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Chrono Trigger gets the Re-Release Treatment
author=Little Wing Guy link=topic=1444.msg22654#msg22654 date=1215013156It doesn't have to, really. DS games aren't region-protected, so if it's in a language you understand you can just order it online.
*Points to the "Square-enix, No more creative" games topic*... And thus, yet another forseen remake emerges. Not that I'm complaining, I have never played Chrono Trigger before, so it's like a brand new game to me!
I'm really interested to find out why everyone thinks it's so amazing. Well if it comes to Europe that is...
Chrono Trigger gets the Re-Release Treatment
http://kotaku.com/5021416/square-enix-confirms-chrono-trigger-ds
It's official, and it's North America-bound.
It's official, and it's North America-bound.
Chrono Trigger gets the Re-Release Treatment
author=Darken link=topic=1444.msg22593#msg22593 date=1214976577I meant a sequel to the sequel. I own, have played, and am thinking about replaying Chrono Cross soon. But that doesn't mean I'm done with the series.author=Shadowtext link=topic=1444.msg22590#msg22590 date=1214975773
we might be seeing a sequel soon.
Did you perhaps come from the past? :P Chrono Cross exists you know. Anyway, I know what you mean by 'sequel' and really, the people that originally made Chrono Trigger all split up into different directions. And does there really need to be a direct sequel? Why can't it just be a stand alone game instead of being bumraped by Disney-thinkers? Heck even the guys who made Chrono Cross probably understood that.
Also I'm not suprised, SE cash in.
I want a sequel because I enjoyed the first and see plenty of potential for more to be done with the concepts presented in the game. Direct or spiritual, I don't care, but at least it's Squenix doing something besides Final Fantasy.
What am I supposed to be hoping for, exactly? Original IPs? I can't exactly expect much from Squenix there since no one but me bought TWEWY.
Chrono Trigger gets the Re-Release Treatment
The scan Kotaku had made it look like it was just going to be a port. It's tough to make out (it's a horrible scan), but it looks an awful lot like a screen of the Telepods map at the Millenial Fair.
Either way, I'm hoping that if the series gets some good sales this time around we might be seeing a sequel soon.
Either way, I'm hoping that if the series gets some good sales this time around we might be seeing a sequel soon.
Story Developement: Killing off Characters
I think that killing off player characters in a game is basically always a bad idea in a game. Screw the story, you're essentially punishing the player for continuing to play your game by taking away a tool that they might have spent a lot of game-time developing (mechanics-wise, I mean) and come to rely upon, and too often people just let this happen without some sort of way of dealing with it mechanically.
And even if they do address the situation mechanically, it often takes the player out of their immersion because of how clumsily the transition is made: look at how Cara/Krile/Kururu gets all of Galuf's powers in Final Fantasy 5 after his death.
People need to stop thinking about major decisions like this as if they're just story considerations: they are not. If you're going to take away a feature of the game from a player, you'd better give them seomthing back.
Anyway, there's no reason you can't just give that same role to an NPC. Make the NPC one who's always around and always involved in the story if need be, so that he feels like a Player Character even though you never get to control him, and there's no reason that death shouldn't be every bit as effective as a PC death would be story-wise, without any of the gameplay effect. Ninja Butterflies and Mission Control characters are perfect for this purpose. So are the PCs' mentor character, but this should be avoided because everyone already knows that the Obi-Wan is dead the moment they see him.
That said, story-wise the most effective character deaths are of the ones that both the creator and the audience loves, and anyone who's seen anything by Joss Whedon will have learned this pretty quickly....but overindulging in killing off the best characters(again: look at Joss Whedon) makes you predictable. "Man, I love this character so much! He must be doomed! I wonder how far into the story he'll survive?" is not something you want your audience to think--if anything, you want them to be mildly surprised by the loss.
And even if they do address the situation mechanically, it often takes the player out of their immersion because of how clumsily the transition is made: look at how Cara/Krile/Kururu gets all of Galuf's powers in Final Fantasy 5 after his death.
People need to stop thinking about major decisions like this as if they're just story considerations: they are not. If you're going to take away a feature of the game from a player, you'd better give them seomthing back.
