BlueCupTools Podcats! Grundislav & ThreeOhFour! Episode 82!

[ThreeOhFour]

Chicky: Oh yes, such a great soundtrack. Fits the game's tone perfectly.

Ponch: It's been called CamelCase for as long as I've been coding. Worth it for the mad cow pic

Armageddon: It really depends what your goals are. For me, game development takes all forms, because I do it as a hobby, but also as a job. I never hate a game, but there's always a point where you go "Man, I could do so much better than this" and you reach a crisis where you have to give up and persevere. Game design certainly isn't for everyone. Doing it as a job means it takes some of the sheen away from doing it as a hobby - you have to make sure you get x amount of work done each day, etc, and that can take the fun away from it. There'll always be stuff you like less in game development, and the way to overcome this is to either find someone who will do this aspect for you and focus on the stuff you prefer, or to get better at that thing and learn more about it. Knowing more and more about a subject is the best way to get more passionate about it, in my experience.

Daniel: Nice! Street cred unlocked!

Selmiak: The BlueCupTools Podcast officially endorses the act of drawing genitals.

[Fitz]

The thing is, making any big project -- whatever it may be -- takes time. A LOT of time. I've done all sorts of creative stuff over the past ten years. I wrote dozens of stories, then books, ranging from some 200 to 600 pages. I drew comics (a longer story, a page every two weeks), then comic strips (three strips a week, with an ensemble cast and no real story) -- and every time I take up something new, I'm utterly terrified. It's like standing at the foot of a mountain and looking up at the top. It's going to take a lot of time and energy, and it'll take a million steps -- including stops, detours, tripping and falling down -- to get there. So naturally, the fear is paralyzing. But then comes a day I just know I need to do it, and I take the first step, then another, and then I just keep plodding on, one step at a time -- looking down at the ground in front of me, not at the mountain top far away. I try to enjoy the now: the process itself, not just reaching some distant goal. I like to spend some time polishing some bit of artwork -- regardless of how small or irrelevant -- not worrying about time or schedules. If there's a character I like writing for, I'll spent some extra time amusing myself writing some dialogue for them. Anything fun, humorous. I like learning new small things, too, like audio-editing, sound effects or voice-overs.

With all that in mind, there'll still be times when I hate what I'm doing. There will be days when I'm out of ideas for comics, or when I'm tired/cranky and I can't focus on anything, not to mention sit there for 4+ hours doing just one thing. And I do get what Armageddon means. I got so exhausted with one of my webcomics that even though I left it with an open ending, intending to get back to it at some point, it's been five years and I never have. Not going to unless I find an easier, less demanding style -- because the artwork got almost photo-realistic at some point, and while it looked pretty nifty, it took all of my free time after work and weekends. There just has to be a balance between the effort involved and the enjoyment you get out of it. There's no point in maintaining a hobby that you hate every step of the way and you feel like you've chased yourself in a corner. Most of us have our day jobs for that

[Ponch]

The BlueCupTools Podcast officially endorses the act of drawing genitals.

Finally! A reason to break out the tablet!

[Vince Twelve]

I'm sensing some jealousy on Grundislav's part re: the love connection between Ben and Richard Cobbett.  Love triangle drama!

[Ponch]

Love triangle drama!

WHAT?! NO WAYS!! This is a bromance that shall last for all time! Nothing can divide this uncomfortably humid ManLove... can it?

[Grundislav]

Episode 31

First podcast of 2014! Special guest Dave Gilbert joins us to talk about game design.

[Dave Gilbert]

Too much fun. Thanks for having me on!

[Stee]

Thanks for the shaming Grundy!!

So... When are you kickstarting?

[Ponch]

Love triangle edition!


UPDATE: A very nice installment. I'm sad that Dave didn't give us a nice Deliverants, but I can live with that, I guess.

Fun fact: The very first PM I ever got here was from Dave Gilbert, way back at the end of 2004. It was very encouraging. Thanks, Dave. Is that offer to do some beta testing for me still open?

[Armageddon]

Great interview. And I got a mention.

[Vince Twelve]

I demand that you make Dave do DeliveRANTs!

[Dave Gilbert]

We did do a rant, kinda, towards the end. I just don't get angry enough, I guess!

[ThreeOhFour]

It's not a true DeliveRANT without the "Squeal like a pig, boy!" accent.

[Ponch]

GET DAVE ON THE PHONE!

UPLOAD A SPECIAL EDITION MINI-SODE!!

DON'T MAKE ME BREAK OUT THE ANGRY COW!!! 

[Stupot]

Great episode

[Grundislav]

Episode 32

Dave is back this week along with wife Janet (briefly) to discuss the benefits of beta testing, as well as feedback and criticism from others.

[selmiak]

*opens beer and starts listening*

*secretly hopes for anatoli mentions*

[selmiak]

well, from your closing words I suck at BCTing by giving feedback in advance and now commenting on my own comment...

best word creation from this podcast: mindblinking, or was it mindblanking? Anyways, funny and enjoyable podcast with good themes and explanations to it. And I made it though it without falling asleep

[Vince Twelve]

The changing of the ending for Resonance, I think was a pretty good example of dealing with the whole taking feedback from others during development topic you guys were talking about.  As the writer, I was so close to the story, it's really hard to see the weaknesses and things that are not adequately explained.  I was really against any changes at first, but after sleeping on it, I was able to realize that Dave and Janet weren't making these suggestions to hijack my story, but to try and make the best game possible.  I was able to then approach their suggestions from that common goal rather than from some adversarial standpoint.  Basically, I had to try seriously hard not to be a complete primma donna about the whole thing.

And in the end, it wound up not really being that huge of a change.

For those wondering exactly what the changes were, I'm going to go full spoiler here, so don't read the spoiler section unless you've played Resonance.

At the point when Dave sent me an email with their proposed changes, the phone tracing conversation, finale crane confrontation, and ending scenes had not been written.  So, I was convinced that my version of events would totally work once that stuff was in there.  Dave's suggestion was primarily that we change Ed's motivation for the events of the game and untangle some other things with simpler explanations.

Here's a rundown of the differences between the version of events I had planned and the ending as proposed: HUGE SPOILERS

Spoiler

Original story Ed's entire motivation from the beginning is to destroy Antevorta. He works with The Eleven Foundation because he believes that they are also working against Antevorta, but he is misled.  They are just using Ed to get Resonance using their own program, Antevorta, as the bait. Ed mistakenly believes that Reno and The Eleven Foundation will use Resonance to simultaneously destroy all the many Antevorta servers around the country, crippling the program.  He is told that he, personally, will be the one to take out the server in the Aventine hospital. Reno sets Ray and Bennet on Ed's trail knowing (with her "mystical" future predicting powers) that they will stop the attack on the hospital and kill Ed.  She will then be able to set Ray and Bennet up as the fall guys for the whole thing. In the final crane scene, Ray and Bennet would have had to convince Ed that Amul and Reno were not, actually, on Ed's side and that they had no interest in destroying Antevorta because they were, in fact, behind the whole thing.  But it would end up in the same explosive finale. After stopping Ed, Ray and Bennet would uncover Ed's phone, which would have several recorded phone conversations documenting Amul and Reno's involvement in the whole thing.  As they ride the elevator down from the crane, the recordings would play over the end credits. These phone recordings would reveal that Amul was the driving point behind a number of events in the game. Ed setup the resonance device that killed Morales, but it was Amul that decided to trigger it.  Amul also sent the thug to Anna's apartment in an effort to speed things up and push her towards finding Resonance. Ed is angry about all these steps Amul takes without consulting him. In the post-credits ending, Bennet and Ray would take Ed's phone recordings and publish them on Ray's website as proof against The Eleven Foundation and Antevorta. I also wanted beating the game to unlock a New Game + where these phone conversations would happen during the story allowing you to see it all play out chronologically.

Dave and Janet's suggestion Simplify the complex Eleven Foundation/Ed relationship.  Ed just wants to preserve Resonance for the common good.  The Eleven Foundation promised to help him to that end. Ed set off the device killing Morales. No complex thing with Amul. (Though we had to add the thing with the timer to allow this, since we're looking at Ed in the subway when the event takes place.  This allows us to cut out all the recorded phone calls and New Game + stuff. After delivering the devices to the Eleven Foundation, Ed discovers their true motivations and decides to stop them.  Ed's motivations are not about the "Orwellian nightmare", but just a desire to stop Reno and Amul. There is only one Antevorta server instead of many, and destroying it will stop the whole thing, giving more weight to the act. Crane scene is instead about convincing Ed that blowing up a chunk of the Hospital is not the best way to stop Antevorta, rather than convincing him that the people pulling his strings are behind it and that he's playing straight into their hands. Janet at this point came up with the second ending at this point where Ray can choose to let Ed go through with it.

The recorded conversations were to be:

• Ed calls Amul after the very first scene in the game.  He tells Amul that Morales plans on destroying Resonance.  Amul tells him to set up the device, just in case they need it.
• Ed calls Amul after seeing the destroyed Lab from the cemetery hill.  He is angry.  "Why did you set it off? It was supposed to be a fail safe!" Amul tells him that time is running out to stop Antevorta and that Ed proceed with plan B, "the girl."
• Ed reports to Amul the evening of Morales' death.  Amul tells Ed he should go immediately to Anna's apartment building to "play the Hero."  Ed asks Amul "What have you done now?"
• Ed calls Amul after the thug chases Anna on the stairwell.  He is angry that Amul keeps taking steps without Ed's ok.  Amul explains that the thug was there to help move things along faster."
• Ed calls to report that he has secured Resonance.  He sounds overwhelmed with emotion (from killing Anna) and asks if it was really all worth it.  Amul assures him that the destruction of Antevorta will be worth it and urges him to hurry and deliver Resonance to him.

In the end, I had to admit (as should have been obvious, but was hard to see at the time), mine was way too complex and required far too much exposition that might have worked better on a TV show or a movie, but not in a game.  Furthermore, there were just too many plot points that would not have been explained until the ending credits.  Dave and Janet's version got to the point faster and only really required a retooling of a few scenes.  I was sad to let go of my version, but as I said, I had to come to terms with the fact that they were making these suggestions to make the game better and that Dave had quite a bit more experience than I had at this whole thing.

A few parts of my ending still bled into what we ended up using. (Ed turned vehemently against Antevorta once he learned of the "Orwellian Nightmare" of the thing, rather than just being out to destroy it to get back at Amul and Reno for misleading him about their intentions for Resonance.) 

I was sad to see the phone recordings go because they gave a bit more context to Ed's motivations and state of mind and may have helped to make him somewhat sympathetic.  Without them, eliciting any sympathy for Ed's actions was a lot harder. 

I was also sad to see my New Game + idea go, but at this point it was March, and we were shooting for a release date that was three months away, so obviously it just wasn't going to happen.  Better to simplify the whole thing and eliminate all that extra exposition.

Although, after releasing the game, I realized that we kind of orphaned the thug that chases Anna at her apartment.  There was never really a good explanation in the game for that except to assume that Ed sent him to speed things up or that The Eleven Foundation was making a move.  Oh well.

[close]

[ThreeOhFour]

Bravo Vince! Interesting to get insight here!