How come, with the exception of France, Western European Latin counties to my knowledge didn't produce any significant video game or even something you would call a "cult classic"? The only exception I can think of is Spanish's Commandos series.
El Abadia Del Crimen
>>12803808Before your time, kid.We were an 8-bit microcomputer powerhouse, the Speccy 128k was as Spanish as it was British.You might recognize picrel as "Severance", though.
>>12803808>low education population means fewer people with capacity for programming and and game design >not very developed computer stuff sector>weak economy doesn't favor high vidya consumption, meaning fewer opportunities for videogame studios>language barrier and small population (I know there's Latin America but it's really difficult to expand from Europe to LatAm especially it was so before the internet)tl;dr noone to make them and noone to buy them
Look up Golden Age of Spanish Software It's a lot more respected and unique, albeit without the same kind of delusional rabid "hobbysists" than britjank
>>12803808Spain had a pretty prolific speccy dev scene.They made Bugaboo and Game Over just from the top of my head
>>12803808it's ''Latinxjank'', keep up with the times unc
>>12803808Weren't the italians big on making point and click games in the early 90s?
EU integration was lethal for spanish developers, most of them died out in the 90's/00's
TH Strikes Back
>>12804017They've put out games in the last 15 years like the Blasphemous series. Retro stuff though, not so many memorable games. Frenchfags have made some decent stuff in this period as well.
>>12803974Yeah I played this one a while ago, it's free on abandonware toohttps://www.myabandonware.com/game/the-watchmaker-g3w
>>12803808the EU makes it impossible to do any kind of business with high risk/reward such as software.
>>12803974Dunno, I've always seen Germany or even France as more so adventure games standing countries. That's at least I can think of many German and few French adventures games but can do the same in case of Italy.
>>12803808I don't know, didn't some spanish devs make those blasphemous games? I know they're not retro but that's besides the point. This seems like trying to stir shit up between countries for no reason, I smell a hint of vodka here.Goddamn /pol/troons, they're like cockroaches.
Besides the hundreds of games released during the Spanish golden age, and still keeping it /vr/; I'd like to mention Gaelco as arcade game devs (World Rally, Radical Bikers), and Pendulo Studios as graphic adventure devs (Hollywood Monsters, Runaway series).
>>12803808From what I looked, there's Milestone studio set in Mediolan which has been solely making racing games of both car and bike kind ever since 1995. Out of range of the board, but they're responsible for MotoGP series even since 2007. But their older games, like Screamer series, also seem interesting.
>>12804876Can confirm that the Screamer games are awesome.
>>12804876>>12804887Such a weird name for a racing game. Dunno if this an Italian thing or moto fans thing.
>>12803808Modern kino Metroid and Castlevania are made in EL REINO DE ESPAÑA
>>12804598Italians used to adapt their more famous graphic novels into adventure games. There have been several Dylan Dog games but I don't know if they were ever that popular even in their home country. Definitely nowhere near the popularity or quality of french adventure games a la Cryo Interactive or Microides.They also had a pretty bonkers doom wad called Grezzo Due but that's about all I know about their vidya scene. A shame because their popular culture seems interesting, at least judging from the insanity of Berlusconi era TV. Maybe some pastanons could enlighten us on their vidya landscape.
>>12804974>Dylan DogThat looks interesting. Are the comics any good?
>>12803808French people are annoyingly protective of their culture and language. And not in a cool way like the japanese. They give preference to media that's locally produced and never consume media that hasn't been translated / dubbed to french (subs + OG audio isn't enough for these faggots, and that's why their english sucks). If the japanese / american developer doesn't translate their games to french, they won't be able to compete with local french developers. Meanwhile in Spain, Italy, Portugal everybody was playing the japanese / american games
Spain made Denshattack, as weird as that may sound
And Canada made Guacamelee
Pendulo Studios was a Spanish dev who made adventure games. I think it was Spain's oldest game dev that was still active, but they closed down last year.
Most of the stuff didn't even release outside of their countries of origin. Pic related was part of the most popular PC series in Spain until the company went broke after releasing a super ambitious game that didn't meet expectations.