Anyway, there's no reason you can't just give that same role to an NPC. Make the NPC one who's always around and always involved in the story if need be, so that he feels like a Player Character even though you never get to control him, and there's no reason that death shouldn't be every bit as effective as a PC death would be story-wise, without any of the gameplay effect. Ninja Butterflies and Mission Control characters are perfect for this purpose. So are the PCs' mentor character, but this should be avoided because everyone already knows that the Obi-Wan is dead the moment they see him.
That said, story-wise the most effective character deaths are of the ones that both the creator and the audience loves, and anyone who's seen anything by Joss Whedon will have learned this pretty quickly....but overindulging in killing off the best characters(again: look at Joss Whedon) makes you predictable. "Man, I love this character so much! He must be doomed! I wonder how far into the story he'll survive?" is not something you want your audience to think--if anything, you want them to be mildly surprised by the loss.
Square-enix.. No more creative games!
author=VideoWizard link=topic=1226.msg22525#msg22525 date=1214904895No, they're not. VP and Star Ocean are tri-Ace games, only published by Enix (and later Squenix). For that matter, the Dragon Quest series often isn't made by Enix--as near as I can tell, Enix hasn't made a Dragon Quest game since IV, and VIII and IX are both made/being made by Level 5, and the latest spinoff DQ games were made by TOSE. So actually, none of those games are by Enix anymore, though Enix owns DQ and probably has some sort of major license agreement on the Star Ocean and VP series.
And, of course, Dragon Quest, Valkyrie Profile, and Star Ocean could go under the Enix label. Technically, of course, they're all the same company, but that might ease people's feelings a bit.
The impression I've always had is that Enix was more of a producer and publisher than a developer--they're like EA, to use an American equivalent. I'm sure they have oversight on the titles, but they don't make them, and pretty much every "Great Enix Game" you can name was made by someone else, like Quintet (Soul Blazer trilogy, Robotrek), tri-Ace(Star Ocean series, Valkyrie Profile series), or Almanic(EVO).
It's a huge pet peeve of mine how people keep attributing these games to Enix when Enix doesn't really deserve much more of the credit for them than Disney deserves for Clerks, or maybe the Studio Ghibli catalog, since the Western Branch might very well handle the english translation duties on them, like Disney does for Ghibli. I would be quite pleased if both the Square AND the Enix label was taken off of them, or at least made a lot smaller.
Forum D&D Game (UPDATED: Finalized Details) JOIN NOW!
All right, I'm getting close to a breakthrough on the campaign front. Mostly, I've identified an old (3.5-era) campaign that I'll be adapting to 4e for this thing. There's still some stuff that I'll be needing to do to get ready, but everyone who's going to play should probably start throwing together character sheets if they can, and contacting me or someone else who might be able to help if they can't. We'll be needing a firm commitment to move forward just so that schedules can be set in place--don't worry, you're not getting married or anything. If you can't make a session that's cool, and there's no reason any particular session can't be rescheduled if an agreement for a different time can be met, either. Just be sure to let people know ahead of time if at all possible.
I still haven't finalized on the programs for playing in, but Skype and MapTool are sounding likely at this point. Turns out the diceroller won't be necessary, since the text-chat interface in MapTool will do dice rolls for us.
So, players, here's what you need to have in the next....let's say two weeks:
* A character sheet.
* MapTool and Skype downloaded and installed to your computers (Note: if this proves impossible, the program might be changed later, so make sure you try this now, rather than at the last minute!)
* A microphone and working speakers (or a headset) for your computer--if this will be impossible, we'll discuss just using the text-chat interface, though I'm preferring the sound of VoIP.
* A clear idea of some potential times each week that you'll be available for a few hours, (Preferably three to four. Two will work in a pinch.)
* Any questions you need answered before playing.
* A copy of the Player's Handbook. If you do not have this, PM me and we'll work something out: this will not necessarily prevent you from playing, but it needs to be handled ahead of time!
When making your characters, use either the Standard Array or the point-buy system. I explained this earlier in the thread, and it's also mentioned in the Player's Handbook. I am not using House Rules, so the PHB should be on-target.
