Today I stumbled upon a brilliant gem of an NES homebrew by the name of Thwaite. If you're a game designer/programmer/whatever, this is a game you have to check out (You'll need a NES emulator to play it).
Description from pineight.com: "A hippie guitarist who has visited your small town for years has gone rogue and launched ICBMs toward your town. Break out the fireworks that you had been saving for Independence Day, turn them into makeshift anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs), and shoot down the incoming missiles."
Video, if you don't wanna download it
(The actual game is only a small fraction of the video. After that there are some other games that all suck.)
This game may not be the best in terms of gameplay or controls, but what this game does so much better than many modern-day games is the attitude toward the gameplay. If this game were designed way back in 198X, it would most likely would have space-shooter-type graphics and fast-paced music, maybe with flying stars in the background. However, the author behind this game took a much different approach, and created a much more compelling atmosphere that gave the story feeling. The townsfolk aren't trying to save the world, save the galaxy, or even save themselves. Instead, the music and graphics imply that the townsfolk have accepted their inevitable death, and are fighting only to make the most of what little time they have left. Almost like they'd rather just go out with a bang (quite literally, considering the fireworks). It's at times like that where every second counts, and in RPGs where you have to save the world from day one, you never really get that feeling.
Anyway, still workin' on my next NATA movie. Progress has slowed since I downloaded that emulator. Eeeerggggh.
(NATA preview)
IzunaX
Keep in mind that in the NES era people still hardly cared for the game premise, much less for the "story", even on RPGs, like the original Dragon Quest. Many people didn't knew that the goal in Mario was rescuing the princess, even only some of those kinda get it when finishing the 8th castle.
But yeah, the game looks good! Only "complain" I have is that with such detail I hardly believe it's a NES homebrew, specially with the explosions. Or maybe I haven't played a NES game with such detail since ever.
Emrox
Even when you think about modern-day indy developers, you'll find that the last thing on their minds is still the story. Even though it's great that we can get back to the glory days of being able to let the engine write the story instead of vice versa (which is a problem I have with most big-budget games), I think that a compelling story should never be overlooked. (And not as much of just 'story' as the atmosphere that goes with it)