Thimbleweed Park, a new old point and click by Ron Gilbert

Started by Trapezoid, Tue 18/11/2014 19:45:44

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Trapezoid


LostTrainDude

I was too impaired by the hype to create a thread, so thanks Trapezoid!

Fingers crossed until.. Dunno... Until my bones break :P
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

selmiak

ZOMG! Chainsaw and gas in one inventory in one game!!!

...and also a wooden bridge in the background ;-D

Frodo

YES!  YES!  YES!  YES!  YES!  YES!   :grin:

Backed this instantly!  :grin:

So excited for this game, I'm gonna EXPLODE!  :tongue:

Thanks for the link.  :cheesy:

Mandle


Armageddon

$375,000 for that level of quality? They couldn't even bother to get the pixel resolution right. :-D

Still that is quite a bit for a simple 2D game, doesn't even look like they're planning voice acting. I hope they reach it though, I'd love to play it.

Stupot

Looks right up my street. I might back this come payday. Been a while since I could afford to.

MiteWiseacreLives!

I think I will back this if only to resolve the age old question: Who was the real talent Ron Gilbert or Tim Schafer.....
(I know Ron was like Obi Wan and Tim like Darth Vader.... but still, who's game will be better?)

arj0n


fred

Just awesome that something like this is happening - backed it immediately. ;-D

Snarky

Have they talked about what engine they're using? Because targeting Windows, Mac and Linux, this could quite possibly be an AGS title, right?

m0ds

Exciting stuff! Looks great. Good to see Ron do that. He must've been asked to make a retro p&c a million times by now. SO YAY. FINALLY! 8-)

That budget though... is it really necessary with their years of experience and contacts between them? Chicky, it seems to happen when they need to employ people over time, ie covering a 30,000 a year salary for two or three people adds up. I don't know if they're in the writers guild, if they were, there's a possibility they simply don't even write unless they get 50,000 off the bat. A fee is a fee I can understand that, but also feel it's just not 1999 anymore. You don't need 250,000 to release a point & click adventure game.

So - game, very exciting! Budget - takes the piss a bit ;)

Chicky

Saw this and was a little insulted by the amount of money he is requesting. Is this to cover publishers and promotion or something?

It would have been nice if they used an original style with a talented pixel artist, there's plenty of people who would jump at the opportunity.

Meh, I've never been a fan of those MM oversized heads!

[delete}

A bit much asked for a classic 2D pixel adventure. Yet the San Francisco Bay area is not cheap though.

Snarky

Quote from: Chicky on Wed 19/11/2014 18:30:09
Saw this and was a little insulted by the amount of money he is requesting. Is this to cover publishers and promotion or something?

There's a budget breakdown on the Kickstarter page. 63% of the money, ca. $236,000, is to cover development costs (i.e. salaries). They're estimating two people (Ron & Gary) for 18 months and a third person for 12 months, so that's 4 person-years of work, and an average salary of about $60,000 per year (before taxes). And all their expenses come out of that: they'll probably have to work from home, buy individual medical insurance, there are hardware and software costs, electricity, etc.

Quote from: Mods on Wed 19/11/2014 18:13:56
Chicky, it seems to happen when they need to employ people over time, ie covering a 30,000 a year salary for two or three people adds up. I don't know if they're in the writers guild, if they were, there's a possibility they simply don't even write unless they get 50,000 off the bat. A fee is a fee I can understand that, but also feel it's just not 1999 anymore. You don't need 250,000 to release a point & click adventure game. You need some willing enthusiastic friends and maybe 10,000 at most :=

Sure, you can, if you're willing to work for free or very cheap, and you're asking others to do the same. But these are professionals, veterans, and Ron Gilbert is a moderately big name. They probably have families to support. I would guess that asking for a $60K salary is already a significant pay cut (it's about the average starting salary of someone with a computer science degree in the US, and about 10% below the average for California; it's also apparently somewhat below an entry-level game designer salary). Of course, they'll get more money from game sales at the back end, but who knows how much?

Whether it should take two veterans working full time (supported by another artist/programmer) a year and a half to make an adventure game in the style previewed here is another question.

MiteWiseacreLives!

Quote from: Snarky on Wed 19/11/2014 21:54:53
Whether it should take two veterans working full time (supported by another artist/programmer) a year and a half to make an adventure game in the style previewed here is another question.
Yah, I'm thinking they're building their own engine... but that means an investment in future adventure games (nod)

Dualnames

I can count more than 100 people I've met in here that could make this game faster and with much less money, and better. They don't even have a working prototype of nothing, they're in it for the money.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Armageddon

Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 20/11/2014 06:57:18
I can count more than 100 people I've met in here that could make this game faster and with much less money, and better. They don't even have a working prototype of nothing, they're in it for the money.
I think it's a bit of a hyperbole to say they're in it just for the money. It does make me sad that 1000% better looking adventure games like To Azmuth aren't getting funded as quickly though.

Dualnames

I'm afraid it seems like it. Other people ask much less for MUCH BETTER LOOKING GAMES AND HIGHER PRODUCTION VALUES. For the love of god, it won't probably feature voice acting. And Ron Gilbert helped make my favorite game in existence. Still, I won't blindly obey and follow him.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Retro Wolf

I was surprised to see the 9 verb GUI, I remembered what he said about that in an article post of his.

QuoteI would lose the verbs.  I love the verbs, I really do, and they would be hard to lose, but they are cruft.

http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland

EDIT: And I also immediately thought "He could make it in AGS!"

Adeel

Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 20/11/2014 06:57:18
I can count more than 100 people I've met in here that could make this game faster and with much less money, and better. They don't even have a working prototype of nothing, they're in it for the money.

I'm glad that someone agrees with me. They are just exploiting their fans. Moreover, I'm tired of reading articles claiming that he's 'reviving the genre'. For the love of God, no, he's not. There are so many indie devs who are FUCKING WASTING their lives and won't let this genre die. I don't need to go any further. From my own community: the names of Dave Gilbert (are they related? - always wanted to ask that question :tongue:), Grim, Dualnames, Mods, Vince Twelve, KodiakBehr, TheJBurger and many others come to my mind. Furthermore, there are many inspiring devs are going to release their games commercially soon or have released already, such as Andail, CaptainD, AprilSkies, etc. Please note that I'm only counting commercial games here because they are exposed to a wider audience. That doesn't mean that I am ignoring free games. They have a soft corner in my heart. Ron Gilbert or not, the genre is very much alive and thriving. Seriously, we don't need a messiah to save us from the impending doom.

While I would love to see it happen, but I personally think that he's too arrogant to use AGS. Creating a new adventure engine isn't going to do Indie Devs any good because they will be reinventing the wheel basically. Furthermore, I don't think they will support their engine (I could be wrong on this part and I hope that I am).

The same old rhetoric of "True Adventure Lovers". If you are really a true lover as you claim, you should invest your own money too, like others have done.

They are here just for the money and the profit. They aren't here to do any favour on us, no matter how much they try to put it like that.

I refrained from commenting here (I've been vocal about this in IRC, though) before because I knew I would get backlash from Ron Gilbert's fans and this thread would escalate quickly. I've commented now only to show my support to Dual's views.

Gurok

So glad Ron Gilbert is reviving the genre again! Adventure games are dead! Only 50 games per year now, etc, etc.
[img]http://7d4iqnx.gif;rWRLUuw.gi

Snarky

Quote from: Adeel S. Ahmed on Thu 20/11/2014 10:47:10
Moreover, I'm tired of reading articles claiming that he's 'reviving the genre'.
I checked out a bunch of articles about this project, and only The Escapist said anything remotely like that. In any case, it's nothing to do with Ron Gilbert. You always get these whenever there's a moderately high profile adventure game in the classic style. It's ridiculous, but I'm sure every AGSer with a commercial release have had some version of it applied to them.

Quote from: Adeel S. Ahmed on Thu 20/11/2014 10:47:10
There are so many indie devs who are FUCKING WASTING their lives and won't let this genre die.
Wow, what a great compliment.

But that's the point, isn't it? Most people who "could do this game" cheaper and quicker (which is pure guesswork without knowing more about how big the game will be, and of course ignores whatever special "Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick flavor" they will instill) are doing it as a hobby or at well below the going rate for industry professionals (in some cases because they're just starting out and are trying to break into the industry).

For an experienced, professional game designer living in California, $60,000/year is a modest salary. And I don't think it's outrageous for them to say "We'd like to make this game, but we've got to have enough money to pay ourselves a decent wage." That's the whole point of Kickstarter, isn't it? To establish in advance whether there's enough interest in a project that it makes economic sense for the creators. They're not getting rich off this or exploiting anyone. If you don't think the game will be worth 20 bucks, or you don't like the concept enough to support it, then, well... don't. (I haven't, though I might.)

Stupot

I remembered Ron Gilbert tweeted a while ago asking for recommendations for engines.
I found the tweet here: https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/496315538285789184 (from August)
He later denied he was looking for an engine to actually use and said he was just seeing the state of the Adventure engine market, but now I guess this was the real reason.

I too think the asking sum seems a bit of a high figure, but I'm not sure 'in it for the money' is the right phrase. We can't really judge whether or not it's worth that amount until we see the final product.  I've pretty much decided I'm going to back.  But if it ends up running out of money and being split into two "episodes" I'll be pretty jizzed off.

miguel

It's just typical of adventure gamers, they have Ron Gilbert making a new-original game with the retro look and the pixels and all but they still complain. The money they ask is the money it takes for them to make a game, plain simple. It's like complaining about P.Jackson's Tolkien adaptations when we get to watch a brand new movie every xmas for 5 euros.
It's never better to sulk in nostalgia for what it was, and there's always the risk that people (even veterans) fail do deliver the same quality/feeling expected but art is a risk in the end.

