Stumbling through Solstice
Nov. 12th, 2011 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidnHaving been drifting further and further from my fifteen-minute target and producing the longest video in the world last time (or at least, the one that felt the longest), my aim for the continuation of this experiment was to return to a semblance of sanity. I wasn't sure whether I was going to get it, though, because the next thing on my list was something that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rakarr gave me that I'd never heard of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gI5hVh6-0
I don't really get anywhere much of note in the video - all you'll really see is me wandering around some dungeon somewhere, standing around stuck, and dying an awful lot, and my microphone was up too high so if you're on headphones, I'm sorry if you feel like I'm right behind you and breathing down your neck. But from what little I've experienced, the game itself seems really quite impressive in terms of scale. Like the very first game that inspired this experiment, it's one that I rather want to go back and play for real now, now that I understand what I'm doing and without knowing my utter failure at it is being watched (and so that I can use save states, probably).
Though I don't mention this in the video, I was struck by how Amiga-like the game felt, mostly from the music on the title screen and the style of bitmap fonts that it uses - I definitely wouldn't have guessed NES based on that information. Apparently the console was actually a lot more powerful than I'd given it credit for. I say during the video that this game could have been absolutely amazing a few years later on the SNES, but really, all that I felt was missing was just a shadow underneath the player so you could tell where on earth in the room you were. That and a small amount of direction as to what to actually do. But then, if NES games had that then I wouldn't be doing these videos.
rakarr gave me that I'd never heard of.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gI5hVh6-0
I don't really get anywhere much of note in the video - all you'll really see is me wandering around some dungeon somewhere, standing around stuck, and dying an awful lot, and my microphone was up too high so if you're on headphones, I'm sorry if you feel like I'm right behind you and breathing down your neck. But from what little I've experienced, the game itself seems really quite impressive in terms of scale. Like the very first game that inspired this experiment, it's one that I rather want to go back and play for real now, now that I understand what I'm doing and without knowing my utter failure at it is being watched (and so that I can use save states, probably).
Though I don't mention this in the video, I was struck by how Amiga-like the game felt, mostly from the music on the title screen and the style of bitmap fonts that it uses - I definitely wouldn't have guessed NES based on that information. Apparently the console was actually a lot more powerful than I'd given it credit for. I say during the video that this game could have been absolutely amazing a few years later on the SNES, but really, all that I felt was missing was just a shadow underneath the player so you could tell where on earth in the room you were. That and a small amount of direction as to what to actually do. But then, if NES games had that then I wouldn't be doing these videos.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 03:25 am (UTC)I think I understand your explanation of the music, though I really hadn't noticed the difference between the cultures of the music before. The Soundblaster really did produce... unearthly sounds (though not on the same level as the Megadrive, because frankly nothing is), even though it sounded so impressive at the time having come up from a PC speaker...
Your thoughts sound sort of similar to why I think I liked the 8 and 16-bit style of music so much - that in the absence of realistic instrument sounds, composers really had to make their music stand out and be memorable melodically. However, as you have diagnosed that I now like very 'deliberate' music... I wonder if it's actually the other way around, and that they just didn't have much to work with in the way of subtlety and so the emphasis on strong melodies came about because of that.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 03:52 am (UTC)(And, actually, I meant that they had to make more interesting instrument sounds, but your point about the composition is very true too!)