/vr/ - Retro Games

The greatest turn-based dickery funtime awesome game ever, ever made.

No. Really.

Theoretical question related to the development of retro-styled video games:

At what point does the language of inside-references and badly-altered homages become too breaking of the carrot-and-stick immersion?


Too give away the context of my inquiry I should probably give an example of the game I'm working on:
>think like if you could essentially polish a real engine of "do-as-you-please" sandboxdom into a platformer/brawler/genre-bender amalgmation of sprites that change based on the type of beatemup-style mashing you use (say you constnatly try inputting double dragon jumpkick->punch combos... the game would go that way).
>the game covers multiple genres and eras of gaymen

basically, an extremely linear (think starfox lines) game with a ridiculously high number of endlessly labored-on permutations that rely on player-skill in vidya mastery to fully plumb and enjoy--how do I discern the line between really making this a game of passion and not just my personal vidya-wank lulfantasy?

why aren't you guys playing the better one?