To me, that screenshot (mood, colours, inventory items, the detective poses, the cigarette) immediately tells me that they have it all together to deliver a great game. Okay, so the rest of the game will be crap, I just don't know. Some parts of MI sucked for me, and I never was really into MM, it's the overall input gamers get from a game that counts, not a interface or the size of a pixel.
Working on a RON game!!!!!

Adeel

Quote from: Snarky on Thu 20/11/2014 11:45:19
Quote from: Adeel S. Ahmed on Thu 20/11/2014 10:47:10
There are so many indie devs who are FUCKING WASTING their lives and won't let this genre die.
Wow, what a great compliment.

You don't get the point, do yo? The genre is alive and thriving because of those indie devs. Indie games aren't limited to Adventure Games. Yet they keep developing them because of their love and respect for this hobby, even though there's more money in other genres such as Platformers, FPS, 'Simulators' ((roll)), etc. This all goes to waste when polished adventure games aren't featured in mainstream magazines and ridiculous games such as "Grass Simulator" are featured prominently.

Snarky

Quote from: Adeel S. Ahmed on Thu 20/11/2014 13:56:54
they keep developing them because of their love and respect for this hobby
To claim that it goes to waste if it doesn't receive as much hype as some other games suggests you don't know what the word "hobby" means.

Dualnames

Honestly, I would give everything I own to play the game that reveals the secret of monkey island, for this i am not willing to give a penny.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

m0ds

I'm sure it'll make a tidy profit, and I'm going to remove/not rant anymore about the money even though it seems a bit excessive (probably just the vague financial breakdown they gave). I'm sure it'll succeed, in a few weeks time the question of money will be well and truly behind them and us... I'd like to play it. But I'll support the after release stage, cos I know they could have that game out on a fraction of that budget if they really wanted.

ps. Thanks Adeel ;)


Adeel

Thank you for your explanation, Mods. I couldn't possibly have explained it in such a good way like you did.

Darth Mandarb

For me it's much more simple...

They know that Kickstarter works (has worked) for industry veterans and they're capitalizing on that.

Sure, they could probably pull this off for a lot less scratch but why should they?  The Kickstarter community absolutely drools over projects like this, which we've seen time and time again, and they almost always get [over]funded.

To me it's just two guys taking full advantage of the benefits of the Kickstarter system.  Sure, I was a little surprised at the funding goal (at first blush) based on the quality of the, very limited, available materials but if you've got the clout to shoot for the larger funding goal I say, why not?

m0ds

Very true.

Art + Coding 63% of $350,000 - $220500 (£140,322) / 2 (cos thats basically Ron and partner pay) $110,250 (£70,275)

Somewhere in the region of £30-35k a year each if it took 2 years perhaps. I suppose that's a fairly normal annual wage for a lot of folks.

Anyway I bet he's a secret millionaire. He's been earning a percentage on multiple games since the 80's. (laugh)

arj0n

Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Thu 20/11/2014 17:13:16
They know that Kickstarter works (has worked) for industry veterans and they're capitalizing on that.
Exactly

If someone is to 'blame', it's (imo) those people who pledge such projects with high amounts of money instead of pledge a lower amount and pledge also other projects that really need it (new/fresh indie devs)...  :-\

Cassiebsg

Guess there's a lot of point&click closet fans with a lot of money to waste out there... (roll)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Babar

I don't understand. They're not asking a lot more than what the Double Fine Adventure kickstarter initially was aiming at- "old school adventure game", which I'm fairly certain wouldn't have had more than 3-4 people working on it, maybe more because Tim Schaefer has the infrastructure in place. While I'm not really a fan of the Maniac Mansion aesthetic myself, does that art style REALLY diminish the entire project in everyone's eyes so much that everyone is going on about "They're asking way too much for this!"?

Sure, maybe Ron & Gary COULD have made the entire game in their spare time and released it for free. Sure, maybe they COULD have asked for 10k (or whatever number everyone is going on about), and made the game as a sideproject while earning money otherwise. Sure, maybe even they COULD have put aside everything else, lived off their savings and popped out the game in a year or 2. But why? There some sort of weird honour code going on that I don't know about with "DO IT FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME, MAN, MONEY MEANS NOTHING"?
The ultimate Professional Amateur

Now, with his very own game: Alien Time Zone

miguel

It's funny how guys here that are in the business of making games for a profit can "bitch" on someone like Ron Gilbert trying to make good money. The man is legendary and a reference but still has to play some kind of mother Theresa role while the world spins on dollars and profit.
Working on a RON game!!!!!

Grim

Quote from: Armageddon on Thu 20/11/2014 07:07:05
Quote from: Dualnames on Thu 20/11/2014 06:57:18
I can count more than 100 people I've met in here that could make this game faster and with much less money, and better. They don't even have a working prototype of nothing, they're in it for the money.
I think it's a bit of a hyperbole to say they're in it just for the money. It does make me sad that 1000% better looking adventure games like To Azmuth aren't getting funded as quickly though.

Thanks for putting To Azimuth on my radar. I just love the look of that game! Sadly, I don't think it will get funded...

Trapezoid

Guys who've been professionals for a long time and don't live in their parents houses know what to value their work at. News at 11!

Think of it this way: You're an industry veteran searching for a job. You turn down anything with less than a $60k salary. That's all it is.

m0ds

Haha :D Yeah a bit of bitching, there's something about money and the videogames industry (and others) I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it is just normal wages that someone like me still can't fathom at this point in time.

Spoiler


"Ron Gilbert released an adventure game today. What do you mean 'water'?"
[close]

Monsieur OUXX

Independently from Gilbert's intentions, one might observe that he is setting a rather deadly trap for himself:
This screenshot looks exactly like Maniac Mansion, which means people will expect exactly something as brilliant as MM. Except MM isn't that brilliant (or, at least, if you put it in context, it cannot compete anymore with games from the golden age, like DoTT or Sam&Max -- and I'm not even talking about the graphics, I'm just talking about the gameplay, writing and puzzles).
Therefore, if he goes that way, there can only be disappointment -- and if that happens, Gilbert will be definitely "burnt" with the nostalgia fans.

That said, I doubt that this picture would look anything like the project. I cannot imagine even for one second that Gilbert would be so naive. I'm sure his team have something up their sleeve.
 

miguel

Ahhhh, the hat fit on somebody's head. And what a noble head it is. If this wasn't the internet I'd be really emotional now.
There's only one reason Gilbert asks for 350,000 instead of 15: because he can.
Working on a RON game!!!!!

[delete}

As both avid fan and fair-minded customer, I'd like to see more public attention and commercialising for AGS games.

cat

Quote from: Amy on Fri 21/11/2014 01:45:43
As both avid fan and fair-minded customer, I'd like to see more public attention and commercialising for AGS games.

To be honest, I'd like to see more public attention for non-commercial AGS games. It seems that games get much more coverage and attention if they have a price tag slapped on them. In other game forums freeware games are given a patronizing smile and called "Fan-adventures", even if they are in no way related to any existing franchise.

m0ds

Ha :) Live to see the day? The issue there is that, as others have mentioned, there is no real "industry" there. Industry generates money, which is what the world apparently rotates on, so if it doesn't involve that it doesn't get so noticed. When the freeware community can offer something other than just free games or harness something truly industrial (in a world where industry = money) it would stand a bigger chance. As it is for now, it's just a nice thing.

Mandle

I might be being Captain Obvious here but I noticed that if you pledge at least $20 then you have already bought the game...

I guess $20 is a bit over the asking price for an adventure game these days but at the same time you are buying it from guys who have built up their names and reputations from the very start of the genre. If you can't raise the price $5-$10 per head (the average price of a deluxe coffee purchase from Starbucks) after a few decades of experience in the field then...

So anyways, this means that a LOT of their post-production sales income has already been absorbed into their pre-production kickstarter fund. Which means they are probably just testing the waters to see how many sales they can expect before doing something as insane as exiting real-life employment for 2 years to work full-time on this project (yeah, I know they probably have royalties from past publications, and will most likely still be freelancing for companies on the side as consultants, but that's like high-wire performers using a safety net really)

Colour me all naive if you wish, but I actually believed their sales pitch about this being their dream to time-transport a forgotten Lucasarts adventure game from the late 80's/early 90's into a forgotten drawer in your dusty old desk...

And I wish them all the luck in the world!

* Mandle is -$20

Snarky

Quote from: Mods on Sun 23/11/2014 05:04:20
Ha :) Live to see the day? The issue there is that, as others have mentioned, there is no real "industry" there. Industry generates money, which is what the world apparently rotates on, so if it doesn't involve that it doesn't get so noticed. When the freeware community can offer something other than just free games or harness something truly industrial (in a world where industry = money) it would stand a bigger chance. As it is for now, it's just a nice thing.

I would almost turn that logic on its head: Anything that gets a lot of attention becomes an industry, because it offers an opportunity to make money, which most practitioners will choose to take (for various practical reasons, among them the fact that it allows them to devote themselves to the work full-time).

I mean, you see that even with AGS: almost every creator who's achieved significant success with freeware titles has eventually gone on to work on a commercial game.

Creamy

$343,603 already :confused:
 

[delete}

Respected names, LucasFilm Games and nostalgia will make the pitch quite successful.
With a modern twist, this could turn out quite good.

m0ds

Well i don't disagree Snarky. An industry without any spearheads perhaps. Any real industry leaders. In the freeware industry? Well I don't know each to their own, as adventure gamers we probably know more than others. Yahtzee? Who would you name? I'm not saying Ron G should. I'm just saying no-one like him really does.

TheBitPriest

#49
Quote from: Mods on Thu 20/11/2014 17:56:46
Very true.

