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Exeunt Omnes
A game of strategic sophistry. Convince or crush the teenage girl who wants to end your reign of evil.
A game of strategic sophistry. Convince or crush the teenage girl who wants to end your reign of evil.
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screen57.png
I sincerely hope that no meteor comes crashing and sends our team whirling into space for eternity. Although it would be an interesting change of pace to transform the rest of the game into an introspective visual novel about loneliness and the silent yet tender embrace of death.
Whatever, that's looking freakin' good if I may say so.
Whatever, that's looking freakin' good if I may say so.
russeau_meeting.png
I have to agree that this shadow is definitely a bit too sharp (for its own good), otherwise amazing screen! Should we expect a progress report in the near future?
Choices choices
I totally agree with the absence of combat, and graphics are just fine. As for the rest, I'd say it should not take precedence over what you're already doing well.
I think the absolute best would be if you could manage something like Leo&Leah, i.e. a contrast between plain silly fun on the surface and something much more somber and/or meaningful underneath - but mostly/only by subtle touches, a little bit of cognitive dissonance here and there, never throwing it in the face of the audience in big "this is DEEP" packages (or only in a climactic scene after a long buildup, but this can be very make-or-break).
There's a lot you can do with the borderline sociopathic hero ethics in this respect, and I think many things haven't been done yet because these kind of examinations are usually either totally silly or totally serious (or at least very grim and gritty in V/Watchmen style). To come back to my example, Leo&Leah did it beautifully with the cruelty of children stories and cute cartoon carnivorous monsters.
The second best thing might be a juxtaposition of cardboard cliches and perfectly mundane and psychologically realistic characters and concerns, to make the cliches pop out even more - a bit like the clown/straight man dynamics. This can be as good or as bad as Euro-arthouse familial drama during a moonwalking mariachi-zombie outbreak.
So essentially, I'd suggest either to make the serious subtle and hidden everywhere, or to contain it to part of the characters/locations/moments and let the silly roam free everywhere else.
I think the absolute best would be if you could manage something like Leo&Leah, i.e. a contrast between plain silly fun on the surface and something much more somber and/or meaningful underneath - but mostly/only by subtle touches, a little bit of cognitive dissonance here and there, never throwing it in the face of the audience in big "this is DEEP" packages (or only in a climactic scene after a long buildup, but this can be very make-or-break).
There's a lot you can do with the borderline sociopathic hero ethics in this respect, and I think many things haven't been done yet because these kind of examinations are usually either totally silly or totally serious (or at least very grim and gritty in V/Watchmen style). To come back to my example, Leo&Leah did it beautifully with the cruelty of children stories and cute cartoon carnivorous monsters.
The second best thing might be a juxtaposition of cardboard cliches and perfectly mundane and psychologically realistic characters and concerns, to make the cliches pop out even more - a bit like the clown/straight man dynamics. This can be as good or as bad as Euro-arthouse familial drama during a moonwalking mariachi-zombie outbreak.
So essentially, I'd suggest either to make the serious subtle and hidden everywhere, or to contain it to part of the characters/locations/moments and let the silly roam free everywhere else.
The Drop
author=argh
I appear to be the only person in the western hemisphere who likes visual novels, so I doubt I can speak for everyone. ^_^;
The fact that there are visual novels on Steam suggests otherwise! If Christine Love and "games" like To the Moon can find their niche, I figure it's possible for any respectable space lizard as well.
I'd take a game made only of several clever "boss-battles" over a grindfest any day. Which sadly makes me a rather bad audience for dungeon crawlers.
I'll be sure to try The Drop one of these days though, so I can at least claim to have played a Rogue-like once in my life (although the fact that it has real graphics instead of ASCII surely detracts from the authenticity of the experience)
Edit: Okay I did try it today, and I had a lot of fun discovering the interactions with the items and environments. Then after one hour, the aimlessness of the genre began to weigh in a bit too heavily for me and I stopped, but I'm sure the intended audience will love it.
How to be Funny Review
At least this review brought this game to my attention. While I had fun in the beginning (the premise is awesome, the scenes and items descriptions are quite funny), the battles did become painful due to simply too many status effects. Then I got stuck forever against James Randi and quit. Also, I never won a single encounter against Browsers, they just threw everyone off balance every single turn. So I'm sorry, I really wanted to like this joke game, but I'm not sure it liked me in return. On the other hand, I for one would certainly give it way more than 2/5 since I did like the humor, and I figure the problems in this game are really easy to fix.
Marketing Your RPG Maker Game
I appreciate the principle of this article, and while nice I would have loved more thorough insights. It is still a mystery to me how some games manage to transcend the boundaries of the community (think To the Moon, Yume Nikki or the Aldorlea games) while not necessarily being the most extraordinary productions nor employing means obviously disdained by more obscure games.
