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Fun Club Aliens conquer Earth & limit all future game dev to the SNES! What becomes of the medium?

Buried In Time

Buried In Time

Wave Racer & Windjammer
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Interdimensional aliens conquer Earth and decree that all video games moving forward must be made for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. How much would those technological limitations affect creativity and innovation? How would your favorite developers and publishers handle such a transition?
 
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I don’t think creativity would be too much of an issue. There’s endless ground to explore in 2D games. Games would be way less popular though without new PC and mobile games.

To answer the developer question, Nintendo and Square Enix made super rad SNES games so they are good and Falcom and Arc System Works make excellent 2D games so they should be fine too.
 
Many Metroidvanias. Certain indie developers will adjust well.
 
You aren't 100% locked to making something that looks like a SNES game. Even if hardware add-ons are banned (if they're not I'm pretty sure all bets are off), you could probably cheat an incredible amount by using custom chips in your cartridges the likes of which couldn't have been dreamed of in the 90's. But I'm sure some bottlenecks would still present themselves. I've heard Star Fox 2 ran up against the limits of how much electricity the system could take in. Assuming that was possible to circumvent, expense might actually be the biggest roadblock, you'd probably need to include a whole computer in every single cartridge.

But if this is the only available avenue to all of humanity, I'm sure something surprisingly good would be worked out.
 
...do SNES cartridges still can contain chips like the super FX? And if so, does the memory increase as is would without limitation?

If so, then the only limit would be the video output resolution/colour:


Other then that: limited audience, Middleware tools that it becomes piss easy to generate SNES assets and games, more and more the artstyles would shift over time.

Also, even with just the super FX there would be a couple genres of 3d games that would come up.

xghost777 said:
I don’t think creativity would be too much of an issue. There’s endless ground to explore in 2D games. Games would be way less popular though without new PC and mobile games.
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Endless ground in 2d, but those also certain things.
Limited amount of sprites mean even a 2d warriors game can't show as many enemies, Mano jrpgs past the SNES need a fuckton of text for the Menüs, those Eiter devolve into a chore of menu diving and trying to find the element in the list or reduce complexity.

Something like ori simply coult not work since the scale of the world compared to ori would mean you loose to many crucial details and ori could only be like 4 pixels, and if you rescale it it's the same as Sonic on GBA: screen crunch.

There simply are limits that would make many modern 2d games unfeasible.

There still would be a ton of innovation. I just don't expect that game complexity would increase because of screen space and other lots.
 
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Imagine 16-bit installments of Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Splatoon and Super Smash Bros.
 
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I'd be open to seeing how an alien would develop a video game. Sounds like a good way to transmit otherworldly knowledge. If they want to use SNES technology, that's their choice. They can be freaks if they want to, as long as they don't zap us.
 
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Stilt Village said:
You aren't 100% locked to making something that looks like a SNES game. Even if hardware add-ons are banned (if they're not I'm pretty sure all bets are off), you could probably cheat an incredible amount by using custom chips in your cartridges the likes of which couldn't have been dreamed of in the 90's. But I'm sure some bottlenecks would still present themselves. I've heard Star Fox 2 ran up against the limits of how much electricity the system could take in. Assuming that was possible to circumvent, expense might actually be the biggest roadblock, you'd probably need to include a whole computer in every single cartridge.

But if this is the only available avenue to all of humanity, I'm sure something surprisingly good would be worked out.
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Look at my post somebody looped an Raspberry Pi through the cartridge intake of an NES, meaning low power computing devices would be no problem, and that's the NES, with an SNES it probably means the only limit is the resolution/color, meaning ntcs/pal , meaning no hungry hardware for 4k is needed and after a certain point increased fidelity would be pointless -> ultra low power chips would be fine.
 
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The only limit is resolution/color and bus speed, which can limit the framerate and honestly input lag in a way.
 
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Wow, a lot happens.


1. As Nintendo is the only one with a gaming hardware, thus a monopoly is stablished, the FTC accepts them as a valid competitor for Microsoft. Therefore, they allow the buy of Activision, which then have to cancel all of their projects, leading to an eventual close of the studio because of the absolute lack of ROI. This whole saga becomes known as the worst movement ever taken by Microsoft and starts being used as a case study in every uni.

2. Aonuma and Fujibayashi scraps their ideas for their new AAAA Zelda game, instead expanding and eventually releasing their BotW prototype. It instantly becomes a major success, leading to an eventually agreement between Nintendo and Phillips for the later to develop three standalone games for an SNES add-on they're working on.

3. Sony is in complete paralysis. After all these years, how can Nintendo have finally won? They beg them to reinstaurate their joint venture and to release the Nintendo SNES Playstation, but the agreement with Phillips is already signed.

4. Miyamoto is living a second childhood. After the success of Zelda, he rush into the develop room and finally, finally, a new StarFox is released, giving the audience the best 3D graphics literally possible. The StarFox esport fever begins in Japan, expanding everywhere. In a matter of months, the aliens themselves are seen playing StarFox, praising its approach to space travel. Inspired by this, a new space racing competition begins (alien exclusive). Shooting lasers cause some issues in the ISS but in the end aliens absolutely love this and real StarFox becomes a major success in the galaxy. Praising Miyamoto, the aliens contact him and give him funds for his final life project: real life Pikmins.

5. Surprise! The Satellaview is back in fashion and it ROCKS. Pushed by Microsoft, is the only way to access online gaming and, thus, Game Pass. Microsoft throws millions and millions and everyone eventually gets their Satellaview add-on. Rare develops a new DKC. Retro develops a new new DKC. Their DKC fights gets so profound Spielberg eventually films a biopic called Planet of Apes.

6. Monolith Soft are finally allowed to develop their Mother game. It gets praised but their sales don't skyrocket. Nevertheless, Darren Aranofsky gets so impressed he buys the cinamatic rights and eventually his new film, Mother! 2, comes to cinema. No one understands it.
 
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Nintendo will be fine as always.
SquareEnix will be better than ever.
Microsoft will try to buy both.
Sony will show them the potential of Betamax as the sole way to watch movies at home.
 
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I would be happy enough at the idea of more SNES games, 2D indies make up a large portion of my gaming diet anyway and it’s not like I play tons of games a year anyway.

Then they’d reveal that Europe would only get a small amount of them again and I’d probably feel my smugness disappearing pretty quickly.
 
16 bit games with better understanding of the hardware, a vastly developed demoscene, modern development techniques and new and more powerful mappers?

Where do i sign?
 
Sign me in.

Snes with Off the shelf low energy computer parts soldered in to get more modern capabilities, or some sort of Satellaview equivalent ?
 
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We've been conquered by aliens. If we still have time and freedom for video games, we're extremely glad they still exist at all.
 
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Reinhard Schneider said:
16 bit games with better understanding of the hardware, a vastly developed demoscene, modern development techniques and new and more powerful mappers?

Where do i sign?
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Alternately: Developers from a time where their NES/SNES-like games have system requirements of hundreds of megabytes of storage space and RAM find themselves unable to do anything with the real thing.
 
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