Absolutely! I still get a kick out of playing Planetfall or some of the other old Infocom games. When Pong and Tron reprised on TI-85''s back in high school, they were just as much fun to play, simply because they were great games. In fact, I think I am going to go play a little FFI. If you''ll excuse me....

You made a good point there, Brett.
1. Positive. They sure can.
2. Positive. And not only in "certain" situations.

Why are older games often more fun even though the graphics are totally out of date ?

In my opinion, that''s exactly the point. The old games didn''t have graphics engine with trilinear filtering and 32bit color depth. Unreal makes you go "WOW" when you see the graphics engine. Games in former times had a maximum of 16 colors if you were *really lucky*. Because they didn''t have fancy or funky graphics they had to rely on gameplay rather than "8.2 billion polygons per second" to attract gamers...

Take Quake for example: It''s technology is awesome - but if you look behind the scenes the gameplay is more primitive than Pacman. I nPacman you sometimes where chased and had to run away and at other times you could go chasing them monsters. Now I am not saying that Quake sucks just because it dowsn''t have a gameplay, but it''s more a technology demo with a nice little game packed on top of it rather than a game that was designed to be a game. I read a nice saying about that once: "It''s the tail wagging the dog".
The developers simply were to busy with their 3D engine to think about much gameplay.

Imagine Quake with a roguelike engine Now, wouldn''t THAT be fun? Have some @ signs beat each other up ? You see my point: In Quake it''s the engine that makes the game, and not gameplay, as it should be. ASCIIQuake could never stand a chance against any roguelike.

A counter example is Halflife for example. They licensed the Quake II engine and actually made a real GAME on top of it. But even that is not as deep as a roguelike.

I myself am trying to develop a roguelikish game right now and I am trying to focus in gameplay (which also means that there''s not gonna me much graphics)
Anyway there''s a map prototype and a Treatment you might be interested in...
Well, take a look at it and tell me what you think about it...

I think it''s time for my daily dose of roguelike (mostly Moria and ADoM) - So happy rogueing...(Is there a word like that ?)

- Sleepwalker

I had some more thoughts on this topic...
So here it goes:

Who are the people that make games? Mostly very "scientific" people with knowledge of programming and often mathematics, too. That means that they know how to structurize a game process make algorithms and tweak the program.
The problem here is firstly that they oftentimes think to much "logic" and "mathematical", because they are trained to think that way. But this might not always be good for a game and its gameplay sometimes its like more of an unespected twist that you need.
Secondly I think that these people have too much knowledge of computers and the way they think. So they adapt to this way of thinking.

In my opinion games should be thought up by someone how has absolutely no idea how a computer works and only wants to play a fun game (but yet there might be a problem because people don''t know what they want to play...). These people cannot be influenced by the confines of the computer architecture.
Now don''t misunderstand what I said about programmers ( that they think too "structured"). Their job is to put all the ideas into a logical and structured order and make a game out of it.
And I am afraid you can''t do both...

To draw a little anylogy about this topic:
If these games nowadays were cars,
they would look COOL,
would be LIGHTNING-FAST,
EASY to use,
and you could go only FORWARD and BACKWARD.
(no corners, no sharp turns, no burned rubber, no powerslide, no fun)
- Imagine bumper cars only going forward and backward

That''s enough ranting for one day...

Over to more important matters
(and btw Happy Valentine''s day
((what about a poll "Do you have a girl/boyfriend (or are even "married")? Answers: a) Yes. b) No c) Yes, and (s)he''s got 800 MHz and 128 MB RAM - but I''ll upgrade her/him next week(It''s her/his birthday then...)))




- Sleepwalker

one of the best examples of a perfect blend of fun and engine is Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation. (have you played it yet? go! now!) aside from the fantastic coding that must have gone into the game (on a 2Mb machine with a 2x CDROM...poor thing streams a lot), there is a fantastic plot (albeit a bit linear), wonderful sense of environment, and great gameplay.

aaron
-----------------------------
LeChuck! GRRRRRR.

That''s true guybrush...I saw it once...A good example of technology AND plot.

Well, I also liked playing MI for that matter

- Sleepwalker