Coint and Plick 2014 - The Seventh Annual ILX Video Game Poll

neither of those games are ugly!

i really like the way hotline miami looks (as discussed above) but otherwise i generally agree that minimalism often just means no aesthetic vision worth discussing. on that note, braid is like the ugliest game ever made. by contrast, Michael Brough games are "ugly" but gorgeous + aesthetically perfect in their ugliness.

i definitely don't wanna shit on Thomas, haven't played it and it seems like people don't like the art for the wrong reasons. Meant it more generally (looking at things like Threes on one hand and things like Retro City Challenge or Meat Boy or whatever on the other).

Hotline Miami looks super cool PRECISELY b/c it is not "minimalist"!

And Braid was kinda hideous but at least it was hideous in a new, risky way -- imagine it looked like meat boy, ugh ugh ugh

The character design on Braid was weird, sure, but the backgrounds were so pretty!

#67 (tie): Tearaway – Vita – 10 pts – 1 votes - TOP VITA EXCLUSIVE

http://i.imgur.com/TjHNYVv.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Metro UK | PlayStation Lifestyle | Trailer

Tearaway is a world of rustling paper constructs, crinkling and curling and flapping with the lovingly hand-touched flutter of stop-motion animation. Everything here is made of paper. The trees, the cities, the sky, the creatures. A windy seaside city with frothing waves clutching at the shore is rendered entirely in paper. Confetti is the currency. Sometimes you’re tasked with using a simple system of cutting shapes out of construction paper to lend this world your own interpretation of fire, stars, or snowflakes. - Tom Chick, Quarter to Three

Tearaway is fun - Sgt. Biscuits

I haven't finished Tearaway yet but I voted for it, played another chunk today actually and I love it more and more. I think it has a great solution to the user-generated-content idea, which has always failed before for me because it's usually off in its own little corner and I never bother spending any time there. But Tearaway regularly insists that you stop platforming for a minute to customise the way a scarecrow's face will look for the rest of the game, or to decorate a pig you're about to ride around on, or to design a flag that'll then keep appearing through the rest of the level. There's a lovely bit where you enter the snowy level (it's still a 3D platformer after all) and an NPC says "bah, white snowflakes are boring, design us a more interesting one" and then the snowflake you make becomes all the snowflakes that drift around that whole mountain. The further you go into the game the more it feels like you really are running around in a world you've made yourself.

Also the music (and general atmosphere) are LOVELY, it's perfect English pastoral (recorders, modal scales, occasional mentions of mummers etc). So that all pushes my buttons too.

Plus the fun hardware-based gimmicks like getting you to poke your fingers through the back of the console right into the screen etc, all lovely little moments.

Can't recommend it enough tbh, I scored everything with a flat 10 points this year but this was actually very close to being my game of the year.

many xposts, but do ppl on here play fallen london???

the art in thomas seemed really tied to the gameplay (at least for the characters). like i can't imagine the same game if there were actually interesting looking main character sprites?

^ yeah this exactly, ilthe game dynamics actually require the character design to be that way, it's not just aesthetic laziness.

#66: Animal Crossing: New Leaf – 3DS – 10 pts – 1 votes - 1 top game votes

http://i.imgur.com/RT3jv0t.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Guardian | Toronto Sun | Wikia | Trailer

Same as most Nintendo stuff these days, this is just the same game again except a bit better. In the past though I've always played solo and the fun has come from sending rude notes to cute bunnies. What made it great this time was playing it as a proper family game, we had two parents and a child all living in the same village, working towards shared goals, competing in bug hunts or fishing tournaments, comparing furniture collections. One letter I got from our little lad was so amazingly cute that it wasn't just a favourite gaming moment ever, it was probably a favourite parenting moment. So yeah, my game of the year. - JimD.

hi will m i also w0rk for a vg gjbdfgjdbf;gkjd i am terrified to post this

i rly need a new username but i've branded this one so well!!

hahahahaha WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO US

many xposts, but do ppl on here play fallen london???