Like I said, at the moment I'm thinking that two weeks might be a good target for when we get this started--the day is not finalized yet, though.
While making your character sheets, remember! Try to make sure there's at least one person for each of the four roles! We've already got a Striker and a Defender! We can have more than one of any given role, but try to make sure that we have a Controller and a Leader before we start doubling up.
Edit: I forgot to mention: at the beginning of the game, the party will largely already know one another and will have adventured together before (though they'll still be starting at level one). The game will begin with your group getting back together after having been separated for some time. If you wish to work this into your backstory, please do--if you'd rather be an outsider who joins the group just now, that's cool too, but I'd prefer if there was only one "newbie" to the group for every....let's say three veteran members.
As a side note, the campaign I'm adapting is itself adapted from a fairly well known series of D&D based novels, and while both the official adaptation and my own adaptation of that adaptation should make it a unique experience, let me know if you read much in the way of D&D tie-in novels in PM so I'll know how careful I need to be about not making you feel like you're retreading something you've already been through. And no worries--though the setting itself uses special rules, there are only one or two that should make a difference to any of you, and I'll PM you once I get your character sheet to let you know if you're one of the people who will be affected.
I still haven't finalized on the programs for playing in, but Skype and MapTool are sounding likely at this point. Turns out the diceroller won't be necessary, since the text-chat interface in MapTool will do dice rolls for us.
So, players, here's what you need to have in the next....let's say two weeks:
* A character sheet.
* MapTool and Skype downloaded and installed to your computers (Note: if this proves impossible, the program might be changed later, so make sure you try this now, rather than at the last minute!)
* A microphone and working speakers (or a headset) for your computer--if this will be impossible, we'll discuss just using the text-chat interface, though I'm preferring the sound of VoIP.
* A clear idea of some potential times each week that you'll be available for a few hours, (Preferably three to four. Two will work in a pinch.)
* Any questions you need answered before playing.
* A copy of the Player's Handbook. If you do not have this, PM me and we'll work something out: this will not necessarily prevent you from playing, but it needs to be handled ahead of time!
When making your characters, use either the Standard Array or the point-buy system. I explained this earlier in the thread, and it's also mentioned in the Player's Handbook. I am not using House Rules, so the PHB should be on-target.
Like I said, at the moment I'm thinking that two weeks might be a good target for when we get this started--the day is not finalized yet, though.
While making your character sheets, remember! Try to make sure there's at least one person for each of the four roles! We've already got a Striker and a Defender! We can have more than one of any given role, but try to make sure that we have a Controller and a Leader before we start doubling up.
Edit: I forgot to mention: at the beginning of the game, the party will largely already know one another and will have adventured together before (though they'll still be starting at level one). The game will begin with your group getting back together after having been separated for some time. If you wish to work this into your backstory, please do--if you'd rather be an outsider who joins the group just now, that's cool too, but I'd prefer if there was only one "newbie" to the group for every....let's say three veteran members.
As a side note, the campaign I'm adapting is itself adapted from a fairly well known series of D&D based novels, and while both the official adaptation and my own adaptation of that adaptation should make it a unique experience, let me know if you read much in the way of D&D tie-in novels in PM so I'll know how careful I need to be about not making you feel like you're retreading something you've already been through. And no worries--though the setting itself uses special rules, there are only one or two that should make a difference to any of you, and I'll PM you once I get your character sheet to let you know if you're one of the people who will be affected.
Zero to Sixty - Musings on the Cancers Besetting Amateur RPGs and Thoughts About Potential Cures
Zero to Sixty - Musings on the Cancers Besetting Amateur RPGs and Thoughts About Potential Cures
author=harmonic link=topic=1415.msg22038#msg22038 date=1214586525
the only thing I didn't like was the overall tone of "you suck, and here's why, so stop aspiring to complete an actual long game like most RPGs are because you're the scum on the bottom of commercial developer's shoes. Just make a little tiny game that impresses me in the first 5 seconds."
See, but that's exactly the problem. There's this....preconception in the community that making a tiny little game is the work of scum and unworthy of True Artists. And it's entirely wrong. We need to move past this prejudice against smaller, less ambitious projects as being pants.
