Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure

Started by Mr Underhill, Wed 17/12/2014 10:39:56

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Mandle

#100
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 08/04/2016 18:17:08
Mandle, this video should address how Gibbous will handle Lovecraft and comedy. Let me know what you think! ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiK7dpJMNWI

Entertaining and informative and, in parts, strangely familiar-sounding... :P

I've also been watching a lets-play on youtube of the demo, not by any major youtuber or anything, but I think that's more of a plus: Some average-Joe kinda reactions rather than people whose income depend on being entertaining...Anyways:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHNLP_AhQu0&nohtml5=False (Watch from 7:00 minutes until about 7:30)

Same video: 24:50-25:10 (Look at comment in chat-box. Not one of my points but a valid issue if true...)

Same video: 1:11:40-1:12:10 (Chat-box again and host's reply...Some positive comments too though!)

Same video: 1:20:00-1:20:20 (A 4th-wall joke gets an honest laugh from the host)

Same video: 1:34:00-End (Some comments on voodoo puzzle and a short wrap-up of opinion)

(And, I'm really not trying to be pedantic about my earlier points or say "I told you so"...I've also included on this list times when their reactions go against my own opinions...Consider this some free market research... :-D )
[close]

I did not actually play the demo all the way through to the end on my first sitting (I got as far as The Gentleman), but now I have seen it played through to completion:

Spoiler

The demo shows off the graphics, animation, voice-acting, and beautiful music perfectly. 100% score there...

But...There are NO puzzles in this demo, unless you count revistiting dialogues and thinking to click on options that you already tried before, and the game gives you new options that didn't exist before, as puzzles?!

The one point where it looks like the game is actually going to supply an interesting puzzle (making the voodoo doll) it just turns out to be (an admittedly) funny pun that you can just find via trial-and-error (also a...sigh...dialogue menu), and makes the devs look clever but doesn't make the player feel clever (which is the meat of making an adventure game fun, or why not just watch a comedy show on TV?)

In my opinion the game needs a MAJOR overhaul in the way that puzzles are handled. Do you guys only know how to use dialogue trees for puzzles? If not, then sorry, but: That's how it looked to me, and that's how it probably looks to most adventure game fans...

Even getting the letter from the back seat of the cab is handled via a dialogue tree...And even then you have to revisit the cab driver's dialogue when either:

(A) Him just giving it to you at first would have been way less confusing...

or

(B) You have to LOOK in the back window of the cab and then you find it sitting there...

...would have made much more sense...

Sorry guys...But you are putting far too much effort into making yourselves look witty, and way too little effort into allowing the player to feel clever by solving PUZZLES, and no amount of beautiful graphics, slick animation, or cool music is going to solve these basic flaws.

You guys are supposed to be hard-core adventure game fans, right?! Have you asked yourselves "What were the most fun moments in adventure games I like?"...It's when you figure out a hard but fair puzzle that depends on some intrinsic in-game logic that the game teaches to the player: Interaction and feedback loop...Like the sword-fighting puzzle in Monkey Island, or the time-travel-logic puzzles in Day Of The Tentacle...

And in your latest video you even use the Grim Fandango image... Putting on some pretty big pants there, guys...

Sorry again for the harsh critique but, to be brutually honest, the demo is a complete bore as a game as it stands. Once again, only in my opinion: Maybe the modern audience prefers a game with sparkly achievements whenever you randomly do something right, and I'm starting to sound like a grumpy old guy so I'm gonna shut up...

Except to say: get a talented puzzle designer onboard for the project...

Okay, I'm done...Sorry again, as I really LOVE everything positive about the demo...
[close]

Fitz

Fun video update.

Oh, and just today I stumbled upon this comic from my neck of the woods. Note the character talking from off-screen. Now, in the commeent section, the guy with the Guybrush avatar goes "Oh hey, btw" -- and links to Gibbous KS, which other people readily pick up on. Nice to see the news spreading!

Mr Underhill

Fitz: That's awesome! Sure is nice to see it spreading!