>>12805131i was looking over the thread to see if someone had brought out this one specifically. Unironically a great manager game which i played and enjoyed despite not caring about football.
>>12805131>PC FutbolIs PC gaming big in Spain? I'd expect consoles to be more popular in this country.
>>12804691>Runaway seriesI think I stumble on the series once or twice but I've always assumed it to just be Broken Sword knockoff.
>>12804393Another Italian point and click adventure (haven't played this one yet tho) https://www.myabandonware.com/game/belief-betrayal-iol
>>12805165Just like everywhere else I guess, a sizeable not-so-niche market even if consoles are more popular. Up until the 16-bit consoles, computers like the commodore and the speccy were more (or at least as much) popular than 8-bit systems. Growing up in the 90s, me and friends did our gaming in both ecosystems, you would play the PC exclusive stuff on PC and the rest on consoles.
>>12805165>Is PC gaming big in Spain?Yeah, it is. Piracy has always been rampant, though (probably part of the appeal).>>12805170>Broken Sword knockoffNah, they're are their own thing. They are OK games, not great, but can be a good time.Some other cool Spanish games that are /vr/ in spirit are the Locomalito freeware ones (plus a couple paid ones, like Maldita Castilla Ex) and the Unepic_Fran games ("Pampas & Selene", "Unmetal").
So far all examples in the thread are from Spain and Italy, but what about Portugal? How's their video game making scene? The only Portuguese game I'm aware of is pic related rts and even then it probably was ever published outside the country.
>>12805207https://www.arkadium.com/
>>12805217Not even Portuguese creation, just a secondary office set in Lisbon.
>>12803821As an Italianon, I can say this is pretty accurate except for the small population part
>>12804974>Maybe some pastanons could enlighten us on their vidya landscape.Warning: TedX talk incoming.There was something brewing back in the 90s but it got nipped in the bud because back then (and very much so today as well) small businesses and "startups" had to fight a steep uphill battle just to make ends meet, nevermind making a profit. Even more so in the IT field of back then, that under Berlusconi's administration was severly hampered at every turn and never seriously given any financial boost by the government, that really didn't see any potential in it but plenty of danger for the already existing economies (television in particular, which Berlusconi had a strong grip on). This is however a trend that still goes on to this day, after both rightwing and leftwing administrations, albeit for different reasons. The only difference nowadays is that most IT agencies here try to always hop in on the "latest" trends but never really want to try something different, so of course they're all in on LLMs now but would have scoffed at the idea of seriously investing in them 10 or so years ago.A lot of italians however still wanted to make games despite the grim national landscape, but another problem is that, when a big enough field is overlooked or even pushed under the carpet by the local governent, that's when the criminals flood in. In the italian vidya landscape it translated into scammers duping poor naive younglings that just wanted to make games in paying for courses and joining "software houses" that took all they could for them (mostly effort and money) and gave back nothing. The most "prolific" of those thieves are still in activity and have a big enough name to themselves that they even worked for a project promoted by Meloni (the current italian PM) back when she was just an ordinary minister.(Cont.)
>>12803818I liked this game when it came out. Tried it again last month. It was horrible>>12805207They made the Dakar Rally series. It's a Dakar simulator as the name implies, which means a huge open desert "track" that you have to follow cards that have directions on them. I don't know how accurate it is to actual Dakar, but probably. It's a unique game I guess. Not retro though
>>12804974>>12805524Anyway, nowadays if an italian wants to make vidya and doesn't live under a rock he knows better than to go to specific "Videogame" schools/courses and just learns programming/concept art etc. from more legitimate systems... then goes overseas because why the fuck would he stay here where there's no actual videogame industry whatsoever.This is not to say that the fault was all in the "system" and the vidyamafia though. A lot of italians lacked a lot of things that could make their ideas (or actual games, in the case of the few who made them) really take off:- language barrier: up until... I'd say the 2010s (to be generous), a lot, a LOT of italians absolutely couldn't speak proper english, and that SOMEHOW included those who grew up playing games with only the english language available. And by that I don't mean what passes for ESL around here, I mean literal caveman levels. Things are better now, but even in IT the level is far behind of what it should be. I hope I don't need to go into detail as to why that would clip the wings of any dream of making it big in vidya after the 80s.- lack of ideas: not all italian games were bad, but absolutely none of them even attempted something new. They were really derivative games and the originals they took "inspiration" from already made what they did but better, so of course the question is: why would someone buy Temu(ggino) Monkey Island when they can just play Monkey Island? Once again the situation seems to be much better now, but the lack of an italian videogame industry that should've already existed years ago certainly doesn't help to bring italian indie games into the spotlight.Overall, while things are looking up again for italian vidyas as far as the creation process goes, it unfortunately happened during the worst possible times to make them an economic success. I'm afraid it will be a lot more years before an actual italian videogame industry is born.
