How do you feel about enigmatic indie protagonists?

They can still be my favorite even if they're not important!

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As in, the avatar is just a stand in for the player.

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A protagonist with well-written dialogue will always be better than a silent one, but a protagonist with poorly-written dialogue is worse.

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I don't mind them, but they are easy to overuse since it requires less work. I would like for once and for a change, an actual character that is too specific to be a self insert and that is constantly actively into moving the plot around in their own (instead of being limited to mostly experience it). From the ones you listed Batter is the less of a blank state but it doesn't make him any more interesting as a character.

Batter has actual dialogue though. Enigmatic doesn't mean silent.

I like them, OFF and Undertale are great games and I think the protagonists help that. The Batter is a really interesting character to play as and Frisk being so blank lets the spotlight shine on the more interesting characters like Mettaton and Flowey.
That said, I also like the more fleshed out protagonists. I really liked Madeline in Celeste, she was relatable and felt mostly real to me. Same with Mae from NITW, also a really cool protagonist.

Who is top left?

Madotsuki, from Yume Nikki. A young girl with esoteric dreams.

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I can appreciate how LISA had a protagonist that had it's very own problems and goals to be a blank self insert. Even in mother 3 Lucas had dialogues and you could check on him when playing as other characters, plus he clearly had a very specific drama and was heavily affected by it enough to have personality traits. I kind of wish more games wasn't afraid of creating protagonists like that since it's a safe route to make them blank since there are more chances of your audience not disliking them.

Madotsuki is intentionally kept extremely vague to keep the minimalist nature of Yume Nikki's narrative to a maximum. She's the most straightforward as a vehicle for the player's thoughts and emotions, but all the theorycrafting makes me think that there might be a lot more than is being let in on.
Batter is one of my favorite RPG protags of all time because of how utterly empty he is and how that's twisted into giving OFF's story a very unique spin on things.
Frisk is kinda boring, all things considered. They're a bit typical, save for the twist involving the whole Frisk/Chara thing.
Wayne is the coolest looking of them by far though, Hylics is so fucking stylish that it makes me cry tears of joy

Why do you think Batter is the way he is?

The Batter is definitely unique among those protags.
His personality greatly changes as the game progresses.

There's absolutely nothing wrong for the protagonist to be a STANDO for the player, however, it is also easy to fuck this up.

Silent Protagonists are great, because it's hard to make a cinematic experience with them. To most modern game devs, the concept is too videogamey. How are you supposed to shove in 50 hours of cutscenes about their tragic dead parents and feelings, if the character doesn't have the ability to stop the gameplay to monologue every 5 seconds? It's honestly the last vanguard against the movie game scourge.

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It doesnt stop them from being boring and completly uninteresting in comparison. There are plenty of games that have no self insert friendly protagonists but are all for gameplay like FFTA.

>silent protag, but has motives and goals of their own
>silent protag gets turned evil
>you know why they turned evil
>you gotta play as the rival character to fuck em up
Any games that do this?

I love them too. Mysterious Stranger characters are great though they're even better when they get more explanation later

I personally like it more when characters can talk. They feel more believable as human beings that way.

I'm a slut for them

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Hylics 2 when

OFF hits 3/4 of them

Its an Undertale fangame?
Yikes! Fuck that.

It's not even bait at this point, it's more like opening your mouth in the water.and expecting them to swim right in.

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OFF > Yume Nikki >>>>> The rancid pile of shit I squeezed out this morning > Undertale

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But there is a second part?

I thought at this point you would know that theres going to be a new game with how it gets shilled from time to time here

Really, i never see a thread about it.

You kiss your mother with that mouth?

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>ywn never save Madotsuki

I wouldnt say proper threads despite I actually seeing them myself but more like inside threads that have some relation to indie games.

the batter is actually a character though

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Kino

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>even considering comparing Yume Nikki, OFF and Undertale
Unbelievable.

Why did she do that?

Really awful fucking post.

This.
Trying to compare these shitty fangames with based Undertale is absolutely criminal.

When Mr. Lindroth finishes his work, obviously

Here is your bait for today.

