The Grumpy Gamer Speaks 163
Ron Gilbert, well-known for his work during the golden age of LucasArts adventure games, is also well known as The Grumpy Gamer. Gamasutra has up an interview with Gilbert, discussing his career in the post-Threepwood period of his life. From the article: "It's actually kind of frightening, you know. You sit down with a publisher and the minute you mention anything like an adventure game or something story-based or adventure-game-like in any way, the meeting's basically over. So the publishers do have a huge resistance to this. And I think a lot of it is that they cannot point to anything like this that is successful in the market today. So it's very difficult for them to put anything behind it. It's a very difficult process."
Agreed, (Score:1)
Re:Agreed, (Score:3, Insightful)
That isn't a problem for everyone. If I am playing a game with cutscenes, stories, etc. I always skip them. Is the idea that I am supposed to "pretend" to be the character and become engrossed in pathetically scripted storylines? Please. Most people have trouble enough distinguishing reality in the first place [wikipedia.org]. It is important to distinguish in your mind that your "desktop
Re:Agreed, (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps what Game companies need to do is hire a dramaturge [bartleby.com].
Re:Agreed, (Score:2)
-Rick
Re:Agreed, (Score:2)
Anyway, it took a few years for editing techniques and a semiotics of film to emerge after film became a popular entertainment. Many aspects film language that we don't even think twice about were developed thru trial and error. What had worked in the past on the stage floor didn't work as well in the new medium. There were growing pains. I susp
Re:Agreed, (Score:3, Interesting)
I tink people forget something. Games are all different, some games suit some things and other games suit other things. I'm an old school RPG player so I perfer my characters to talk in text and cut scenes more or less to start and end the game (Tales of
Re:Agreed, (Score:1)
Re:Agreed, (Score:4, Funny)
How can we forget the amazing plot twists of Pac-Man, not to mention the surprise ending! And no other game tells the story of the futility of mankind's survival like Asteroids.
Re:Agreed, (Score:2)
I thought it was Pac-man the described the futility of modern life. Search for Page 12 [platypuscomix.net]; I couldn't find a direct link.
Re:Agreed, (Score:3, Interesting)
Ron, Maybe you should try (Score:1)
Like id, 3DRealms, or Epic.
Re:Ron, Maybe you should try (Score:2)
id and Epic make games that aren't just advertisements for their newest licensable engine?
Left out.... (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And thats very very sad (Score:2)
If another MI, S&M and/or DotT would be released I would buy it. Right at the release date. But apparently the publishers believe I'm the only one who would.
Um, what? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Um, what? (Score:2)
In KOTOR after the initial few sequences (about to the point you get out of the academy) the plot is put on hold until the last level. Sure there are sub plots to go through and a munch of mini missions along the way but the main plot doesn't continue anymore until the c
Re:Um, what? (Score:2)
KOTOR adds an RPG element, and the battle element, but it has puzzles to solve, and ways to do it non-violently via conversation. And the plot isn't put on hold till you get out of the academy, its more like part of the story, you are stuck on a planet u
Re:Um, what? (Score:2)
Re:Um, what? (Score:2)
I think the metric isn't that far off then. That's saying that in the course of playing a game for 20+ hours you get 2 hours worth of character development and plot.
That is one of the things that are different between writing for games and writing for movies. Movies only have to occupy your time and entertain you for 1 ½ - 3 hours, story based games should occupy your time for at least 10 - 30 hours.
Re:Um, what? (Score:3)
HalfLife 2 (Score:3, Insightful)
HL was a journey. You started off with nothing and the character learned along the way... the bad guys changed and the demands on the player's abilities grew as well (this isn't a book it's a game. I want to learn stuff, even if it's how to take out the giant gorilla thing with the buzzy bee gun). By the end of the game I felt I'd done something.
HL2 looked way cooler but really, where was the story? It was hit and run, shoot everything and then, THEN, just as you get to the big Boss fight at the end... we get the Matrix effect and you're away with the fairies. There was no upgrading of the bad guys along the way, no new skills (notice how the boat and the dune buggy handled the same way? Learn it once, use it again and again) and OK, I enjoyed sending the sand lions in to fight on my behalf but really, that was the high point.
I'm not talking about the look (which was excellent) or the "feel" of the game (which I enjoyed) but the story line itself.
Re:HalfLife 2 (Score:1)
Re:HalfLife 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure the ending was a cliffhanger, "to be continued..." and because of that, sucked. But you point out WRONG weaknesses.
The story was good. Last good story to date. The climate, the world with the resistance, the post-soviet cities and rural areas, the oppression. The storytelling was great, with some even if clic
Re:HalfLife 2 (Score:2)
They guy keeps going back (Score:2)
Re:They guy keeps going back (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They guy keeps going back (Score:2)
Re:They guy keeps going back (Score:1)
He's right to an extent. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not going to make a successful adventure game for $10 million. But you can certainly make successful one for one or $2 million.
This really sums up the problem with the current video game industry. The big wigs apparently have this ridiculous attitude that spending more will mean earning more, but only with certain genres. Otherwise, it's just not worth it because they apparently believe that they "have" to spend big bucks. Look at how many licenses are purchased every year, particularly from sports organizations. You can't tell me that in all circumstances changing the offical logos, changing the names of the players, getting very talented voice actors who sound like the real announcers but cost 1/10th a much, but keeping the exact same game play suddenly means death for the game. People want games that they can play and enjoy. Changing a name from NFL to "Pro-Football" thereby saving who knows how many millions in licensing costs might turn a few narrow-minded morons away, but if the game is really good, people will buy it. History has shown that time and time again. A probably-now-forgotten company originally called "Apogee" comes to mind.
And that brings up another question. Does he really need a publisher? With electronic distributions as popular as they are, the increase in the number of people who have broadband, and the increasing popularity of delivery methods like Steam, does any game company really need a distributor to hold them back from at least an initial release - just enough to get the word spreading about the games that he releases? Again, look at Apgoee and its associated company iD, both of which were very popular from the electronic/shareware release method. No, it won't work with all types of games, but in this world of broadband and the Internet, where we only had dial-up and BBSes, I think that electronic distributin has a much better opportunity for success than ever.
Just my two cents.
Re:He's right to an extent. (Score:2)
Re:He's right to an extent. (Score:2)
Re:He's right to an extent. (Score:2)
Re:He's right to an extent. (Score:2)
But an initial release is EXACTLY where I think most developers still need a publisher (even if they want to take that role themselves). Getting the word of mouth out there does not seem that easy, Internet or not. I doubt I would have heard of the GalCiv2 release if I had not both played the original Gal
internet killed the adventure game... erm star (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:internet killed the adventure game... erm star (Score:2)
Re:internet killed the adventure game... erm star (Score:2)
Story-based games? (Score:1, Insightful)
- Baldur's Gate 2
- Planescape: Torment
- Star Wars: KOTOR 1
- Oblivion
- Neverwinter Nights
- Diablo 2
- Day of the Tentacle
Not only do each of these games feature great stories, they are among the top-rated PC games of all time on sites like Metacritic [metacritic.com]. The raison d'etre for these games are their stories, and all of them were highly successful in stores.
Re:Story-based games? (Score:2)
There are some out there--mostly coming out of Europe. Runaway is one
Re:Story-based games? (Score:2)
And Diablo 2? Story based?
Yeesh.
Planescape Torment (Score:2)
Which is terribly sad, really. It has a cult following and all, but crap promotion may have had a hand in the game's miserable sales. I remember almost buying it new, but at the time I had never heard of it, the box art and unimpressive writeup on the back put me off, and I ended up taking home some long-since-forgotten PS1 game or something. Which is really a shame.. I'm playing through it for the first time now (off a reccommendation in a Slashdot comment, actually) an
Re:Story-based games? (Score:2)
Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: KOTOR 1; OK, these are pretty much story-based.
Oblivion. Even less story than Morrowind, which was pretty light on story anyway.
Neverwinter Nights. Story? "Collect the four X's, then kill the evil wizard"-style. That is a typical example of what is mentioned as "not really a story" in TFA.
