I want fidelity, crisp frames, with a cool art style, not some jank and blurry attempt at "realism". Ban TAA, ban ML upscaling, ban frame generation. Ban AAA.
(All the best games are indie games)
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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Why the hate against TAA?
TAA can be fine when implemented well. Temporal information can be very useful for adding more detail over multiple frames that couldn't be obtained without doing more samples every frame.
However, when done poorly it makes things blurry as you move the camera. The information needs to be correctly adjusted for camera movements or it smears all over the screen. It's also made worse with things like rain drop effects and things like that.
TAA is useful. It's just too many games just enable it and it without knowing how to use it well and it just degrades the image.
Do you have an example of a game using TAA correctly? Because so far, all the games I've played with TAA on are blurry.
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It's completely shit, it's like covering your monitor in vaseline. All games with deferred rendering should use SMAA.
I recently upgraded my computer with the best possible components, and it makes me so mad that games look worse than they did when I put my last pc together. What’s the point of bothering with graphics at all if you’re going to add a smear filter.
Indie games out here killing it with pixel art.
Because the bigger games are made as quickly and cheaply as possible.
The now so popular UE5 just enables this practice, because it allows an easy avenue to "realistic" looking games with all the fancy lighting. Quick to put together, but in the end, you get a poor performing blurry mess. And a happy nvidia, because you slapped their dlss bullshit on it. So thats the new trend.
I can't handle getting addicted to Nethack again at this point in time
It’s still great. Like old school Civilization, or even older Zork
I did a lot of stuff in the first Zork (kill the troll, solve the maze, open the gates of hell, etc), but I never quite figured out how I was supposed to win.
They had to start putting graphics in their games before I could beat them.
Hitchhikers Guide was even worse.
Fuck the babble fish puzzle.
Plus getting a third of the way into the game and if you didn't take the junk mail at the beginning you have to restart.
Also - can’t you pick up tea at some point, when you need to have the item “no tea” to complete the game?
I played the Apple II version. Old games were cruel. I’d get frustrated and rotate between Rivers of Light and The Return of Hercules.
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try out Moonring. you might like it and its free
So you thought suggesting another addictive RPG was the correct response here??
Seriously though, seems fun--I tried to go through one dungeon and died very quickly. Looks like it has a lot of depth though, so I'll probably wait until I have a break to give it a real go. Looks a bit more accessible than Caves of Qud, so I might actually have a chance of getting somewhere.
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It’s creative bankruptcy. Things don’t need to be realistic, it’s called style.
Stuff like Zeno Clash and Dishonored hold up aesthetically because they aren’t going for realism. And I’d take Morrowind’s arthropod bodies back if I could have the moral complexity and ya know, themes back.
This is also why I prefer the San Andreas era GTA, the graphics are cartoony and the gameplay is fun as hell, the hyper realism style they moved to with GTA 5 is so boring and lifeless
It sounds silly, but San Andreas is really underrated. Like I know it’s considered one of the best games of all time, but the writing, the confrontation with racism and the police and the dynamics of gangs….
I mean, most of the time it’s just fun to get 5 stars and enact your own revenge for the MOVE bombing. But that main storyline is so slept on.
Just don't understand people looking at screenshots and gameplay videos and commenting on how the shadows on some background detail look slightly better with the FSSMGXTR scaling setting turned to BBXT5 instead of HAMndX3.
It's the same mindset as people who overclock or tune their cars
I remember people discussing hardware and one of the best advice comments I've ever seen was:
"Turn off that little FPS counter and just enjoy the damn game."
People get so wrapped up in the hardware hobby they forget why they care in the first place, which would be fine if it wasn't just fuelled by hardware marketing to make everyone else feel like they're "missing out."
This is a nice thought. I love a nice looking game, but as long as it runs smooth and I can enjoy it IDGAF what setting is on max or medium, probably 9 out of 10 I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyways.
The ray tracing is a great example for HW marketing bullshit, where you get nicer picture, but much slower framerates and requires crazy expensive hardware, but its all the buzz, everyone is obsessed with it. I mean Im not an expert but wtf is going on with the GPU prices its not normal.
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Text rendered onto a screen is also graphics.
How many layers can be peeled before it's not a video game anymore?
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That's 3 hairs on the arm you see. Give me my $90
I want a fun game that can run on my shitty PC
Anything from 6 or so years before your PC fabrication ought to be easy to run at a fast framerate.
Lucky for your, there are lots of older games as well as plenty of indie games that focus on gameplay with very limited graphics.
