Why do you like these kinda games.

[Valkama]

Hello I am Valkama or if any of you were around 5 or so years ago I was known as Anonymous52555.

For those who don't know me I was a rather infamous individual over at I wanna be the forums for a few years for being the guy to absolutely bash on every fangame that ever was displayed on the site for being poorly designed (This may or may not have been one of the factors that led Starz0r to found this site). However a few months back I got into an argument with some people from this site that came over to I wanna be the forums and I argued that these types of games were flawed in design from the start.

That being said I know that this is a small community that enjoys these types of games and while I could just throw it under the "Hardcore gamer+candy crush" mentality I am curious as to why you guys personally see  these games as enjoyable.

So my questions to you guys are:
1. What do you find enjoyable about these kinda games.(needle and trap based)
2. What do you dislike about these kinda games.(What would you change about them)
3. Do you also enjoy more popularized similar games like Super meat boy and they bleed pixels.
4. Say a Shmup was designed to be very precision based(Bullet hell) and you played each section in short spurts and every time you failed you would redo the section and infinite number of times. Would you enjoy this game.(More or less I'm asking if the trial and error idea was applied to other genres that aren't platformers).
5. Can the apple be dodged?

[Swordslinger]

As it is your opinion anon, and I do have respect for it, here's the thing with this community and I Wanna Be The Guy Fangames, a lot of them bad are released every day on the wiki, occasionally you get what could be considered a gem or a diamond or whatever, it's all opinion based here, you may like games everyone hates or hate games that everyone likes. I think one of the main reason starz0r made this site was because so people who like these games can get together, and this forum got together pretty well if i may say so myself. This is mainly my point of view and if you hate fangames, it is your opinion, go ahead, you're free to say, I mainly only complain about the reasons people hate something and not if they hate it, because people have tendencies to criticize something that is non existent in the fangame they're playing which the mistake was done very recently.

I will answer your questions accordingly however.

1: Now i'm a needle player, so needle games appeal to me, it's interesting the variety of jumps you can do and the limits you can go, games can make jumps i've never seen before like I Wanna Break The 3 Makers 2, I Wanna Be The Goner and Loner, you get the point, there are many variety of ways needle can be enjoyed if you play it for long enough and know the structures, it's just a process that's a bit hard to explain. As for trap based games, I'm not a fan but unless you can make games like I Wanna Be The MMM and I Wanna Be The RZ with very well placed traps and triggers, then those are the only trigger games i will touch, i just don't like a lot of them. Miku avoidances or vocaloid avoidances, a lot are well made, but let's focus on the actual boss and not who the boss is, there have been some nice pattern based bosses out there, and some sucky ones, I have mixed feelings about avoidance since i'm trying to get into it a bit more, these are the main genres, I don't have much else to say at this point.

2: Now disliking these games, let me say, I HATE the medley games that get released now a days, a lot of them are rushed, untested, buggy, shitty, or all 4, a lot of them that got released are messes except for the Kamilia series and Kill The Needle Games series. This is just my point of view, there are some nice ones coming out this year though so, i'm a bit excited for that. However when it comes down to it, it's all personal preference for me and again, opinion, so I do hate a lot of games that people like and have given a few negative reviews on delicious fruit review website. That's again about all i can say.

3: Yes, not as much however, I do own a console I hardly play it, i'm starting to get more and more busy as time goes on, but back then i did play they bleed pixels and meat boy and they were both really fun (they bleed pixels had weird controls though). I did play quite a bit of Rebirth, I had to do one last thing with The Lost, i started losing interest extremely fast because The Lost is such a fucking retarded character and everyones favorite punching bag.

4: It would depend on what I'm fighting, if i'm fighting a fun boss, then I will gladly take time out of my day and grind it, however if it's a shit boss, I don't want to do it. The thing is with this catch is that if there is a great section after or if i'm near the end of the game, I usually just suck it up and try my best to grind the boss fight or whatever precision based thing the game throws at me. In my day as i got better, the sections that were really hard were really easy for me now, so it's amazing when you look back on something that you thought was precise, but was actually pathetically easy, this happened countless times.

5: Fuck no, did you see that thing, shit that's fast.

I'm glad i could take time out of my day to write this up.

[Valkama]

First, thanks for your response. Second, I don't really hate on these kind of games any more I just ignore them as I don't believe they are fun and have a flawed gameplay structure. I'm more just doing a bit of research as to why people like certain types of gameplay structures. Third, if I could ask you some follow up questions:

How do you feel about RPG's? Specifically RPG's with powerful monsters that if you grind up your characters you can overcome them in order to achieve victory? Do you feel grinding is fine so long as there is a payoff in the end?

How about sandbox games like Minecraft or Terraria where you spend time collecting resources in order to create something?

Lastly would you prefer a game with many quick little payoffs for doing little monotonous tasks or one slow big payoff for doing a single large monotonous task?

[Swordslinger]

Firstly the follow up questions.

