Messages

Yayyy! Ivan is fantastic. An excellent choice.

Do you know him too?

Stay on topic, please.
This thread is about Mark's (Mods) current whereabouts.

All moderators are appointed either by other moderators or by CJ himself.

Sounds exciting, hope it will see the light of day. Too bad about Anthology being cancelled, but stuff like that happens.
I think the art works, but if you'd like to explore this aspect more you might want to visit the Critics Lounge and see if you get some help finding and refining a more consistent style. Good luck either way!

Ok, just issuing another moderator statement here:
While joking is generally cool, the starter and owner of a thread has a certain say in what goes in it. Captain obviously wanted this thread to be a serious discussion about suicide. Jack wasn't offering a different opinion, he just disrupted what this thread was meant to be about. For future reference, that's not ok.

Congrats on the release! I shall check it out shortly.

Snarky is correct about which contribution was mine.

Also, this round saw half the activity of previous rounds. Was it the theme that ruined it, or have we run too many of these in too short time? Any thoughts here?

I shall vote randomly for another entry, knowing who wrote which one.

Wouldn't it just be better not to vote, then? Not very fair if someone loses because they were beaten by the random vote is it?

True. My reasoning was that if I refrained from voting, that's effectively voting on myself (albeit in a dilluted form), since every other participant will vote on an entry that isn't their own.
Maybe it's better if I simply voted on my favourite pitch, instead

I actually entered this one myself, mostly because participation was a bit low this time around. It's a pretty bad pitch though, so I don't expect (m)any votes, hehe...
I shall vote randomly for another entry, knowing who wrote which one.

Damn, I though the theme would make it easier to come up with stuff, not the other way around

Alright, still a handful of entries. Let the reading, speculating and voting begin!

Exciting times!
I just submitted my predictions. I employed the tactic of predicting the exact same result for each and every match.

Spoiler

France 2 - 1 Argentina
Uruguay 2 - 1 Portugal
Spain 2 - 1 Russia
Croatia 2 - 1 Denmark
Brazil 2 - 1 Mexico
Belgium 2 - 1 Japan
Sweden 2 - 1 Switzerland
Colombia 2 - 1 England

[close]

Whatever you decide to go with, make sure you nudge the player into doing it correctly from the outset, and it will be fine.

Virtually any interface will work as long as it's warranted, internally logical and tutorial-ized early on. Just because a one-click interface seems to be in vogue now for adventure games, it doesn't mean a player can't learn a new system after some practice.

You want a drop-down menu? Go for it, just make sure the options in the menu are needed, and frequently used. In Lure of the Temptress you have menus, and they're kind of needed since you can instruct your sidekick to do pretty complex things*. However, in most adventure games having the kind of menus you see in strategy games or sims is probably hard to justify.

Verb interfaces are great if there's an emphasis on various important interactions that can't be separated otherwise, like giving something to someone as opposed to using it on them, talking with instead of touching, looking at as opposed to interacting with, etc. If that's important enough to warrant a slightly more clunky interface, then go for it. People will get used to it. But don't use it just because you have one gimmicky puzzle somewhere in the middle of the game that kind of requires it, if 99% of all interactions could be handled with one click.

Prime your audience into often using all verbs, and understanding that their differences may be really important, and not only some extra flavour.

* However, both the menus and the system of having NPCs independantly wander around the game environment (made possible by the virtual theatre engine) are probably detrimental to the gaming experience in the eyes of a modern player.

I got really deep into questioning all this after the first round, but then I figured: people are gonna vote for what they like regardless. (I'm certainly not going to vote for a pitch I'm not interested to play just because it seems like it might have commercial potential.) At most I think we can bring these factors up as things voters might want to keep in mind.

Or perhaps the challenge could specify some questions the pitches are supposed to answer, like "what's your hook?" or "who is this game for?" or "your idea in five words" or anything else you think would be relevant.

Yeah, you're probably right. I was more in the mindset of "let's learn how to write something that'll sell", but in this context, people will vote on stuff they would enjoy themselves.

Anyhow, a new round is up, this time with only a minor requirement when it comes the theme of the game.

[1.]

