The new Blackwell game (spoiler-free)
 

I'm suprised there hasn't popped up any discussions about it yet, it would be interesting to hear what you guys think,

personally I had plans to buy it the second it came out, but now that I've seen the screenshots I just can't really bring myself to do it,
I mean look at this screenshot for example:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/20008.jpg
That looks like it's almost completely untextured 3d from 1994 :S
I mean what kind of material is that background building made of that's just solid grey?

Obviously I wasn't expecting high-res next-gen graphic, but with the success of the very atmospheric Geminie Rue you would think that:
a) he'd realize that atmosphere sells.
b) he'd had the money to hire a experienced artist.

I'm sure the writing will still be good so I want to play it one day, but for now I'm just kind of suprised.

That hi-res portrait conflicts horribly with the game style, which I really like. The point of using low-res is you can use your imagination to fill in the gaps, sort of like impressionism. I haven't played this series, but I've heard good things about it.

To me all this concern people have with imperfect voices and imperfect graphics is so very tertiary.

First, and far above all the rest is the gameplay (challenge and mechanics).

Second, the narrative and story...

Just because someone at a restaurant is happy with his steak, doesn't mean he can't complain about his vegetables being undercooked.

If someone at a restaurant is happy with his steak, and happy with his vegetables, and complains about the color of his plate, does that mean I can't comment upon that as being quite bemusing? :P

If the plate detracts from the overall experience of the meal, I'd say that's a valid reason for complaint. If I got a perfect meal served on a plate with a pattern that looked like old food stains I'd certainly question the choice.

Or if the food itself came from the chief instead of the waitress and it was rare medium even if you ordered the sallad!

i don't care....i ordered the limited DVD edition with all of them just yesterday.i like the atmosphere in all of them and they are not alike when it comes to graphics.clearly they are trying to improve the quality of the graphics while still being in 2D one step every time or maybe two but i liked all the previous i don't think this will turn me off.especially if the story is good.

Well, I didn't start the food analogy. But hopefully my taking it from Silly-ville to Sillier-town ended it.

I was just having my say about how I am sometimes amused and always bemused that these things (subpar voice acting and disagreeable graphics stylistics) can cause someone to possibly dismiss a game.

It's just to me so very tur she airy.

Just weighing in with my opinion that it's almost all about the gameplay.

Just to clarify; while this game and Gemini Rue share the same publisher [Wadjet Eye, founded by Gilbert], the latter was independently created by Joshua Nuernberger. Your comment made me believe you thought the two games were more intimately related.

The name on the boat is not the name of the artist nor an easter-egg.

Ah thanks for clarifing, that makes more sense, I've been in situations myself where an artist tries to put a huge graffiti of his name in the background or a huge picture of him on every newspaper on the street, but good to hear that is not the case here. :)


@hotspot aka. captain obvious: Thanks but I was just saying that:
a) he'd realized atmosphere sells (because even tho he didn't make it himself, he's very aware of the sales-figures)
b) he'd have the money.. (even tho Josh probably gets the largest cut I would think that with the game selling 3x more than dave expected he would at least have made enough money to make sure the game would be on same graphics level as Convergence), (obviously I'm wildly guessing as I'm not his accountant, hence the "I think")

Edit: Wait, I just got the Wadget newsletter where it says Deception has broken the sale record of Geminie (in only a few days), so I guess I was wrong; atmosphere doesn't sell (I was under the impression that GR was and would be overperforming the blackwell series because of its atmospheric graphics grabbing ppls attention), so I guess the guy knows his audience very well (even tho he missed out on me this time)

oh come on....you can't really dismiss a game from one screeshot...or even ten.you don't know what kind of atmosphere there is until you play it.at least say you played the demo or sth.

Well I for one like all the Blackwell games for the characters, stories and music and just bought the limited DVD. I'm confident I'll be entertained. :)

Wow, best market research ever!

If you'd just ended before the semicolon, you'd be more on the money.

