Flashback and Out of this World (aka Another World) are both really good and have realistic running and jumping mechanics. Sort of similar to the oldschool Prince of Persia, only smoother. There's a bit of a learning curve to the controls though (more so for Flashback), so they might seem a bit stiff and awkward until you get them down.

SEGA!!!

Sega's too busy suckling off of Nintendo's teat right now. It's actually kind of sad, probably the worst case of "if you can't beat them, join them" that I've ever seen .

I've read that one of the Team Sonic developers openly admitted that for Sonic Colors they changed the look of the game to be a bit more like Nintendo's Mario series, in order to appeal to fans of Mario. Talk about whipped.

Nintendo have the market share because of their mostly casual and bland... with the novelty of the wii remote.

Now both Microsoft and Sony have gone down that road with their games, peripherals and marketing, and it's working.

And turnabout is fair play... Sony and MS copied the Wii (sort of) in order to get casual gamers, and now Nintendo will get back at them with beefier hardware and (hopefully!) a controller that doesn't suck and can actually be used to play more hardcore games.

Fingers crossed, anyway

[quote:5zugog0r]Our sources have said the the console is significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360

"Significantly"

I miss the days when you could judge a console based on the number of bits in it's graphics processor. 8bit, 16bit, 64bit... those were easy to understand.

Still, "significantly" is a nice word

If you can't see lerp being useful for anything, then you did not understand it.

Agreed, lerp is probably the number one most useful math function I've ever come across in game programming, with clamp as a close second. I use them both constantly, they're really indispensable. When I learned to use them properly it was like a whole new world opened up in my brains.

Hell yeah David THAT'S MY JAM

Personally, I like a little Satan in my music. Robert Johnson is awesome. If it weren't for Satan, we wouldn't have the blues, and if you don't know how important the blues are to modern music then shame on you.

Duck Physics

I think this is something that every game needs

- Psychonauts

- Beyond Good & Evil

Why do I miss obvious choices like these?

Okay I'm changing my list. Four and five are both BG&E, and the top three are all Psychonauts.

honestly, you'd have more trouble making the graphics in the first image?

I could make the tiles in the first image pretty easily, but those are really simple tiles even by pixel art standards.

Something like this though:

No way in hell. The level of skill it takes to do pixel art like that is crazy high compared to if you were painting hi-res images of the same subject in a more traditional style. So if we're doing NES, I could do pixels. PSX era 2D pixel art though (which is about what Owlboy is) is too far out of my league, and painting something like in your second example would be a lot easier for me.

Not that I've ever painted something that detailed, but I suppose I could if I had enough time and a reason to do it (it probably wouldn't be nearly that pretty though ).

I'm not saying ignore the GDC talks and guys like Jon Blow, because it's always good to keep informed on the current state of gaming. But I will say don't take everything you hear as gospel.

Quazi and Minor have it right. Make something you enjoy, even if it's been done before. Take something you like and put a twist on it. Or take something that had a lot of potential, yet failed to see it through. We've all played games that could have been a lot better than they were if only they'd done x, y, or z.

Original ideas will come naturally, from surprising places, or they won't come at all. There's no way to force it.

Also, there's nothing wrong with the storytelling approach to making a game. If you want to tell a story with a game, then do it. If your game is about characters and plot instead of unique game mechanics, then so be it.

In fact, I like my games to have story elements to them. I find it hard to pay attention to a game for too long unless there is some sort of story, no matter how small and tacked on that story might be.

It's good to see folks with good taste here . I'm tempted to change my list...

But instead I'll just say that Flashback, Symphony of the Night, and Fallout 1 & 2, Shadow of the Colossus, and ICO were also quite close to the top five.

Second Sight (under-rated and underplayed)

That was the one with the guy with telekinesis in the mental hospital, yes? That game kicked ass . I got it in the bargain bin at Game Crazy for like six bucks. That one and ObsCure (a co-op survival horror game) were probably the best budget titles I've ever played.

damn thats some awesome style but why everyone making 8bit style games on construct?

You answered your own question there... because they're awesome.