Really, if anything, the concepts I'm dancing around here are about how to make games that are better than commercial games, in a very real sense. They entertain you from start to finish, hit hard and fast, and aren't stuck under the yoke of being forced to appeal to the mainstream demographics. There is so much more potential in this sort of model than in the Squenix model.
In a way, I think we're all still thinking of video games like we're in the 90's, or the early naughts. Casual games and inexpensive (in terms of money and time), episodic games are becoming more and more prevalent, especially with the growth of avenues like XBLA, WiiWare and Valve. We need to evolve, I think.
Also, yeah, Jabbo, I'm with you that it's also wrong when the pros do it. I tend to forgive them for it, but that doesn't make it good design by any means. I think Sirlin has addressed this topic before....if not, I know someone on Gamasutra did. You should never punish the player for playing your game just in the name of realism or drama. Even if things are meant to be scary or depressing, the experience needs to be enjoyable.
author=harmonic link=topic=1415.msg22038#msg22038 date=1214586525Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I did it. I have a tendency to write in a stream of consciousnes style, and it can make reading the things I write an endurance trial. It's one reason I'm such a huge proponent of minimizing lengthy dialogue and narration (and especially exposition) in games--I'm well aware of how easy it is to fall into the trap of writing too much because you feel like you've got so much to say. But I'm also aware of how you're shooting yourself in the foot when you do so.
It's sort of ironic that your huge TLDR-style rant includes the point about games that are too long and don't cater to everyone's tiny attention span.
Zero to Sixty - Musings on the Cancers Besetting Amateur RPGs and Thoughts About Potential Cures
Good gods, this post is going to be way too long and there's no way anyone's going to read it. I was going to submit it as an article, but I'm not sure enough about any of it to set it in stone just yet. I need discussion and it's never going to happen if everyone is suffering from "TL:DR"itis. -_-
So with all this talk about getting people to play games made in the community lately, I started asking myself "Why do I so rarely find myself playing or even giving games made in the community a chance?" A lot of it is just habit--I've been in the community for several years at this point, and I learned pretty quickly what to expect from games (so much chaff that it's hard to make yourself search for the wheat), and it's made me jaded. That's my problem and I've got to deal with that myself, but perhaps part of the problem is in the way that amateurs think of the games they're making.
I've come up with some thoughts that I wanted to share, but mostly this is going to apply almost entirely to RPGs and games that are spiritually descended from RPGs. Also, this might come off as a little harsh. I don't mean it to be, but I need to get these thoughts out here to see whether addressing them helps to dispel the demons out there. If you disagree then please, respond and tell me why. This isn't meant to be an attack, it's supposed to be a call to arms. Or something.
RPGs are an interesting topic in game design because a big part of their fun depends on a Very Bad Thing, game design wise. You start off crippled, barely able to do anything. You can attack monsters with your weapon, and maybe you'll have a special attack that you can use once or twice per dungeon. Now the nature of RPGs leaves you well aware of the fact that in about ten to fifteen hours, you'll probably have all sorts of options available to you, and all sorts of strategic possibilities available to you. Just....not now.
Now in a commercial RPG, this is something that fans are willing to do. There's a budget behind this game and a cadre of programmers and game balancers who will, supposedly, ensure that the game will be fairly competent at some point, even if it's pretty mediocre. If nothing else, there will be pretty things to see on screen and hopefully the story will keep you chugging along despite the fairly lame beginnings.
...okay, now let's look at Indie RPGs. First off, if this game is going to be ten to fifteen hours, it better be amazing. We're talking Cave Story amazing here. So already we know that gameplay evolution is going to have to go faster or at least be more dramatic. But then another issue crops up that turns things on their heads. I have no reason to believe that you know what you're doing. You're not making money off of this, you don't have any credentials other than word of mouth, and you're working alone, or at most in a small group of people with similar lack of credentials.
There's no reason a person or group in that situation can't do something great (See: Cave Story), but there's no barrier to entry, and there's no editorial oversight. Anyone can do it. It's like Fanfiction, or Webcomics. Yeah, the best of the best are unwashed amateurs, but they make up only the top .01%. The rest of the unwashed amateurs are generally less enjoyable than some of the worst commercial stuff.
