Messages

1

Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: Wot I'm Reading - The Book Thread

« on: July 16, 2014, 02:53:30 AM »

+1 on that Jodorowsky's Dune recommendation - an excellent watch! Of course, as someone who adores The Holy Mountain and Incal I'm somewhat biased, but even 84 years old Jodorowsky is still a whirlwind of charisma and creativity, and a very interesting man to listen to.

More on topic - recently finished reading China Mieville's Bas-Lag books and  loved all of them - if you're interested in ambitious and unusual fantasy fiction - I can't recommend them enough!

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Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: Other Kickstarter Projects

« on: February 13, 2014, 06:17:52 PM »

I enjoy both! What I would like to see is a Cyber-Steam Punk environment!  Blade Runner meets Final Fantasy VI!
Bt

Yes, please make "The Diamond Age" videogame, world!

Really?  I feel like it's one of the most overdone aesthetics ever.   

While I'll agree that it's one of the more prominent alternative aesthetics, I don't think it's overdone by any stretch of the imagination. But I would be delighted if you prove me wrong by listing a bunch of really good steampunk games/movies/novels.

Oh, and yeah, Blackmore looks pretty nice, shame they haven't prepared any screenshot mock-ups so far.

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Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: University finals hand in day!

« on: May 06, 2013, 01:00:14 PM »

Best of luck, Jen, I'm sure you'll breeze through it! So it's probably more like "Congratulations, Jen!" 

And good luck to Arsenyi too.

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Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil

« on: April 23, 2013, 09:33:42 AM »

The CORRECT pronunciation is Pahsta. 

Not in Russian it isn't! Also, I read "Pahsta" exactly the same way - paaasta, but I'm guessing that's not what you meant.

Although when said in mock-mafioso voice it does indeed sound like pæsta, I'll give you that one.

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Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil

« on: April 23, 2013, 01:44:37 AM »

As an aside, I can't get over the way he keeps pronouncing "pasta."

Paaasta.  Crazy Brits and their incorrect American English.

How would you pronounce that? Pæsta?! Oh, dear God! (that's gɔːd, not gʌd)

Getting back to topic, though - the situation with the big publishers is indeed sad, but not at all unique to the gaming industry. Film industry does pretty much the same thing, preferring the huge blockbusters that they can back up with millions in advertisement and put in every cinema around the globe to trying to make cheaper, but better and more diverse films for everyone.

  And as much as I liked the pasta sauce analogy and would like to see more diversification of high-budget games and see them cater to more niche markets, I'm afraid that Dishonoreds and X-COMs is not something you can mass produce. They are succesful not so much because they are aimed at different, often neglected audiences, but because they are really great games. Call Of Duty:Whichever is not a great game, but it still sells - and that's every businessman's wet dream - selling a product regardless of it's quality.

And on a brighter side - this attitude leaves the niche markets wide open for people who are truly passionate about their particular brand of entertainment, adventure game community included.

6

Quest for Infamy / Re: EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW - Big Box Art

« on: April 16, 2013, 02:28:33 PM »

Did someone just say "FREE SWAG FOR THE TEAM MEMBERS!!!1"? 'Cause that's what I heard, and I think that's a great idea! 

Love where you went with this, the whole Vallejo/Frazetta angle works delightfully - retro in the most awesomely cheesy way imaginable. Great job on the execution too, Jen!

7

Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: Favorite Fantasy Movies

« on: March 16, 2013, 01:55:12 PM »

Zardoz, anyone?  Seriously though, 70-80s sci-fi films are the best, and I speak as someone who doesn't have any childhood memories of that stuff. I have childhood memories of Total Recall, though. Well, nightmares, mostly.

Among my favourites, apart from the obvious masterpieces like Alien, Blade Runner and Brazil(and everything else by Terry Gilliam as well), are:
Logan's Run, with it's adorably kinky 70s costumes and set-pieces and charming conceptual naivete;
A Boy And His Dog, featuring young Don Johnson and a telepathic dog in a post-apocalyptic world;
Mad Max and Mad Max 2 (or The Road Warrior) - classic post-apocalyptic action;
Soylent Green, Omega Man and Planet of the Apes - all featuring the delightfully horrendous overacting by Charlton Heston and tons of silliness, but some moments of pure sci-fi bliss;
Time After Time - featuring a time-hopping HG Wells, trying to catch Irenicus Jack the Ripper;
The Man Who Fell To Earth, featuring even more David Bowie's junk than Labyrinth ;

Also - pretty much everything by Carpenter(Escape from New-York, Big Trouble In Little China and more) and Cronenberg (especially Videodrome) and... there's just too many to remember them all, and there's plenty of great sci-fi from the 90s too. Lucky us! 

Fantasy genre seems to be slightly less fortunate in the great movies department, but Princess Bride, Labyrinth, Dark Crystal and Legend are all quite wonderful. And there's a bucketload of amazing Hayao Miyazaki films, of course, with Nausicaa Of the Valley Of the Wind being my personal favourite.

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Banter and Chit-Chat! / Re: The Kickstarter Blues

« on: September 16, 2012, 07:36:30 PM »

I'm very biased about the Obsidian kickstarter, since it was the first thing I wished for after I found out about the Double Fine Adventure. For me Chris Avellone + Tim Cain is even better than Tim Schafer + Ron Gilbert, and the original Fallouts, Planescape and Arcanum are my favourite games of all time.

So, from my fanboy position, I would like to argue that this is exactly the kind of project appropriate for kickstarter. It's too big for independent publishing, while the larger publishers wouldn't even go near it.
And yet it's the kind of project that many people were dreaming of for years(I sure have), and Obsidian has both the experience and talent to pull it off.

I don't think it ruins things for actual indie games either- if anything it brings lots of new people to their virtual playground (the results of DFA is a clear proof of that), we just now have a place for middle ground between niche and mainstream projects. And it's not like there are many developers as beloved as the former Black Isle team who also want to make serious old-school games.

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Quest for Infamy / Re: Designing Quest For Infamy

« on: July 31, 2012, 02:31:07 PM »

Investigational puzzles/gameplay is probably something I tend to enjoy the most. Talking with various characters in a logical order, picking the right topics and making decisions about what to do/where to go next based on what you know and progressing bit by bit with every right action. Gabriel Knight kind of things, basically.

I also like when adventure games use the basic game mechanics for puzzles. For example, the ability to walk around in most classic adventures (QFGs excluded) is pretty much useless gameplay-wise. Which is why it can be nice to encounter the parts where you have to navigate the player precisely, like stepping on some plates in a correct order or run through traps etc.