Diablo 2. Story? HAH!
Day of the Tentacle. Good story, but over a decade old.
There are still story-based games out there, but there are very few. LucasArts, which w
Re:Story-based games? (Score:1)
What can it possibly cost? (Score:5, Interesting)
At this point I'd half expect someone to be able to make a game in their freaking basement, and then jump start a studio off just a few thousand digital download sales, with a few thousand in revenue. I mean really, we've got the Gimp, various free audio editing tools, Python is Free/Free. Studio recording equipment is Ass-cheap. What's stopping people?
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
Also one problem is that lots of people have LCD monitors. If you have a fixed resolution, you are either going to have to stretch it, or leave it in a window. Neither is acceptable. So you'll have to draw a number of different sizes, and have your engine choose the most approriate one.
Also, if you are going "all-out", the amount the animation costs is surely going to compete with one, if not multiple episodes of say Futurama, Family Guy and similar. I think you unde
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
I think the animation costs would be a bit less than the average TV show. The adventure games of old didn't have so many unique animations. A few walk cycles for each character would be needed, and the main character would need plenty of special animations, but they could keep the number down. I think that painting backgrounds would be wher
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
It's a niche market, sure, but FWIW, within the last year I bought two -- Monkey Island 3, and Planescape: Torment. (Actually, I'm not certain about Monkey Island 3, but I'm pretty certain Planescape is 640x480.)
What's wrong with stretching or windowing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nintendo thinks more people will buy an affordable 480p console than an expensive 720p console. Yo muthafscka Wii!
Why is stretching an image not acceptable? In 2006 we have smarter line art stretching algorithms such as Scale2x/Scale3x and hq2x/hq3x, and we have LCD HDTVs that stretch SDTV to 720p and also stretch 1080i to 720p. Heck, on a
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
I'd like to see some modern adventure games too, but I suspect that although many people would buy one in a heartbeat, most gamers wouldn't. The majority is a little obsessed with graphics, squad based FPSes, and MMORPGs, without much interest in
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you kidding? $500k is so far below budget for a modern game that it's almost laughable. You simply won't be able to produce a viable product (i.e., one that people will want to buy) for that amount.
1) It doesn't take too many people to code an actual game engine. A team of 8 or 10 core developers c
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Why do you need a new engine? 8-10 people? Cripes. Network code? It's a frickin adventure game. License the SCUMM engine or something similar.
2) Yes, the assets are the biggest expense. No, they're still not 500k. We're talking a pretty basic game - especially if you have a old engine, support should be minimal (game help lines don't count). Assets are pretty simple - you're not doing 2d/3d modelling, you're doing old SCU
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:1, Interesting)
And ofcourse there is absolutely no need what so every for this "HD" crap all over the place. I think you can push out a great adventure game with just 10 people in total.
1 or 2 programmers, 2 2D artists, 2 3D artists, 1 story/dialog writer, 1 producer/PR dude, 1 creative director (who could double as one of
But 2D costs more than 3D! (Score:2)
The reason why most modern adventure games are 3D is not that 3D is fancy. It's that 3D is cheaper than 2D. Creating good 2D characters is incredibly expensive, since you have to draw up to hundreds of consistent frames for each character. 3D is cheaper than 2D.
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
-India
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
Actually, I work for a small game studio that is just wrapping up a game for both PC and XBox with a budget of under $500K. The software is written by three developers, there are two artists which created all for the art content, and music and voice work were contracted out. Testing and distribution is handle
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2, Informative)
http://grumpygamer.com/4904226 [grumpygamer.com]
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
It's probably better to look at more "current" adventure games like Broken Sword 3. It broke away from the point-and-click model to a more console-friendly interface and was thus able to do reasonably well in both th PC and console markets. It used 3D graphics that were quite reasonable for the time.
Re:What can it possibly cost? (Score:2)
HOLD IT! (Score:2, Informative)
Your Honor, how do you explain the existence, and subsequence release of the popular Nintendo DS adventure-attourney game, 'Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourney' (Originally a Game Boy Advance game: 'Gyakuten Saiban' roughly 'Comeback Court')
Re:HOLD IT! (Score:1)
Of course, those views changed. I just don't think big N, or any Japanese publisher, would take this guy seriously.
Re:HOLD IT! (Score:2)
You're right, of course, but the question is: Could Capcom have released this game on any other console? Would Sony have allowed it? Probably not.
You're wrong (Score:2)
Nintendo was bad during the NES/SNES/N64 days as far as violence and sex was concerned, but they've learned something. During the PS2/GC days, Sony censored some games, Nintendo didn't. But this is not the issue at hand.
Re:HOLD IT! (Score:2)
OBJECTION! (Score:2)
THIS EVIDENCE ON BATTERY LIFE DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS THE WITNESS TESTIMONY!!! [wikipedia.org].
(flashing lights - music kicks in)
Hence geminidomino could not have finished the game in two hours!!
Re:OBJECTION! (Score:2)
Re:OBJECTION! (Score:2)
However, the rate at which text flows, coupled to the unskippable sections indicate that GeminiDomino is clearly exaggerating the speed at which he progressed through the game! The game easily takes 10 hrs to complete. And is memorable enough for grown men to pretend they are lawyers on slashdot 0 clearly implying it is worth every penny!
I call the parrot as a witness!
Re:OBJECTION! (Score:2)
You're right though, it is definitely memorable enough to be worth it.
What about (Score:1)
Re:What about (Score:2)
Isn't this obvious... (Score:2)
Myst (Score:1)
ask slashdot (Score:1)
Yeah there is a sad state of gaming right now (Score:2)
RPG/adventure.. like Fable was supposed to be? (Score:1)
The question isn't "where did Molyneux go wrong" (Score:3, Insightful)
And the answer is: somewhere around 1999.
Re:The question isn't "where did Molyneux go wrong (Score:2)
The real problem with Peter is a fairly simple one. He goes for "Wiz! Bang!" more heavily than he goes for "Once upon a time...."
None of the games he's done have had stories that were deep or complex. The closest he's ever been to that were Fable and Black and White. Both of which were over ambitious games where the story was present and actually tied to the game, but the games themselves did not live up to the hype. Pri
They forgot to ask the one important question (Score:3, Interesting)
So why did Lucasarts stop with adventures?
To be honest I think this guy might be too blame with his "getting adventures into the mainstream" crap. Now its RPG he tries to bolt ontop of it to create some frankenstein monster, back then it was 3D.
Yes I know some people loved Grim Fandango and the last monkey island but can it be a coincedence that these were also the last adventures? A long line of 2D adventures, a handfull of 3D and bam, the end of the adventure era.
I am not totally against 3D but that one MI game didn't really do anything with 3D just made it a bitch to control. The sleeper hit The Longest Journey also used 3D but in a 2D world so that 99% of the time it behaved just like a old 2D game but with 3D models. Mmm, 3d April in her undies.
Adventures worked when they were adventures. Easily controlled puzzle games that were fun to play. Who here really thought the fighting scenes in Full Throttle were fun? The 3D world in the last monkey island. For that matter any of the mini arcade games that Sierra always tried to squeeze in?
If the adventure is going to make a comeback it is going to be in the form of the old adventure. Just the adventure and nothing but the adventure. If you look at the small successes that is exactly what happened.
Stop listening to game reviewers who laud every game that does something unusual and simply rely on your gaming audience.
This guy says it himself, there is a market for old scumm games but then totally fails to realize what this means by saying he wants to add RPG elements. Hello! There is a market for old scumm games. That is it! The OLD scumm games. So any new game should NOT try to add anything new. If people wanted that they would be playing the new games.
The whole adventure debacle reminds me of the new coke crap. Except that game developers like this guy seem unable to grasp the fact "people upset with new product, lets give them old product back". Instead he keeps coming up with new recipes while the customers just want their old coke back.
Re:They forgot to ask the one important question (Score:2)
This guy says it himself, there is a market for old scumm games but then totally fails to realize what this means by saying he wants to add RPG elements. Hello! There is a market for old scumm games.