I looked at a few screens, and their not THAT horible ! I don't usually like character portraits in a game, but I'll get used to them eventually...
I played all 3 Blackwells, and I like 'em! And in the world of 3d games, it's nice to see a 2d game once in a while...
I'll get my claws on it soon, and until I'm going to play it I'm not gonna have a clear verdict. :P

So..... would you blame someone if they looked past something like this on the shelves in favor of something with the latest RPG graphics, like WoW?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TkeUFwbj8Y...ltima2-011.jpg

yeah ok but isn't it a little extreme?you compare this to wow when it's extreme to even compare this type of graphics to the blackwell graphics.it's day and night.it's too extreme a difference to consider it a counterexample.

It was definitely extreme - that was the point. I'm challenging the idea that graphics don't matter - because to the vast majority of game consumers, they most certainly do.

"Graphics do matter. But they should not."

A conundrum. But I agree with the ethics behind it, that graphics--in principle--should not matter. This means that if I do pass on a game because of graphics, I will at least feel guilty. Thus, in a sense, my subconscious acknowledges that I am wrong and I made a poor decision. In all likelihood, I passed on a game I would have enjoyed.

Furthermore, we should consider STYLE, which cannot be classified as good or bad in any technical sense. Subjectivity creeps in. I actually like the way Deception looks. It's fine to my eyes. And, uh, well...more for me, less for you.

I don't think there's anything wrong in caring about the graphics. They're part of the execution, part of the experience, and they help to create all those things people legitimately care about, like atmosphere, storytelling, and even (to a lesser extent) puzzles.

I've played a bit of Deception (maybe 45 minutes - I took a break because I still can't get used to the new voice for Rosa), and I'm not loving the graphics either. But I think they're OK, acceptable for what the game is trying to achieve. Honestly, my biggest dislike is the mixing of resolutions, and particularly the ugly scaling artifacts this creates in some cases.

If you're not aware, the graphics are mainly created by two AGSers, InCreator (backgrounds) and Ben304 (sprites). Both are pretty experienced and have done really good work in the past. InCreator's style does rely heavily on 3D rendering, but he's usually able to give it a pixel-art look. I don't think the screenshot in the first post is the most representative example of how the graphics look in general.

Dave has talked a lot on his blog and forums about his difficulties choosing artists and art style, and has experimented with different approaches for each episode of the series. He also has to be pragmatic about it and invest his resources where they matter most. And in that regard I think it's important to point out that not only has Deception sold well, the reviews for this episode on most sites have been very positive.

For my money the best-looking (and in many ways the best, though partly just because it was all fresh back then) Blackwell game is still The Blackwell Legacy.

As far as graphics go, I don't think any of the blackwell games comes even close to the quality of "blackwell convergence".

Blackwell legacy:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/6426.jpg

Blackwell convergence:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/9453.jpg

And here are some more:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/9451.jpg

http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/9450.jpg

http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10772.jpg

Honestly, I think there are very few low-res games (even from the old classics) that have that level of quality.

Back on topic, I played and finished "Deception" and thought it was great. Gameplay and story/writing were excellent, like all of Dave Gilbert's games I've played so far. My only complain were the graphics which weren't that special, especially since I was expecting the same quality as "convergence".

To be fair, this was a discussion that Dave Gilbert had with his fans before the game was designed and there was a clear decision to cut back on the graphics a bit. http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/forum/...hp?topic=829.0 Personally I like the style, but I'm a bit biased.

I prefer the first version. I find the graphics in Convergence to be too shiny and airbrushed, and in some cases a bit blurry. And while both bigbrother and ProgZmax are talented sprite artists, I personally find the look of bigbrother's sprites more appealing.

The tree in that Central Park screen is really nice, though.

And that opinion is predicated soley upon your own personal tastes and is therefore totally worthless. Graphics don't matter to you; to some people they do. You are not right and they wrong. Get over yourself. It's a valid complaint.

