BlueCupTools Podcats! Grundislav & ThreeOhFour! Episode 82!

[Grundislav]

No new episode, but checking in to say the issue with iTunes is fixed and episode 113 should now appear there!

[Grundislav]

Episode 114

Beta testing. Thanks to Jean Baptiste for the suggestion!

[Ponch]

w00t!

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

Two episodes! It's like an 80's chewing gum commercial  Double my pleasure double my fun!

[SilverSpook]

Great podcast, and thanks for the shoutout! I'm glad my little podcast time-saving trick was of some assistance.

On the testing subject, I did have a hard time getting the level of feedback I needed to get Neofeud polished up in time for release, just using volunteers. I ended up finding one particularly good professional tester who was also a fan of point-and-clicks as well as my game. I ended up just paying a bit up front and a small revenue share, but in the end, it was totally worth it as he crushed countless bugs with literally almost a hundred pages of extremely detailed reports. Platform-port / Windows Update related bugs aside, I can still count on one or maybe two hands the number of bugs that have reported by players since. They are very few and far between, and saved me a lot of potential negative Steam reviews due to major-showstopping issues on launch. So if you're an indie short on budget, I'd recommend getting at least one pro, or very proficient tester, especially one who specializes in point-and-click or adventure games, especially if you're worried if your game hasn't had enough testing and there might be some time-bombs hidden in there.

Anyway, my two cents!

Looking forward to Lamplight City and Unavowed!

[Grundislav]

Episode 115

Complex protagonists vs story non-linearity: why you can't have both (or can you?) Also, why are adventure game protagonists such assholes?

[Stupot]

Also, why are adventure game protagonists such assholes?

I haven't listened yet but I'd also add ‘why are NPCs always such assholes?' too. Seriously they are always so unhelpful. And the only reason for making an NPC unhelpful is so that you can insert a puzzle to either circumvent the unhelpful asshole or to Make said asshole more helpful.

[selmiak]

damn you and your The Witness Podcast! I bought it in the christmas sale and after hearing talk about it more and more now I started it and I#m just blown away from how much you can do with these small puzzle games And I just bruteforced my way through the 4 hedge mazes. I could understand the solution to the first maze after solving it but the others were just every possible combination And now I'm stuck in the treehouses with all these sun symbols...
and hearing you talk about other adv game characters while playing the whitness is also great, makes me wonder how the protagonist in the witness even looks like, you can't even see your own reflection in the water. There is no witness of the witness so to say. He probably looks something like king graham, his shadow has this same hat (or really weird hair).

[Amayirot Akago]

I remember Brian in Runaway 1 has at least one serious asshole moment where he futzes around with a laser and makes a poor museum employee accidentally destroy a priceless historical artifact. That's probably around the time where I lost all sympathy for him.

[ThreeOhFour]

I haven't listened yet but I'd also add ‘why are NPCs always such assholes?' too. Seriously they are always so unhelpful.

I feel this comes back down to the basic idea that that often NPCs aren't really characters present for any real purpose than for either comic relief, to antagonize and build drama in some way, or to be an obstacle of some sort - all of which can lead to characters being unpleasant to deal with.

[Danvzare]

I haven't listened yet but I'd also add ‘why are NPCs always such assholes?' too. Seriously they are always so unhelpful.

I feel this comes back down to the basic idea that that often NPCs aren't really characters present for any real purpose than for either comic relief, to antagonize and build drama in some way, or to be an obstacle of some sort - all of which can lead to characters being unpleasant to deal with.

I always thought NPCS were there to provide hints and point you in the right direction.
They do tend to be assholes though.

[Snarky]

Neat topics in the last two episodes! In 114, hurtful comments aside ( ), you even briefly address my earlier topic suggestion about changing a game after release.

As for well-developed protagonists in non-linear games, the one that comes to mind immediately is Tex Murphy in The Pandora Directive. Tex is far from a blank slate, but the game allows you to play with different styles, letting him turn into a noir anti-hero, a hardboiled detective with integrity, or a straight-up good guy.

I think the key to making it work is to (1) place the character at a turning point where you believe the decision might genuinely go either way, e.g. setting up a dilemma or conflict between two of your character's core values, and (2) make sure both outcomes tell meaningful stories with satisfying character arcs. The big decision in The Shivah feels like that to me: in my mind the dark path is the "canon" outcome, mainly because it felt like a better fit with the genre and tone of the game, and I really believe Rabbi Stone could go either way on that subway platform, but I suspect most players assume the good ending is the official one.

[Mr Underhill]

Good stuff, gents! Enjoyed these. It's funny how I agree with Ben that Guybrush is a non-character, but he's still loveable and relatable as all heck (Dominic Armato might have something to do with that in CoMI, though).

I don't remember if this has been discussed on the podcast before or not, but world-building would make for a pretty juicy topic, especially if you take into account decisions like going for a real-world location versus fantasy versus Sci-Fi versus steampunk etc.

Looking forward to the next one!

[Snarky]

I had a thought about Guybrush. First, I'm not sure I agree that he's not a character just because he's not a very deep or well-defined character. I think he does have some personality, even if it's just a kind of blithely positive can-do spirit mixed with mild snark.

My thought, though, was that Guybrush's role in the games is actually more as a sidekick. More specifically, he's your (the player's) sidekick: the guy with the wisecracks and comic relief pratfalls while you go about the serious business of solving puzzles and so on. I think that's actually a quite ingenious piece of design.

[Grundislav]

Episode 116

All about self care.

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

Man. I've missed two episodes, you guys gotta look at how the podcast looks on the iPhone app.  Maybe it's my fault for using an iPhone 

[selmiak]

wow, interesting topic! Sooooomehow I feel even worse and more depressive after hearing this. damned, I hope you don't know these black days when you don't make it out of bed and can't sleep either. Then even the internet sucks and you find something great and instead of celebrating it accordingly you destroy it with some sick shit and feel sorry, all while on of your best friends announces he wants to drink himself to death and even more often uses meth (which he hid for a long time) and stops eating and just drinks the whole day and brabbles annoying and sick shit and you can watch him lose all his brainz and know you have to either go crazy with feeling sorry or let go. man, this is eating me up and sooooo distracting from gamedev and art after all! feels a lot like fight club irl and I wish this to noone! thanks for this episode, really helpful advice there, thanks for reading this.

p.s. I don't do meth! probably the worst you can do to relax...!

[Grundislav]

Episode 117

Making changes to your game after release.

[Chicky]

Another great podcast These past few have really hit it out of the park. The one about self care came at a pretty important time for me, has definitely made a positive impact on my working working process. Thanks guys! <3

[Grundislav]

Episode 118

The importance of good sound design.