Okay, so what I'm getting at here is: I can't depend on your ability to make the gameplay evolve into something that will intrigue me more than what I'm seeing right now. I can't depend on you to intricately weave rising and falling tension in a competent narrative. I can't depend on your art to get better or your soundtrack to improve or for all the foreshadowing and symbolism to resolve itself in a satisfactory way.
In other words: you have very little time to win me over.
With amateur games I think there might be a need to hit the ground running, in terms of the experience available. You need to wow me immediately with something about your game--if you can't do it with gameplay it needs to be with graphics or sound. A lot of you swear by intense narrative, but it's very unlikely you'll be able to have a really impressive story before I lose interest.
Him has discussed the merits of episodic gaming for our little indie thing....small chunks of game that you can digest quickly and, if you enjoy them, move on to the next one. That's a great idea and I wholly support it....but I wonder if we shouldn't be looking at the episodic model in more ways than one: not just episodic games, but episodic television. Television has for years had to deal with short attention spans, a small amount of time to tell the story in, and maintaining arcs over entire seasons at a time. I think this might be exactly the sort of thing that indie RPG developers should be taking their cues from.
Short stories, told in a number of quick vignettes, that hit hard and keep the audience drawn in quickly. None of this "everything will make sense in a couple of hours" malarky. Allow the battle system to shine right out the gate. Give the player a reason to love the thing before the first episode is over. Because if you don't they might not make it to the second.
That's not to say there can't be evolving gameplay, because that's a core aspect of the RPG experience. But you can't start at no options and slowly give the player more. You need to start off with a decent number of options and give the player more.
Even if you're not working in an episodic format, it might be helpful to break the story up into episodes logically--you don't have to tell the player this, just think in terms of "This is when the first episode ends--have I given the player plenty of reason to move on to episode two? And to three after that?"
You should treat your game like you're fighting a losing battle against ADD. Because you are.
Amateur RPGs are a different beast than commercial ones. We need to think about them in a different way. It's something Him's been saying for a while now, so I'm just reiterating that point, but it's worth repeating. Don't model yourself after Squenix. In fact, maybe you shouldn't model yourself after anyone--as much as I love a few of the things done in the community, I can't think of anyone who got it 100% right on the RPG front. Our community has yet to produce its vunderkind. So there's an open position just begging for someone to fill it. But you're not going to fill it by trying to make the next Final Fantasy. You're going to fill it by doing something that no one else imagined, or at least something that no one else could accomplish.
As a post script, I'm going to add that the "Editorial Oversight" deal is playing on my mind still. It's an interesting issue and one that it might be interesting to figuring out how to deal with. Some way to reign in a creative person's devotion to their "vision" to make a game more playable for an audience. I can feel you artistic types pulling away from me even as I say that, but limitations on creativity can lead to some of the best work from creative types--it's a big part of why the original Star Wars trilogy was so much better than the prequel trilogy.
So with all this talk about getting people to play games made in the community lately, I started asking myself "Why do I so rarely find myself playing or even giving games made in the community a chance?" A lot of it is just habit--I've been in the community for several years at this point, and I learned pretty quickly what to expect from games (so much chaff that it's hard to make yourself search for the wheat), and it's made me jaded. That's my problem and I've got to deal with that myself, but perhaps part of the problem is in the way that amateurs think of the games they're making.
I've come up with some thoughts that I wanted to share, but mostly this is going to apply almost entirely to RPGs and games that are spiritually descended from RPGs. Also, this might come off as a little harsh. I don't mean it to be, but I need to get these thoughts out here to see whether addressing them helps to dispel the demons out there. If you disagree then please, respond and tell me why. This isn't meant to be an attack, it's supposed to be a call to arms. Or something.
RPGs are an interesting topic in game design because a big part of their fun depends on a Very Bad Thing, game design wise. You start off crippled, barely able to do anything. You can attack monsters with your weapon, and maybe you'll have a special attack that you can use once or twice per dungeon. Now the nature of RPGs leaves you well aware of the fact that in about ten to fifteen hours, you'll probably have all sorts of options available to you, and all sorts of strategic possibilities available to you. Just....not now.