I played the first game in this series and it hurt my eyes. I cannot stand low resolution games for this reason. If my eyes are hurting as I play a game I will dismiss any gameplay, no matter how good it is, although, by the way, I found it to be tremendously average in that department anyway.

My only concerns with graphics are that they portray the game world recognizable enough and that they convey atmosphere. If they manage to do that, then the rest isn't that important for me.
I liked that the graphics of Convergence were a step up and more stylish. But otherwise I was disappointed that the gameplay was more shallow.
Still have to play Deception.

Ah very good point, that even tho Convergence is by far the most carefully crafted graphics one could still argue that the art-style doesn't really fit the story-style, at least those interior shots that you described as shiny and airbrushed,

I would say that tho I find that to be a interesting point I still really like convergence for it's CONSISTENCY that as far as I remember each shot had a consistent quality, whereas Deception reminds me of 'Beneath a Steel Sky' where the demo-shots were nice and then the rest of the game looked awful and un-inspiring.

Ah interesting indeed, I guess the choice to lower the graphics quality was indeed a clever choice for him based on his audience (as shown in that thread and by the sales-record),
I guess what I'm saying is not that he did anything immoral/wrong by making this decision, only that he at least lost me as a customer.

So I just did a super Blackwell marathon and started Blackwell Legacy on Friday and just finished Blackwell Deception tonight (playing each for the first time). I have to say I am very impressed and glad I bought the DVD's because I'll definitely replay them again when the next episode comes out with the commentary.

I really like Rosa and Joey and I think they have a great chemistry and I love using their specific skills to solve puzzles. None of them were all that difficult but they all made sense so I definitely won't complain about that.

Was it just me or did Rosa have a very abrupt personal development?

Possible Spoiler warning?

In Legacy she was very awkward and afraid to talk to people but then in Convergence she didn't seem to retain any of the former social anxiety disorder.

Maybe I just played through them too fast and didn't notice the shift but it's something I realized when I was finishing Deception and wanted to ask others opinions on it.

No spoilers. I was disappointed with Deception. It started off with a solid mystery, but then went nowhere with about three sub-plots before the climax abruptly arrived at Rosa's own doorstep (figuratively speaking), without any sense of build-up. The three sub-plots felt like padding. It would have made sense if they each revealed something new and the plot progressed with each twist. Instead it was more like a Russian doll: you got past one layer only to see that an identical one was beneath it.

In layman's terms, the word I'm reaching for is repetitive. I still enjoyed it, but combined with the deliberately lower production values, I would rank this as my least favorite Blackwell game. It's only saving grace is its ending, because you can really get a feel for how Gilbert wants to expand the consequences of Rosa's and Joey's enterprise into unforeseen territory.

And to touch on a topic started by other posters, I prefer Sande Chen's performance of Rosa over Rebecca Whittaker's. Not only do I find Sande more convincing in her line delivery, but she conveys a completely different personality over Rebecca. Sande's Rosa sounds more vulnerable, nerdy, and reluctant, which I find more endearing and fitting for a young woman who doesn't want the responsibility of being a Bestower of Eternity. Rebecca's Rosa comes off as cocksure, sarcastic, and laid back. Not bad at all, but I could never believe it was the "right" choice when compared to Sande.

Dave Gilbert talks about this in one of the developer commentaries, interviews or whatnot. He felt he'd gone a bit overboard in the first game, and decided to dial it back. And you could of course also say that it's the influence of Joey that's starting to draw her out of her shell. But yeah, it's noticeable that her personality changes quite a bit.

It definitely feels abrupt (and the voice change certainly doesn't help). I agree that it makes sense that Joey and her new night job would have helped her deal with the crippling social issues she had in the first game but still...it seems to have happened fast. It would have been nice if Convergence took place a few years after Legacy, instead of only a few months.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to listen to play them again with commentary.

Hi everyone! A bit late to this thread, but since I've received many comments and questions regarding the graphics I decided to address them in a recent blog post. Thanks, and I appreciate all the criticisms!

-Dave