Are freeform games still playable?

So, are freeform games still playable, have we all gotten used to being lead around by quests and journal logs? Or can we go back to a simpler time when you had to find your own way, like the old school final fantasy games that, in my opinion, were some of the best. Well im making a freeform game of my own, using YEM, and I was just wondering if it is all worth it. :3

Freeform games are still playable. Many people enjoyed the demo for my project, which is Rogue-like as all hell.

I think your problem is you haven't played enough games. There are still a lot of games that are "freeform".

No no I love freeform games, what I meant is, is it worth making if people may not play since it is a freeform and not what they are used to, alot of peole who are just getting into gaming would have never played freeform game and thus might avoid it just becuse of their general difficulty.

Make a game if you want to make it. If it's something you'd enjoy to make. Trying to cater to everyone is a foolish endeavor. It's impossible to make everyone happy, so just make what you like and people who like it too will enjoy it.

Yea but when you put untold hours into a game and spend day after day working with it you want it too succeed but, I suppose if i let that get to me then i'll never finish the game lol

It depends on why you make the game.

If you are making it for public buzz, it might not be the best approach.

If you are making it for ONLY your edification, and if other people like it that's cool too, make it.

Neither is a wrong approach really. I mean, some people get their edification from other people enjoying what they made, some people get it from just having made what they wanted.

Well Im a people pleaser, odd for a 18 year old guy lol, so im sorta half doing it to see whatt people think, hopefully they'll like it, and half for a I game that I can enjoy in my spare time. And some positive publoic buzz would help out my self estem but eh i could care less about people talking about it.

I enjoy freeform myself. Quest journals get a bit too bogged down for my taste, although I've played a few that were actually designed well. My only gripe (even having grown up with the old Final Fantasy/DQ games on NES), try to fix the flaws that made those games frustrating. When a new Final Fantasy game came out back then, that was all we had to play, so we suffered through the agonizing moments. But with so many games saturating the market now, it's easy for a player to get frustrated and quit. Some rules I tend to follow:

1. Try to minimize grinding. Some grinding is okay, but the player shouldn't have to feel the need for grinding for several hours to beat a boss, when that boss could be designed with strategy in mind.

2. Unless the need calls for it (ie., Dungeon of Confusion, etc), don't confuse the player. Without a quest log of sorts, the player should be able to rely on elementary deduction, NPC's, signs, and the environment to help them along and get them to their next destination. I like being able to have a choice of whether to visit the next town, visit a cave I may not need to visit yet (if ever) or running along to my next destination, whatever it may be, but I seldom like games that suddenly spring impossible to defeat monsters on you because you wandered too far to the left. Some games do this right, by placing possible to defeat enemies near the beginning of the area, but still very challenging, so you know it will get worst the further in you go and you best turn around until you've gained some experience, new party members, and/or new skills. But other games will just load impossible enemies without warning, kill you off, and force you to begin from your last save, which is even more frustrating if the last save was an hour+ back.

I know that there are people out there yearning for "free-form games"... you just have to find them. Haha.

And like the others have said, it's up to you whether you make it or not. I'm making games because I like to, and it's a chance for me to be a story teller... a chance I rarely get. The problem with being a "people pleaser" is that you'll never please everyone. Just pick a type of game, work hard on it, and release it. You'll have fans, and you'll have haters. That's the way it goes.

Of course, there are lots of sites with 'aggregate reviews' that'll give you a good idea of what types of games are "most" popular. In my opinion, you should avoid "critic" reviews and focus on user reviews. You'll notice, especially on sites like IMDB where you get both... that they're always different, if not opposites. And I find myself siding with the User as opposed to Critic. Just my experience though.

@amerk i have my game set to were all bosses are stuck at a certain level(example: first boss is level 15, second 25 etc.) while random monsters level up with youyou, that way if the boss kils you, you can simply go out, level and try again. And i used mostly mountain ranges and rivers to show the player hat you can only get to certain areass after completing something like buying a boat to travel up rivers, gettign a ship to go to an island in deep water and so on so i do hope I have balanced out the game well enough so far.

Very few games are truly freeform.

The only real question is how well you can hide the linearity.