Now in a commercial RPG, this is something that fans are willing to do. There's a budget behind this game and a cadre of programmers and game balancers who will, supposedly, ensure that the game will be fairly competent at some point, even if it's pretty mediocre. If nothing else, there will be pretty things to see on screen and hopefully the story will keep you chugging along despite the fairly lame beginnings.
...okay, now let's look at Indie RPGs. First off, if this game is going to be ten to fifteen hours, it better be amazing. We're talking Cave Story amazing here. So already we know that gameplay evolution is going to have to go faster or at least be more dramatic. But then another issue crops up that turns things on their heads. I have no reason to believe that you know what you're doing. You're not making money off of this, you don't have any credentials other than word of mouth, and you're working alone, or at most in a small group of people with similar lack of credentials.
There's no reason a person or group in that situation can't do something great (See: Cave Story), but there's no barrier to entry, and there's no editorial oversight. Anyone can do it. It's like Fanfiction, or Webcomics. Yeah, the best of the best are unwashed amateurs, but they make up only the top .01%. The rest of the unwashed amateurs are generally less enjoyable than some of the worst commercial stuff.
Okay, so what I'm getting at here is: I can't depend on your ability to make the gameplay evolve into something that will intrigue me more than what I'm seeing right now. I can't depend on you to intricately weave rising and falling tension in a competent narrative. I can't depend on your art to get better or your soundtrack to improve or for all the foreshadowing and symbolism to resolve itself in a satisfactory way.
In other words: you have very little time to win me over.
With amateur games I think there might be a need to hit the ground running, in terms of the experience available. You need to wow me immediately with something about your game--if you can't do it with gameplay it needs to be with graphics or sound. A lot of you swear by intense narrative, but it's very unlikely you'll be able to have a really impressive story before I lose interest.
Him has discussed the merits of episodic gaming for our little indie thing....small chunks of game that you can digest quickly and, if you enjoy them, move on to the next one. That's a great idea and I wholly support it....but I wonder if we shouldn't be looking at the episodic model in more ways than one: not just episodic games, but episodic television. Television has for years had to deal with short attention spans, a small amount of time to tell the story in, and maintaining arcs over entire seasons at a time. I think this might be exactly the sort of thing that indie RPG developers should be taking their cues from.
Short stories, told in a number of quick vignettes, that hit hard and keep the audience drawn in quickly. None of this "everything will make sense in a couple of hours" malarky. Allow the battle system to shine right out the gate. Give the player a reason to love the thing before the first episode is over. Because if you don't they might not make it to the second.
That's not to say there can't be evolving gameplay, because that's a core aspect of the RPG experience. But you can't start at no options and slowly give the player more. You need to start off with a decent number of options and give the player more.
Even if you're not working in an episodic format, it might be helpful to break the story up into episodes logically--you don't have to tell the player this, just think in terms of "This is when the first episode ends--have I given the player plenty of reason to move on to episode two? And to three after that?"
You should treat your game like you're fighting a losing battle against ADD. Because you are.
Amateur RPGs are a different beast than commercial ones. We need to think about them in a different way. It's something Him's been saying for a while now, so I'm just reiterating that point, but it's worth repeating. Don't model yourself after Squenix. In fact, maybe you shouldn't model yourself after anyone--as much as I love a few of the things done in the community, I can't think of anyone who got it 100% right on the RPG front. Our community has yet to produce its vunderkind. So there's an open position just begging for someone to fill it. But you're not going to fill it by trying to make the next Final Fantasy. You're going to fill it by doing something that no one else imagined, or at least something that no one else could accomplish.
As a post script, I'm going to add that the "Editorial Oversight" deal is playing on my mind still. It's an interesting issue and one that it might be interesting to figuring out how to deal with. Some way to reign in a creative person's devotion to their "vision" to make a game more playable for an audience. I can feel you artistic types pulling away from me even as I say that, but limitations on creativity can lead to some of the best work from creative types--it's a big part of why the original Star Wars trilogy was so much better than the prequel trilogy.
Games - Tester
Games - Other