As for the title, it IS hugely important and would warrant an article in itself, if only to bring people to stop using the Universal Pattern:
The Noun of Noun(s)
In lists of games, I have been attracted to titles like I Miss the Sunrise or To The Moon precisely because they avoid this (as well as second-rate offenders "The Adjective Noun" and "Name and the Adjective Noun: Substantified Verb").
It covers 99.9% of the fantasy and a large part of the SF genre in all media. It is impossible to know which book belongs to which series - is A Clash of Kings between the Lord of the Rings and the Sword of Shannara or a prequel of the Well of Ascension and the Runes of the Earth ?
But I figure there are still people out there who bother to look at games called The Legend of something: Chronicles, so if someone really intends to advertise a game as totally generic (without having the guts to call it Generica), that is the most efficient way.
Grand opinions aside, could you (ArtBane) tell us more about your expercience with contacting indie sites and promoting your games there (and more generally outside of the RM world) ?
I find the comments to this gamasutra article rather interesting.
As for the title, it IS hugely important and would warrant an article in itself, if only to bring people to stop using the Universal Pattern:
The Noun of Noun(s)
In lists of games, I have been attracted to titles like I Miss the Sunrise or To The Moon precisely because they avoid this (as well as second-rate offenders "The Adjective Noun" and "Name and the Adjective Noun: Substantified Verb").
It covers 99.9% of the fantasy and a large part of the SF genre in all media. It is impossible to know which book belongs to which series - is A Clash of Kings between the Lord of the Rings and the Sword of Shannara or a prequel of the Well of Ascension and the Runes of the Earth ?
But I figure there are still people out there who bother to look at games called The Legend of something: Chronicles, so if someone really intends to advertise a game as totally generic (without having the guts to call it Generica), that is the most efficient way.
Grand opinions aside, could you (ArtBane) tell us more about your expercience with contacting indie sites and promoting your games there (and more generally outside of the RM world) ?
I find the comments to this gamasutra article rather interesting.
Neo Jado Review
Okay I have no idea why the music won't play in Borton, it is in the directory and all. Well nevermind if I'm the only one in this case.
That's great news for the DBS (or rather the absence thereof).
Honestly, the game stands out much more through the comedic stuff: the main story is not exactly of the never-seen-before variety, and while it makes a nice counterpoint to the sillyness to have a real story happening on the side, it wouldn't hold my attention on its own. In the present state it does work though, in great part due to the quite amazing animations and the writing/direction in the cutscenes.
And don't get me wrong : it's good to have something that makes the game a bit less aimless than purely comedic ones, and I liked the insertion of "meanwhile in the world of real heroes" cutscenes, while the poor Phenix deals with excessive town introductions and unavoidable events. I can appreciate an admittedly cliched storyline with evil villains and corrupt officials and dashing heroes, if it is excessive and daring enough to become a flaming Tarantinesque cliched storyline, and I feel that you've been doing a good enough job in that department.
That's great news for the DBS (or rather the absence thereof).
Honestly, the game stands out much more through the comedic stuff: the main story is not exactly of the never-seen-before variety, and while it makes a nice counterpoint to the sillyness to have a real story happening on the side, it wouldn't hold my attention on its own. In the present state it does work though, in great part due to the quite amazing animations and the writing/direction in the cutscenes.
And don't get me wrong : it's good to have something that makes the game a bit less aimless than purely comedic ones, and I liked the insertion of "meanwhile in the world of real heroes" cutscenes, while the poor Phenix deals with excessive town introductions and unavoidable events. I can appreciate an admittedly cliched storyline with evil villains and corrupt officials and dashing heroes, if it is excessive and daring enough to become a flaming Tarantinesque cliched storyline, and I feel that you've been doing a good enough job in that department.
Neo Jado Review
I had a lot of fun with this (already several hours long) demo and I agree with most of this review, including the fact that I hope this project will reach its end someday despite being quite gigantic in scope.
The only part where I'd disagree is that for me, sillyness and overblown pathos work quite well hand in hand. Oh, and I wasn't disturbed for too long by the patchwork graphics: it is not optimally beautiful, but since we meet Megaman and random yellow taxis anyway, it's hard to care. Although I think it might work against the ability of this game to be perceived as good outside the community, if the creators ever had such intent.
Overall I loved the quirks and the fourth revolving door in lieu of a wall. While some of the gags may fall flat (honestly, distorted or lampshaded tropes were much more fun than wanton pop culture insertion, although it has its good moments such as the packing of alibis) there are just so many that it doesn't matter - a bit like the Leslie Nielsen movies for me, very hit and miss but we're under such intense fire that something will get through anyway. I laughed out loud very often and that's not a common feat of RM games.
Finally, I totally agree wth the fact that the default battle system was painful and felt tacked on, especially compared to some of the awesome QTE battles (that boss of unlimited evil WAS a bit too long to beat, but the animations and everything were so great that it was okay - just a bug : his HP seemed to stop decreasing two bars from zero, for three or four turns I thought I wasnt hurting him at all).
