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Doom - 06 September 2020 07:27 PM

A great accomplishment for an indie company, but also such a wasted opportunity. I’m sure it could’ve been made into a great RPG. OR they could’ve cut out half of those locations to make it more engaging. OR follow a Disco Elysium path and made it into an awesome text-heavy adventure. But it’s plain boring at its currents state and there’s no way around.

I do agree with this sentiment. In many ways, the game feels like it could have worked better as an RPG and in some ways, the design was flirting with the possibility, but as they had made a Kickstarter promise to make it an adventure, when they showed the first iteration of combat there was an uproar against it, that’s where they were tied.

     
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cyfoyjvx - 06 September 2020 10:38 PM

It reminded me of the 80s gaming era, where it was accepted by everyone that rescuing the princess or saving the world was the thing to do, and that was deemed enough. Today’s gamers ask for more connection, and no matter how many pretty things you fill the gameworld with doesn’t fill that gap.

That’s why this sort of gameplay works so much better in RPGs where you are responsible for your characters from the very start, you feed, dress and heal them, their unique skills are used to solve quests, they help each other in battles and other extreme situations and naturally grow on you even if the main storyline is thin (which is also pretty common in RPGs).

In BD the devs tried to add this feel of connection through random dialogues between the protagonist and his companions, very forced, unnatural, even dull. Like you are in the middle of a quest which would result in one race exterminating another one, and your brutally looking big-bearded brother suddenly starts this sentimental talk about how he misses the old days when you went to a picnic with your dad Neutral Why would I even care? I just met this guy several hours ago, shared a few words with him, and now he just follows me around, serving no purpose at all.

tomimt - 07 September 2020 02:44 AM

In many ways, the game feels like it could have worked better as an RPG and in some ways, the design was flirting with the possibility, but as they had made a Kickstarter promise to make it an adventure, when they showed the first iteration of combat there was an uproar against it, that’s where they were tied.

Ah, I guess this explains some of the design choices. It’s a shame, many locations feel like they were designed with more activities/action in mind, but they were cut out due to the genre restrictions. The KS developers should really do what they want to do, not what their donators tell them. Even if they loose some of their audience, a good game will attract more fans in the end. Currently BD holds a 7/10 rating at Steam which is pretty low for such a well-made indie title.

     

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I think they would have made a successful campaign even if they had pitched BD as an RPG/adventure hybrid. That way, their hands would have been less tied and there would have bee no gripes from the backers either. But as it was now, there were some vocal backers who got instantly scared of the possibility of the game having elements in it they would have not been proficient themselves.

I’ve seen it a couple of times, with devs having ideas that go to a different direction from what was originally pitched, as ideas can evolve and become more nuanced in time. This can mean the implementation of features that weren’t thought of before or even removing things that were previously meant to go in the game.

Had a game like Quake been a Kickstarter project back in the day, there would have been a huge uproar on the things ID ended up cutting from the game before it was released. Their original concept had RPG elements among other things which were cut out from the design as they just didn’t work. In Kickstarter world, they would have been forced to keep them in despite knowing they didn’t work, because promises and people not always realizing that things might be a bit harder to achive than originally thought.

     

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I am sad to report that i put the game on the back burner for now. Its such an intriguing setting with a great soundtrack, powerful atmosphere and clearly crafted with love. But every time i had to take a break for a few days i would come back to it feeling lost and ended up not really wanting to sort it out. I may return to it in the future.

     
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zane - 07 September 2020 01:01 PM

But every time i had to take a break for a few days i would come back to it feeling lost and ended up not really wanting to sort it out.

This also happened to me once, I immediately forgot which character asked me to bring which exotic item from which of the worlds. After that I tried to play it on daily basis so that I wouldn’t get distracted. That said, I also played an updated version with a quest log of sorts.

tomimt - 07 September 2020 11:02 AM

I think they would have made a successful campaign even if they had pitched BD as an RPG/adventure hybrid. That way, their hands would have been less tied and there would have bee no gripes from the backers either.

Yes, definitely. The game looks more interesting and original than Torment, for example, which had a very successful campaign. And RPG elements would’ve felt just natural taking the scope of the gameworld and the team’s experiments with the format. Limiting their imagination just because they felt obliged to do something they were expected to do is a bad sign of times… It’s interesting that while I found the gameplay tedious, I’m still thinking about the game. I really enjoyed the universe and the story after all, the blend of bright African motives and dark biotech/post-apocalyptic themes felt really unique. I would’ve played an RPG sequel or a spiritual successor if there was one.

Had a game like Quake been a Kickstarter project back in the day, there would have been a huge uproar on the things ID ended up cutting from the game before it was released. Their original concept had RPG elements among other things which were cut out from the design as they just didn’t work. In Kickstarter world, they would have been forced to keep them in despite knowing they didn’t work, because promises and people not always realizing that things might be a bit harder to achive than originally thought.

id were full of ideas at the time. The original design doc for Doom by Tam Hall, the so-called Doom Bible, also reads like it was written for a different game. And Hall apparently developed the excellent RPG/adventure Anachronox later on, probably utilizing some of those earlier ideas, at the time when he was in full control of the production, didn’t have to limit his imagination by genre or technical restirctions.

     

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