/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9687293
>That said - the Indie scene was nowhere near as vibrant, as it just wasn't possible to create a good pro-level game on your own or with a couple of people.

The indie scene was very vibrant back then and did make pro level games, a lot of which are notable titles even today, but the indie scene was all video game modding back then as opposed to stand alone games because Unreal wasn't shovelware ready yet back then like it is now. Back then you knew that your indie game "made it" when a real developer like Valve or id bought it and made it into a retail product. Here is a small list of "indie" games back then that went pro:

>Final Doom (started off as a normal megawad by Team TNT then went retail at the last minute to great controversy in the community when id took notice of it.)
>Counterstrike (Bought by valve)
>Team Fortress (Bought by valve)
>Day of Defeat (Bought by valve. Valve even hired the original mod team to keep developing it so it technically stayed indie for a while too.)
>Gunman Chronicles (started off as a Quake mod, then a quake II mod, then they ported it to goldsource and made into a retail game after Sierra offered them a publishing deal.)
>HONORABLE MENTION: They Hunger was a Half Life mod that never went retail but was heavily promoted and even distributed for free by PC Gamer magazine, just as they had done with the groups earlier half life mod U.S.S. DarkStar.

Indie game development was arguably just as prominent in the 90's as it is today, it just took a different form back then due to the lack of stand alone engines available at the time. (Although the "Pie in the Sky" engine was free back then, but those games weren't pro level) This list is also only indie developed shooter games, I haven't even mentioned the other genres of games and their indie games during that time period.

How long does it take for you to complete a megawad on average?

I'm on Map20 of Evilution, with 3 hours clocked in.