Mandle: You can imagine we're pretty busy here so we didn't get a chance to watch all the letsplays completely, but incidentally last night when I got home I had received a link to exactly that video you posted and watched it all, eating cold pizza with blood-shot eyes at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was a fun (yet cringey here and there) watch, and I really appreciated that the criticism was on-point and constructive. That final puzzle, maybe I've mentioned before, was to be less a puzzle and more a nod to the infamous monkey wrench, but I can see how it would make people go "this is just trial and error" - cause it is (unless you've REALLY inspected the environment, and you get an achievement for that, wink wink).

This demo's biggest flaw is that we didn't really get a chance to test it. The cold reality was that April was an absolutely must not miss month for us to do the Kickstarter, thus very little playtesting (or bug testing).  Letsplays really help because it's like an after-the-fact playtest and you're not influencing the player in any way. After watching some of them, I have a pretty good idea of what should stay and what should be thrown out the window, taken down a notch or just refined. The only big concern, though, is getting the Kickstarter funded, otherwise it might all have been for naught. And I really wanna make this game, make it bigger, better, and sexier. And punnier, just to fuck with the nice translating people if we hit the EFIGS stretch :)

Mandle

I actually just updated my last post with another (sorry) harsh critique on the demo...Probably while you were typing this response...

After hearing your woes about making the kickstarter deadline I actually feel terrible about how much I ripped on the demo, but I'm going to let my comments stand (with another apology...sorry guys: You are doing something awesome!), but I also feel that the honestly of what I was saying still holds true...


Mr Underhill

Haha don't worry, man. I understand the points you are making, and agree with some of them, like the Taxi Guy shooing you away and over-relying on "getting to know" the characters (it was an experimental thing we tried and reactions were all over the place). But I think we might never agree on a lot of stuff, because we are clearly into adventure games for very, very different reasons.

You might argue that puzzles are the most important thing about an adventure, and that's very cool, because it's a valid opinion. Then again, I might argue that to me, characters, story and humour come first. That might sound downright blasphemous, and not something players would want, right?... Well, just look at the success of Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Walking Dead... To you, over-reliance on dialogue-tree "puzzles" (not sure they're exactly puzzles) might stink of bad design to high heaven, but a lot of players appreciated exactly that, and the fact that (well, in the demo) there isn't a huge emphasis on picking up everything that isn't bolted down and McGuyver-ing your way out of puzzles. There was this discussion on another forum about whether puzzles should be seamlessly integrated to the plot, or can just appear as logical roadblocks you need to solve, and wouldn't you know it, opinions were split almost exactly in half. As you'd suspect, Lucas fans were partial to integration, while Myst-heads could give a rat's ass. Yes, we call them all adventure games, but to me e.g. a Blackwell game is so different from Curse Of Monkey Island that they might as well be completely different genres.

It's an interesting discussion that we might never come to an agreement upon, because it's obvious we're looking for completely different experience in our adventure games . And while I agree some things in the demo were horribly sign-posted (or not at all, whoops!) and show an obvious lack of experience, I'm sticking by the overall philosophy, and I now know what to improve and what to leave as is. 

And just to put my letsplay where my mouth's at, this is the kind of player that Gibbous is, indeed, aimed at : https://youtu.be/RFJIcvM90Ag. This dude sold the game better than I ever could have. So, again... different strokes. If you come at the game looking for iron-clad brain melters, you'll be disappointed, because it clearly is directed a lot more toward the heart than it is toward the mind. That's a very overcomplicated way of saying the game is dumb, yes. From a hardcore puzzle man's point of view, it really is just a dumb fun game, and won't be winning any puzzle design awards pretty soon. You see, I'm an artist, not an engineer or logician, and it definitely shows in everything I create. But, hey - a bunch of people seem to really enjoy it, so I'm happy :)

Cassiebsg

an adventure game without puzzles? 8-0
You might as well call it an interactive cartoon then. :P

And as an artist, you have nothing to be ashamed of, it's perfect!
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Mr Underhill

Thanks Cassie! Well, not without puzzles, just without highly logical ones, heheh!