>>12803834>Look up Golden Age of Spanish SoftwareI did. Wikipedia basically says it's some contrived hot take from some faggot trying to force a meme. All evidence seems to support that.
>>12805374>As an Italianon, I can say this is pretty accurateNah, come on, you had Olivetti which they probably were the best minds in the whole Europe who actually knew how to make useful machines and with beautiful designs.
>Aztec: The Curse in the Heart of the City of Gold>Black Moon Chronicles >Saga: Rage of Vikings These are three jank games from French Cryo I'm still fond of. I also always wanted to play their adventure game set in Pompeii and their god game, Deo Gratias, but never got the occasion to do so. They probably weren't that good, so dunno if I missed much. I wonder if their Atlantis series is any decent. It seems to be their most popular creation, or at least popular enough to get two sequels.
>>12806243>I wonder if their Atlantis series is any decentThe first two games are god-tier.Cryo also made an amazing Dune game, with incredible soundtrack.
>>12805648Maybe in the english speaking world.In Spain it's a well documented phenomenon, with plenty of articles, books, and even a documentary.
>>12805528>Tried it again last month. It was horribleYou have lost jank tolerance, you must become stronger.But yeah, the controls haven't aged well. It was revolutionary at launch though, with its physics, stencil shadows and water reflections.
>>12805753Olivetti wasn't that big compared to other tech giants, even before EU
>>12803821>>12805374Btw this is also the reason Italy never had a large animation and entertainment industry compared to other countries like France
>>12803808I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet. Que Pasa Neng is the best selling Playstation 2 game in Spain, Portugal and Latin America (after FIFA '05 lol).
>>12806357I've always thought that was a meme, do you have a source?
>>12806358It's a meme.
>>12806358Por supuesto, Caballerohttps://as.com/meristation/2007/01/04/analisis/1167894000_017623.html
As for Italy,Gekido was developed by NAPS Team, which is the oldest active development studio in the country, founded in 1993.Then also, 7th Sense developed The New Addams Family Series and additional titles for the Game Boy Color.
>>12806374Did they ripoff the Aludra cover design because Alundra sounds like an Italian word?
>>12806371Nothing in there says it was the second best selling game in Spain.>MeristationFuck AS for killing it. While the actual site was crap, the forums were fun.
they just don't have a distinct flavor like slavjank, nipjank and deutschjank.
>>12806243>>12806257Their best game remains KGB
>>12806501Is that like Papers Please?
>>12806272>In Spain it's a well documented phenomenon, with plenty of articles, books, and even a documentary.Perhaps in Spain it's not well know that anyone can create such things in an attempt to perpetuate their contrived hot take?
jank isnt a a real thing and just shows a lack of understanding and enforcing of yet another dumb concept
>>12806656here, learn a little instead of wasting your time trying to convince me that what I witnessed didn't happenhttps://www.mobygames.com/company/1437/dinamic-multimedia-sa/games/sort:date/https://www.mobygames.com/company/145/topo-soft/games/sort:date/https://www.mobygames.com/company/1471/opera-soft-sa/games/sort:date/https://www.mobygames.com/company/5219/zigurat-software-sl/games/sort:date/and this is hardly comprehensive...
>>12806585Not at all. It's a point and click. Make one mistake and you're dead or sent to siberia by your superiors. Sometimes your mistakes come to bite you only hours of gameplay later, so it puts you in a constant state of uncertainty. You can't progress if you don't understand the plot / pay attention to dialogue.