1: Grinding, ehh, now I do like a lot of RPGS, I do play a bit of Phantasy Star Online 2 from time to time and it is a load of fun, some other RPGS, dark souls, wish i could get bloodborne, yea I'm an RPG fan.  With grinding it honestly depends, if there is a huge payoff at the end then yea i will most likely do it, it just depends on how long the grind is and how fun the game is for me (Also the payoff), if it's boring it's something i will do every few days or a longer period of time, if it's fun, i will gladly sit for hours until i have to eat or something. But yes i am a big RPG fan and i never play PSO2 all that much because i have to use a different VPN and it's random chance if i get a blue screen on my computer and have to take about 15 minutes just to launch the game because of the protection the game uses, though it never damages the PC. Technical errors on the devs fault is fun, don't you agree? haha

2: This is a tough question for me to answer, now I fucking hate minecraft, it's just way too boring to me and now a days, a bit over the top, I mean the game was about survival with no end, you make your home or base or cave, or whatever and you go out adventuring, exploring, and what not, now the game still has the elements, but now it has things i wouldn't even expect to see in it like enchantments, and a fucking dragon. Terraria i liked the older versions way more than the newer, I usually play alone so if i pop it on now and play on a small world which is my personal preference, then the world feels so squished together, Now I do like sandbox games also, it just feels to me not a lot of them are really good now a days, if i could downgrade terraria i will gladly play it again, with friends even, do i hate the genre though, no i don't, it's a good genre.

3: Now the thing is with this question, is that I like earning my right of passage, having 60 hours in one game and still not even close to finishing it, that should give you a bit of a taste of my answer. If it is very little grinding and very little payoff, then I don't really feel rewarded. However again looking back at question 1, it really depends on what i'm doing, somethings I just want to be over within 10 minutes because the part is shitty, and somethings i never want to be over, I can't think of any other answer that will do me justice.

Secondly, your first sentences here, like i said, your opinion, for me it just depends on what fangame i'm playing or actual game for that matter, if it's research then these are my best and honest answers I can give you.

[Kinata]

Anon, evening. It's worth mentioning that our community isn't that small really, if you look at our Twitch community, as well as the Nico and Afreeca communities. I wouldn't suggest that popularity makes something good, but I'll try to explain why there are many people interested in these games after all these years.

1. Sword tackled a lot of specifics that I won't repeat so I'll go in a different direction here. I really like playing as the Kid. I don't think I've ever enjoyed the feel of a video game character more than him in my years of gaming, especially in the engines which improved the physics beyond the original. He's why you can almost always have a good time playing random fangames from the wiki, even if they're bad. You can call me a lazy video gamer if you like, but there's something nice about going into a fangame and not have to get used to playing as a new type of character, especially when it's a character you really enjoy playing as. That's probably one reason that gets people hooked into these games, and leads someone to say "I'm gonna download some random fangame of dubious quality" rather than scour Steam for the latest hot release in your preferred genre. You might argue that it's a more rewarding experience to master a completely new game from the ground up, but this is how I and many others like to spend our time.

Another benefit of playing a bunch of games with the same exact character and physics is the level mastery you can obtain. To master most other video games, you'd have to play it over and over again, but with fangames you can continue to develop your skills in a wide variety of games that challenge the player in many ways. This leads to there being a lot of super talented players in our community who are amazing to watch and do amazing things (not that I consider myself one of them).

Besides that, fangames are a really fun for live streams. Going back to the whole "they're fun to play even when they're bad," that's especially true when you're with people who can laugh with you at the absurdity of whatever stupid game you're trying. That's why there are a lot of popular fangame streamers. One fun thing our community likes to do is Wiki Roulette, where someone uses an RNG to pick random fangames for a night, that a bunch of streamers race while Skyping with each other. It's always a great time, even as we struggle through the most ridiculous bullshit you can imagine.

2. I acknowledge that the laziness of most fangame creators lead to them lacking interesting ideas and lacking the novelty of most "real games." That is the trade off of playing games that are mostly sculpted out of a simple engine. Also, I like games with good stories, which most (all) of these don't have.

3. Yes, but I tend to put such games down after beating them, and not return. Even though games like SMB are legendary for their great physics, I still prefer the simplicity of the Kid, and the many random adventures he is sadistically forced to go through.

4. There is an analogue to what you're talking about that I can think of: the last words in Touhou 8. For the record, I never played through that one, but I found the idea of a few really high level attacks to be done in isolation from the rest of the game, with infinite tries of course, to be a fascinating challenge.

5. Yes, but then the other one will kill you. It's really a Catch 22 situation.

To answer your follow ups, I don't see playing fangames as anything like grinding. Most fangames don't just emphasize memorizing traps, but in fact require you to develop your skill, master jump strats, learn attacks, etc., which is not monotonous at all if it's a legitimate challenge. If you watch my streams, you see the process by which I tackle a fangame challenge, and it's really enjoyable to me. In an RPG, you develop the skill of an avatar, which is boring and monotonous. And I don't have the slightest interest in sandboxes.

I'm not really sure what to say about your last question, at least in the context of fangames. You probably think "a bunch of small challenges" is what a fangame is, but in the ones I play (really high level), a single "little" challenge can take me many months. And I find that very rewarding, when I succeed.

[Valkama]

Thanks for the answers guys. I'm fairly certain I understand why these games are enjoyed by those here now and it makes perfect sense to my now why I can't stand these games in the slightest so see you later IWannaCommunity for now and probably forever. (Except for the select few of you I see on other parts of the interwebs)

P.S. Btw when I said small I meant relative to more mainstream communities like RPG gamers and FPS gamers.

P.P.S. Btw when I said research it was more of personal research, sorry for the confusion if that mattered to you at all.

P.P.P.S Your captcha's suck for those of us who feel the need to arrange every image completely perfectly.