Terraria
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Are dcss tiles banned? I don’t want to play it ascii
You can play adventure books
Noooo
Fuuuuuck, I forgot all about those. Lone Wolf, Wizards Warriors & You, Fighting Fantasy... They were like a bridge between CYOA and D&D.
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There was an excellent text based RPG called Roadwarden that came out the other year. It's just text and illustrations so thought I'd use this post to mention it.
If small amounts of animation are allowed then WORLD OF HORROR was decent too.
Roadwarden is excellent.
Abandon widespread* texture use, return to polygons+vertex colors+in-engine cutscenes (and similar data-saving techniques like soundfonts).
my examples (2D: created with Godot, 3D: created with Blender)
spoiler Animated eye
This was using a feature that likely isn't viable (for common use) due to performance.
:::
And for something not-by-me, see Spyro's vertex color skyboxes.
* general normal maps are ok, but I didn't have much luck beyond using generated noise for metal. I even tried some stuff with watercolor, maybe with better shaders it could work but untextured is easier.
Or another example, any material you can just apply without alteration (for instance, make something look like wood) is alright too. Maybe UV mapping is not too bad, but extra per-model work is not ideal.
Woah, you weren't kidding about those badgers, huh? They look awesome. Love your work!
I wouldn't call it 'work' yet, more practice than anything (lost some steam being unsatisfied with idea prompts though) and refining a workflow (palette, materials, import script, Blender default file). I'm unsure on actual ideas (that are viable for me), too.
Yeah I get it. Exercises and such, but they look p decent. You know how to use the tools. I also have been doing exercises, but mostly coding stuff. I don't know how to use blender and just started familiarizing myself with Godot today.
Oh and I hope you don't mind me popping up here. I got curious and searched your username and badgers and this appeared.
And yeah... Inspiration isn't always easy to come across, but I'm sure it'll eventually find you. Good luck!
You know how to use the tools
I don’t know how to use blender
I'm not new with it, but I am banging rocks together when it comes to using Blender. Not good with shortcuts and often have issues with modifiers. (I preferred what I casually started with a decade ago, Maya, though it is/was bloated both in terms of size and cost)
If there was other FOSS low/medium-poly software that works well for VC (+material(placeholders)) I would be interesting in trying it. But I'm guessing Blender is as good as it gets.
Godot, fine with that but not too keen on GDscript.
I got curious and searched your username and badgers and this appeared
I was confused at first, but figured that's what you did (search only hit because of the alt-text as well).
I also have been doing exercises, but mostly coding stuff
I am interested in coding stuff too (a specific niche language), though I struggle with project viability even more there too and have put it on the backburner.
You might be banging rocks together, but the sparks are definitely starting to appear. With a bit more practice you should easily become more "fluent". I tried Maya a few times back in the day but never put any serious time into it, or any 3d modeling tool. I haven't even bumped into the limitations and problems of GDscript, but I'm sure they will show up eventually.
And umm... about project viability, idk, I haven't released any kind of software, but there's a story I always try to keep in mind. It's a bit long and you don't have to read it ofc, but it had a big impact on the way I understand projects now so i'll share. But honestly, no need to read.
After the glider was invented in the mid 1800s, lots of people were trying to figure out how to make powered heavier than air air crafts. Building something that flew propelled by a motor. Many people were putting a lot of money and time into their prototypes, often risking their lives by trying them out. In the late 1900s Orville and Wilbur Wright were two nobodies with no high school degree running a small bike repair shop. Their shop started doing ok so they put some money into their own flight research just for fun.
They built a little wind tunnel on the back of their shop and did a huge amount of experiments with different kinds of small scale prototypes of different shapes, weights and materials. This way they could discard and test stuff hundreds of times faster than their rivals, who had to build full sized air crafts and not die in them..
This quick trial and error feedback loop allowed them to get an intuitive understanding of what worked. Basically, they didn't win because they planned more or attempted perfection. They won because they had the advantage of being able to fail several times faster than others due to having low stakes on each attempt. That's what allowed them to learn faster and be able to design something that did what they wanted.
if you got this far, I appreciate you reading my silly ideas and stories. Would love to hear your thoughts if you'd like to share them. If not, that's fine too. Either way, good chat.
Good night. :)
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Vintage Story has the graphics of that other voxel graphics based block game. The gameplay is so good that I bought and play VS, and Terraria, but I haven't ever played more than 30 minutes of the other block game.
Graphics barely matter. Gameplay is king.
Hyperbole and a half style artwork.
I miss her :(
Hope she's doing ok
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