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Why are so many games in certain genres all so samey in the places they really should not be? (pawb.social)
submitted 1 week ago by Kolanaki@pawb.social to c/games@lemmy.world
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Allow me to explain:

Taking the "Crafting Survival" genre as a prime example, why do they all have the same feeling of being cheap, amateurish, and janky af? There is just this certain something about how every single one feels to play. The differences tends to be more in the grind, progression, and aesthetics while the game feel is exactly the same. The way your character moves, the way combat feels cheesy and unbound, the often minimalisticly artistic UI (like it's just a 50% transparent box with text/icons on it), and almost always riddled with bugs.

Even the big budget ones made by giant, long-lived developers tend to feel exactly the same as the independently made-by-one-dude-in-a-garage games. They might have better visuals, but everything else feels cheap and just to the point of functionality.

The weirdest part of this, to me, is that Minecraft doesn't feel like this and it is basically the grandfather of the genre. It's just every other one built in Unity or Unreal that feels like a janky ARMA module made by someone who just learned how to code. With so many developers making so many games in this genre, you'd think at least one of them would make one that feels more "luxurious." I lament not being able to put into words exactly what I mean; it's really something that can only be described through comparison and experience. But I have to believe others who have played games like Rust, Ark, Valheim, etc know what I mean.

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[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Given your distaste for the genre, whichever one you might feel is "luxurious", you probably haven't played. Minecraft also has the benefit of working in precise squares/cubes.

Systems-driven games tend to have more bugs than ones where all of the solutions are finite and predetermined.

[-] Fierro@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago

Systems-driven games tend to have more bugs than ones where all of the solutions are finite and predetermined.

Couldn't put it more succinctly if I tried, great job!

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 1 week ago

I actually don't hate the genre itself. The idea of these games is what drives me to try them out in the first place looking for one that actually feels like it has some quality to it and isn't 2D. Plenty of good ones in 2D. I can think of just 1 that is high quality, 3D, and isn't Minecraft or a blatant clone of Minecraft: Project Zomboid. And I am not sure if that even technically counts. It does have all the basic elements except for tech progression, tho.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I only got into some of this genre lately, because the right twist was applied to it. I'm playing Palworld now, and it was quite fun until about level 60, at which point I'm feeling like I need to turn up some sliders to adjust the economy, because it slowed way down. It's janky, it's buggy, it crashes from time to time, but it's fun. Enshrouded comes out in 1.0 later this year, and I'm looking forward to it, but I doubt it plays like Palworld. I've played Factorio and Satisfactory; liked the former a lot and didn't care for the latter, but they don't feel the same, and there's a lot of variation in how the two of them handle their central loops. I played the beginning of V Rising with a friend and only fell off due to scheduling; it doesn't feel like any of the above either. There are a lot of variations on this genre out there.

this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
45 points (85.7% liked)

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