>reading "Golden age of Spanish software" article on Wiki>"2010s resurgence">"Alberto Flores de Rio wrote in the Encyclopedia of Video Games that the 2010s may be a resurgence for Spanish-based game development. Akaoni Studio and MercurySteam started off the decade with financially successful games.">clicked on the link or Akaoni Studio >mfw seen the page it redirected me toSpainsh devs are too powerful.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaoni_Studio
so actually spain makes a lot of games, people just don't know they're spanish
>>12806729also The Smurfs by the same devs, cool enough to be bundled with the NES for a 1994-1995 release
>>12806737Infogrames developed some great games.
It was all downhill from here.
>>12806756https://youtu.be/HQoT2TRrg5s
>>12806745This is French dev'd though, Astérix and The Smurfs were from Spanish devs
>>12806679It's probably not very well known outside of Spain because they didn't bother translating any of their stuff to the Lingua Franca of the modern age.
>>12806761I see, so Infogrames was just the publisher, my bad.
>>12805165>Is PC gaming big in Spain?During the 90s and early 2000s until 2003 yes, then it took a nose dive and games like WoW and counter strike took over. "cibercafes" were pretty big in late 90s and early 2000s (2000-2002) in big/medium cities.
>>12806729>>12806737I bought the GB versions of both games just because of Alberto Gonzalez's musichttps://youtu.be/pmiOls5kW48Asterix & Obelix for snes was also pretty decenthttps://youtu.be/GvTAPRfvt90
>>12803808Italy has Assetto Corsa, which as the most prestige sim racing series would definitely count.
>>12806348Seems like Italy at one point had an almost thriving film industry. I mean yeah there were spegehetti westerns, but also a lot of famous neorealism films from directors like Felinni. It just died out it seems.
>>12806843>I bought the GB versions of both games just because of Alberto Gonzalez's musicYou mean as a a kid ?
>>12806960Well yes, when I was a teenager. Back then, I used to buy obscure Game Boy games from eBay because they did cost just a few euros each and the shipping costs were pretty minimal. https://youtu.be/SwEPbO8lk2s
>>12806243>their adventure game set in PompeiiPompei: The Legend of Vesuvius/TimeScape: Journey to Pompeii (dunno why Americans adv extra "i") was actually created by Slovakian studio Arxel Tribe, Cyro only published it. They actually made quite some adventure games for them.
>>12804691>Pendulo Studios as graphic adventure devs (Hollywood Monsters, Runaway series)My fucking childhoodhttps://youtu.be/q0wCZkp_pgghttps://youtu.be/58MNrkiBSKMhttps://youtu.be/XmkWO4LcyKc
>>12803808Portugal has Brigador which is retro-styled
>>12803808Not retro, but Spain made Castlevania Lords of Shadow, Metroid Dread, Samus Returns, Gris, Aragami, Blasphemous, the Gothic Remake, etc.
>>12806909AC is good but the only industrial standard race simulator is Rfactor 2
>>12805048that sounds extremely based
>>12807252>>retro-styled
>>12805048In France, people consume a lot of foreign products—far more than the Japanese do—because, naturally, everything is translated into French. France is the second-largest consumer of manga after Japan. EuroDisney is located in France, not in the UK or Germany. It was a Frenchman who revived Shenmue by co-producing the third installment, even though Shenmue 1 and 2 hadn't been available in French. Yes, the French are poor at English because everything they consume is in French. Americans are poor at languages and geography because they consume only American content. The Japanese are terrible at foreign languages (including English) because they consume only Japanese content. Looking back, there was a time when Italy and Spain were somewhat poorer than France. Spain was a dictatorship until the 1980s. I remember Italy in the 90s, it was hard to find a shop selling video games, whereas in France, even small rural towns had several video game stores and arcades.
Because all yuropoors are up their own asses and ether themselves into thinking goods like videogames are made "by other people" but still consider themselves part of the target audience despite reality proving otherwise.Your country adopts stupid power and utility systems and requires special televisions? Too bad, you're not the target audience. Stop complaining and buy an adapter that'll work with a burgerland television. Local stores not selling the games you want to buy? IMPORT, IMPORT, IMPORT. SHUT THE FUCK UP. NOBODY CARES.On another note, >UK Magazine threads goneMODS = GODS
>>12807336lol
>>12805048>French people are annoyingly protective of their culture and language. And not in a cool way like the japanese. They give preference to media that's locally produced and never consume media that hasn't been translated / dubbed to frenchSounds extremely based to me.
