Quoted from snaroff:Yep...couldn't agree more. In fact, the effort Stern is putting into the LCD is surprising. I'd gladly trade some new/exciting "mechs" for some of the brain power that goes into these animations.
Everyone has different things they focus on. I know that I'm definitely in the minority about things that bug me about fonts for instance, and I mostly keep it to myself unless someone really goads me into a rant.
But the continued success of ColorDMD says to me that there are people who do care about getting the most out of their displays, even if the focus during gameplay is on the playfield.
I'm not knocking Stern's efforts, because I know how much work it all really is. They're just not taking approaches that personally appeal most of the time. I haven't played enough Batman 66 to really judge, but I think that one has really smart asset use. And I definitely respect the level of effort that went into original world building on the new Black Knight screen. Was more interesting to me than the playfield honestly.
But much of the LCD stuff just feels a little like the CD-ROM era to me, remember that? Just the vibe.
I'd like to see some different style of thinking in general. You have a high rez screen, you really can do anything you want. Sometimes less is more, you don't need a lot of 3D model animation to feel good, even more static elements deployed in a dynamic way read really well. That's a lesson you can take from the source:
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