>>9117Doom has a solid core and you can do a lot of it, you can even sell a game made in the Doom engine today, just look at Hedon. Those games need a couple of things to feel satisfying, level design, decent animations and art, good sound design, a soundtrack that is fitting, and so on. It's a bit much for a one man team, even if it's much more manageable than trying to do something big.
>First time devs would be better off being modders for a few years and studying good and bad games in that context.Modders usually make alright devs.
>What makes Halo more popular than Haze?Marketing lol.
>You suggest managing a planet, but you're ultimately doing the same menu humping as those other games with word being switched around.Yes, because that's what is the most easily produced by a single dev, the core of the game is different systems interacting with one another and you don't have to worry about many of the things you have to do in for example a tactical game, or a shooter, or a platformer. Menu driven games with sliders and heavily abstracted gameplay are much easier to make, especially for a programmer.
>it doesn't matter if you put X-men on it or a picture of a sword, it's still the same basic game reskinned.But it does matter, the fantasy of what you're doing is just as important as the actual gameplay, context is everything. That's why Alpha Centauri feels entirely different from Civilization, and also why Beyond Earth was nowhere near as good as Alpha Centauri.
