Making a game and wanted to ask people here a question...

Oct 27, 2024
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Do you, as people of the general public, and as a gamer, really care about "buzzword" design tropes for games? My point being when someone says "this game is a soulslike." I don't really like this one-note sorta offhand denotion of a game. Do you care if an up and coming game is a "Soulslike" or "DMC style" action game? Do those keywords in articles, and sometimes even steam pages themselves, entice you to play the game more?
 
I think buzzwords just give people a heads up how it may play or feel.
Kinda like back in the day, this game is like final fantasy or this is like final fight or like eswat or this is like ghouls and ghosts.

I think it's way over done now and honestly I don't care anymore cause so many times they say it's like one game and in reality it's more it's own game.
 

Brian Boru

Legenda in Aeternum
Moderator
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Oct 27, 2024
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Those aren't buzzwords, those are names of (sub)genres. And yes, I care about some (sub)genres more than others and using the genre name is useful in determining whether I should take a closer look at a game.
Not what I mean. Developers have been using these words to equate some style of a game, when it really isn't that style of game.
 
Jun 11, 2024
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I tend to always try to read an in-depth description of a game because it is extremely difficult to narrow it down to buzzwords or genres most of the time. Yeah, maybe when your game has very simple gameplay, it can be described this way, but usually, I need to read at least a few paragraphs to understand what the game is.
 
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I hate buzzwords and promo videos that scroll a message saying " not in game footage " .
What you should be concentrating on is making a game as bug free as possible before its released.
The one thing you should definitely do is play your finished game on a pc that has no links to the machines it was made on and see if you can explore the entire game and complete it without a problem because if you cant do that then we the customers cant either.

This is not game related but one word i hate is BESPOKE..... its just an excuse to charge you more.
Example .... my wife wanted shorter footplates at a different angle. As an ex engineer i knew they would use less metal , put the tube in a hand bender and stop at the correct angle marker but they wanted double the price because they used the word bespoke.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
"Soulslike" already means almost nothing to me. "Roguelike" will send me away because I'm going to assume the game expects you to play through many times before getting it right.

P.S. I loved Nethack, though, which is very much a roguelike - but I take the 'hack' part literally and back up my save files. Much more fun that way!
 
Do you, as people of the general public, and as a gamer, really care about "buzzword" design tropes for games? My point being when someone says "this game is a soulslike." I don't really like this one-note sorta offhand denotion of a game. Do you care if an up and coming game is a "Soulslike" or "DMC style" action game? Do those keywords in articles, and sometimes even steam pages themselves, entice you to play the game more?
They ARE in fact buzz words to me, and no, I don't like them. Reason being is they only ever apply to minor mechanics of a game, which have zero to do with the atmosphere, theme, or sometimes even combat pillars of the game. I for one feel use of them has gotten out of hand. It's similar to the way the word "woke" is overused, and often taken out of it's original context. I see scads of threads anymore with hostile back and forth bickering over such words, and I often wonder if the authors of them are just looking to use them as click bait. Surely there are better things to do than tear games apart and nit pick over their minor details. Does no one enjoy playing and talking about the core elements of games anymore, to me, THAT is what sets them apart.
 
Last edited:
Oct 27, 2024
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15
They ARE in fact buzz words to me, and no, I don't like them. Reason being is they only ever apply to minor mechanics of a game, which have zero to do with the atmosphere, theme, or sometimes even combat pillars of the game. I for one feel use of them has gotten out of hand. It's similar to the way the word "woke" is overused, and often taken out of it's original context. I see scads of threads anymore with hostile back and forth bickering over such words, and I often wonder if the authors of them are just looking to use them as click bait. Surely there are better things to do than tear games apart and nit pick over their minor details. Does no one enjoy playing and talking about the core elements of games anymore, to me, THAT is what sets them apart.
Toast to that statement
 

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