Game musings and news

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 20, 2018 12:49 pm



There's more on the guy's twitter. This blew up into a whole thing about this dude's dad trying various games. It goes some pretty good places.
Image

User avatar
Büge
Posts: 5440
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Büge » Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:02 pm

Image

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Mongrel » Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:07 pm

A Blacksad game!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Image

User avatar
Wheels
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:25 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Wheels » Tue Aug 28, 2018 9:17 pm

EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP, THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT

Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: Game musings and news

Postby beatbandito » Wed Aug 29, 2018 9:57 am

Yeah, that's certainly still a real thing.

I'm not trying to be blown away by early development gameplay reveal demos at this point. But I did take away that it seems like they're staying ambitious, and rarely do I not have some level of fun with an ambitious new RPG property.
Image

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Mongrel » Thu Aug 30, 2018 12:26 am

Image

User avatar
mharr
Posts: 1583
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:54 am
Location: UK

Re: Game musings and news

Postby mharr » Thu Aug 30, 2018 6:10 am

Is the working title just going to stick forever now? We've been calling it 'Dickhead Goose' here but that probably won't fly on the Switch.

It's interesting that Valve refusing to do any official curation on Steam has effectively led to Nintendo taking the job.

User avatar
Smiler
Imperisaurus Rex
Posts: 972
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:27 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Smiler » Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:32 pm

I mean, Nintendo allows untranslated fetish model games to show up on the US Switch shop so the bar for Nintendo is only a notch or two above "I am publishing this rpgmaker porn game without the creators permission (and I probably snatched a translation patch somewhere along the way too)."

User avatar
Yoji
Posts: 1440
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:12 pm
Location: Screamtown

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Yoji » Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:58 pm

mharr wrote:Is the working title just going to stick forever now? We've been calling it 'Dickhead Goose' here but that probably won't fly on the Switch.

I'm hoping not, especially since it's a pretty easy part of the game to change.

If memory serves, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak went through two name changes before release: Hardware: Shipbreakers and Homeworld: Shipbreakers before settling on DoK. And good fucking thing, since "Hardware" would've been one of the least googlable titles ever.
Image: Mention something from KPCC or Rachel Maddow
Image: Go on about Homeworld for X posts

User avatar
Yoji
Posts: 1440
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:12 pm
Location: Screamtown

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Yoji » Sun Sep 09, 2018 11:40 pm

...so what's the deal with that robot arm in Death Stranding? Let's google a bit while we wait for kiddo to mellow out.

...wait, wh- man, of course some crazy Japanese guy has already built one.
Image: Mention something from KPCC or Rachel Maddow
Image: Go on about Homeworld for X posts

User avatar
mharr
Posts: 1583
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:54 am
Location: UK

Re: Game musings and news

Postby mharr » Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:11 pm

I'm pre-programmed to blindly trust Double Damage games, but this is my favourite game teaser in quite some time:


User avatar
Büge
Posts: 5440
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Büge » Tue Sep 11, 2018 5:44 pm

Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13165
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Thad » Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:38 pm

Telltale is done. It appears The Walking Dead: Final Season won't be completed.

The Verge had an article in March called Toxic management cost an award-winning game studio its best developers.

It looks a lot like what you'd expect: a niche studio got too big too fast, fell into the usual industry traps of overwork and churn, overrelied on licensed properties, and mistakenly thought that The Walking Dead was an indicator of future successes instead of representing the upper limit of what Telltale's style of game was ever going to sell.

And as for that style...well.

The point-and-click adventure genre has been passe for decades. Telltale did a good job of making it more attractive to casual gamers by de-emphasizing (frequently obtuse) puzzles and emphasizing choices and consequences.

And the first time you play something like The Walking Dead, it really feels like your decisions matter.

But play a couple of Telltale games (or the same one a couple times) and it becomes clear just how shallow the decision tree is. (Shallow...tree? Okay, mixing metaphors here, but you know what I mean.) For games that rely so heavily on the premise that what you do matters, the realization that what you do really doesn't matter is...well, it's gonna make repeat business hard.

I thought The Walking Dead: Season One was brilliant. And I'm disappointed that we're never going to see The Wolf Among Us: Season Two.

Telltale had some really talented people, and did a fantastic job with writing, atmosphere, and tension, and they cast great VAs, too. In a nutshell, they were great at doing what it said on the tin: telling tales.

They weren't so good at making games that made me want to buy more games from them. And apparently they really weren't very good at running a business.

Maximillian
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 8:07 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Maximillian » Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:25 pm

I have a source who was with the company. This is the result of changes made by shifting leadership a few years ago. The way it was described to me is that "With big licences like these, we cannot fail."

From the stories I got to hear, their dev team was expected to perform wizardry with less than ideal tools. Significant change in the engine didn't happen until around Wolf Among Us / Batman. The tools team was understaffed by the descriptions I was given, and the only real concern seemed to be 'when do we ship' from higher up. Management seemed happy to fire people raising concerns or asking sensitive questions rather than address the growing problems.

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Mongrel » Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:52 pm

So, most companies I've worked at.
Image

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: Game musings and news

Postby beatbandito » Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:36 pm

madmaxjr wrote:"With big licences like these, we cannot fail."

The mindset that leads to a pit full of copies of E.T.
Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13165
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Thad » Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:05 am

madmaxjr wrote:Significant change in the engine didn't happen until around Wolf Among Us / Batman.

I don't think you mean Wolf Among Us, as it was 3 years between the last episode of WAU and the first episode of Batman.

But yeah, I've definitely heard the criticism that they were just slapping hack after hack on an increasingly buggy and geriatric engine.

They're apparently trying to work out a way to finish The Walking Dead, seemingly by outsourcing to a third party. People are rightfully pissed that this would even be on the table after laying off a bunch of employees without severance.

User avatar
zaratustra
Posts: 1665
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:45 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby zaratustra » Wed Sep 26, 2018 5:08 pm

my opinion: In addition to everything else, they completely ditched their core demographic of youngsters and LucasArts nostalgics.

Maximillian
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 8:07 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby Maximillian » Wed Sep 26, 2018 7:13 pm

They had a series of terminations occur early on after Walking Dead, because they kept trying to make adventure games and not Walking Dead format games. Apparently they did it one at a time, like they were assuming people would get the idea.

User avatar
IGNORE ME
Woah Dangsaurus
Posts: 3679
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:40 pm

Re: Game musings and news

Postby IGNORE ME » Thu Sep 27, 2018 12:14 am

"Nobody was left but the Walking Dead people" seems a pretty apt description.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests