BlueCupTools Podcats! Grundislav & ThreeOhFour! Episode 82!

[Grundislav]

Episode 92

[Weston_Kaunk]

i have the sudden urge to have a "weirdest, most obscure videos" off, but i'm also worried about what bizarro corners of the internet we'd end up in.

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

VR and spaceships dog-fighting and you love Wing Commander, Ben you need to check out Star Citizen by Chris Roberts .. in about 2yrs maybe... Damn, I never come here anymore because of my obsession with SC. Am I the only one?

[Stupot]

I'm with Francisco in the tired adventure game references and in-jokes. It's not so much the 4th-wall-breaking that I have a problem with, just the fact that it's almost never as funny as intended. I rarely laugh anymore; I just sigh and tut. So much "comedy" now relies on the audience simply 'getting' the joke, and not actually considering if the joke is funny, or even a joke at all.  (Just look at Big Bang Theory).

Regarding achievements, I'm mostly with Ben, I think. Steam-style achievements do nothing for me. Give me unlockable content anytime. Maybe the next WEG game should have the dev commentary unlockable upon completing the game, or something. I loved the unlocked artwork at the end of Shardlight and wished there was more. Much more rewarding that being given a pop-up for trying some random action. Trying every combination (aka Brute-forcing) often means you are stuck, which is the opposite of achievement anyway.

[Sslaxx]

Yeah I found Dog Mendonca (demo and final game) pretty disappointing for the same reasons you did, Grundislav and Ben - but then, I didn't back the KickStarter for the game. I backed Dog to support Godot. That's come a long way since the days of the KickStarter. So for me, there's been a positive result from that, even if the actual product itself was lacking.

[Andail]

Agree 100% about self-referencing jokes in adventure games, or other 4th-wall-breaking shenanigans. Not only is it poor game design, because you implement something you know is flawed and hope it's forgiven if you just acknowledge the flaw, but it's also lazy comedy writing because it's basically the same joke over and over again with slight variations.

Third, it ruins immersion because of said 4th-wall breaking.

Comedy is super hard, and really funny games are exceptionally rare gems today. The problem is that too many people think they're funny - based on feedback by parents and drinking buddies - and aren't proven wrong by a broader, objective audience before it's too late - and also because when comedy isn't funny it's just aggressively worthless, as opposed to e.g. suspense, which can mostly be endured just fine even if you're not biting your nails all the time.

Whispered World and its ilk annoy me so greatly in their attempts at humour it makes my soul decay. It's lengthy, repetitious and poorly delivered. Granted, I've only ever seen let's plays of them. 

[ThreeOhFour]

I agree that it's super hard to do well. I also think drama is super hard to do well. I don't believe that something being super hard should mean we dissuade people from trying it.

Some of my favourite jokes in classic adventure games involve breaking the fourth wall. Just because I haven't seen it done well in quite a while doesn't mean I don't think it's worth trying.

I don't value immersion very highly in comedy, nowhere near as much as I do in drama. Some of my favourite comics break immersion for comedy, I refer you again to Stewart Lee. Maybe you don't think he's funny, but that's fine. As always, comedy is very specific to an individual.

As always, execution matters as much as concept.

Point is: I think most people are getting upset at specific poorly implemented examples, of which there are many, but as a result of this are saying the entire concept is without worth. That is what I disagree with.

[Andail]

I don't know if criticizing something equals dissuading someone from doing something. Everything works if it's done well.

There are examples of really good 4th wall breaking in both literature and film, but mostly, I'd guess, in a more surrealist, Kaufman-esque kind of setting/story. If you want to have a discussion about the boundaries between reality and fiction, or a kind of layer-upon-layer type of storytelling, be my guest. I love meta or 'mise en abyme' stuff of various genres, e.g. House of Leaves and Being John Malkovich.

I guess I just find the comedy aspect of it heavily dated. I remember in the childhood of AGS, lots and lots of games tried to be funny (because early trendsetters like Larry Vales and Rob Blanc actually were funny (the game would tell Larry Vales stuff like "you can't interact with that x, it's as feature-less as you, Larry)) but then far too many games were made that had characters telling the player to stop clicking on them, or to joke about how big their pockets must be to hold so much inventory, or "if this was a Sierra game..." etc etc.

It was funny in Spaceballs where everybody would suddenly look into the camera, but yeah, dated is the word that pops up for me.

If I sounded harsh I certainly didn't mean to dissuade anyone from having a go at being funny - my point was just that comedy that isn't funny is kind of a pain in the arse, whereas other genres tend to be more endurable even if they're not perfectly executed.

[ThreeOhFour]

That's entirely fair - I took your 100% agreement to be an agreement with Francisco's imploring designers to stay away from it. If we can agree that it depends entirely on sensitivity to the strengths and weaknesses of the specific approach (or any) then I don't think it needs much more discussion. I entirely agree that when a thing is overdone it's tiresome, and that comedy that I don't personally find funny turns me off a game (or film, or anything) instantly. I just felt like I was seeing (especially in my discussion with Francisco) a blanket refusal to accept potential in the form, and misread your agreement as supportive of that!

[Grundislav]

Maybe I was a bit too passionate in the discussion, but I don't really think it should never EVER be done. The thing is, there are tropes, and it's very easy to be lazy and rely on those dated tropes. Trying something new and refreshing is more than welcome, I just have yet to see it.

[SilverSpook]

I think Grundislav is spot on with the overuse of the tropes, as someone guilty of it at times.

It's a lot easier to make some random reference, knowing someone will smile cause you dropped that name.  Harder to say or do something new or meaningful with the reference.  I'd say the difference is (to use a dated 90's business term) 'value added'.  "What are you adding that's new?"  Something like Kung Fury is pretty much 99.9% trope, but at least the jokes it makes about them are kind of 'fresh'.  (Rotten Tomatoes thinks so anyway, haha.)

"Hackerman" is inspired by 80's nerd fashion and action movie "pretend-hacking" tropes, but he is a unique creation.  As opposed to just ripping the 'Only Way To Win Is Not To Play' scene or quote directly from War Games, dropping it into some random scene in your thing where it makes no sense, and hoping someone will wink and chuckle, "Cause, cause WAR GAMES!  LOL!"   Then tropes just become grating.

I also agree that if you're going to make fun of something like, "Adventure Games have terrible forced puzzles" and then the game is full of terrible forced puzzles, that is the worst.  It's like someone complaining about climate change and then commuting in a monster truck-Hummer.

[David Ostman]

I don't mind tropes at all, after all you can divide all good fiction into one selection of tropes or another and the most riveting entertainment out there follows true and tried concepts, but excel in presentation and delivery. A well done storytelling is a well done storytelling regardless of it being on tvtropes.org or not. Again, most of the time it seems the developers are not working well with the resources they have at hand or are too inexperienced or not skilled yet to deliver.

As for comedy. Wow, that's a difficult one. Different people find so many different things funny and I have probably only laughed a handful of times, like not more than five times, for real playing a game. Sure, I chuckle once in a while at something that's meant to be funny and give the game a genuine smile in recognition, but true comedy in a game? No, that's a rare, rare thing to me, and that's why I never play comedy adventure games anymore. Not just because the humour is lost on me, but also because it's just not my thing in an adventure game. They get too goofy and silly, too forced, and that's not for me at all. Give me drama, thriller, smart dialogue, good atmosphere and character development and I'll squee like a fangirlboy.

[Fitz]

That's interesting, David -- as I'm the opposite. I love cheesy comedy, puns and fourth-wallers. But am I really easy to please as an adventure gamer? Not quite. See, what really makes or breaks the game for me are the puzzles. I'm definitely not a fan of logical puzzles serving as a more elaborate key/door puzzle. Machinarium was such an unrewarding chore for me that I was not the least bit excited about the new Samorost (and still haven't gotten around to playing Botanicula). Same with The Witness. But proper, story-driven adventure games still have those, too, especially the serious ones. That -- and the dreaded "fix the electrical device" puzzle. Uurrrghh... "Oh hey, there's a broken machine. Looks easy, I just need to replace this bit. But wait, where do I get one?" 3-30 minutes, three miles east and 5 favors later I manage to find it -- but surprise: it's missing a part. Depending on how far in the game you encounter the puzzle, you might also then need to take care of the the power supply. *shudders* It might be because I work around computers and industrial machines all day, I listen to them wheezing, clonking day in, day out, and oh do they love to spite me. But I hated those machine puzzles in Fate of Atlantis 20 years ago, too. For me THAT is a tired trope. And, to my horror, it's still a thing.

[ThreeOhFour]

Is not everything in contemporary storytelling able to be categorized into a collection of 'tropes'? I've yet to see anything that cannot be deconstructed and shown as a series of standard motifs and devices.

Arguments that are against poor execution, rather than the form itself, are naturally acceptable, but saying 'relying on tropes' is akin to saying 'relying on devices and motifs' which is the backbone of all creative work. It seems as though 'trope' is conflated with 'cliché', which is incorrect.

Hair splitting aside, one of my favourite things is when a creative person introduces me to a clichéd idea in a manner which subverts my expectation. I agree that it's rare, which is possibly what makes it as exciting as it is. I'm saying, like others, 'If you're going to do it, do it well, and try to be original', which is about as condescending and uninstructive as I could be with my advice. Nobody tries to avoid doing things well unless we're making Oceanspirit Dennis projects again (and even then people perverted that disastrously and beautifully by making decent games with the character, which was most upsetting and wonderful).

[Andail]

Alright, this is slightly beside my point about self-referencing jokes in adventure games, but anyways:

Arguments that are against poor execution, rather than the form itself, are naturally acceptable, but saying 'relying on tropes' is akin to saying 'relying on devices and motifs' which is the backbone of all creative work. It seems as though 'trope' is conflated with 'cliché', which is incorrect.

Hm.
I'd say tropes and clichés both refer to stuff that's been done so many times it's readily recognisable (unless you get your definition from TVtropes.com, in which case 'trope' means every little single thing that has ever been said or written in any work of fiction), with the difference that 'cliché' bears a distinctly negative connotation, whereas 'trope' sounds more neutral. But whatever demotes a trope into a cliché is kind of subjective, so yeah, this is borderlining hairsplitting.

I think it's perfectly valid to say that your game or story or whatever shouldn't rely entirely on tropes - arguing the oppposite, and saying that every story can be deconstructed into tropes - is like saying all books fundamentally consist of words and letters, so therefore nothing can ever be original.

That's different to saying that stories can't have tropes - now that would be a bit snobbish. Most great stories share basic story elements.

Anyhow, if my first criticism was interpreted as a direct jab at Gibbous, then apologies to Mr Underhill. I guess I assumed that the "I'm supposed to bother you, this is an adventure game" comment was more of a demo gimmick than an indication of what most of the gameplay will look like. In that case, the demo and project over all looks so stellar I think he'll survive that piece of honest feedback.

[ThreeOhFour]

I got my definition from a dictionary several years ago when I first heard the term - and it defined 'trope' as the use of figurative language. The fact that TVTropes is devoted to breaking media down into its component motifs seemed to support this definition. I since see the word use everywhere to mean 'cliché', but to me it seems as though we've a perfectly good word for that already.

I agree that 'cliché' has a negative connotation, but here we were directly referring to an apparent overuse of something and suggesting it's overdone has a negative connotation anyway.

Sorry for derailing everything entirely again.

Perhaps we should do a podcast on the use of established techniques and motifs as opposed to 'being original' seeing as there's much interest in this discussion.

EDIT: I wish to point out that I am in no way opposed to criticism of any element in any game, I just feel it should be more specific than "Don't ever do this again, I am bored of it!"

[Danvzare]

I know that "Trope" and "Cliché" mean different things, but I have no idea how they're different, so I just use them as synonyms. I should really look into how they differ.

None the less, I agree with ThreeOhFour. It seems wrong to criticize something just because it's overdone. After all, I prefer humorous adventure games, and tend to avoid the more serious ones. Humour and adventure games, tend to go hand in hand for me. I can't imagine one without the other. So hearing so many people say that humour should practically be abandoned altogether in adventure games because it's overdone, is a little jarring.

What you should be criticizing, is whether or not something is being done simply because everyone else is doing it. For example, almost every adventure game nowadays has to include a forced reference to Monkey Island. Even Tales of Monkey Island included a forced reference to Monkey Island! THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!! And yet it happened.

If you're doing something simply because everyone else is doing it. You're sacrificing originality for a pitiful attempt at gaining more popularity. Unless of course you're doing it to make fun of everyone else doing it. In which case you're making a parody. But you get what I mean.

[Cassiebsg]

Interesting... first time I hear/read the word "trope" so at the moment it means literally nothing in my mind.

Still interesting subject. I've come to expect the character to wink at the player once in a while, but don't expect it to be a constant though. As I write my game I often do have the tendency to do that, specially when writing the "look" command... More often than not, I choose to ignore that instinct (I hope) and just go for the indirect approach.

[Grundislav]

Episode 93

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

NES Robin Hood prince of thieves was sweet! Have much more respect for you now Grundislav fighting massive pigs is the best...