If you (the creator) want to keep equipment and power-ups, I like the idea of tying them into the minigames : each minigame could rely on a given characteristic (like arm wrestling being based on strength) to make the QTE easier, and there could even be some skill checks allowing to avoid them at all if we wish. That way the player could choose between counting only on his reflexes (and getting long and hard minigames like the cave boss or the second maze) or developping the characters.
Edit: ah yeah, about the music, I was honestly a bit disturbed by the fact that I recognized many themes at first - this used to be ubiquitous in RM games but I'm not that used to it anymore - but overall the selection was nice, and more importantly you used it well. Although did you willingly avoid putting a music in Borton ?
The only part where I'd disagree is that for me, sillyness and overblown pathos work quite well hand in hand. Oh, and I wasn't disturbed for too long by the patchwork graphics: it is not optimally beautiful, but since we meet Megaman and random yellow taxis anyway, it's hard to care. Although I think it might work against the ability of this game to be perceived as good outside the community, if the creators ever had such intent.
Overall I loved the quirks and the fourth revolving door in lieu of a wall. While some of the gags may fall flat (honestly, distorted or lampshaded tropes were much more fun than wanton pop culture insertion, although it has its good moments such as the packing of alibis) there are just so many that it doesn't matter - a bit like the Leslie Nielsen movies for me, very hit and miss but we're under such intense fire that something will get through anyway. I laughed out loud very often and that's not a common feat of RM games.
Finally, I totally agree wth the fact that the default battle system was painful and felt tacked on, especially compared to some of the awesome QTE battles (that boss of unlimited evil WAS a bit too long to beat, but the animations and everything were so great that it was okay - just a bug : his HP seemed to stop decreasing two bars from zero, for three or four turns I thought I wasnt hurting him at all).
If you (the creator) want to keep equipment and power-ups, I like the idea of tying them into the minigames : each minigame could rely on a given characteristic (like arm wrestling being based on strength) to make the QTE easier, and there could even be some skill checks allowing to avoid them at all if we wish. That way the player could choose between counting only on his reflexes (and getting long and hard minigames like the cave boss or the second maze) or developping the characters.
Edit: ah yeah, about the music, I was honestly a bit disturbed by the fact that I recognized many themes at first - this used to be ubiquitous in RM games but I'm not that used to it anymore - but overall the selection was nice, and more importantly you used it well. Although did you willingly avoid putting a music in Borton ?
You Are Not The Hero!
Nice demo ! Your implementation of health equilibrated by the gold stars is a great thing, since it allows to go through puzzles such as the boulders without striving for perfection, while retaining some motivation to achieve it.
I have to say that platforming and especially pixel-perfect collisions in a RM game are cruel, and I botched the boulders more due to not having seen that the hair of the character was 2 pixels out than due to bad timing. Nevertheless, thanks to the health system allowing me to continue the game, I can't blame you for putting in some challenge for the more adept.
I'm definitely looking forward to the next release.
I have to say that platforming and especially pixel-perfect collisions in a RM game are cruel, and I botched the boulders more due to not having seen that the hair of the character was 2 pixels out than due to bad timing. Nevertheless, thanks to the health system allowing me to continue the game, I can't blame you for putting in some challenge for the more adept.
I'm definitely looking forward to the next release.
Forum Game: One Letter Off
Friends made the following contributions :
Bun after reading : Turning pages makes me hungry.
Enter the Vod : What lies beyond Netflix?
Hard Andy : Stil about pedophilia, now even creepier.
Law Aiding Citizen : This time, he actually helps the cop.
Ponypool : Horses, zombies and watersports.
Star Hip Troopers : A band of exotic dancers boost morale on the battlefront.
Talker : Heated argument over Tchernobyl.
The Bat That Rocked : Adam West goes to London.
The Men Who Stare at Oats : Think of all the cereals you can make with that. Think about it.
Fat Stay/Night : And they said chubby people never have sex.
Fat Zero : Well I guess they don't.
Fag : Tales of a gay war journalist
Host in the shell : Install gentoo
The Boot at the End : I offer you a shoe. You wear the shoe. You get what you want.
Bun after reading : Turning pages makes me hungry.
Enter the Vod : What lies beyond Netflix?
Hard Andy : Stil about pedophilia, now even creepier.
Law Aiding Citizen : This time, he actually helps the cop.
Ponypool : Horses, zombies and watersports.
Star Hip Troopers : A band of exotic dancers boost morale on the battlefront.
Talker : Heated argument over Tchernobyl.
The Bat That Rocked : Adam West goes to London.
The Men Who Stare at Oats : Think of all the cereals you can make with that. Think about it.
Fat Stay/Night : And they said chubby people never have sex.
Fat Zero : Well I guess they don't.
Fag : Tales of a gay war journalist
Host in the shell : Install gentoo
The Boot at the End : I offer you a shoe. You wear the shoe. You get what you want.
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