Art + Coding 63% of $350,000 - $220500 (£140,322) / 2 (cos thats basically Ron and partner pay) $110,250 (£70,275)

Somewhere in the region of £30-35k a year each if it took 2 years perhaps. I suppose that's a fairly normal annual wage for a lot of folks.

I don't know about the cost of doing business in the UK, but on the major coastal cities of the US (LA, NYC, SF, Seattle), a good estimate for producing a thumbnail-budget for a software project is to count on $150 - 200k per developer per year of work (actual budget will vary based on the details, and some may consider those numbers low).  That's salary plus overhead, of course.  Isn't London just as expensive?  What are programmers making over there?  If they're making £30k what's the multiplier for overhead?  £30k would be acceptable, but low, in NYC.

EDIT:

And for a game?  $300k?  That's almost a 90's budget, too.  Just for the development team.  I know of a few late 90s games that were much less interesting and cost three times that to develop.  I've never had a window into costs for the publisher.  But this site gives an idea of the total costs:
http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649

Of course, these numbers are for developing a cutting-edge engine, producing cutting-edge visuals, etc.   I guess what makes it surprising to us is that we like making adventure games, and we are willing to do it for peanuts in comparison or nothing at all. 




Stupot

Here's a trailer.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EFPnAbYqmMw

(I've totally forgotten how to embed YouTube videos. Tried everything.)

Mandle

Quote from: Stupot+ on Wed 05/08/2015 22:37:35
Here's a trailer.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EFPnAbYqmMw

(I've totally forgotten how to embed YouTube videos. Tried everything.)

OMG game looks great! And....that music!!! WOW!!!

Babar

A lot of people here initially complained about the high funding goal set in this project, so this might be an interesting read in that regard:
Thimbleweed Park - Budget
The ultimate Professional Amateur

Now, with his very own game: Alien Time Zone

Stupot

Quote from: Babar on Thu 10/09/2015 11:23:16
A lot of people here initially complained about the high funding goal set in this project, so this might be an interesting read in that regard:
Thimbleweed Park - Budget
Great read. Nice to know that Ron seems to really approach his accounting with lots of forethought and care.

Mandle

Quote from: Babar on Thu 10/09/2015 11:23:16
A lot of people here initially complained about the high funding goal set in this project, so this might be an interesting read in that regard:
Thimbleweed Park - Budget

In the comments section everyone is getting snarky about how posting an article called "Budget" must mean they are running out of money...

Best comment by far:

Quote
Mattias Cedervall - Sep 08 at 04:18

Rumor has it Ron will sell a kidney. I don't know whose kidney.

(laugh)

Snarky

Quote from: Mandle on Fri 11/09/2015 23:30:22
In the comments section everyone is getting snarky about how posting an article called "Budget" must mean they are running out of money...

Oh FFS... If I were to run a Kickstarter, I think I would offer practically no transparency whatsoever, because god dammit people are stupid. Anything that isn't a bland "everything's going great, now look at this pretty picture" will inevitably cause some people to freak out. Tell people the truth? You can't handle the truth!

selmiak

Quote from: Mandle on Fri 11/09/2015 23:30:22
In the comments section everyone is getting snarky about how posting an article called "Budget" must mean they are running out of money...

Best comment by far:

Quote
Mattias Cedervall - Sep 08 at 04:18

Rumor has it Ron will sell a kidney. I don't know whose kidney.

(laugh)

further down the comments:

Bogdan Barbu - Sep 08 at 14:39
I can already see the next post where Ron feels the need to clarify that they have in fact not run out of food.

Arto - Sep 08 at 14:50
I think Ron has lost weight though...

Monsieur OUXX

I've watched most of the development videos, and I came to the heartbreaking conclusion that I'm apalled by Gilbert's decision to program his own engine instead of using AGS (or with any engine). He received some money from people: Money that he could spend on adding content.
But instead he seems to have a lot of fun re-programming things that already exist for free.

I think programming is fun. But he didn't receive money to fulfill his programming hobby. Like, his engine has a few lighting effects, but nothing that could not be done with a quick AGS plugin. When you watch development videos, he's all like "yey, look, I created walkable areas!".
He justifies his choice by saying that "this way he can change anything he wants quickly". I think that at the age of Unity or other engines, you can change anything you want just as quickly.

 

Snarky

The game is being developed for Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and Xbox One, with the hope of porting to other consoles. AGS? Get real.

Monsieur OUXX

Quote from: Snarky on Tue 22/09/2015 11:59:22
The game is being developed for Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and Xbox One, with the hope of porting to other consoles. AGS? Get real.
I said AGS or other engines. However AGS does all the systems you mentionned except XBox (and there's even a half-finished converter to XBox).
My point was: recreating an entire point n click engine for something as low-demanding as this type of game, is a waste of money and time, from a purely business perspective (which is a central aspect of crowd-funded projects)
 

Snarky

Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Tue 22/09/2015 16:01:23
However AGS does all the systems you mentionned except XBox (and there's even a half-finished converter to XBox).

Not very well or very easily. I'm actually not convinced that it would be quicker for him to learn AGS, work within its limitations and deal with all the tedium (and dev builds) it would take to port the game to all those platforms than it is for him to slap together his own engine from parts he already had lying around.

Besides, the last Ron Gilbert blog post was all about the benefits of automating processes (like building, or testing, or updating resources), which AGS is spectacularly bad at. And that's without even getting into all the other problems with using AGS for commercial releases (e.g. the infamous save game problem). Face it, AGS just isn't fit for purpose for a professional team that isn't already steeped in it (because that was not the task it was originally designed for). Plus, he has specific requirements that AGS doesn't offer (e.g. smoothly changing character tinting, composing character animations from multiple parts) and that would be more work to implement in AGS than in his own engine.

There could be other engines that would be more suitable, but he did review a bunch and decided he wasn't happy with any of them. (Another issue, I believe, is that he's a big Mac guy and wants tools that run on Mac, which not all of them do.)

I'm generally in favor of not reinventing the wheel, but with an experienced engine programmer like Gilbert it just doesn't seem like a big deal: It's probably more crucial that the tools support their preferred workflow and pipelines than the few weeks he spent putting together the core functionality before they could really start working. In the end they might gain more than they "waste".

Myinah

I don't know if you guys saw the latest blog where Ron introduces the new team members.

I have been in two minds whether or not to post here but I did want to share the news that I've been hired as the new writer. It's really exciting and I wouldn't have this job if it wasn't for AGS, the wonderful community, and my dev partner Sox (droppedmonoclegames). Most people here probably wouldn't know my name or Twitter handle as its different to my forum one but yeah. Just thought I would share the news.

Mandle

Myinah, that is amazing news and HUGE congratulations!!!

Thank's for sharing this news with us. It's very inspirational!

Here's the relevant part from the blog for people who don't like to click too much:

Spoiler
Lauren founded Dropped Monocle Games with her friend Sox Brooker in 2012. While discussing their love of point and click adventure games after an evening of DnD, and probably too much cider, they decided they could totally make a game! How hard can it be? This led to the creation of a "charmingly crap" point and click called Witchy Woo. In spite of its "flaws" (although it still won the game jam), people seemed to like her writing, so they kept doing it and whipped up a couple more games, including another jam winner, Mess Goblins, and Goatherd and the Gods, nominated for several AGS awards. You can follow her on Twitter at @boosegoose.
[close]

(Oops, sorry. I guess you had to click anyway...)

selmiak

congrats on that Myinah, that's really exciting!!!

On a sidenot, in the newest podcast episode Ron Gilbert mentions he wants to open source the adventure game engine he is writing for Thimbleweed Park, but the game itself will not be opensourced...

Myinah

Thanks guys! I haven't chatted with him about the engine open sourcing but it would be interesting. I do like the dialog syntax he has created. It's pretty refined and I was able to pick it up with some ease as a rather sub par programmer. Fingers crossed he does release it as an open source project because I think it will be a slick dev tool. Although Sox and I will continue to develop on AGS for the foreseeable future unless something amazing takes its place. We are putting together the foundation for our first full length release as we speak!

Stupot

Cracking news, Myinah.
I hope you will keep us up to date (no spoilers of course).
Best of luck with everything.

Mandle

I'm really interested in hearing how you found out about the job opening and especially what the interview process was like...

I gather from the blog that your works so far were looked at. Was there anything else you had to do like write an example scene you were given etc? Were official qualifications required? What kind of questions were you asked? Was there anything unusual or weird about the process (I know Ron has quite an evil sense of humour)?

I totally understand if you are not allowed to talk about some or all of these points, or just do not feel comfortable talking about it. If you can however I'm sure it would be a great read for the community!

Myinah

Sure. I don't think Ron will mind me talking about the hiring stuff. I'm not able to talk about the game much for obvious reasons, but Ron is a great guy so I don't see any reason why I couldn't.

I found out about the job through a game dev group for women on Facebook. Jenn Sandercock the new programmer posted about the search for a writer and I pretty much screamed and ran to my laptop to send Ron a message through the contact form on the Thimbleweed website. It was a basic cover letter explaining my experience and linking to my games. No CV or anything.

Ron was at Gamescom when this kicked off so it took a while for him to respond, but when he got back he set us a writing assignment. I don't think I have ever been more nervous writing something, or had a worse case of writers block. I was convinced I wouldn't get it. A month or two later when I got the message I had been successful I actually felt faint and had to lie down. I had worked so hard preparing myself for failure that I had not even slightly prepared myself for the scenario where I got the job.

I don't think Ron asked me many questions. We didn't really talk much until after I got the job. He does have a wicked sense of humour though and it was requested we appeal to it in the writing challenge. Those of you who have played my games may be aware I have a slightly dark sense of humour myself. Of my own stupid jokes the thing that makes me laugh out loud every time I play it is in Witchy Woo.

