discussion What's your opinion about remakes when the game is not finished yet?

[Storge]

It depends how different it is. It's sort of like normal games. I don't need a remake of a game that looks like it was made a year or two ago. Like even Red Dead 2, I don't need that remade. It's good as it is, and any improvement you make is going to be minimal.

If a dev is making his/her first game, then I can see how they can look at their earliest work and just cringe. I remember being into 3D modeling and animation back in the late 90s. The first things I made compared to the last things I made were night and day. However, if I had to make a game that was a conglomeration of all of the art I did, I would maybe only remake the first few images and animations I did. The rest were good enough.

I worked at Blizzard for a while way back when, and one thing I can tell you about artists is that they allow themselves to be bothered by the imperfect way too often. I told some of the artists that they don't have to make things 100%. If it takes 10 hours to get something to 100% but 2 hours to get to 90% then just get to 90%.

Perfection is the enemy of the good. A lot of these devs are seeking perfection when all they really need is something good enough. Keep going on your first project. Make something smaller than what your mind wants to make. It's like when you're about to have a huge meal. You're looking at all the things you want to chow down on. Then you get through some of it and you're like, "God damn, I'm already full." Make your first games smaller. Use them to learn. You can make the longer and more complex games later on. You don't start off making your magnum opus.

It's a great Advice Thanks!
I wanna start my journey on the game dev making AVNs and wanna create a masterpiece.

Seconding this, and adding that I think a lot of these cases come down to indie devs being bad project managers. On a professional project there'd be someone with authority to say "no we're not redoing the last 18 months of renders from scratch because you think you're better at them now"; when it's some guy working on his pet project in his spare time there's no one to tell him that. Except frustrated patrons, maybe.

So to you question OP, I'm generally not fond of it unless the parts being remade had serious problems. Most devs would probably be better served finishing the game (or at least reaching a clear pause point, like finishing Chapter 2 of 4) and then taking time to go back and change things they're not satisfied with.

You've summed it up nicely

 

[DeadlySquirrel]

I can understand a new dev wanting to go back and fix stuff / re-render as they gain better knowlege. Not a fan when they start aging the smols!

 

[lanny]

It can seem like a money grab, they are running out of ideas and so on. But I think it's good. If I try to put myself in a devs shoes. If I can make something better. Why continue on the same path, instead of going back to the start and make it as good as possible? At the end of the day, you probably want to be proud of your product. So I get it.

 

[Vidilo]

Depends. If it's by the original dev, they should just focus on finishing the game instead of starting over.

But if it's a fan-remake of an abandoned, unfinished game, then I'm all for it!

 

[Magooo]

That does not sound like remake to me. It's more like cancel and restart. If devs did not keep their promises in a cancelled version I would not trust they would do so in the restarted one?

 

[User_143196]

I haven't played a remake by the same dev that wouldn't later be abandoned. Seems like a good way for the dev to burn themselves out and quit.

 

[MagusArcane]

I think the reworks of Life's Payback are an overall nice improvement to the game. The Awakening never finished reworking the lower quality beginning, but honestly I would just prefer the game get content more than once a year at this point

 

[Seo In-guk]

Disappointment and anger, imagine that it feels like it is going to be finished and a remake comes out with a surprise, please you were stupid to do that, you couldn't finish it and then do the remake. There have already been games that have been completed and remakes such as Personal Trainer, Ataegina and Family at Home remake. But if I am going to mention the game that disappointed me the most, including the dev: "Where The Heart Is", for me I already felt the end of the game (don't worry that there was more to go if I already put the previous version on hold) and then comes the surprise that a remake makes from the beginning and the worst thing is that it takes a while to upload the update.
If you see the dev of the game that I criticize, I don't care, you disappointed the summertime saga dev just the same.
It is understood that he wants more money from the followers of the patreon or other sites.

 

[goons]

Really depends and how they go about doing it, was the start so bad that your game got very low attention and now you know how to work it? Go for it I guess.
Is your game fine and you just don’t like the quality of the initial chapters? Finish your game first than work on remaking the first chapters to put it in a new market like steam since the start of the game matters again, don’t stop new releases for your game and lose your actual fans while the game is incomplete .

 

[impisi]

If the original game is broken, or it's something like a first-time dev who's improved their talents drastically while working on it and wants to carry everything over, then that's fine since it shows they're passionate about improving and will probably make quick progress on migrating existing content to the new version (at least, you'd hope they do).
On the other hand, there's plenty of people who would go "damn we haven't got any more content to write, uhhh, hey everyone we're remaking from scratch!" just to continue to milk their supporters.

 

[jeriko65]

It's something I see happening often, most of the time I think the Devs are just milking the supporters but there's a few that improve a lot the quality of the game.

i'm ok with, but it needs to be just as good or better

 

[xatfx]

The technique evolves quickly, I like it when a game that is a little too "dated" gets a good facelift even if it is not yet finished

 

[Cocoliso]

It depends on the situation.

There are times when it is necessary to recreate the same game, but much more stable (code, graphics, etc), or with some improvements.

 

[itisjj]

Unless the remake is a whole gameplay revamp, they're just dragging it on in my opinion.

 

[James2911]

It depends. The large majority of adult games, especially in the west are made by small studios or solo developers. To be able to stand out, and get popular enough to be able to justify working on a game full time it's important to give players a good first impression. I've read that most gamers decide if a game is worth playing within the first 5-15 minutes, so if your talents have evolved since you started it makes sense to rework parts of your game.

Apart from visuals, and writing, there are other aspects that can hold a game back. Making games isn't cheap, so many developers that find success are often more talented when it comes to artwork and writing, compared to coding. If you're creating anything more complex than a Kinetic novel, you may be spending more time implementing new content built on top shitty code. In those instances, it also makes sense to go back, so that development can speed up once the foundation is more stable.

Summertime saga is one of the more known examples where they're going back to redraw everything in wide-screen, improving animations, code and such. It's easy to see the reasoning behind this from a developer perspective, but also why players may be frustrated and feel like the effort being put in isn't worth it.

Another example is Innocent witches, which is often criticized due to their writing not being very engaging for an adult game. They've also gone back to address this feedback.

Third crisis had a different artist/style at the start, and the main character was also meant to be more inspired by Tracer from Overwatch. (New VS Old)

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[JulianK]

Generally annoying if they haven't finished the game yet. I can understand somewhat if they have majorly increased in skill over the course of the game development. But they if they are stopping making new content just to go back to the beginning to start upgrading then I likely won't play until they catch up and start making new content again. It is much better if they still try and make some new content and keep progressing the story, because some of them seem like they hit a dead end and decided to just start over.

 

[Freveiss]

If the game has been abandoned, and another dev decides to try their hand at improving/finishing that game, then i am all for it, just as long as they do so and not just make a coouple of updates and then also abandon it.
Also i have seen where the game engine is changed for the remake, with improvements, and again i dont mind this....
The times i do care, is when the dev starts again, removing content, usually spouting reasoning of improving the coding etc., and not catching up to where they left the original

 

[MattShizzle]

It's fucking bullshit. I want to get on with it, not go back and play what I already did.

 

[User_3471]

One of the problems with these types of games are that the devs are writing the story as they go. It is easy to write yourself into a corner if you are inexperienced or forget small details. Sometimes a re-write has to happen to fix storyline issues or go in a different direction. Devs do not have the luxury of stopping and going back to go another direction like a book author or movie screenwriter. The only thing they can do many times is start over.

What kills me is how you get devs that make constant changes or do “rewrites” as a way to milk supporters and string them along for their money rather than actually getting anything done. I can think of a couple devs in particular that are very bad about doing that. So bad that I avoid them completely. In an industry where less than 10% of the projects started actually finish, rewriting the script is sometimes a necessary step.

 

[MattShizzle]

One of the problems with these types of games are that the devs are writing the story as they go. It is easy to write yourself into a corner if you are inexperienced or forget small details. Sometimes a re-write has to happen to fix storyline issues or go in a different direction. Devs do not have the luxury of stopping and going back to go another direction like a book author or movie screenwriter. The only thing they can do many times is start over.

What kills me is how you get devs that make constant changes or do “rewrites” as a way to milk supporters and string them along for their money rather than actually getting anything done. I can think of a couple devs in particular that are very bad about doing that. So bad that I avoid them completely. In an industry where less than 10% of the projects started actually finish, rewriting the script is sometimes a necessary step.

That's why they should plan well ahead. That's the 7 Ps - Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.