Galacticare Has Got That Old Bullfrog Spirit (aftermath.site)

submitted 5 months ago by Goronmon@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 5 months ago

I've been playing this on Gamepass and it's pretty good. Feels like Two Point Hospital with a couple QoL improvements.

[-] jumjummy@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

I found it to be way too similar to Two Point Hospital, but somehow less engaging. The overly silly theme just didn’t do it for me unfortunately.

[-] pelya@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Play Store link?

[-] smeg@feddit.uk 6 points 5 months ago

Galacticare is out now on PC, Xbox and PS5.

I don't think this is a mobile game

[-] pelya@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

No luck eh.

[-] smeg@feddit.uk 3 points 5 months ago

You could try running it in Winlator if you're feeling brave!

[+] otp@sh.itjust.works -17 points 5 months ago

I got to the word "Bullfroglike" and stopped reading

[-] Nighed@sffa.community 17 points 5 months ago

It's refering to a defunct games company: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bullfrog_Productions_games

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works -3 points 5 months ago

I'm very familiar with Bullfrog. Loved a lot of their games.

I hate the trend of gaming journalists using "-like" to describe genres of games

[-] osprior@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

How do you feel about Doom-likes from 30 years ago?

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago

We call them first-person shooters now. And I think they were usually called Doom-clones. But it makes sense that they'd use a word like that when a word for the genre hadn't really been codified by that point.

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

"Roguelike." <- 44 years on and we still don't have a real name for this genre that isn't just "first game of its type with 'like' at the end."

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works -2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, Rogue-like is a notable exception. The difference is that it's an established term for a genre, whereas a single journalist saying something like "Theme Hospital-like" is not a genre.

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

whereas a single journalist saying something like "Theme Hospital-like" is not a genre.

Exactly. Which is why your comments here do not make any sense at all; they're not saying it's a genre. They're saying these games are like the games of a long gone company of the past. There's no established way of saying that other than "Bullfrog-like."

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago

Is there really no other way to say that? Lol

[-] YoFrodo@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago

Why?

[-] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 12 points 5 months ago

No idea what that means, but I do know the devs of this game also made War for The Overworld and they did a fantastic job of making and maintaining it.

I'd highly recommend their studio... and if this is the type of game you're interested in, you should definitely check it out!

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works -4 points 5 months ago

No hate towards Bullfrog or the game featured in the article. I just hate the meme of using "X-like" to describe a genre.

[-] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 5 points 5 months ago

I don't know, I never saw it as a meme but rather just shorthand in cases where no other term existed that efficiently communicated the genre or style of a game.

Do you have a replacement term available for Souls-like that sums up what you can expect of a game within that genre using two words or less?

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

I saw another article describing something, perhaps this game, as a "Theme Hospital-like". Theme Hospital-like is not a genre.

Souls-like is likely in a similar situation as Rogue-like or perhaps "Doom Clone" from back in the day, where a new genre is emerging and there isn't yet an agreed-upon term for it. Rogue-like stuck around probably because it was such a niche game/genre for so long and people had been calling it that for maybe decades before the term went mainstream. Doom Clone died out because the genre branched out so much.

I wouldn't necessarily want to reduce "Souls-like" to another genre, because it may very well be its own genre. It may end up "growing" a new name like First-Person Shooters did, or it may end up sticking around because "X-like" may be the new thing to do.

I'm just getting annoyed by seeing things like "Stardew Valley-like", "Dragon Quest-like", "Theme Hospital-like"...those tell you nothing if you don't know the game they're talking about, and if you DO know the game they're talking about, you might get the wrong idea what the game is about because the author is making a bad comparison.

[-] nuggsy@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I do take your point and it's a fair criticism. It can almost feel like a marketing ploy to piggyback off of the popularity of another game, such as Stardew Valley-like, considering a lot of the time those games have since developed a genre, like for FPS instead of Doom-like.

I would also add, though, that using Doom-like/Doom-lite would still be appropriate to define games that are closer to a Doom type game than your CoD or Counter Strike. You could make a similar argument for the style of play Stardew Valley offers compared to literally Farming Simulator 20XX.

But you could also argue it gives the reader/consumer a quicker understanding of what to expect from the game. Especially in the case of this article where there isn't a way to clearly define/ label what to excpet from the game.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

My dislike of it stems from the marketing ploy aspect. It feels like clickbait; authors trying to get hits from people looking up (or "interested in") a certain game even if it may not be an accurate description.

I think the Doom-like FPS's are getting called "Boomer Shooters" now, lol...but we're ironically in a situation where we need a new term again. Or we would be if that genre were popular in the mainstream.

I think describing the game in the article as a "Management Sim inspired by Theme Hospital/Bullfrog" would get across the same concept, for example. I don't think it's difficult. I think it's just becoming a popular thing for gaming journalists to do

[-] nuggsy@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I can see where you're coming from and I agree at times it feels like it's being used for the marketing since it's easier to say, using the article as an example, "Bullfrog-like". They could have taken an extra moment to be a bit more descriptive, such as with your example, and say “Management Sim inspired by Theme Hospital/Bullfrog”, for people who may not be familiar with "Theme Hospital" or a Bullfrog game.

Just to circle back to your initial comment, "I got to the word “Bullfroglike” and stopped reading", I can definitely see where you are coming from, but I did disagree with your approach.

I also just wanted to add that I hope this isn't taken as an attack upon yourself.

I do like the alliteration for "Boomer Shooter" but I don't think it's the right demographic xD. I think it's still somewhat common, but I also don't think it's as mainstream as say your Battlefield or CoD.

RetroSlayer FPS? I have no idea, lol

[-] variants@possumpat.io 5 points 5 months ago

But that's their thing, they made war for the overworld because they were huge fans of bullfrog's dungeon keeper and wanted a spiritual successor to it, now galacticare might be like bullfrog's theme hospital