Fäiser and what it means to make "Raw" games

The idea behind Fäiser isn't all that special, it's basically LUFTRAUSERS but with less polish and more colours (because colours are cool and you can never have too few colours).

 Why make a strange knock-off of LUFTRAUSERS though? It's actually an interesting question, because it gets at something that I've been trying to figure out for myself for quite some time now: 

What's the common element of games that have really closely affected/impressed me?

This question isn't as easy to answer as you might think, really. It's not just as simple as saying "well they were good or highly polished", because really those terms can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

I've been thinking about a proper term for it and I think it's "rawness"? I don't mean this as some kind of opposition to polish (if you pay attention to LUFTRAUSERS you can see how much care was put into the game) it's more about how the game manages to communicate its core message to the player.

LUFTRAUSERS is violently aggressive and there's nothing that really shields the player from that aggression. However long your session lasts, you're constantly pushed forwards and it just keeps going.

In terms of raw emotional impact, LUFTRAUSERS to me has way more in common with a game like CHYRZA, which is a game where you walk through and abstract, hostile landscape, then it does with say Nuclear Throne, or Downwell, even though it's much closer to the latter two titles in terms of overall experience and aesthetics.

So what does that mean for Fäiser and my other games? I honestly don't really know. I made it, because I liked LUFTRAUSERS and thought it might be fun to try and make a similar game on my own. But Fäiser doesn't have the same aggressive energy that LUFTRAUSERS has. If anything, I found the game to be weirdly oppressive?

To be honest, looking back at my other games, maybe the reason why some of them failed to properly communicate what I had in mind, was because I wasn't really sure about what exactly it was I liked about the things that I drew inspiration from.

Sure, I put a bunch of big, nice explosions into my games, but it's not really because I like explosions, but because they were used in a specific game that connected with me on an emotional level.

Not only was it good to finish Fäiser, because I've been struggling with finishing games for over a year now. It also helped me figure out some things that I hope I can carry into some of my other games.

I realized that I like raw games and I also want to make them. I still like explosions, but the next time I use them, I'm going to make sure that they mean something.