I love indie games. I want to state that upfront because I’m going to delve into my frustrations, especially with a specific type of indie game. Binding of Isaac (Edmund McMillen). There. I said it. And to be clear, I adore Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. I 1001%ed it, and then played a run a day (roughly an hour) for years after. I’ve put in a Northerlion-amount of time into the game, and it was my comfort gaming for quite some time.
Then, Edmund ruined it by doing what many indie devs do–he listened to the community too much and broke it beyond repair. I’ve seen this happen many times with a popular indie game. The first was Nuclear Throne by Vlambeer. I loved that game. I adored it. I played it every day. It was hard as nails for me, but I didn’t care. Much. I beat the throne twice. But then I realized that I could not do the post-throne content because it was even harder, and that’s when I reluctantly gave up on the game. This was after 700+ hours. I quit cold-turkey once I realized I had hit a wall. I went back once when there was an update of additional content including new characters. It was still way too hard for me, and I quickly gave up again.
There was one game, Streets of Rogue (Matt Dabrowski) that handled it well, I thought. You could change the way the game played for the different characters to make it easier or harder depending upon how you felt like playing it. I found the game too hard to play ‘pure’. So I put a few mods on the soldier such as unlimited ammo and had way more fun with the game. I gave that one up because I grew more uncomfortable with the politics of the game as it went on, but I appreciated the generous modding you could do in the game.
Another game that had me quitting at the end (not the real end, but the ‘end’) was Dead Cells by Motion Twin. Which, by the way, is a developer that has an egalitarian company where everyone gets paid the same and supposedly has equal say. I qualify it because I don’t know; I don’t work there. Plus, I have a hard time believing any company is truly 100% hiearchy-free.
Anyway, I loved that game. It’s a roguelike/lite that has Souls elements to it and gorgeous graphics/environments. I adored the skills and the story/lore, and the ‘one more run’ feel to it. I love the ice skills and would normally run with an ice build. It was a difficult game. But, I got better and better until I finally made it to the castle. Where, I would promptly die to the final boss (final, again, in quotes). Like in 10 seconds die. OK, not quite that quickly, but it was brutal. I had the max on damage reduction which was something like 80%, but it didn’t matter. Plus, the ice skills did not work on the final boss. He just laughed and was not frozen. At all.
So I had to scramble to find the shop in the castle and hope that I could find items that were not ice-based–and that I had enough money to buy them. And then die, anyway, wasting an hour of my life. At this ponit, I had nothing else I could buy that would stay with me from run to run because I had bought them all. So I could do a full run and have nothing to show for it because I died in two seconds on the final boss. And I did not make it there very often. Maybe once in ten runs or so.
I gave up because it wsa not fun. I was not able to see enough of the final boss’s moves to formulate even a rudimentary plan for dealing with him before he killed me. When I talked about the game on the RKG Discord much later, I found I wasn’t the only person who had the same experience. Going through the game, feeling like a god with a fantastic ice build, only to die in less than 30 seconds to the final boss.
I went back when the first DLC was released and I found something very strange. I made it to the final boss on my first run–and beat him. They must have massively nerfed the final boss because I killed him without breaking a sweat. It wasn’t even close. Which, I mean, great, I guess? But it left me feeling hollow. Like I had played the children’s version of the game. I understand that I’m being difficult, but again, in the RKG Discord, I had at least a few other people saying they had the same experience.
I never went back to the game even though there’s a lot past the final boss. I just didn’t care to put in the work to get to the point where I could tackle the post-game content with consistency. They’ve announced a Castlevania DLC that has me excited, but I haven’t played the game in years.
It’s the problem with gearing things towards the hardcore fans too much. In the case of Nuclear Throne, Vlambeer was very responsive to the community–too responsive. They focused so much on the post-end game content, that they didn’t make getting there very friendly or easy. I want to say that it’s of course up to the dev to make the game as hard or as easy as they want to make it. I don’t think every game is for every person, but on the other hand, then they can’t really complain if the game isn’t as widespread as they would like it to be.
When Elden Ring came out, many hardcore fans were mad because Spirit Summons were included. I know FromSoft is not an indie dev, but they’ve always had that niche feel about them. They just announced 20 million copies of Elden Ring sold (coming up on their year anniversary), which is incredible. Dark Souls III has 10 million copies sold in total (by 2020), and it was released in 2016. Elden Ring surpassed that in 3 months. And, yes, you can say that Elden Ring is by far the most n00b-friendly of the From games, but I had a friend completely flummoxed by it when she tried to play it as her first From game. She gave it a good go, and I gave her as many tips as she wanted, but she bounced off it pretty quickly because it was impregnable to her–and she simply wasn’t haveing fun.
I would never say From games are for everyone, but I would say that if you’re going to try one, Elden Ring is the first one you should try. And that map! I cannot say enough good things about it. And I’m someone who was highly skeptical about including one.
Anyway. Back to Isaac. Sigh. The perfect iteration was The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (which was at least two iterations ago). Then, Edmund listened too much to the community and kept adding to it. In Repentance, the latest DLC, he added a few more characters, one (two, actually, but they play as one) that I just cannot do at all. And an alternate path that came from a mod. It’s horrible. And a new past of the end game end boss who is terrible as well. Honestly, the only way I can beat either of these new end bosses is to be completely OP when it comes to damage output, anything that blocks shots, ways to convert to more health, including nine lives. Otherwise, there’s just no point in me trying. The two new end bosses are not fun, and I’ve pretty much given up on re-platinuming the game.
I know the answer is that I just don’t have to play the game any longer, but it’s just sad for me. I wish he had stopped with Rebirth.