BlueCupTools Podcats! Grundislav & ThreeOhFour! Episode 82!

[Weston_Kaunk]

Watching Gravity Falls made me really think about map and room design.

simple effective layout with enough detail in the scaled down versions to still show the character of the town.

Also when backgrounds indicate where walking off the corners lead to like where everything is kinda signposted, in the corners you'd have stairs or a little sign, or the image of the building off in the distance with just enough for you to keep your bearings of where you were or how to get to what room.

I kinda want to make a maze where in the maze the farther along you get the closer a tower in the background appears, like every 3 or so correct turn it looks a little closer. With little logic puzzles and riddles along the way.

[SilverSpook]

Great show guys!

So I think the take away is that, 'Everything, including the rule of 3rds and Chekhov's Gun is just another tool in the toolkit: each used when appropriate, in moderation, and to the end of producing a great game.'

Welcome to the internet, where everything is either a panacea or the Black Death, depending on which side of the polarized flame war you are on, to the end of producing rage-induced-virality, eyeball time, clickthroughs, and useless, self-obsessed, blowhard individuals.

Game Over.  Insert Coin. 

JK I like the concept of the rule of 3rds though I have never actually used it myself.  I did like the part where Ben was ranting on how no matter how perfect your composition of your background is, it's gonna get thrown off when characters show up.  And how the minute details that eat away at you as an artist or designer, like the slightly-too-blue backlight shading on a bookcase or something, how that stuff in all likelihood will never be noticed by players.  Learning how to put the brush or the pen down and be ok with things is a hard skill to learn!  Especially for someone with OCD or APD (Anal Perfectionist Disorder).

[Grundislav]

Episode 94

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

This needs a BUMP!
Thanks for the podcast
So Grundi, you did the most the art for A Golden Wake? I thought Ben was involved.. If I don't have twitter does it mean I don't get to see any WIP's from Po-Dicky?

[Grundislav]

Yep, I did all the art for A Golden Wake. And for now, Twitter's the only place I've been posting stuff.

[Quintaros]

Francisco, what's the reason for keeping your character animations in 320x200 when you're increasing the overall resolution of "Poe Dickens"?

[Grundislav]

Mainly because I don't feel comfortable working with the smaller pixels of 640x400 native resolution.

[Grundislav]

Episode 95

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

Nice podcast gents.
I think often that swearing and other vulgar stuff is just jarring and pulls me out of the game when it's overdone. More often than not it seems so forced, light sprinkles of this stuff is plenty I don't play games to be shocked I do it for fun.

[Ponch]

Pixel wieners and foul language. A shockingly saucy podcast, gentlemen!

[Stupot]

Interesting stuff. An awareness of your audience's sensibilities is important. It's easy to say no one should have to censor themselves but I'm aware that when people are paying for the end product, this has to be a consideration.

But here's my thing. I do find it a shame that we can't play around with bad taste as much these days. We're constantly censoring ourselves, not because we think we've gone a step too far, but because we're worried that other people might think we've gone a step too far (and the consequences of that these days could cost you a few Twitter friends, to say the least). That's a shame. If you aren't offended by something but you're aware others might be, does that make you a bad person? No. It makes you a very conscientious person. It's a shame the potentially offended parties can't have the same kind of respect and acceptance that, just sometimes, bad taste makes good art, before jumping onto social media to exclaim their outrage.

Regarding some of Amy Wellard's actions.

Spoiler

The dropping of the air con unit onto the guard's head was a pretty brutal move on her part. The death and animation itself was awesome. My reaction was a physical recoiling in my chair and a kind of part giggle-part oooooohhhh sound. But when I thought about it, I was like 'what did that poor guy do, other than his job. There might be a kid somewhere who's dad won't be coming home from work tonight because he's had his head squashed. It didn't really do much to make me like Amy. I felt her situation hadn't quite reached the point where brutally murdering someone was an appropriate solution to her problem. Maybe there was an alternative solution I'm not aware of. If not, maybe there could have been.

[close]

[ThreeOhFour]

Stu: I've been thinking about this a lot, and there's a couple of points I've considered.

The first is that I think I don't mind "bad taste" as long as it's clear that in the context of the game it's not being promoted as a positive thing. For example, I cannot stand Leisure Suit Larry 5, because when I play it I feel like the people who made it are the ones making the awful jokes. This is probably because everybody in the world is in on the jokes, they all feel like this is how they always act.

One the other hand, I love Beavis & Butt-head in Virtual Stupidity, and I think that's because it's written to show "Look at these two misfits in a world full of more ordinary people, see how messed up they are."

Showing them being these awful people is funny to me, because it's clear that everybody else around them (well, not everybody, of course, but the majority) are more in line with how I feel about the world. When I play Beavis & Butt-head, I get the feeling that the two main characters are the sexists, the problematic people. When I play Leisure Suit Larry 5, I get the feeling that it's Al Lowe himself. Doesn't mean this is the truth, it's just how I feel.

With regards to the thing about Amy, I totally agree:

Spoiler

Didn't think about that until John Walker mentioned it in his review, at which point I instantly regretted the fact that we put that in the game instead of a more cunning solution. I think we missed it because we were focused on making the game interesting rather than staying true to the character, especially considering the difficulty she has ending someone's life at the beginning of the game.

Funnily enough, when Dave first showed me the ending of Blackwell Deception it was written slightly differently, and I pointed out to him "You realize that Rosa's murdering someone here? This doesn't feel like Rosa". By that point I knew her well enough, over the course of several games, that I knew that such a thing felt totally wrong for her character, and Dave agreed and adjusted it. I guess we didn't know Amy well enough at the point at which that part was written into the game to understand why it was a problem.

[close]

[Danvzare]

I think often that swearing and other vulgar stuff is just jarring and pulls me out of the game when it's overdone. More often than not it seems so forced, light sprinkles of this stuff is plenty I don't play games to be shocked I do it for fun.

So definitely true. The best example I can think of is the Thief series. In Thief 4, they stopped using the made up swear words (like Taffer) that had been prominent in the series up to that point, and started to use real swear words, it suddenly destroyed the charm of the series. Not only that, but the sheer quantity of swearing, kind of ruined the immersion for me as well.

Showing them being these awful people is funny to me, because it's clear that everybody else around them (well, not everybody, of course, but the majority) are more in line with how I feel about the world. When I play Beavis & Butt-head, I get the feeling that the two main characters are the sexists, the problematic people. When I play Leisure Suit Larry 5, I get the feeling that it's Al Lowe himself. Doesn't mean this is the truth, it's just how I feel.

While I've never played Leisure Suit Larry 5 or Beavis & Butt-head in Virtual Stupidity (the latter of which is on my to-play list) I do completely agree with you here.
As a matter of fact, I think what you described, is what makes or breaks anything comedy related for me.

[Grundislav]

Regarding Amy:

Spoiler

I feel the same way. I realized after it was pointed out that my focus was on designing a cool puzzle(indirectly controlling the raven) rather than consideration for her actions and how they worked in relation to her character. If I could go back and redo it, I'd change it so she finds a more non-violent solution.

[close]

[Stupot]

Regarding Amy:

Spoiler

I feel the same way. I realized after it was pointed out that my focus was on designing a cool puzzle(indirectly controlling the raven) rather than consideration for her actions and how they worked in relation to her character. If I could go back and redo it, I'd change it so she finds a more non-violent solution.

[close]

Spoiler

Yeah, to be fair that was a cool sequence, and using the bird to help you was a great touch. In fact, the raven/Reaper side of things was by far my favourite part of the game. Maybe if she had even just knocked the guy out, it might have been a bit more believable.

[close]

[Sslaxx]

You guys going to do any podcasts while Ben's in the Big Apple? Maybe go interview Bt!

[Grundislav]

Episode 96

[Ponch]

But what color socks is Ben wearing? How am I supposed to assemble this life-size mosaic on my living room wall made entirely out of Trix puffs and Fruit Loop rings if I don't have all the pertinent details?!

[AnasAbdin]

I'm afraid to reach a point where I can't AGS without listening to your podcasts

Topic suggestion

I'm constantly trying to improve backgrounds, animations.. etc.
This is done whether by changing colors, lighting, camera position or even by replacing the whole background. You know when you look at your old games you always feel you could have done things better. Well, since many of us work alone on their projects, the time span gets long enough to look at old parts of our projects and feel we must do improvements. Do you think there is a limit to this? Is it OCD-esh?

Thanks guys!

[Grundislav]

Episode 97