You might have heard that a fairly large board game publisher recently crowdfunded an entry in a well-loved series using AI-generative illustrations. Now, here at Space-Biff!, it’s my policy to pass on any titles that use generative AI in place of human craftsmanship. (...) But I get that many people may not understand such a stance. So let’s talk.

What is art? Are games art? Is "AI art" art?

It's a delightful, beautiful read. It touches on Roger Ebert's views, which are more nuanced than I thought. You know, the famous critic that once said that "games are not art".

The article leans more towards tabletop, but it is interesting from a digital perspective nonetheless.

(and there's tooltip text on the images)

How does Underground gaming compare with Glorious Trainwrecks?

• They are both first and foremost anti-commercial.
• UG sees games as art, GT sees games as a form of expression. They don't feel quite the same. The framing is a bit different, perhaps. GT feels punk rock; UG, I'm not so sure.
• Both try to make it as clear as day that it's not about unfinished games, though I think perhaps for different reasons. UG tries to elevate complete games from the ocean of unfinished projects, while GT seems to want to dissociate from the narrow commercialist vision of completeness, without abandoning all sense complenetess.
  • But notice that GT promotes jams. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It seems to me that jams are a great promoter of unfinished games, and amplifier of Sturgeon's law.
• Both love and promote modding.
• UG has an inclination towards free and open source software. GT seems agnostic, promoting easy to use tools (klik & play and

A small webring with 10 sites atm (we are the tenth); it is not dedicated a "underground game" webring (thought about doing so), but since all who are active there are amateurs (as far as I checked) I think its close enough :).

When I read the title of the video, I was like what? What year is this? That ship has sailed a long time ago, friend...

But Frost's definition of indie is very much his own. It is not non-commercial, but it hinges on not caving to commercial pressures.

Funnily enough, three months after that video, corporate greed led Frost and others to abandon The Escapist and regroup under Second Wind.

(Hi! I'm new here. Expect me to go through and answer some old posts Soon™. I hope I can get used to Lemmy. Never got used to Reddit...)

Which underground communities do you visit (be it games, art, music, etc.)?

Don't feel bad if they don't overlap 100% with this space: as an example I frequently am on intfiction.org, as they are ace and fresh and innovative, even though they yet have to receive the Gospel of Free Software.

Other places I like:

• www.mastodon.art and scroll public timeline
• /p/ (for photography)
• tooling specific forums like AGS forum

If you have been around for a while, you may remember this article. It was written in 2000, right about when games were getting to be really big business, but long after the age of shareware, and long before the indie explosion (which I would put at starting around 2008 or so). It is basically a screed against the state of the emerging AAA industry, much of which is still true if not even worse, and a call for smaller teams making cheaper, smaller games.

The term scratchware never caught on, but I think a lot of modern indie and hobbyist works fit into it. On the other hand, some of what we call indie projects are now as bloated and expensive as the AAA projects of twenty years ago.

The central summation is this:

The phrase scratchware game essentially means a computer game, created by a microteam, with pro quality art, game design, programming and sound to be sold at paperback book store prices. A scratchware game can be played by virtually anyone who can reach a keyboard and

It seems that Lemmy instances don't work well with each other. Following a community from another instance is finicky, and after following, threads and comments still don't show up unless you manually pull each individual URL into your own instance.

When reviewing, I refrain from reviewing older games - mainly because I feel that it is better to search and shed light onto more contemporary games; also, I see the risk of falling into a shallow nostalgia if one focuses to much on what has been - so some stuff that I considered writing about never made it onto the blog.

I fondly remember the video game Taso. It was a quite unique helicopter/RTS-Game; years later, the now adult developer set up a small page about the game

https://tasogame.wordpress.com/

the page does not only provide a DL-Link (playable with Wine/DOS-Box and some tinkering) and a video but also a short description of the Suomipelit scene. If you ask me, this was a result of the (by then) progressive education system of the Scandinavian countries. Education there seemingly often involved the use of "ClickTeam", a software able to create - among other things - small games. A collection of "Click Games" can be found here https://www.create-games.com/museum.asp?tag=mu

The developer of Purple Martians, another one that I reviewed a while back had responded on Itch - since he didn't replied to my Post it took me quite long to notice.

After noticing I had some mail exchange with him. Development of the game is still highly active; a more up-to-date version than the one on Itch can be DLed at https://github.com/mweiss001/purple_martians

Greetings

A big recommendation I can dish out to everybody who seeks for some raw underground gaming experience are the works of Hodslate.

I had 2 of his games on my blog already; he is a australian roofworker iirc and is doing all of his games in his spare time, not using any premade assets or textures. His games are raw, dark, and oppressive. Quite like black metal gone video game.

He has quite some output. Didn't manage to play his more recent games till yet.

https://hodslate-productions.itch.io/

Is "Underground Game" in your opinion the right term for a political, non-commercial gaming scene? While some don't mind the term, some seem to be skeptical about it, stating that a self definition of underground is inherent inauthentic (we had, however, the uComix or various literature and press collectives using the term "Underground") or that the association with illegal activity could be a problem; these people, however, seemingly also most often disagreed to the far left political orientation of the Underground Gaming idea, and I'm not sure if those not just aren't bourgeois doubts.

One of the more bolt statements I made about underground gaming is that modding is somewhat under attack by the gaming industry.

I have received different reactions to this: Some agree, stating that modding is incompatible with the modern, usually centralized server structure of multimedia player games, agreed that my idea that the orientation towards professional competitive gaming lead to a stronger orientation towards standardization, or added that modding is incompatible to micro-transactions for skins or similar visual features.

Others told me that the modding scene is still active, but more restricted to specialized titles. Another reply that I received is that there is less a need for total conversion mods as there are more different games available, reducing the need to play "improvised" games.

Checking on ModDB, I noticed that there are few games among the popular or recent mods that are from after 2020; most of the popular targets for modding seem to be ancient for video g

Hoping that this doesn't look like I created this thing only to advertise my blog, but you can find some examples for non commercial games on my blog, the Arcane Cache:

https://thunderperfectwitchcraft.org/arcane_cache/

If you have done a non-commercial/underground game, tell me - I'll check it out as soon as I can and a) give you feedback and b) review it if I think it is good.

0. Underground Gaming perceives games as a form of art.
1. Underground Games are non-commercial. They shun the logic of the markets and question the capitalist system. They attempt to create and use spaces for free creativity.
2. The Underground Gaming scene considers everybody as equal. Developers and players are both participants in the process of turning an abstract piece into a played game. Every form of group-focused enmity (including, but not limited, to ableism, classism, racism, sexism, homo- and transphobia) is ousted from its communities.
3. The Underground Gaming scene lives and dies by the exchange and interaction from its participants. It can only prevail through mutual support, acknowledgment, and feedback.
4. A Underground Game is a game that its creators consider to be complete. A work in progress or a demo is not considered an Underground Game until it is finished. The possibility to extend a completed Underground Game is explicitly supported.
5. Underground Gamin