Spoiler
When you add fairy dust to the cauldron and she accidentally commits fairy genocide. The screams are what really tickle me.
[close]

With regard to the qualifications thing I actually think they may have talked about this in the most recent podcast. They definitely don't look for degrees or specific qualifications. Gary has a degree in business or something? They said there were no game design courses in their day and that they are entirely self taught. To them a person with a qualification isn't more or less desirable than a person who is self taught.

I have no academic qualifications beyond my AS levels. I got sick during my A Level year with my autoimmune disease and flared for maybe 2 years which meant I missed going to university. I never went back to get more qualifications because I was too old to get them for free by that point, so I just went into full time work when I could. When my illness flared again and I lost my job it was worse than it had ever been so I needed something to keep me from losing my mind to boredom. AGS was a lifesaver for me. Even if it wasn't making money it was keeping me busy, giving me writing and development experience and making my life happier. In the end it gave me the experience I needed for this job. I was also doing freelance copy but AGS is the thing that helped me write dialog and understand programming.

So basically I think I got this job because I have a dark sense of humour, I was in the right dev group at the right time, and I had already written a bunch of comedy point and clicks. I also think finishing our games was a big factor. It's very easy to start a game, but finishing one isn't. If we hadn't finished the games I wouldn't have had anything in my portfolio. So even though they may not be the most polished amazing games, they are at least complete. 

I think that answered most things? (laugh)


Mandle


Snarky

Yes, congrats Myinah, and hope you'll enjoy the job! It's great that there'll be AGS talent behind this title. The way Gilbert and Winick are building up the team and raising the quality level on the stuff they're previewing is going a long way to address some of the concerns I had at the start of the project; I'm happy I ended up backing it.

Dropped Monocle Games

Yeah well.... Ron is following me on Twitter. so :P

I am pretty sure that your humor and way of writing is what helped you get the job.

now stop showing off and get to work on the story for our next game :P

Monsieur OUXX

 

Cassiebsg

There are those who believe that life here began out there...

LostTrainDude

I actually dropped my own monocle when I read the news on the Thimbleweed Park blog (laugh)
Congratulations, really :) I've always found Dropped Monocle's games to be great!

Thanks a lot for sharing!
"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

[delete}

Mr Ferrari still has the deluxe paint vibes. He's really an ace!

Mandle

Quote from: Otterina on Thu 03/03/2016 23:29:17
Their latest Special Agent Ray trailer looks so very promising and funny.

That does look amazing! Nitpick: I'm not quite sure how I feel about the "bloated and pixelated" line though. On the one hand it is funny, but on the other hand it kinda feels like too much of a wink to the player. 4th wall breaking is a very delicate business I feel: Overstep just a little and you can break immersion completely.

Just my opinion: The game seems to have a lovely Twin Peaks feel, so now that's two games I know of coming out this year that have that in common: Interesting, considering the new series is coming out soon too!

Snarky

I didn't think the trailer was very good, to tell the truth. The rhythm seemed way off, and the voiceover, music and picture often seemed to clash. I'm not sure whether that's the final voice of Ray or just a temp track, but the actor didn't really sound professional - stumbling over her words and not conveying much in terms of emotion or atmosphere - and the recording quality wasn't great, either. Mind you, it would be difficult to make that whole monologue flow properly: it tried way too hard to cram in too many details without offering a point of entry (i.e. why is she telling us this?).

Also, I'm not keen on the post-processing effects on the pixel art (I noticed heat shimmer and "old film" scratches and hair); I hope that's just for the video and not in the game itself. And I can see why: it did feel rather static.

Most of this has more to do with the art of cutting a trailer than with the game itself, which might be great. And for those who haven't followed the development, I can see how the jump in production values from the Kickstarter campaign would be impressive. But the trailer itself is rather unimpressive, IMO.

Danvzare

Quote from: Snarky on Fri 04/03/2016 16:03:04
I didn't think the trailer was very good, to tell the truth. The rhythm seemed way off, and the voiceover, music and picture often seemed to clash. I'm not sure whether that's the final voice of Ray or just a temp track, but the actor didn't really sound professional - stumbling over her words and not conveying much in terms of emotion or atmosphere - and the recording quality wasn't great, either. Mind you, it would be difficult to make that whole monologue flow properly: it tried way too hard to cram in too many details without offering a point of entry (i.e. why is she telling us this?).

Also, I'm not keen on the post-processing effects on the pixel art (I noticed heat shimmer and "old film" scratches and hair); I hope that's just for the video and not in the game itself. And I can see why: it did feel rather static.

Most of this has more to do with the art of cutting a trailer than with the game itself, which might be great. And for those who haven't followed the development, I can see how the jump in production values from the Kickstarter campaign would be impressive. But the trailer itself is rather unimpressive, IMO.

Having just watched the trailer myself. I agree that it wasn't exactly a great trailer, it was nice, but not great. I'm still very much looking forward to the game though.
And while I wholeheartedly disagree about the post-processing effects on the pixel art (I rather liked those), I must agree with what you said about the voiceover. That voice actor is kind of... underwhelming.

Myinah

Thimbleweed Park had a great reception at GDC and Ron wrote a great post about it linking to some of the articles written about the game.

It's really exciting seeing it all come together. I don't think you can please everyone but honestly the art, music, puzzles, and humour are all there.

I've also noticed a few people seemed to think Ray was basically going to be Scully, which she really really isn't, and I think that's why some people were surprised by her voice. I think it colours people's expectations of the character somewhat even before they've played the game.

Snarky

No, sorry. Irrespective of the character, it's just not a very good performance. It's probably partly the way the actor is trying to do a "hard-boiled" voice, but you also have several stumbles and half-swallowed syllables that just don't sound professional. E.g. in the first sentence, she doesn't enunciate "were prepared" properly, and then when she gets to "I arrived" it comes out more like "I 'rive'". I don't think anyone is able to follow her rushing through "a victim of the violence we bring on each other in pursuit of our dreams turned to nightmare" on first listen, but the writing is just as much to blame for that. But then next you get "junior agent Reyes" all slurred together as well, and there's no excuse for that, unless it's that it's just way too much monologue in way too short a time.

Myinah

I think it's personal preference. Plenty of people understood her perfectly well. The blog comments are very active and uncensored and there was a great response to the trailer and the voice actress. Of course there are people who didn't like it and have concerns but I mean that's a given with any game. :)

Mandle

I've just watched the trailer through again three times and I cannot for the life of me catch the voice actor tripping over her lines...

I think the writing also is spot-on and the mood is very well set for the game...

Loving the Twin Peaks vibe again...

                                                           again...

                                                                          again...

                                                                                      IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN...

Danvzare

Quote from: Snarky on Wed 23/03/2016 07:53:08
No, sorry. Irrespective of the character, it's just not a very good performance. It's probably partly the way the actor is trying to do a "hard-boiled" voice, but you also have several stumbles and half-swallowed syllables that just don't sound professional. E.g. in the first sentence, she doesn't enunciate "were prepared" properly, and then when she gets to "I arrived" it comes out more like "I 'rive'". I don't think anyone is able to follow her rushing through "a victim of the violence we bring on each other in pursuit of our dreams turned to nightmare" on first listen, but the writing is just as much to blame for that. But then next you get "junior agent Reyes" all slurred together as well, and there's no excuse for that, unless it's that it's just way too much monologue in way too short a time.

You must have a very keen ear, because I don't think anyone can hear any stumbles or half-swallowed syllables (or at the very least, nowhere near as many as you can). The voice actor seemed to speak quite clearly to me, although you make it sound like she was talking with the strongest Yorkshire accent imaginable.

LUniqueDan

I know I have hell of expectations here.
But after 30 minutes so far, it doesn't look like a 'labor of love'. Impossible to skip intro... interfaces seems unfinished (no Mouse-over over some buttons, awfuly badly imported TTfonts, kinda missing sounds and many things seems mecanically pixelised). Some very predictable interactions are not taken into account (Talk to Corpse).

I'm enjoying it so far, but like Dualnames wrote earlier, we all know people arround here doing more for less...
(I found the Chainsaw of expectations !!  := )
"I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Destroyed pigeon nests on the roof of the toolshed. I watched dead mice glitter in the dark, near the rain gutter trap.
All those moments... will be lost... in time, like tears... in... rain."

Yitcomics

Oh man I really wanna play this game, but I just don't got 20$ at the moment.  :~(

Snarky

I don't know for "labor of love", but a lot of those things you mention are just plain sloppy. In following the blog updates I've been impressed with the team's professionalism, so failing to dot those I's and cross the T's is disappointing.

The font-outlining in the UI is also really bad: it creates way too much visual noise.

So some flaws that are hard to understand, but at the same time the game has been getting very good reviews. AdventureGamers gives it a full five stars: http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/32506

MiteWiseacreLives!

I haven't been following this too closely, but I will probably be playing it soon. While I'm going through it I'll be looking to see why this couldn't be made in AGS.

CaptainD

Quote from: MiteWiseacreLives! on Fri 31/03/2017 14:44:08
While I'm going through it I'll be looking to see why this couldn't be made in AGS.

That's an interesting thought, I honestly don't think you'll find any reason though.
 

Snarky

"Coming March 30th, 2017 to Windows, Mac, Xbox One, and Linux. iOS, Android, and other platforms will follow soon after."

CaptainD

Quote from: Snarky on Fri 31/03/2017 14:49:08
"Coming March 30th, 2017 to Windows, Mac, Xbox One, and Linux. iOS, Android, and other platforms will follow soon after."