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Don't forget to vote for OFF in the next poll.

w-what poll

One of my biggest gripes with deltarune is exactly that Kris doesn't fit in the group, they're completely silent in the middle of two, way too over the top characters and it hurts the trio as a whole because most of the conflicts inside it are between Ralsei and Susie, which can get boring after a while and predictable since they are both completely the opposite of each other. Kris's lack of any feelings or reaction makes it feels like there's a disconnection of himself with the group and the world around him as whole and a lack of strong chemistry for them as result, since susie and ralsei are the ones carrying it. I felt the same thing with undertale, certain times, it relies a lot in the player personal feelings (talking about undertale, not deltarune) that if you aren't able to sympathize with the characters or buy the pity party the game does it breaks the whole experience apart, since neither Frisk have personal reasons that you can relate to for being an empty shell. However despite being a bit flawed and so boring as a character, I can forgive (mostly like ignore) because frisk is like a kid on her own exploring a strange world. In deltarune I can't say the same because it has side and support characters along with you in your journey.

Kris is the tsukkomi.

I thought he didnt even have a personality to begin with since hes a passive blank state for the most time just as frisk.

The Batter did nothing wrong, he was the literal personification of Hugo’s desire to die and given by how the queen was poisoning him anyway it wouldn’t have mattered

It was a mercy kill

Their lack of personality is a ''personality'' in some way. I also find them charming

Self-inserts that are just an excuse to not actually have meaningful character design or development.
It can work though when the game has other characters that in term use the main character as a vehicle for their own development, Mad Max-style.

We've long been over this. Undertale is a perfectly serviceable game worth being called good and hating it solely for its fanbase is immature and pointless.

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I fucking love Phillip from space Funeral: fat, ugly, weird, silent and mysterious to the highest degree; its very refreshing to play as someone so uncanny

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Space funeral is the red headed stepchild of RPG Maker weirdness games and that's part of what makes it so wonderful. The intentionally shitty artwork only adds to how bizarre and unsettling it can be

Isn't that one with all the depressing art like overdosing on pills?

I personally find it just an okay game. It's not like it's extremely mediocre or something like that.

Depends on the context. Haven't played Undertale or Off so can't comment on those. Yume Nikki would be a very different sort of game if the player character actively commented on the dreams or the state of her mind otherwise. It's funny that the name of the game is 'dream diary' and you save the game by writing in said diary, making it one of the objectives of the game, but you never get to read it and there's very little text in the game proper.

I liked Lucas' character in Mother 3, like the other characters before him he goes totally silent when you're in control of him, but he's still a character with his own personality and after hours of being in the backseat it becomes frighteningly apparent when you eat the shrooms on Tanetane and the hallucinations are all about Lucas' inner fears. The game gives Lucas' voice an outlet even though he's supposed to be acting as the player's avatar at the same time, and the whiplash of this RPG hero boy still being a scared little kid hits hard.

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It can work but only for specific concepts that takes actual benefit from it or use it as a meaningful game design decision like Yume nikki. Otherwise, I like it more when there's actual effort into building a character.

Is that yume nikii remake looking thing good?

When I got to the blood caverns I was completely transfixed by the soundtrack and stood in place while it all played out. That's mostly in thanks to the song itself but it fit so well with the area that it gave me goosebumps like nothing else.

youtube.com/watch?v=b7vWLz9iGsk

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I love myself the strong silent types, but somehow Biker stole my heart

Brainlets don’t understand that stories can be told through things other than words coming out of people’s mouths.
Sometimes you want to show not just one character’s thoughts and memories but entire worlds and in that case the protagonist serves only as a vessel for them not to get into the way of the player’s exploration.

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It was decidedly mediocre and not worth your time.

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That's mostly about exploring an interesting worldbuilding, not an interesting character.

>he doesn’t play games for the concept and atmosphere alone
I’ve got some bad news for you, buddy

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The examples in your image are great, not everyone can make them properly

Obviously not indie, but I consider Master Cheif as a great example of an enigmatic mostly silent protagonist, regarding the first trilogy anyways

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Batter > Mado > power gap > Fr*sk

What even is OFF?

An RPG Maker game from a Belgian francophone guy.

This.