Weren't all games back then "just repetitive garbage after about 15 minutes"? I honestly can't remember one that wasn't. Could be wrong though.
What is it?
The symbol for the Republic of Gamers on Asus hardware.
platforming games had variety of puzzles, even if you want to distill it down to "just platforms for 15 minutes and longer" At least the puzzles had variety. The Sierra adventure games were also quite different, and with progressive gameplay when Doom and Wolfenstein were a thing. I much preferred a game like Star Control that certainly had repetitive elements (mining), but there was variety with outfitting your ship, space battles, aliens with different character, story...and you could even play against a friend!
What I didn't like about those games at the time was that for me anyway, the novelty just died off quickly. I never agreed that the games "looked good," but the real issue was that I just got bored blasting away endless hordes of mindless sprites coming after me, for no real reason. I just never got into that. If those were a one-off, it would have been a quirk...but it came to dominate the industry and I just never understood that.
I justified games to myself because they were puzzles, they made you think, they required effort and oftentimes various solutions. Doom was the dumbest thing ever--the lowest common denominator, so of course it would win out, I guess. :\
platforming games had variety of puzzles, even if you want to distill it down to "just platforms for 15 minutes and longer" At least the puzzles had variety. The Sierra adventure games were also quite different, and with progressive gameplay when Doom and Wolfenstein were a thing. I much preferred a game like Star Control that certainly had repetitive elements (mining), but there was variety with outfitting your ship, space battles, aliens with different character, story...and you could even play against a friend!
What I didn't like about those games at the time was that for me anyway, the novelty just died off quickly. I never agreed that the games "looked good," but the real issue was that I just got bored blasting away endless hordes of mindless sprites coming after me, for no real reason. I just never got into that. If those were a one-off, it would have been a quirk...but it came to dominate the industry and I just never understood that.
I justified games to myself because they were puzzles, they made you think, they required effort and oftentimes various solutions. Doom was the dumbest thing ever--the lowest common denominator, so of course it would win out, I guess. :\
platforming games had variety of puzzles, even if you want to distill it down to "just platforms for 15 minutes and longer" At least the puzzles had variety. The Sierra adventure games were also quite different, and with progressive gameplay when Doom and Wolfenstein were a thing. I much preferred a game like Star Control that certainly had repetitive elements (mining), but there was variety with outfitting your ship, space battles, aliens with different character, story...and you could even play against a friend!
What I didn't like about those games at the time was that for me anyway, the novelty just died off quickly. I never agreed that the games "looked good," but the real issue was that I just got bored blasting away endless hordes of mindless sprites coming after me, for no real reason. I just never got into that. If those were a one-off, it would have been a quirk...but it came to dominate the industry and I just never understood that.
I justified games to myself because they were puzzles, they made you think, they required effort and oftentimes various solutions. Doom was the dumbest thing ever--the lowest common denominator, so of course it would win out, I guess. :\
There's still new puzzle and adventure games coming out, but they're mostly made by indie developers.
They always have been made by indies, really; it's just indies used to be the big publishers.
By the mid to late 90s, they got pretty big budget. Voice acting, FMV, 3D graphics, prerendered backgrounds... but then the bottom fell out of the market.
True, what I meant more was that they'd begun as indies. For example, Sierra became pretty big, but it was an indie that grew. Same for Cyan (Myst), etc.
I think it had more to do with that was the time PCs became much more competent and 3D stuff was arriving or C&C with cool visuals and video cut scenes