Here are the entries of this round. Please use the poll to help decide a winner.

1.
You're tasked with finding survivors in an arctic research facility. All you have in your inventory is a gun, with only one bullet. You'll face various enemies, and the question is always - should you use your one remaining bullet, or is it possible to find another way around them (using your wits and environmental puzzles)?

Eventually, you'll end up trapped in a sort of life-preserving chamber, unable to get out. The single bullet can be used to end your otherwise eternal existence in this chamber. If you've already used it, the game won't end.

2.
Convicts sentenced to multiple life sentences must serve them, in full, doing hard labor in the toxic wasteland around the Ross Peniplex, where genetically modified pets gone feral prey among mirages projected by discarded AR equipment. Only a completed lifespan and natural death counts as time served: the prisoners are then cloned to resume their sentences.

Clemens' last lifetime didn't count, since he ended it by blowing himself up. In fact, because he took out the prison's memory banks in the explosion, he must restart his sentence from the beginning â€" and he has no idea why he did it. Who had he become?

An existential Cyberpunk RPG-adventure in the style of Planescape: Torment or I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, with graphics created through a combination of 3D renders, photobashing and AI-supported DeepDream generation.

3.
Karma Quest (working title)

You play as a brave knight out on a quest in this RPG style game.The twist is that whenever you are killed by an enemy you are reincarnated as one of the enemy types you have already killed and must fight the knight at the skill/power level he was at when he killed your enemy type last.If you die you are reincarnated as a different enemy type he has killed and repeat the process.Only when you win against the knight are you worthy to be reicarnated as him again and able to continue your quest.Karma is a bitch!

4.
La Torsion

It starts with Bert Sartre feeling strange, unable to enjoy sex with a local barmaid, and culminates in a part where he must shoot an Arab or commit suicide.

To facilitate a sense of living for the moment, the game forgets about actions that happened more than five minutes ago. Most of what you do is inconsequential and some puzzles rely on this. There's a commitment UI where you can decide that two or more game events will have meaning. This links the events and gives poor Bert a release from disgust.

Also, there's an existential twist.

5.
At the funeral of writer Martin Dyer, prayers and eulogies are had. A shout rings from the back of the Church. The mourners turn to see Martin lying naked on the flagstones, crying. The coffin is empty and the Cancer is gone.

You play as Martin, upon release from hospital (all clear), as he finds out what happened to him while a crazy cult forms around the man who just might be the second coming. The question is: is he?

6.
“They” had come and destroyed everything Samantha had ever cared about.  “They” were cruel, uncaring and unmerciful. “They” were the instrument of a despotic ruler who was accountable to nobody.
Samantha longed for revenge, and her opportunity has at last come; however the only way she has a chance for revenge is to become one of “Them” herself.  In doing so, Samantha will be forced to question everything she has ever known, and the ruler's true identity will dismay her.

[you]

Good discussion.

Just like job interviews these days, pitch presentations are very much about psychology and delivery. Since it's extremely hard to judge a game solely on its story, agents or executives search for things that seem original, buzz-worthy, gimmicky, topical, etc. They also want to know, just like in job interviews, what you can do that nobody else can. What makes your project so great? We might have to employ more of a salesperson's jargon here.

Maybe for the next round, the host (I'll happily do it again) should describe what kind of company/publisher we're actually visiting? That will make it easier for the participants to visualize what kind of jargon and concept they should use.

At first I thought it was something to do with Aladdin.

Here's one.

If you have me, you have less. But you look better. What am I?

'Youth' would work too. You have less age/life. Maybe?

I can show you the world,
And yet hide it from you.
I can preserve a beautiful sunset forever,
So that you won't have to watch it.
I can give you contact with everyone you know,
But you'll rarely notice a new person again.
I can make waiting hours for a taxi not matter,
Because you're already home if you have me.

What am I?

Instagram or some crap like that

Wtf, Haggis, this is getting silly... you predicted Japan 2:1 against Colombia?

Finally a full pot for me.

And my apologies for a boring second half by Sweden against South Korea.

I'm predictably bad at this. In my defense, several of the matches so far have had rather unexpected results. Ah well, we've just started.