Well I meant as in making the PC version  :P wasn't thinking in terms of portability, where AGS is clearly behind.  But fair enough, from that point of view it couldn't be done in AGS (at least not yet).
 

Snarky

Going by the dev blog and previous videos, there are a bunch of little visual effects and things that you couldn't do in AGS in any straightforward way, but obviously with a few compromises you could recreate the general look-and-feel in AGS â€" as you could with pretty much any 2D adventure game.

Crimson Wizard

I did not follow the development blog, but I guess nowadays people make 2d games in 3d engines, because latter allow everything that "pure" 2d engine has, plus very easy and fast zooming and rotating of sprites (and whole scenes).

Myinah

We've been really lucky and have had a lot of amazing reviews. I'm certainly humbled and grateful for all the positive feed back. I'm a little sad to see its not been so well received here, but hey you can't win em all!

Also just a quick FYI you dont need to have the outlined font in the UI. We have a classic font option more in line with classic SCUMM. And AGS was never considered as an engine option as far as I'm aware. Ron is an experienced engine programmer so it wasn't hard for him to build his own. In my opinion AGS would have been unsuitable because we needed to port to so many different platforms and it has too many limitations. I'm not sure why anyone would want us to compromise on the visual beauty of the game just so it could be programmed on AGS. Bit odd in my opinion but there you go! (laugh)

Hope the rest of you enjoy the game as much as we enjoyed making it! For us it certainly was a labour of love!

LuciferSam86

Just finished on "casual mode" because i wanted to see that mode, and holy beeping beep, the game from start to end was perfect.

Now I will try the normal mode to see more. Wish me luck  (laugh)
God is Real, unless declared Integer

Snarky

Quote from: Myinah on Sat 01/04/2017 11:29:05
Also just a quick FYI you dont need to have the outlined font in the UI. We have a classic font option more in line with classic SCUMM.

I just installed and played through the intro, experimenting with different settings. There seems to be a bug where turning off the outline font for the UI buttons ("Retro-Verbs" â€" these settings could be better explained/documented, btw) also forces the classic "sentence line" (in other words, hotspot names appear at the bottom of the playable area rather than by the cursor. The "Classic Sentence" setting then doesn't do anything apart from changing the cursor to a star when over a hotspot.

Quote from: LUniqueDan on Fri 31/03/2017 01:37:21awfuly badly imported TTfonts

I'm not seeing that. The fonts render properly (sharply, without any antialiasing for pixel fonts) on my screen. Still, I do think the mix of resolutions with the fonts in particular is a bit off-putting. I'm seeing at least four different ones on screen at the same time: e.g. if you choose retro fonts, they're not in the same resolution as the graphics, they use another resolution for font outlining, and the retro verbs are in yet another resolution. Even with using HD for things like parallax and rotations (so you get diagonal "pixels"), I think the "retro pixel resolution" should be kept consistent.

The backgrounds are lovely, though.

CaptainD

Quote from: Myinah on Sat 01/04/2017 11:29:05
I'm not sure why anyone would want us to compromise on the visual beauty of the game just so it could be programmed on AGS. Bit odd in my opinion but there you go! (laugh)

I don't think anyone was actually suggesting that!  More just a point of interest, "could we have made this with AGS?".

I haven't played it yet so can't give any feedback, but it certainly looks like something I would want to play, so that must count for something  ;)
 

Frodo

I'm having SO much fun with this game.  Feels like I'm back in the 80s.   :grin: :grin: :grin:

Myinah

Quote

I don't think anyone was actually suggesting that!  More just a point of interest, "could we have made this with AGS?".


Ha ha! My bad! I have ASD and I tend to miss that and take everything quite literally! I've lost count of the times my friends and family make some jokey statement and I correct them or question it because I took it literally. I think that will always be my blind spot! (laugh)

[delete}

Mark Ferrari gave a nice 8bit pixel speech. A nice guy.

Mandle

This has been on my MUST PLAY list since I first heard of it, and I will play it once I have the time left over from other projects!

Probably sometime around December... But I WILL PLAY THIS GAME!!!

CaptainD

Quote from: Myinah on Sat 01/04/2017 15:33:40
Quote

I don't think anyone was actually suggesting that!  More just a point of interest, "could we have made this with AGS?".


Ha ha! My bad! I have ASD and I tend to miss that and take everything quite literally! I've lost count of the times my friends and family make some jokey statement and I correct them or question it because I took it literally. I think that will always be my blind spot! (laugh)

Haha no worries.

On another note, I didn't know you were involved in such a prestigious game (my blind spot is not paying attention properly!) - congrats on that.
 

LameNick

I haven't got far yet, but I already love the game. There are bunch of bugs, some minor things that could have been improved upon and few things that didn't exactly fit my taste of humor. But from the most part I think the way the game is designed is actually quite brilliant, the atmosphere is awesome, the experience of playing the game in every possible way feels very rich and stimulating and often funny in a cute typical Monkey Island way.

And frankly, comments insinuating that every other Tom, Dick and Harry on AGS forums regularly makes better games for free and Ron Gilbert with the team got funded because of some stupid undeserved hype just to show how incompetent they really are and make an inferior overpriced product, are getting on my nerves, because (although I'm very far from being a game developer) to me it just very clearly is not true.
How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

MiteWiseacreLives!

Aww man, I forgot one of our own was working on this game!
Congratulations! (nod)
Nope, not going to slam it without trying either way. It's just a point of curiosity for myself to wonder what kind of advantages the new Ron G engine would have and whether it was important for him to build a new one or was it just something they wanted to do.
Now do we all start guessing which lines you wrote? (yay a game within a game)

Trapezoid

Finished it earlier today! From a puzzle-design perspective, it's pretty ambitious and carefully constructed.

Mark Ferrari's backgrounds are pure eye-candy, though they mix a little oddly with the goofy bigheaded character art. Honestly, the biggest pang of nostalgia I got was
Spoiler
walking through the temp art at the end. That's when the style meshed the best, and I sorta wish the whole game achieved that look, which looks like what they originally planned. Can't really fault anyone for hiring Ferrari though.
[close]
The humor is even more wink-wink than Monkey Island ever was and that can get on your nerves. The plot has a similar weakness to The Cave in that you play a bunch of random grab-bag characters of different styles and genres and it kind of dilutes the overall atmosphere. Having a bunch of disparate goals made it hard to identify with any one, the way you do with "become a pirate" or "rescue Sandy."

Not to focus on the negative! I'm just worried about it getting overhyped. Ultimately, it's 10-20 hours of really well-designed adventure gaming with tons of charming callbacks and details. If you're on this forum of course you should get it.

LUniqueDan

#104
Quote from: LameNick on Sat 01/04/2017 20:55:35[...] comments insinuating that every other Tom, Dick and Harry on AGS forums regularly makes better games for free and Ron Gilbert with the team got funded because of some stupid undeserved hype just to show how incompetent they really are and make an inferior overpriced product
Well,
Is the game actually overated ? : Yes.
Ok, the graphics are professional (they are really nice indeed) and there's voice acting but :

Originality / Story : Zero. I'm very very sorry here, but yeah. I dunno how people will buy the "it's ok because it's all about nostalgia" rhethoric, but overall it ends up to be our average Lucasart fan game until the game switch to a very annoying and predictable *cliche* "twist".   
Gameplay : Missing at least 50 hotspots and 100 lines of dialogues. Empty ginormous rooms. Inconsistent interface. The game tempo is broken.
Puzzles : Some inside the motel are clever, but otherwise fairly standard. Logical solutions to random problems created to justify puzzles. 
Duration : I get through the game in 18 hours (Hard), two-third of them wasted because the to-do lists are somewhat misleading and the puzzle solutions are chapter-related. And, my bad, I didn't know how to skip repetitive speeches. Otherwise, it's basically an average-size RON game with fewer locations, fewer interactions and fewer characters which none of them are particulary original nor interesting.

The game is excellent for 30 minutes, then it slowly self-destruct itself not really knowing if it's a drama, humoristic, adventurous (clue: it's not) or post-neo-budhist-4th-wall-breaking-b.s. (spoiler: it is)

EDIT :
Snarky, I was refering to the font inside the paperwork.
"I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Destroyed pigeon nests on the roof of the toolshed. I watched dead mice glitter in the dark, near the rain gutter trap.
All those moments... will be lost... in time, like tears... in... rain."

Snarky

What to think about the puzzles and writing is of course subjective, but come on! This is by no means "an average-size RON game": it's much bigger than your average-sized AGS game, and significantly bigger than most full-length commercial titles. 18 hours is a hefty chunk of time, and even if you spent some of that being stuck (which we normally call "playing an adventure game"), there's just no way you could have completed it in a third of the time (perhaps unless you're speed-running it, already knowing exactly what to do to take the shortest possible path through the game).

Quote from: LUniqueDan on Sun 02/04/2017 08:51:50
Gameplay : Missing at least 50 hotspots and 100 lines of dialogues. Empty ginormous rooms. Inconsistent interface. The game tempo is broken.

Could you be more specific about the UI and missing hotspots/dialogue? I was a bit thrown at first that you can't look at characters or try talking to non-characters, but that is clearly a deliberate and internally consistent design decision.

QuoteSnarky, I was refering to the font inside the paperwork.

Paperwork? I did see that the font in the phone catalog is pretty wonky, if that's what you mean.

LUniqueDan

There's cliché, and there's
Spoiler
"*Hahahahhahahahahahah*Sheldon, it's like in adventure games !", "All of this was a dream. Even for you KrustyRansome. THE END" cliché.
[close]
QuoteWe don't want to make a game “inspired by,” or “paying homage to” classic point & click adventures, we want to make a real classic point & click adventure.

