. A work of art can be engaging and emotionally impactful even if it isn’t “fun”, and sometimes evaluating a game based on whether testers are, in their own opinion, “having fun” is counterproductive. Is Papers, Please fun? Is Kentucky Route Zero? Is To The Moon? Hell, what would a tester say if you asked them if they were having fun after spending an hour with Disco Elysium?

Either way, you can hate the game and its plot, but to call TLOU2 shovelware is genuinely deranged. When’s the last time you played an actual shovelware release?

I’ve heard TLOU called many things, but shovelware is a new one.

It’s been done quite a bit throughout Eastern Europe. Here are some examples from Poland:

Certainly a nicer colour scheme than dirty soul-crushing grey.

I suppose I’d prefer if short games weren’t overly expensive, but I never liked the hours per dollar thing. I don’t like replaying games. I’d rather buy six two-hour indie games for ten dollars each and have each one be at least somewhat unique and engaging, than spend 60 on a sprawling hundred hour AAA game filled mostly with repetition and busywork. Life’s too short for that, you know?

The article actually addresses this, but I feel “indie games bubble” is simply too broad a term. Is there a medium-high budget indie game bubble? Maybe. But can indie games in general even have a bubble? Fuckloads of indie games are passion projects, or made from crowdfunding money, or otherwise not based around the idea that they have to be the “product” of a sustainable business, making the whole idea of a “bubble” pointless. If the bubble pops, will itch indies stop making games? Will passionate solo devs languishing at double digit Steam review numbers stop releasing games? I don’t think they will.

I feel like I’ve heard this “it’s different this time guys, we swear” spiel about every Ubisoft game in the past five years. Hard to believe or care at this point.

i asked