Adventure Gamers - Forums

Nothing is bad about it. They what you will, but I never have seen a game that looks quite like it before. The parallax scrolling and the zooming and panning of the camera over the environment, as it was demonstrated in the lumberjack pre-visualization, also felt like something new.
At least you can’t complain that it isn’t original or its own thing.

ozzie - 26 March 2013 03:19 PM

Nothing is bad about it. They what you will, but I never have seen a game that looks quite like it before. The parallax scrolling and the zooming and panning of the camera over the environment, as it was demonstrated in the lumberjack pre-visualization, also felt like something new.
At least you can’t complain that it isn’t original or its own thing.

That’s probably what bothers a lot of people. I think a lot of people were hoping for something more recognizably “LucasArts” in style.

I’m not a huge fan of the “paper doll” animation, but I really like the look apart from that. I always preferred my adventures to have a kind of painterly quality to the art as opposed to the more cartoony Lucas stuff or realistic pre-rendered stuff.

As iv said before, the moment this kickstarter was a huge success, it was destined to disappoint a lot of people. Because everyone imagined it as their own perfect game. Theres also a crowd out there (not so much this site as far as i know) that thinks no good adventures have been made since the mid 90s… and that the doublefine adventure would somehow represent a return to “good”. Simultaneously theres a crowd expecting it to meet all the standards of a modern game and would rather see it resemble psychonauts than point & click. No matter how you cut it, a significant group of people are probably going to feel like its not the game they thought it would be. The best we can hope for is that its a high quality game made with love and care. Thats really all i ask.

TimovieMan - 26 March 2013 03:02 PM

Dertiger - 26 March 2013 11:02 AM

Zifnab - 25 March 2013 07:35 PM

I’d say blatantly insulting people and then saying “don’t take this as criticism” is the exact definition of passive-aggressive.

I hope you’re joking, now…he didn’t insult anybody.

Zifnab - 25 March 2013 07:35 PM

Accusing people of being resistant to change is the easy way out. Threads on Telltale don’t tell us anything except some people don’t like The Walking Dead. It doesn’t say we’re unwilling to embrace the “new” and are stuck in the days of floppy disks, CGA and text parsers.

I really can’t see why you got offended, really… I read inm8#2’s post twice, and I don’t find it acusing or offensive, in fact his post is quite polite.

I agree with Dertiger. There’s nothing wrong with inm8#2’s posts.

Oscar - 26 March 2013 11:19 AM

I think the anger was more at the tendency of forum members to slip baseless assumptions into their posts, in this case the idea that people who don’t like Telltale’s recent games are old-fashioned and aren’t interested in new ideas. Which is of course quite ridiculous, and could easily be offensive if you’re one of those people.

That’s just the thing. This entire discussion feels like an attack on “baseless assumptions” that weren’t even made in the first place.
All inm8#2 suggested were that *some* (as in: not all) adventure gamers didn’t appear to like “change”. And then he referenced the Telltale threads we’ve had recently (which are but some of many with similar content).
I don’t know how thoroughly you’ve read the “Telltale’s Interactive Movie Games - An Abandonment of Adventure gaming?” thread, but that thread clearly shows that *some* (again: not all) forumers don’t like and sometimes even ‘fear’ the QTE / low gameplay mainstream approach. It doesn’t mean that they/we all feel the same way.

Please let’s not over-generalize here.

I’m sure it’s all a giant misunderstanding, I was merely hoping to do away with the kind of judgemental attitude implicit in the post, which is seen all around the forums (including my posts). And I’m sorry, but there WAS an attitude there. Maybe not literally, but the fact it was a reply to a particular post (which the *some* obviously referred to) and had “don’t take this as criticism” at the end while being criticism all the same can’t be ignored. It wasn’t a general statement about Telltale. 

Here’s another example if you don’t see what I mean:
-“I don’t like Space Quest.”
-“Yeah well some people just fear innovative and challenging gaming, but don’t take that as harsh criticism.”

tom - 26 March 2013 01:39 PM

I backed this and I didn’t like the artstyle from the beginning. Most people said that hipster lumberjack was just the concept art, but it did not change much since then. They should have hired Bill Tiller instead.

Tim has said since the beginning it would be Nathan stapley styles art (one of their art people) if you don’t like his art style you probably wont like the games art style.

Looking at some of the (hopefully in progress) screenshots, this art style features a certain paintery effect, with (for want of a better word) vagueness in the details of both background and foreground elements.

Maybe this will still be addressed….but I’m not sure either sofar.

The various screenshots look a lot like individual paintings, which can be beautiful on their own, but if it works as an interactive “digital” game….I’m not sure.

I’d like it if they sharpen some of the details a bit, so it looks a bit more realistic (within the context of the fantasy setting ofcourse).

I think the last episode it was mentioned during alpha tests that it was unclear for the players where to click on, as everything kind of blended to the background.
It seems to me that is a side-effect of the “paintery” style, which is great to appreciate from a little distance, but upclose on a computer screen very little comes “in focus”.

Again, it may be too early to make any conclusions on this….maybe they’ll do some kind of digital processing to the art that sharpens things up a bit.

subbi - 27 March 2013 05:09 AM

Looking at some of the (hopefully in progress) screenshots, this art style features a certain paintery effect, with (for want of a better word) vagueness in the details of both background and foreground elements.

I think that’s a valid criticism of this early build. I think it was Chris Remo who brought it up in the play-test (in the doc), but I fully expect that to be addressed by the time the game ships. It’s not terribly difficult to make certain objects stand out if you want them to.

I love the style, though. It’s something different, which is always nice.

I’m maybe on the smaller side here, but I do enjoy what I’m seeing. Sure, it’s not the wacky lucas arts style, but since the beginning of this project I didn’t expect it to follow the roots and I’m ok with that. The line between expecting something fresh and something classic is a thin one, so yeah, generalization is way inappropriate in this case. I myself stand somewhere in the middle. And as some really good games I played recently I’m expecting this game to be a nice mixture of a classic adventure gameplay with a fresh, different and distinctive outlook.

As for the art style: yes, bill tiller as a lead artist would be something really awesome. But as this won’t be a true comedy adventure I think this style might suit the game well. I really like the paintery effect. I always enjoyed when each scene in an ag stand out as an individual peace of art. I wasn’t aware of Nathan Stapley’s previous works but I checked some of his stuff and I liked them. His style is so unadventury (if we rely on the games we’ve played) that it just might be the perfect match for a classic, non-traditionally looking adventure.

here are some of the stuff I liked:

badlemon - 27 March 2013 06:54 AM

I’m maybe on the smaller side here, but I do enjoy what I’m seeing. Sure, it’s not the wacky lucas arts style, but since the beginning of this project I didn’t expect it to follow the roots and I’m ok with that.

You’re not alone. I love the art style. It’s distinctive and original. Double Fine are a wildly creative studio, and the last thing I’d want to see from them is a rehash of past games.

After being shown to backers earlier today, the teaser trailer is now on the official site.

Thoughts? I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the art (and the animation), but it definitely has a lot of personality (I’ll take that over the derivative Daedalic stuff any day). I don’t know if the game will be good, but it will surely be unique, which is definitely something Schafer knows how to do.

I love Tim and I eagerly await this game, but I hate the title. Could they possibly have chosen a less exciting, more bland, less memorable title than Broken Age?

Kurufinwe - 27 March 2013 11:35 PM

After being shown to backers earlier today, the teaser trailer is now on the official site.

Thoughts? I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the art (and the animation), but it definitely has a lot of personality (I’ll take that over the derivative Daedalic stuff any day). I don’t know if the game will be good, but it will surely be unique, which is definitely something Schafer knows how to do.

Personally, I never was particularly excited about the art style, mostly because of the lack of detail, but I did appreciate it for what it was, something unique and original.
After watching the trailer, though, and seeing it come alive, more polished, in motion and with sound, seems like it might exceed my expectations.