Oh, one more thing. It hadn't occured to me that using Manny's head in the video might come across as boasting, holy moly! Far from it - the infographic-like nature of the video called for a simple, widely-recognizable symbol that would immediately scream "adventure game". Here's a fun exercise: try to come up with an alternative image for that that doesn't implicitly reference a well-known character or franchise. It really isn't that easy ;) ...and just to put things into perspective, from recording the voice to animating to editing it, it took me exactly 5 hours to complete the video. This is your life when you are Kickstarting - everything is happening at 4x compression, and some details will inevitably elude you. So, again - in no way am I comparing Gibbous to Grim from a quality point of view. Manny's head just symbolizes adventure games ;)

Cassiebsg

Ah... okay... I thought you were comparing Gibbous to be like Grim Fandango... sorry, guess I misinterpreted that as well. :-[

Anyway, good luck with your project. (nod)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

mkennedy

Will you be able to engage in conversations with Kitteh? It was somewhat disappointing in the demo that you couldn't chat her up like the other NPCs. Maybe she can give you some helpful hints should you get stuck.

Mr Underhill

#109
Quote from: mkennedy on Tue 12/04/2016 04:02:00
Will you be able to engage in conversations with Kitteh? It was somewhat disappointing in the demo that you couldn't chat her up like the other NPCs. Maybe she can give you some helpful hints should you get stuck.

Yeah, we had no time to implement none of these: the plan is to have Kitteh act as a sort of hint system (that sounds colder than we're envisioning). There will be two kinds of Kitteh interactions: you'll "use" her from the verb coin, and talk to her like you would with anyother NPC - there will be a couple of flavor/stoy options, and one that gives you a hint, so you can ignore that one if you want a challenge.

Oh, forgot to mention this: made a nice video (well, animated) update about how I discovered adventure games and came to love them. Let me know what y'all think! https://youtu.be/V7pRWzZ0IG0

Mr Underhill

Just a heads-up that we've been Greenlit on Steam in just 10 days. Woohoo!

Mr Underhill


Fitz

Gibbous got funded! Congrats! Which reminds me of a certain exchange from a month ago :-D

Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 30/03/2016 18:10:26
Quote from: Fitz on Wed 30/03/2016 17:44:44
On a side-note... Is the role of Kitteh taken? Because while I'm not a professional voice actor, I think I have the right voice ;)

Woah, that is IMPRESSIVE! Straight outta R'lyeh. We might have a talk if we're funded! ;)

Unless my humble offer was since shunned, now that you guys have Don Thacker onboard :P

CrashPL

Yup, just saw it on the crowfund watch. Congratulations Mr Underhill, and the whole Gibbous team! There's still some time to go, so I hope you'll also nab some of the strech goals. :D

Mr Underhill

Thank you guys so much. Almost $56,000 raised out of a $40,000 ask, and 1929 backers. More than we ever dreamed of. Thank you all so much, gals and guys! We're gonna make a kick-ass game!

Blondbraid

I saw the trailer and, wow, this might just be the game that has me most excited this year! 8-0
I love Lovecraft's craft! And the dark humor and Disney-style animation!
Do you plan on releasing this game on steam? :)


Mr Underhill

Sure thing, Blondbraid! We're already Greenlit, and it's looking good for GOG, too: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games :)

Blondbraid

Great, I can't wait for this game to be released!
I love everything I've seen and read about it so far and wish you best of luck!


Mr Underhill

What's up, dude-y-os! Haven't updated this thread in, oh, a looong while! Anyways, since we're all adventure makers here, I wanted to share our streaming channel with y'all. If you do Twitch at all and are interested in watching me live-paint adventure game backgrounds, give it a follow. I try to stream at least every week, and I'm happy to talk to the chat. If there's anyone else streaming adventure-related art, let me know and I'll follow you back.

https://www.twitch.tv/liviuboar



Mr Underhill

Been a while since I posted here. Well, thought I'd show you guys what the game's been looking like lately. Not to shabby if you ask me, but please don't because I'm making it and I can't be objective.

Something sinister is going down here:



Real time lighting fx in burning library:



Something really surprised this guy!



A Fishmouth citizen, on the lookout for intruders:



Tad the dog:



...and a few more in this imgur gallery.

Basically we're trying to up the ante graphically and atmosphere-wise by adding real time lighting fx and a dynamic weather system, little cool details like that which add a lot to the world feeling more believable.

But gosh darn it, is it a lot of work! ;-D

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