― cardamon, Friday, February 21, 2014 1:34 AM (14 hours ago)

It's been included in the poll a couple of times. I think most people got bored of it, though, but I still play it sporadically.

for me i see no real separation between hotline miami and retro city rampage in pure ugliness, in fact i could have included retro city rampage in the same rant - again, part of my ire for hotline is that it just straight up should NEVER have been ported to console, its basically unplayable imo. or i suck. or both.

wrt thomas was alone, the minute i saw "minimalist design" and "narrator" i knew it was not a game for me, as the worlds biggest hater of that super narrated thing from last year that i have apparently blocked from my memory. so, the biggest and only draw of a game is the awesome (hint: probably not awesome) narrator? well make a fucking text adventure then.

you did include it, i just got rid of it. sorry!

retro city rampage is purely directed homage/reference/Family Guy-style 8-bit ugliness, won't argue for that one, it is what it is

hotline miami though is this delicious stew, everything from the grotesquely detailed bloody pixel animations and the weird intense music and the saturated colors, it's all quite deliberate and artful, if often ugly. side note: i wonder the creators were into skateboarding as kids, the aesthetic definitely reminds me of that era

bastion, that was the one from last year i hated. wise old narrator bullshit blahhhhh

like portal i guess has a narrator of sorts, but its done right, nearly everyone else gets it horrendously wrong, i get the feeling that the stanley parable might do it pretty well but my mac is the equivalent of a treadle driven sewing machine at this point so i will never actually know.

holy shit even refurbed Macs are expensive, what the hell

stanley parable narrator is okay, just barely this side of not embarrassing

I liked Thomas Was Alone just due to the contrast between the stripped-down design vs the lives all these blocks were living, as imparted by the narrator.

apparently i own thomas was alone from some past humble bundle so i will play it now

still hoping Steam Machines will come through decently I can still keep Mac'in away, but thankfully 90% of these higher profile indie games go Mac now. i think Stanley Parable is planned, and Antichamber just got ported for Humble Bundle, I see

i should try Thomas Was Alone, too

stanley parable definitely already ported. i have it on steam + have played it on my mac

yeah stanley isn't "about" the narrator like other games of the ilk are "about" it -- at least not all the time. it has a lot more surprises packed in it.

oh nice, i didn't realize. come on HIB 12!

Hotline Miami had some kind of narrative thing going on but 90% of the game is in the gameplay, which is fast and viscous yet at the same time not unlike figuring out a puzzle.

sorry if i am coming off as a hater in this thread, not trying to be a dick i just have my own hangups i guess abt game design

I think the core of your point is completely correct. We're just never going to agree which nostalgic games are the terrible ones.

NES emulation proves that you can't go home again.

but SNES emulation + N64 emulation are fantastic

hotline miami is basically unplayable with a gamepad, though, so the critique makes sense.

the game doesn't actually play anything like a(ny) NES game though. it doesn't look like a gamepad was in mind for that all, and they shoehorned it in

NES emulation is great for the great games, just like any other system

This discussion is making me want to try out the game just so I can pick a side

cardamon i still play fallen london every day and i have for about a year now

i really don't know why anymore

Noooooooo I have just realized I committed a terrible error on my ballot by not realizing that a particular game came out in January fuck

If it hasn't showed up yet i can adjust

Haha well it's me so of course it hasn't showed up "yet"

Message sent, ignore if it's a pain in the ass

you can always revote for it next year

Oh that was unclear, didn't realize something came out in jan 2013

If it came out in January 2013 there isn't a problem.

No no, it came out in 1/13 and I failed to vote for it, hence the problem

Aaaaaaaah. I thought you were saying you voted for something that wasn't eligible. Late night comprehension is poor.

I BEAT HOTLINE MIAMI ON A PS VITA IT ISNT SO BAD ON DUAL STICKS

oh damn, that is legit impressive. i figured that doing it with a touchpad instead of mouse was a pain in the ass, but can't imagine.

Yeah i was convinced mouse+keys is the only way to play but I imagine dual analog sticks working pretty well.

I played Retro City for a minute, it was sort of fun, but Hotline Miami is leaps and bounds above and would've made a great game even with top of the line graphics. RCR not so much.

Yeah, Retro City Rampage was so disappointing