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24 Hour Early Access - How RPGs Invaded Japan (Patreon)

Published:
2020-07-07 17:59:59
Edited:
2020-07-08 06:22:35
Imported:
2020-07

Content

Hello! I'm happy to say that Design Icons is back and the new video is available to watch, above.

I released the first two episodes in this game history series - on Space Invaders and Pac-Man - last year, but sadly they did really quite poorly by GMTK standards. So I took some time to rethink the approach, and this is my second stab at the concept. 

It's not hugely different, but I'm trying to focus on individual elements, narratives, and moments. So this one was supposed to be about Ultima and Wizardry, but is now about the way RPGs came to Japan.

Hope you like it. As always, feedback is much appreciated.

Mark

Files

Are Western and Japanese RPGs so Different? | Design Icons

There's only one genre that we divide down strict geographical lines: the RPG. But western RPGs (like Fallout and Skyrim) and Japanese RPGs (like Persona and Pokemon) actually have way more in common than you might first realise. Support Game Maker's Toolkit on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/GameMakersToolkit Join the GMTK Game Jam - https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2020 Sources [1] Dungeons & Dragons Single Volume Edition | D&D Rulebook https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1398/03/1398034466298.pdf [2] Interview with the creators of dnd (PLATO) | RPG Fanatic https://web.archive.org/web/20131027034539/http://www.rpgfanatic.net/advanced_game_wiki_database.html?p=news&nrid=5049&game=dnd [3] The Crowther and Woods Colossal Cave Adventure game | Rick Adams http://rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html [4] Going Rogue with Glenn Wichman | The Spelunky Showlike https://thespelunkyshowlike.libsyn.com/24-going-rogue-with-glenn-wichman [5] Comment on Sir-tech Canada Releases Wizardry 8 | Slashdot https://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23752&cid=2567054 [6] How the Ultima Trilogy Took a Genre from Tabletop to Hi-Tech | USgamer https://www.usgamer.net/articles/how-the-ultima-trilogy-took-a-genre-from-tabletop-to-hi-tech [7] Interview with Michael Cranford, creator of Bard's Tale | Lemon 64 https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40586&sid=7e84ac3f2d7b35003f342a6ccaee8c14 [8] Retrospective Interview: Jon Van Caneghem on Might and Magic | RPG Codex https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8379 [9] Retro Gamer 34 | Archived at Mod DB https://www.moddb.com/games/dungeon-master/images/issue-34-of-retro-gamer-14 [10] Arena - Behind the Scenes | Elder Scrolls https://web.archive.org/web/20071211032310/http://www.elderscrolls.com/tenth_anniv/tenth_anniv-arena.htm [11] to [34] - Please see pinned comment for full sources... Credits Thumbnail Image licensed from Adobe Stock Fastfall by Lifeformed used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license Other Music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com) Further credits - https://pastebin.com/xbitqixF

Comments

Will Kommor

Good call on reframing the concept - this feels like a good Vox video essay, like "how orchestra hits invaded rap"

Anonymous

I've watched every one of your videos. For me, the title made me think it was about graphic design elements of games, probably because icons made me think of the kinds of icons used to represent apps, brands, or buttons. And because the image was of a space invader alien. Once I started watching I realized it was actually just about the history of iconic games and their design, but for some reason the name didn't conjure that for me when I first saw it. I realize that I was being silly but that's just how my brain interpreted the title. (To be clear, I would be interested in videos about the graphic design elements of video games themselves, and their marketing, packaging, & social media.)

Anonymous

A lot of fancy graphical transitions and effects. Do they add to the impact or effectiveness of the video? I'm not sure. Perhaps that I noticed there were a lot would lead me to the decision there were too many? To me they were fighting with the narrative as to who is more important.

Anonymous

I'm actually a little surprised that you present the jRPG/wRPG distinction as valid at all; my read is that it's more aesthetic than anything else. Yes, there is some lineage of actual Role Playing in the western RPG lineage, but the Planescape and Fallout 1/2 days are long behind us. And that kind of makes sense, since D&D as a system has always been a crunchy combat game with a little bit of role-playing window dressing. Bethesda games like Skyrim and Fallouts 3 & 4 are basically the same model as Dragon Warrior, with a blank slate protagonist running around collecting more colorful companions and solving problems for whatever town you happen to run into, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY finding increasingly powerful loot to murder things with. Is it a different "genre" to load the game up with side-quests that scale to your level or to have a little wiggle room in how those side quests play out, even if said wiggle largely doesn't impact anything? Is Mass Effect really that different from any other jRPG where you build a diverse team to complete an epic, world-saving quest while being deeply, problematically horny for your party members/subordinates?