THANK YOU for saying the obvious!! This really pissed me off when I read it. I got about 8 hours into Dreamfall, the sequel to The Longest Journey, and I can't stomach another second. They made it
Re:They forgot to ask the one important question (Score:2)
Many games give the protagonist few "hit points" and work just fine: Thief, Metal Gear, Pac Man, just about every other adventure game ever made... Not every game is a run and gun smash-a-thon.
Adventure games are about finding creative solutions to problems. Hitting a guy i
Re:They forgot to ask the one important question (Score:2)
I'm thinking specifically of adventure games where a single guard would cause you to spend twenty minutes trying to avoid them, like Space Quest did at some point I can't exactly recall.
That point hit home. My problem with those sneaking sequences is my same problem with the fighting in Dreamfall. You're right when you say it's the implementation that I have a problem with, not the fact that they have these sequences at all. Crappy sneaking is
Re:They forgot to ask the one important question (Score:2)
Well, personally I think that adventure games have a great chance at a comeback now.
Everyone talks about how the new thing is all of the "non-gamer" gamers. The people that play Bejewelled and such. It seems to me that those people could be perfect for playing adventure games. And particularly adven
Re:They forgot to ask the one important question (Score:2)
Re:They forgot to ask the one important question (Score:2)
I'd love to see a good RPG/Adventure hybrid. The Hero's Quest/Quest For Glory games were a ton of fun.
Two words (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Two words (Score:2)
Re:Two words (Score:2)
Where Gilbert goes wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA, Gilbert describing what he would want to do with a game: You've got the action, some light combat, you know, Diablo-style combat going on with it, but it is also infused with really good adventure-game-style puzzles and adventure-style sensibilities to the storytelling. So what you can do there is take those puzzles and that storytelling that really appeal to people on a certain level, but you can fuse it with the kind of action and mindless play mixed in.
While I pretty much like what Gilbert says in TFA, here is going completely in the wrong direction. He does not seem to realise that the people who want stories and adventure-style puzzles are turned off by mindless action sequences. Mixing up different styles is a surefire way to make a game fail miserably. Try to please all, and you wll please none.
Re:Where Gilbert goes wrong (Score:2)
Most people don't have any problem with action sequences, the problem why action isn't much liked in the adventure community is that the action sequences in adventure games are *extremly* badly done, Fahrenheit so far was the only game that made action actual
Re:Where Gilbert goes wrong (Score:2)
umm.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, you probably didn't read the article...
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:1)
It's irrelevant that what was said is correct - it's the fact that <insert keyword here> was mentioned - which could only mean that <insert keyword here> was being bashed!
Gee, get with the program!
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:2)
A GTA player may not be saying... "hmm... I enjoy beating this whore, but when does the entire story climax... what is my character's raison d'etre?" but that does
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:2)
If he had actually said that, you might have a point. But he didn't. What he said was
... which is absolutely true for most games. Most games have crumby stories. That doesn't stop them from being fun, since a lot of people (like you) don
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like a fucking story.
Vice City - Cocaine deal goes bad, you have to track down and infiltrate the guy who did it, pick up a power-hungry parter (or 3) and double cross the origonal family that didn't reward you for going state's evidence.
Sounds like a fucking story.
San Andreas - Bad cops, toss you into the gang wilde
Re:more GTA bashing - yea. (Score:2)
Whereas "The Dig", the Lucasarts adventure, had me yelling "No!" at the screen because I was so upset by something that happened. Actual emotional involvement. And I'm not being nostalgic; I didn't play The Dig until a few years ago.
Re:I agree as well.... (Score:1)
Falcon, Carrier Command and then later Fallout (+2,+Tactics) have caused me to invest years of my life and I wouldn't do any of it differently.
LK
Re:The Internet... (Score:2)
The adventure genre died off quite a while before the internet got mainstream, back around in 1997. Beside from that, walkthroughs have been popular long before that, for pretty much any adventure game, except Maniac Manison back on the C64, I had a walk through right at hand when playing it. Its simply isn't a lot of fun to walk around for hours and hours in an adventure game, getting stuck is no fun and walkthroughs prevent tha