There is "being stuck" and "being stuck by bad design" (mostly from a game sooo proud of the MM revolution...)
12/18 hours is redoing the same maze 20 times before you get hinted that it was purely for MI1 nostalgia purpose and have nothing to do with the solution even if there is a shovel in the game. It's using the same item on the different characters even if the item are not use by the game (as far as I know). It's listenning (without skipping) to 2 long lines of unhandled event for an item that's going to be use as a totally random tool at the very end.

So... I still believe it's pretty much the size of a RON game. If you stretch downtown with empty buildings, double/restart the puzzles, add 12 floors to a building, add a slow elevator and put 4/5 playing characters (so the player rarely know if something was plain impossible or just character-related) add pseudo-mazes, use the same twice...

Most interesting rooms are empty. More it was difficult to access a room more empty it's going to be (and therefore not rewarding, the worst, imho, being the Pizza room). Pretty much all location after 2 hours of gameplay fits that description. In fact, pretty much everything after 2 standard gameplay hours cross the line of decay. And it doesn't really matter, because... well, you know, Ze ending. Arround the end the player can't even talk, the characters cutscene together. At a point, the game even suggest to watch the game trailer to have a clue. (Yes this is empty) 

Anyway, enough Thimbleberries for me.

(My bad, by "paperworks" I meant all the Agendas / Security book etc... that you collect within the game, the ones that use a non-horizontal font)
"I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Destroyed pigeon nests on the roof of the toolshed. I watched dead mice glitter in the dark, near the rain gutter trap.
All those moments... will be lost... in time, like tears... in... rain."

Snarky

It's clear you don't like it, but spoiling the ending with no warning is not cool, LDan. >:(

Just finished it, in fourteen hours, with maybe one or two hours spent stuck or going down wrong paths (I'm pretty impatient, and looked up hints on I think four occasions; I don't think any of the puzzles were really unfair, though the size of the game and your inventory means it's pretty easy to overlook or forget something, and the non-linear nature of the puzzles means that it's sometimes hard to know what you need to do next, as the TODO lists don't distinguish between immediate tasks and longer-term goals). I'd say it's about double the length of your average Wadjet Eye game, probably three or four times the length of a "typical" full-length RON game. With map-travel and double-click or hold to run (plus the ability to solve many puzzles with whichever character was handy), I don't think the size of the rooms really slowed the gameplay down to any considerable extent, and honestly, unless you're just riding that elevator up and down for no reason, you're not spending more than a few minutes over the whole length of the game there.

Overall I thought it was quite solid. The one thing I really wish is that the game wasn't so adventure-game self-referential. It gets old fast, and it's already been done so much in fan and indie games (in particular, it invites comparisons to the Ben & Dan games, which aren't really in Thimbleweed's favor). Plus, it just seems a bit tacky when it's your own games being referenced.

Edit: Oh, one more thing. There are quite a lot of loose ends in the story, aren't there?

Spoiler
Above all, I don't think we ever actually learn exactly how the German guy died. It wasn't Willie, obviously (we never do get around to clearing his name), and it seems clear that Chuck and/or PillowTron3000 was ultimately responsible, but how did they do it? And there's a suggestion that the Sheriff/Coroner is a robot controlled by PillowTron, right? If he's in on it, why didn't they just cover up the death? And why do they keep knocking out Reyes (in my playthrough), yet never eliminate him completely? I feel like all the handwaving in the world about secret plans and "not drawing the attention of the developers" isn't really enough to resolve the game's original mystery.
[close]

Danvzare

Quote from: LUniqueDan on Sun 02/04/2017 12:30:51
So... I still believe it's pretty much the size of a RON game. If you stretch downtown with empty buildings, double/restart the puzzles, add 12 floors to a building, add a slow elevator and put 4/5 playing characters (so the player rarely know if something was plain impossible or just character-related) add pseudo-mazes, use the same twice...
Alright then, if that's true, I challenge you to make that RON game. :)
And no, that's not a joke, I'm serious and actually want to see you make that RON game. Get a team together and make it. We need more new RON game, and you just came up with the premise for a new one. Not only that, but according to you, it should be just as good (or bad) as Thimbleweed Park. :-D

By the way, I've yet to play Thimbleweed Park, but I'm looking forward to it.
So far though, I think everyone's complaints can be boiled down to having very high expectations, just because Ron Gilbert worked on it. The guy hasn't worked on an Adventure game in over two decades as far as I know, so I'm not surprised that it's lacking a few things.

Hopefully they learn from their lessons and make another which is better. :-D

Mandle

I was very interested in this conversation, but I happened to glance at something that Snarky wrote about someone spoiling the end of the game in their post.

As I plan to play this game, I'm now scared to read this thread further...

And yeah: Posting unhidden spoilers is NOT COOL!!!

Cassiebsg

Mandle, Snarky has edited the spoiler into hidden tags, it should be safe to read now.  (nod) Just make sure to avoid the hidden tag...  ;)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Esseb

Mandle won't see that reply until after he's finished the game.

Hi, future Mandle!

Mandle

Quote from: Esseb on Mon 03/04/2017 17:47:53
Mandle won't see that reply until after he's finished the game.

Hi, future Mandle!

Naw...I'm back...I just scrolled down real quick to look and see if it had been fixed

Dave Gilbert

Played and finished it! All-in-all, I enjoyed it. Ron & co created exactly what they said they would: a Maniac Mansion style throwback with gorgeous retro visuals and fun characters. The puzzles were logical (if spread out a bit thin), the town was fun, and the sound design and VO acting was GREAT. My only issue was the ending. Which was... an ending. Personally I didn't like it, but I seem to be in the minority.  I know my own ending to the Blackwell series was kinda divisive so I won't throw stones here.

Mandle

Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Tue 04/04/2017 15:38:09
I know my own ending to the Blackwell series was kinda divisive so I won't throw stones here.

It was the only ending that fans had not already spammed-guessed ahead of time... And I happen to love it. So unexpected and yet fitting... You didn't just avoid the obvious endings, you gave the characters their final story arcs, and also made us cry, and also made us hope.

Problem

Just finished it, and I liked it a lot. I didn't back the game on Kickstarter back then, because I was highly sceptical. But it turns out that this is one of the kickstarter games that delivers on their promises in all aspects.
And it's a big game. Saying it is the size of an average RON game is ridiculous - of course I haven't counted the actions required to complete it, but they are many. The game has a lot of puzzles, most of them being on the easy side. Since parts of the story are very non-linear, I sometimes didn't know what to do next, but on the other hand I rarely got stuck either.
Granted, sometimes there's no real motivation or logic why the different characters are working together (or sharing knowledge without even having met each other). This is one of the main challenges in such an ambitious concept (being able to switch between five playable characters throughout most of the game), and it seems the developers just accepted the "adventure game logic" that came with this approach.
The puzzles themselves are fine. And in terms of gameplay and pacing, Thimbleweed Park is masterfully designed. The story keeps progressing with every little puzzle you solve, and the whole game flows really well. The first half is particularly tight, there's always something happening and new stuff to be discovered. Very rewarding, and this is something only very few adventure games pull off.

Now, what I didn't like about it: It doesn't just break the fourth wall. I drives a bulldozer through the fourth wall. The endless self-references and adventure game jokes got tedious after a while. Sometimes this was indeed very funny. But in my opinion Thimbleweed Park had its best moments when it forgot about its legacy and did its own thing.


DBoyWheeler

I think this was seen in GOG as well, if I'm not mistaken.  I saw it on Steam too!

Hmm... I might need to look into this sometime.

CaesarCub

Since everyone is giving an opinion, why not join in.

I finished the game, I really enjoyed it, even if it's far from perfect. Way better than the second part of Broken Age, which I basically suffered through.
The art is gorgeous, and the effects work, even if it can trigger a lot of OCD having so many different pixel sizes in the screen at the same time.
The story is good, even if the ending is not what I would have wanted.
The game felt huge to me, hell I felt that the amount of rooms you could access at any given time were too many, and that can make it so confusing when you get stuck, and you have too many places to backtrack.
The other problem I had related to this is that some characters will do things others won't, and at points it's not clear if you picked the wrong character, or if what you want to do is simply not possible at all.
Another thing that got boring pretty fast was the sheer amount of references and fourth wall breaking.
But still, despite all this, the game was quite fun, and I really hope they will be able to make another game with the same team but with a completely different tone and setting.

A game I would completely recommend to anyone that likes adventure games. Not so sure about people new to the genre since the game becomes too big and too complicated very fast, but then again I didn't play the game in easy mode.

Spoilery rant:
Spoiler

While I do get that all the self-reference and awareness of the characters are explained away by the fact that they are in an adventure game, I think the only jokes I enjoyed were the jabs at Sierra On-Line, and still those were too on the nose.
I guess this kind of break-reality endings are part of what Ron Gilbert enjoys (I still remember feeling weirded out by the MI2 ending) but I still enjoyed this game.
[close]


KONEY

Hi guys,

I'm curious to know if I'm the only one heavily disappointed by the way this game has been made. Art and story are top notch but the graphics are not real pixel but vector based. For example when characters walk far their singular pixel are scaled down and this isn't pixel graphic in my opinion. Also the game is forced to 16:9 so there's no way to display it on CRT monitor.

I should have been developed with AGS, not Unity :)

Problem

The mixed resolutions are of course a matter of taste. I ususally don't like it, but for Thimbleweed Park it works quite well, because the game uses visual effects you can't achieve otherwise. The pixels are scaled and rotated, sometimes the whole screen is tilted, and in some situations screen shader effects are used.
But that doesn't mean it's not pixel art. The screens and the characters are clearly drawn as pixel art - vector art is something completely different. The engine scales and rotates the pixel art and achieves effects that the developers wanted, but an engine like AGS isn't capable of. But there are no vector graphics in this game.

