So a week or two ago I noted that I felt that there was an opportunity to do a more "game-heavy" version of the builder genre targeted at Japan using the strengths of the Dragon Quest series.
I realized that what I meant might not have been entirely self evident, and not a lot of people on GAF play this genre, so I thought I'd share a couple of short trailer to help illustrate this.
Here's what the newest version of Terraria looks like, which had a lot of success in Japan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nXdtDgpPeE
And here's the newest update of Starbound, a game that the developers still feel needs two major updates before being launch ready:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waZGJjJLFps
The conceptual space of what the builder genre does in 2016 is a bit different than when Minecraft first launched, and I feel they would have been better off working in that than making something notably basic.
Mind, I would imagine something that's probably not quite as intense as the videos I just linked given the IP, but based on what they've shown of Builders, it mostly seems to involve just harvesting resources, putting on some basic equipment, running into 5-6 types of Dragon Quest monsters that you whack at, and building the towns. I think there might be some really basic quests, but I'm not 100% clear on that.
For Dragon Quest Builders, here is someone explaining the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbRm8hdLu-I
Skipping through the 20 minute to 1.5 hour gameplay videos they've put up doesn't really give me the impression of much else either.
It strikes me as what I'd imagine a very early-access version of the game's concept to be. Maybe there's all sorts of interesting other things in the game, and they're just not showing them, but that's all I've seen.
It could certainly prove to be enough for the game's audience as well. Maybe simply building and having some light exploration and combat features with a Dragon Quest skin is a slam dunk, but this is where my skepticism comes from.