gunsmoke on 25/4/2013 at 12:36
I'm surprised TheBlackman doesn't trigger that.
Renault on 25/4/2013 at 18:32
Quote Posted by Brethren
I was in on the kickstarter effort on this one, I'll have to check and see if that gives me some kind of early alpha/beta access or something.
Found out there was a tier in the kickstarter effort that specified "early access", so per the devs, those guys get first shot, and they'll be testing and giving feedback. After that runs for a while, everyone else who preordered on kickstarer will get access prior to official release.
Yakoob on 25/4/2013 at 23:30
Quote Posted by henke
Fun fact: you can make anything sound like shit by adding "ZOMG!" at the end. Open world ZOMG! Stealth ZOMG! Waffles ZOMG!
For a game that's focused more on the gameplay than the story (like this one seemingly is) procedural generation is a good fit. It'd get a bit dull to escape from the same exact area every time you play it otherwise.
I was just preemptively rolling my eyes at the fact it's yet another "procedural" indie game; the term procedural has almost become a buzzoword these days. BUT - fair point, and I do admit with the kind of a game this is trying to be, procedural generated levels actually make a lot of sense and could fit perfectly.
Shadowcat on 27/4/2013 at 05:25
Procedural content can make a lot of sense for indie devs, because hand-made content takes so long to build. Of course good procedural content is also bloody hard to do well, but if you can get it working then there are definite benefits to be reaped.
Mind you, I think any primarily procedural game is going to be very <em>different</em> to a primarily hand-crafted game, so that decision would also be a pretty fundamental choice about the type of game you were planning to make; but if you know you don't have the resources to do it all by hand, but you're convinced you have the brains to get the computer to do it for you, then that's going to be an attractive option.
Shadowcat on 27/4/2013 at 05:28
Quote Posted by faetal
I've just had another listen through and it is just the production value of the sounds used. The beeping is very generic sounding and the vocoder is very rough sounding. I'm reserving judgement, as it may be a whole different ball game when playing it, but those are my observations from that video.
Contact them. Express your concerns and suggest ways to improve it. Maybe it's just placeholders, maybe it's all intentional, or maybe they're actually lacking in the audio department and would appreciate the input.
Muzman on 27/4/2013 at 08:24
There's a segment of us backers who aren't big fans of the noises already. But I'm reluctant to push them too heavily over it.
It's a funny thing; On one hand they were not what I had in mind (Need to be scarier. Even in a slightly cartoony upper-class steampunk world). On the other; I don't really want to fuss with the 'vision' too much (assuming I could of course). Fans and committee design isn't always a good thing (not that they necessarily would do this in this case). There's also this desire to leave the artifact the way it was supposed to be, even if I'm not wholly crazy about every aspect.
EvaUnit02 on 27/4/2013 at 09:57
Let's shut down that line of thought NOW, before it spirals into some retarded circular debate. Kickstarter backers aren't investors, you have no entitlement to any "design by committee" bullshit. Let Rossingnol make the game that he wants to make.
If the game had featured voluptuous sexbots with heaving cleavage and extreme jiggle physics, that would've all have been included in the initial funding pitch and you would've been able to "vote with your wallet" at that stage.
Muzman on 27/4/2013 at 10:19
No, they have been entirely open about seeking feedback and suggestions from the backers (and eventually everyone else). Seems like it's entirely up to them how much difference that makes to design and whatever else. Eventually backers will also be testers, so some will likely have direct, in non specific, influence over the game. In this particular case there's the fact that no one knew what these things sounded like when the game was first presented and cooked up their own notions in their heads.
Shadowcat on 27/4/2013 at 11:59
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Kickstarter backers aren't investors
I supposed it depends upon your definition, but there's an entirely valid sense in which they are
exactly that. But I also don't think that's relevant.
Quote:
you have no entitlement to any "design by committee" bullshit.
Quite so; but there hasn't been any talk of "entitlement" (I hate that word), or suggestions that Big Robot have to pay an iota of attention to anyone else's opinions. That doesn't mean that people can't offer feedback, though -- it's not as if it's mandatory to be offended if they disagree with or ignore you.
Quote:
Let Rossingnol make the game that he wants to make.
I expect that he and the rest of the team will do exactly that. I'm also sure that the game will likely evolve over time, and that if someone else came up with an idea that the developers think will improve the game, they might actually want to implement it.
Yakoob on 27/4/2013 at 18:46
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
Procedural content can make a lot of sense for indie devs, because hand-made content takes so long to build. Of course good procedural content is also bloody hard to do well ...
Very true, and it's often not done that well. I did toy with procedural generated buildings before and realized that, not only is it a lot of work, particularily tweaking the "rules" to keep the buildings diverse yet logical, but also often ended up with a much crappier result than if I just spent the time hand-crafing the buildings myself.
The other thing is, procedural content only really makes sense when your game is either meant to be replayed multiple times (i.e. MP deathmatch games) or consists of multiple repeating scenarios / levels (i.e. roguelikes or Diablo clones like Torchlight); if it's more of a linear, deliberate, single-playthrough game, then the procedural aspect isn't usually beneficial and you lose a fair amount of control over the experience. I'm guessing this is supposed to be a repeating-scenario type game ?