Speaking of which, why are Italians so obsessed with Lupin?
>>12807450He drives Italian cars?
>>12806679Why does your little zoomer brain imagine that I'm trying to convince you that you didn't watch some youtubes or tiktoks about faggots trying to perpetuate this contrived hot take. Why does it imagine that posting links to list of the jank you saw on youtube supports your deranged fantasies?
>>12807336Chill out Jamal.
>>12807450>Charismatic, smart thief that loves women, surprisingly honourable even if he laughs and runs like a monkeyHe is everything pastabros aspire to be.
I have a collection of C64 images and there is a LOT of stuff from Spain, France, Italy, Hungary in there that clearly never got translated. Some of the games are interesting. I haven't found any must-plays yet.
>>12807975>gets presented with clearly laid out factual evidence of 80s Spain gamedev output>starts spouting some nonsensical bullshit about "youtube jank for zoomers"sorry, I didn't realize in time that I was dealing with a deeply retarded illiterate individualcarry on, then
Italians made Gekido. The GBA game mimick perfectly the anime artstyle of the time
>>12806501Reminds me of Hopkins FBI, although I believe it's a British game.
>>12806737I think The Smurfs on PSX was also alright. With the focus on "I think" since I haven't touched that game since I was like 7. Either way it was made by a different but still French studio. From what I checked the same studio also made that one Silent Hill like Piglet game that became a small meme some time ago.
>>12806745This is the game that Capcom ripped off to make Resident Evil
>>12803808the catholic church making some kid who made a HTML databse of saints into the patron saint of computers should tell you all you need to know about shitalians Germans shit al over latins when it comes to computer science, the only exception to the rule is Brazil.
>>12810040Chill out, jeet
>>12807450Pretty sure it aired in France first and then neighbour countries imported it afterwards, as with most anime in Europe
>>12805048>If the japanese / american developer doesn't translate their games to french, they won't be able to compete with local french developers.This wasn't true at all in the context of this board. Sure, French games like Alone in the Dark / Little Big Adventure / Rayman etc gained extra popularity because we loved to say "LOOK, WE DID THIS! " but they were still just a few games compared to the mast majority being Japanese or American made
>>12810040>Germans: We're the most anti-racist country of the 21st century>Germans when showing their anti-racism:
>>12806909Even Romania made some big Amiga games. Italy you would think would would have done some big stuff in the 90's considering their tech industry with Olivetti and being an industrially curious people with cars etc. I'm surprised a country full of these people didn't make something https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh-xrzcHfK0Sure I can understand religo nutter countries like Egypt not putting great importance on computing.
>>12805524>>12805548Fascinating insight. Thanks Giuseppe. The thought of low level mafia meddling with vidya development projects is pretty funny.
>>12807315don't post AIslop here no matter how much you think it helps
>>12810246I doubt an LLM would have gotten the year of the Spanish democracy wrong.LLMs are trained on human writing, so you'll get people that sound like LLMs.
>>12803808You forgot Romania.
>>12805648https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Spanish_softwareGet fucked Nigel
>>12806374Gekido was fun.
>>12810856>This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)>This article may contain original research. (January 2018)>This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (November 2020)
>>12812024paella'd that dago
>>12803808Italy and Spain both had pinball companies.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaccaria_(company)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inder_(company)Also these guys from the Electromechanical era:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega,_S.A._SONICThere are a fair number of Segasa pinball machines out there in the US. I've played some and they tend to be really good in my opinion. Prospector, Faces, etc.
>>12807427>>12807296It sounds based until you remember that one, it comes in the form of extreme arrogance and two, it's bot enough the France is French, they want EVERYWHERE to be French. There's an old saying>An American travels the world, learns most places are not like America, and is surprised by that fact. A Frenchman travels the world, KNOWS most places are not like France, but thinks they SHOULD be
