Comment by eurasiantiger
4 years ago
I would say this is it: inexperienced indie developers taking UI inspiration from the software of the day (various audio trackers / windows 1.0) and then copying each other.
AAA games like Lemmings and Wolfenstein 3D were not entirely that way, even if they still used some of the same UI paradigms (think: the hardware detection screen when starting wolf3d, or the action selection in Lemmings)
Also bashing out art is a skill one part learned one part natural. There are lots of little things you can do to make good artwork. There are many tutorials out on YT, which someone in the 90s would have had no access to. Studios could hire 3-4 artists to get everything to look nice. A guy bashing out some software in his bedroom could not hire anyone even if he wanted to. If you are doing it by yourself and you have not had the exp doing it, it will come out very meh. So the budding new artist (by necessity) will copy what they see not understanding the 'why' something looks the way it does. In this case it looks like he resorted to procedurally generated effects and items. Which makes for fun code and compact data (also important at that time).