And where did you get that it was made with Unity? Thimbleweed Park was not made with Unity. Ron Gilbert wrote his own engine.

Snarky

Sniped by Problem!

Quote from: KONEY on Thu 06/04/2017 13:43:01the graphics are not real pixel but vector based. For example when characters walk far their singular pixel are scaled down and this isn't pixel graphic in my opinion.

It's not vector based, that's something entirely different. What they're doing is displaying low-resolution pixel graphics in a high-resolution game using modern hardware rendering developed for 3D games. That means they can scale them to various resolutions and rotate the pixel blocks, but they're still pixel graphics.

In fact, you can do something like this in AGS as well, though not with the same flexibility. A general term for this style is mixed resolution.

Quote from: KONEY on Thu 06/04/2017 13:43:01Also the game is forced to 16:9 so there's no way to display it on CRT monitor.

There are 16:9 CRT monitors (and 4:3 LCD monitors), and I'm sure the game will display fine, with black bars.

Quote from: KONEY on Thu 06/04/2017 13:43:01I should have been developed with AGS, not Unity :)

It was not developed in Unity, but in a custom engine written by Ron Gilbert.

KONEY

OK, the way it's _drawn_ is pixel graphic but the way it's _displayed_ is vector based. This is what I meant.

My guess is Unity because the scrolling is jerky like in other fake-pixel games I've seen made in unity. If every pixel is a polygon moving all of them sometimes is not very precise. So just my guess :)

Problem

Scrolling is perfectly smooth for me. And "every pixel is a polygon", seriously? This is not how it works. More like: Every background/character/object is a (textured) polygon.

CaesarCub

I guess the main issue is how "retro" a game should be.
Should the game be in 320x200 for a non square pixel 4:3 ratio screen when most devices now are 16:9 and have a hard time showing non-square pixels correctly?
Now, if you decide not to use the exact old resultion, then the question is should you take advantage of all the other stuff you can or keep the self imposed limitations?
I do find that they went a little too far in some things for my taste, mostly when rotating things that would make the "pixels" look at odd angles.
But most of the other effects used worked.
I might have liked it to be a little bit more retro, but they have stated several times that the idea was to make a game like you "remembered" the old games, that is enhancing everything they could but keeping a retro aesthetic.

Btw, if you play the game in a 4:3 resolution it will work fine, but like a 16:9 movie it will be letterboxed.

KONEY

You have a point but what I say is that with a few options they could have done it right for everyone. 16:9 or 4:3? Fixed pixel or 3D effect? This was not difficult.

What is happening is that people owning the right display for old games see it wrong and people with the wrong display see it correctly... there's something wrong here.

At this point I'm very glad I didn't bake it on Kickstarter

Crimson Wizard

Quote from: Problem on Thu 06/04/2017 14:19:11
Scrolling is perfectly smooth for me. And "every pixel is a polygon", seriously? This is not how it works. More like: Every background/character/object is a (textured) polygon.

I think I can guess what KONEY means, although he does not use correct terminology. The thing is that when you work with textures, you no longer have guaranteed 1:1 relation between different layers, in terms of original pixels. So when characters move along the screen, they may end up standing at 0.5 pixel of background.

But then again, this is just a guess, because I haven't played the game yet.

KONEY

Maybe it's like you say object instead of pixel but the point is that it lacks consistency on the pixel dimension.

Quote from: Problem on Thu 06/04/2017 14:19:11
Scrolling is perfectly smooth for me. And "every pixel is a polygon", seriously? This is not how it works. More like: Every background/character/object is a (textured) polygon.

KONEY

Exactly but now I found the term and it's LACK OF CONSISTENCY IN PIXEL DIMENSIONS :)

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 06/04/2017 14:35:40
I think I can guess what KONEY means, although he does not use correct terminology. The thing is that when you work with textures, you no longer have guaranteed 1:1 relation between different layers, in terms of original pixels. So when characters move along the screen, they may end up standing at 0.5 pixel of background.

CaesarCub

Quote from: KONEY on Thu 06/04/2017 14:33:40
What is happening is that people owning the right display for old games see it wrong and people with the wrong display see it correctly... there's something wrong here.

Well I think that the issue is that Thimbleweed Park is not meant to be an old game. It is a modern game that borrows the aesthetic of the older games, made for modern day hardware and modern day displays.
I find it funny that there are no complains about the audio quality being also "wrong" or the music not being done in MIDI instead.

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 06/04/2017 14:35:40
I think I can guess what KONEY means, although he does not use correct terminology. The thing is that when you work with textures, you no longer have guaranteed 1:1 relation between different layers, in terms of original pixels. So when characters move along the screen, they may end up standing at 0.5 pixel of background.

Yeah, I understand this, but the game has a lot of effects done in a higher resolution on top of them, including "sub-pixel" resizing of characters when they are far away, so I bet it would have been a huge pain in the ass to try and implement "pixel-perfect" scrolling and positioning.

Problem

Yeah, and that's just a stylistic choice. But it has nothing to do with jerky scrolling. In fact, "sub-pixel" scrolling is usually smoother. Of course, they still could have done "pixel snapping" if they wanted it. It's not like this isn't possible, many games make use of modern graphics hardware and still keep a consistent retro resolution.

When I saw the first screenshots, I didn't like the mixed pixel resolutions either. But when I saw the game in motion, it was clear why they did this. They decided against a full retro look to make certain effects possible, and result is that you will have a hard time finding two elements that share the same pixel size. If it was just the scaled characters having a different resolution compared to everything else in the game, it would have been much more distracting for me. But the game is scaling and rotating the pixel art all over the place, so it's somehow "consistently inconsistent" ;)

KONEY

All I'd say is that the way the game celebrates pixel art is at the same time denying it too and I really dislike like it :) Is anyone sharing my opinion? This was the question in the first instance :)

Problem

Nope, I don't share this opinion. They celebrate pixel art by using it in a modern context, doing things they probably would have done, but couldn't do back in the 80s. They couldn't do voice acting, but you can do it now. They couldn't have digital music, but you can have it now. They couldn't display more than 16 colours, but now you can. Pixel art is one thing, retro hardware is another thing. This game is a pixel art game, but not a retro game.

Snarky

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 06/04/2017 14:35:40
I think I can guess what KONEY means, although he does not use correct terminology. The thing is that when you work with textures, you no longer have guaranteed 1:1 relation between different layers, in terms of original pixels. So when characters move along the screen, they may end up standing at 0.5 pixel of background.

But then again, this is just a guess, because I haven't played the game yet.

Yes, this happens with the characters (and when they scale, their pixel size no longer matches the background, so there's no way to make them align), but for the parallax effect it seems to be designed in a pixel-perfect way: while in motion the layers slide smoothly (and therefore don't align), but they always end up in alignment when they stop.

Quote from: Problem on Thu 06/04/2017 14:55:29result is that you will have a hard time finding two elements that share the same pixel size. If it was just the scaled characters having a different resolution compared to everything else in the game, it would have been much more distracting for me. But the game is scaling and rotating the pixel art all over the place, so it's somehow "consistently inconsistent" ;)

I didn't even think the pixel rotation was that bad in most cases (e.g. when they wiggle the inventory items, or the fireflies by the creek), though on my computer it seemed a little glitchy in other cases. On the other hand, I actually think the "consistent inconsistency" makes it look pretty bad. My worst annoyance is that even if you choose "retro font", the font is a different "retro" resolution than the (background) graphics, and the font outline is yet another resolution on top of that. I would be much happier if the "pixel resolution" was consistent, and then they just added high-res effects, smooth fonts, and rotation and smooth parallax on top of that (whether to resample and snap the characters to the pixel grid so that there really is only one pixel resolution throughout could then be an option).

Crimson Wizard

#133
Speaking of pixel art in contemporary games, this is something I am playing rn: :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIRYAPwdSY8

The game combines lower and higher resolution sprites, which sometimes look weird, but the backgrounds and stuff looks amazing.

KONEY

Question was not about sound because pixel art carries some aesthetics within which require 1:1 in my opinion.

BTW digitized voices are on adv since ages and most games had 256 colors, not 16. AND pixel art today exists because back in the 80s they couldn't do in a different way :)

Problem

Quote from: KONEY on Thu 06/04/2017 16:06:14BTW digitized voices are on adv since ages and most games had 256 colors, not 16. AND pixel art today exists because back in the 80s they couldn't do in a different way :)

Thimbleweed Park was developed as a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion, so no speech and 16 colours would be the reference here. But yes, as soon as 256 colours were available, they used it. Later, more colours were possible, and they used that too. "The Dig" had 3D rendered cut-scenes, because they could do it.
This is also the case with some commercial AGS games. Some titles from Wadjet Eye Games for example mix different pixel resolutions (higher resolution portraits and lower resolution backgrounds, fonts having a different resolution than the backgrounds, sub-pixel scaling of characters etc.) You don't have to like what Thimbleweed Park does, but it's still pixel art.
On the other hand, most of Monkey Island 2 wasn't pixel art - it was scanned paintings. So Thimbleweed Park actually has more real pixel art than Monkey Island 2.

KONEY

Back in the days they had low resolution to cope with, if they had higher resolutions they would have drawn stuff in hd, not in low res and scaled the pixels in different ways. They definitely wouldn't have done it this way.

FM Town version of Zak McCraken has 256 colors so Maniac Mansion is the only Lucasarts ADV with only 16 colors. Definitely sets a standard :)

Gurok

Quote from: KONEY on Thu 06/04/2017 15:17:56
All I'd say is that the way the game celebrates pixel art is at the same time denying it too and I really dislike like it :) Is anyone sharing my opinion? This was the question in the first instance :)

Inconsistent pixel sizes annoy me and they're definitely not my taste. Same goes for subpixel positioning.