Anonymous

Hey Mark, I personally have really loved Design icons, learning about the history of games has been really interesting. A bit of feedback, I'm not entirely sure if you added the tri-color effect to some of those older computer images, but they made some of those a bit hard to look at (it gave me some eye strain, and it felt hard to focus on the image), some examples are: 0:49 -0:55 and 2:20-2:26.

Anonymous
>>39959015

Mark, I completely agree with Mr. Vegan. The name “Design Icons” was confusing. Initially, I watched the first design icons video ONLY because I like your stuff. I thought I would not be interested in the graphic design of games and their players, icons, etc.... Once I figured out that the series was about important games in history, I felt mislead and confused... I looked forward to more content, but frustrated due to the misunderstanding of the name of the series. Best of luck, and keep up the great video content and quality.

Anonymous

Very excited about the return of Design Icons! It's my favorite series. Too bad it was not doing very well. Hope this new format helps,

Anonymous
>>39972254

I love that added level of attractive design of his videos. It elevates these video essays closer to art. It gives the eyes treats that don't detract from the message. It's aesthetically pleasing while not being annoying like some popular youtube editing techniques. I really like the way he makes each video pop. However, upon watching this one I did find the editing a little overdone and the slideshow effect with the chromatic aberration was too much and hurt my eyes.

Anonymous

Hey Mark, good to see you experimenting with Design Icons again! I admit I felt a bit like visually this episode was not as appealing as usual -- maybe something to do with the projector aesthetic, or the funky filters on everything or maybe just the games themselves being graphically simplistic, I'm not really sure, but something about the vibe of the visuals just felt kind of distracting. Still, enjoyed the video a lot, great writing, production value and interesting focus as always -- hopefully this does well enough to justify expanding the series again! :)

Tukaro

If this also does poorly, metric wise, but you want to continue the concept you may want to try to partner with The Gaming Historian. This sort of thing fits exactly on his channel, which right now is on a very slow content release schedule. Sure, there would have to be some sort of agreement re:monetization and so forth, but Design Icons would do bonkers over there.

GameMakersToolkit

I've been looking at those plus Vintage Games, Game On!, issues of Retro Gamer

Anonymous

Really enjoyed this video, Mark. I thought it was a more interesting subject than Pac-Man or Space Invaders, I like how it was broad and not just on a specific game, genuinely informative and felt like us the viewer learnt something than we probably didn't know about. I think this stuff is pretty niche but certainly speak to a better audience than Pac-Man etc. which is quite mainstream as far as gaming history goes. So maybe going more niche won't help views but I think the audience will appreciate it more they're interesting subjects and they're researched so well. I mean I guess you could do endless videos on "How stealing cars cured my anxiety" in GTA5 or "The art of the airstrike" in COD or any crowd pleasing game, if you wanted views. So I say stick with it!

Anonymous

Like this series a lot because I can totally chill with it. It feels like having a lower pace compared to usual video game design videos. It's also more adequate to the subject to conserve video game history for the ensuing ages in such a format than just in books or Wikipedia articles.

Anonymous

Just wanted to comment again to say that I haven't finished the video yet because the chromatic aberration on top of the very fast slideshow effect was simply too much, especially on my tv which is where I watch your videos a lot of the time. I don't have any kind of visual disability that I know of besides being sensitive to light and I've loved all the effects in previous videos. I'm a video editor myself, have a degree in it essentially, and I can totally see what you were going for but I think it's just too much. The slideshow effect is a great idea and would be fine on it's own without the chromatic aberration. However, the slideshow effect might also be a little too fast when it switches between slides, a little too extreme and less like a real slideshow. I've definitely seen this effect used in documentaries or indie films before and it works, I think it just needs to be dialed WAY down and the chromatic aberration should be removed. Just my opinion. I'm glad you have another version I can watch, but I personally don't think it's only an accessibility issue, I think you just went a little overboard in general. Overall, the video seems great and I'm excited to finish it with the less intense option, I'll see how that looks. To be clear, I'm only writing this down because it seems that you genuinely want feedback and take it well. So no offense meant, your videos are so high quality that it felt worth mentioning. If your videos were in the normal vein of smaller youtube channels I wouldn't bother, but because yours are SO good, it feels like it makes sense to let you know. Can't wait to see what else you make. (: