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I was only admiring you artwork for this on twitter just the other day. It looks superb!

Yo this looks awesome!

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 believe Francisco has fixed the airshow puzzle in AGW somewhat, after we all complained, so hopefully you play it and think "What on earth was he grumbling about?"

I agree that action stuff definitely helps certain games work. Indy, Conquests of Camelot/The Longbow, Quests for Glory, Full Throttle and the like have both narratives and character that almost demand action sequences of the script. Sometimes it's okay to do clever things within the existing mechanics, such as with insult swordfighting, but actiony sequences are definitely worthwhile, too. We have things along these lines in both Technobabylon and Shardlight - to varying degrees of success, probably - and I think some of this comes down to the "adventure" part of the genre - it's fun for danger to be dangerous.

I also completely understand when players complain about the action in, well, all of those mentioned before. It's clearly not everybody's cup of tea. Nothing is. Especially limiting saves to prevent save scumming.

I think the main reason I was so quick to caution Francisco against designing with timers is because two of the sections that frustrated me the most in A Golden Wake (The bakery granny and the airshow bit) frustrated me because of their use of timers in a way that didn't feel very fair, so I was most likely heavily biased against them because I was speaking directly to him. It makes me think that using timers is very hard to balance well, and that basing a whole game around them would be a balancing nightmare. Even more so than usual with games.

I certainly think it's important to not generalise when it comes to timers, mazes, deaths and action sequences. I only have to think of Fate of Atlantis, which used all four of these and still feels very enjoyable to play - perhaps even because of these elements, in some cases, though I accept that many dislike parts in Atlantis - to be convinced.

What I do think is important, though, is that players be notified of this stuff so that they can save their game appropriately, or even rely on autosaves to counter them (as we use in WEG), and make it obvious that "This is why you failed". A friend had to retry that granny bakery puzzle about 20 times because he'd clicked on the right thing, but just as the timer was expiring, so he thought he'd clicked the wrong thing. He then tried every other weird combination before coming back to it, in frustration, and solving the section.

As for Thimbleweed Park, I watched someone play a little bit of it - up to the Sheriff-a-rena-a-whoo chap. I was mostly surprised that it has even more fourth wall breaking jokes than Monkey Island does. I haven't started it myself, though, because various friends of mine have had incredibly negative reactions to playing the game, especially the ending, and so I've not been in a rush to try it too much for myself. It's one of those games that seems to be quite divisive, though, as I also know several friends who've thought its brand of humour is pure genius.

also Ben's idea that having a complex puzzle spread out over a huge area is not very engaging is something I totally understand. But it is cool if you need some things from the various places and these things all can be solved by solving puzzles at that one place and finally all the treasures from the different places combine to solve the uber riddle. Sometimes it could make sense to have the fishing rod needed at the seashore and not at the mountainlake where you actually need it. this needs good balance.

Yeah, I definitely think it's very satisfying to bring elements from one place to another place and use those to bypass a big obstacle. The problem - for me - is when it's not super clear that something is the big obstacle, and I think that's the primary challenge, wasting a long time on that without realizing there are another 3 obstacles I should be focusing on instead, I think! As you say, it all needs balance.

Blog!

Ongoing Full Throttle scenery studies! (these will be eventually be compiled into a full sized PDF on the blog, which will be easier to read, but for now you can get them here)

I wasn't expecting to learn that Ben is cruel to children who can't afford nice Halloween costumes.

Neither were those children.

Ben I think you will be proud of me to hear I've started playing Earthbound SNES (Wii U is awesome for old games because it's also a great handheld) such great 90s Japanese humour!

I have always been proud of you.

Thank you for the kind birthday wishes!

Happy birthday Ponch!

Thanks everybody, and thanks for sticking with us for so long! Hooray for Arcanum, and yes, one of the games I recommended Grundi check out when he was preparing to make LC.

Andail: We should totally get you on again to talk about your new project, doing graphics in higher resolutions and the like!

PM sent!

I have a spare key for Hero of the Kingdom if anybody is interested!

Claimed

I think I may have been one of the people who said Shartlight. If so, I'm sorry

I don't want to seem like a massively humorless arse with my rejection of that bastardization; I'm light-hearted enough to see the funny side in it, I just reject it as a legitimate criticism of the name, and there were some people who treated it as thus! No need to worry about actually offending me or anything!

I discovered the BlueCupTools podcast just about a week ago and whenever I hear your voice Ben, I can't help but see you as Simon Amstell. So you can't ever reveal your appearance or it will be a very confusing experience for me.

Whether or not I look anything like Simon Amstell is up to your imagination, but I'm definitely a fan of his work and will accept this as my new imagined appearance with grace.

[love]

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]

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!"

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).

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!

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.

What hath god wrought?