I didn't back Thimbleweed park, but I thought it was sold as something more authentic than Broken Age. It's a bit disappointing that they didn't clamp movement to pixel boundaries or keep a consistent resolution. I think it's probably them deciding it's not important, but then with such an emphasis on the 80s throughout the game, it's a puzzling and disappointing decision.

I'll probably still pick it up when it's cheap. They've made some bad choices, but no deal breakers. I can think of games that are worse. The Last Door, for instance, has two different pixel sizes for two different areas of the screen and a third for the cursor. It also has terrible art. Thimbleweed Park's art is very good and I think I'm a bit less averse to these things when the art is good.

Can someone confirm for me that the characters don't slide when they move? What I mean by this is that they move by pixels matching their resolution at the frame rate of their animation, rather than moving by pixels matching the screen's native resolution at 30/60 FPS. The latter would really bother me because I know that's laziness and not a design choice.
[img]http://7d4iqnx.gif;rWRLUuw.gi

Problem

QuoteBack in the days they had low resolution to cope with, if they had higher resolutions they would have drawn stuff in hd, not in low res and scaled the pixels in different ways. They definitely wouldn't have done it this way.

In the 90s when SVGA became a thing there were games that had low resolution graphics with (sometimes optional) higher resolution elements (Portraits, GUI etc.).

QuoteCan someone confirm for me that the characters don't slide when they move? What I mean by this is that they move by pixels matching their resolution at the frame rate of their animation, rather than moving by pixels matching the screen's native resolution at 30/60 FPS. The latter would really bother me because I know that's laziness and not a design choice.

I think they are "gliding", but it's hard to tell, because the animations are pretty fast. But I disagree that it's laziness - I usually prefer the "gliding" mode in AGS games, unless the frame rate of the animation is high enough to result in smooth movement and scrolling.

Snarky

Quote from: Snarky on Thu 06/04/2017 15:56:52
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 06/04/2017 14:35:40
I think I can guess what KONEY means, although he does not use correct terminology. The thing is that when you work with textures, you no longer have guaranteed 1:1 relation between different layers, in terms of original pixels. So when characters move along the screen, they may end up standing at 0.5 pixel of background.

But then again, this is just a guess, because I haven't played the game yet.

Yes, this happens with the characters (and when they scale, their pixel size no longer matches the background, so there's no way to make them align), but for the parallax effect it seems to be designed in a pixel-perfect way: while in motion the layers slide smoothly (and therefore don't align), but they always end up in alignment when they stop.

After playing around a little, I need to correct myself: when you're at 100% scaling, the character pixels do always line up with the background pixels. In other words, positions are snapped to the pixel grid. I'm pretty sure any misalignment comes from scaling to other sizes, where because of the mixed resolutions there's no way to get the pixels to align (the pivot is probably still snapped).

As for the glide/non-glide walking, I can't tell for sure either. Walking along a scrolling background so that the character stays in the same position, I think there is a tiny bit of juddering as the background scrolls smoothly but the character only moves (retro) pixel-by-pixel, but it can't be more than a retro-pixel, so if the animation is non-glide they have one walking frame per pixel of movement (in AGS terms, the MovementSpeed is 1). The animation is very fast, anyway.

Crimson Wizard

Quote from: Gurok on Thu 06/04/2017 17:23:04The Last Door, for instance, has two different pixel sizes for two different areas of the screen and a third for the cursor. It also has terrible art.
I never heard of that game before, but browsing screenshots made me think that I could try doing similar style for a game if I'd make one by myself :), because very low resolution characters and backgrounds are simple to draw, while high-resolution fonts (like in dialog options) are easy to read.

Danvzare

Quote from: Problem on Thu 06/04/2017 17:36:32
But I disagree that it's laziness - I usually prefer the "gliding" mode in AGS games, unless the frame rate of the animation is high enough to result in smooth movement and scrolling.
Same here. I actually prefer the gliding effects, and as such usually turn it on, on my games. It just feels more natural and smoother. You just need a high enough frame rate of animation like you said.

Quote from: KONEY on Thu 06/04/2017 15:17:56
All I'd say is that the way the game celebrates pixel art is at the same time denying it too and I really dislike like it :) Is anyone sharing my opinion? This was the question in the first instance :)
I heartily disagree. Pixel art does not have to be pixel perfect. That's like saying all portraits have to be painted on canvas. Technology moves on! And thanks to the limitations of technology in the past, a new artstyle was created, which was pixel art. But we shouldn't have to constrain ourselves as to how that pixel art is displayed, just because those constraints were around when the artstyle came about.

Pixel art in my opinion, is when you're highly aware of the individual pixels in your art. Using a series of blocks to trick the eye into seeing a mosaic image as something more complex than it actually is. The fact that you can misalign it on top of another piece of pixel art, does not automatically invalidate it as pixel art.

If you actually drew pixel art, you would understand what I mean.

KONEY

Quote from: Gurok on Thu 06/04/2017 17:23:04
Inconsistent pixel sizes annoy me and they're definitely not my taste. Same goes for subpixel positioning.
I didn't back Thimbleweed park, but I thought it was sold as something more authentic than Broken Age. It's a bit disappointing that they didn't clamp movement to pixel boundaries or keep a consistent resolution. I think it's probably them deciding it's not important, but then with such an emphasis on the 80s throughout the game, it's a puzzling and disappointing decision.

This summarize well what I think. Early development screenshots showed us a game basically identical to the usual 256 colors Zak or Indy but as soon as the game was on my screen I had the bitter feeling of a 3D version of them.

Gurok

Quote from: Problem on Thu 06/04/2017 17:36:32
I think they are "gliding", but it's hard to tell, because the animations are pretty fast. But I disagree that it's laziness - I usually prefer the "gliding" mode in AGS games, unless the frame rate of the animation is high enough to result in smooth movement and scrolling.

It's less work to implement. Also, gliding in AGS and the sliding I described aren't the same thing. AGS always glides on pixel boundaries. I was describing both the gliding and someone being careless enough to not align animations to pixel boundaries. I can maybe tolerate the gliding part, but having both would confirm laziness.

It's interesting that you think gliding is a matter of preference. There are some animations that would look horrendous that way, purple tentacle, for instance. I would argue that all animations look pretty bad if they're gliding across the screen. To me, it seemed as though the whole glide/anti-glide thing in AGS was there to correct an early design mistake in a compatible way.

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 06/04/2017 18:46:39
Quote from: Gurok on Thu 06/04/2017 17:23:04The Last Door, for instance, has two different pixel sizes for two different areas of the screen and a third for the cursor. It also has terrible art.
I never heard of that game before, but browsing screenshots made me think that I could try doing similar style for a game if I'd make one by myself :), because very low resolution characters and backgrounds are simple to draw, while high-resolution fonts (like in dialog options) are easy to read.

Yes, there's a sort of sub-genre going on with these ultra-low resolution games. The Darkside Detective is another example.

What I find most jarring abut the Last Door is that pixels for the inventory area are say, 6x6, whereas the pixels for the main area are 10x10. They're not in neat ratios to one another. This is compounded by the character often not lining up with background art. I find it hard to swallow this being described as "retro" when I know that traditional graphics modes don't work that way. Also, I was wrong. The cursor is the same resolution as the inventory area. The text, however, as you pointed out, is a higher resolution still.

High-res text is a little less jarring than direct disregard for a pixel grid. There's even some historical precedent. A few text-based games used extended ASCII to simulate an 80x50 grid (or sometimes 80x25) and mixed that with text. I'm thinking in particular of a few Megazeux titles that used block graphics the whole way through. I also remember making games that way myself in the 90s after seeing how Nibbles worked.
[img]http://7d4iqnx.gif;rWRLUuw.gi

kconan

  I enjoyed it overall, despite some unoriginal ideas (insult clown, Trek nerds, etc...all funny but tired tropes) and the overused fourth wall jokes.  I liked the characters and their subplots, most of the puzzles (especially the detective stuff), and most of the graphics.  Being a kid from the 80s and early 90s, I was in their target demographic for the many throwback references.

Danvzare

Quote from: Gurok on Fri 07/04/2017 16:01:13
I find it hard to swallow this being described as "retro" when I know that traditional graphics modes don't work that way.
Agreed. Just because it's pixel art, does NOT make it retro. >:(
Of course there's nothing wrong with having pixel art and not being retro. It's just annoying when everyone calls their game retro just because it uses pixel art.

InCreator

Quote from: LUniqueDan on Sun 02/04/2017 08:51:50
Missing at least 50 hotspots and 100 lines of dialogues. Empty ginormous rooms.

Have you played Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Loom?
I always thought lack of hotspots was LucasArts handwriting. Sierra games let you look at basically every pixel in the room.
It is logical to have less if your game is full talkie, you wouldn't do billion lines of voiceover for things that don't advance story (although many players love adventure games for pure exploration).
Lack of hotspots also make game much, much easier. And this isn't very difficult game to begin with. Probably not intended so. Open-world thing makes it messy too.

Other than that, it's nicely done but pretty mediocre so far, in my opinion. I wish they went for more realistic graphics, such as Loom or MI2. 12-verb UI should have stayed in the past, Full Throttle handled it much more elegantly -- why go back?
Ghost character feels like direct ripoff from Blackwell series. Either they didn't do research into modern games thoroughly or they did... both probabilities are disappointing.

Haven't finished it yet, but way over halfway.
While story has clearly gone to hell, and even beginners here make more believable walk cycle animations, I just wish to admire more of those marvelous backgrounds.
And despite pixel size problems, usage of shaders make it up a lot in my book. Not sure, but I suspect those wavey ghost modes and all would just look horrible with original pixel resolution.

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