Adventure Gamers - Forums

Jane herself made a post on the Pinkerton Road forums yesterday that is amazing (on several levels), but also directly addresses the complaints in this thread.  I’ll just quote it here:

Hi, guys. A few thoughts on this thread.

First, the dev team on Moebius had no changes or upsets. It was Phoenix Online from day 1 and it’s shipping that way.

Second, yes, budget. After the kickstarter fees, etc, we had about $400K to make this game. That includes all the rewards the CSG is supposed to get (T-shirts), shipping etc. Now, that’s pretty insane. I don’t think I understood initially how insane that was! GK1 cost $1mill in 1993 and the other GKs probabluy double that. And yes, GM’s budget was well over a million. Broken Age had at least 3 x’s that and, from what I hear, is a much smaller game.

Moebius is not a small game. When I wrote the design for it, I wrote a full-sized adventure game similar to GM or GK. And I and the team were committed to doing it all, because we loved it and wanted Moebius to be something special as our first release.

I don’t think any other dev team on earth would have done this game with me for the kind of money we were able to give PO. And they didn’t constantly tell me ‘but we can’t do that’ either. They just did it. All of the cut scenes in the game are fully animated. The end sequence alone, in chapter 7, has 3 large cut scenes that are as fully animated as a cartoon with hundreds of animations. And when we looked at it, Phoenix didn’t say ‘No fucking way, go rewrite this, Jane’, they said ‘we’ll get it done’. And they did—and those cut scenes are AWESOME.

Of course, $400K is not enough, so both the team and myself are putting money into the game both real and virtual (that is, giving hours and hours of our time for nothing).

Now, having said that, when I look at the trailer and a lot of the game, I don’t see issues with graphics. Where I notice it is on chapter 1, those first round of models and animations, and in the ch 2 opening cut scene, which is the very first cut scene we did. I can see how much Phoenix has improved since then, if you look at that compared to, say, ch 5 - 7. Maybe it’s because I don’t play hard-core games? Or maybe it’s entirely subjective.

The art style that Andy Hoyos and I set initially was a very edgey, more simplistic, graphic novel style based on a graphic novel series Andy loved. I agree that, in some case, it’s not the art style but some rough execution on the models, like I said, mostly the early ones, but it wasn’t possible (or, I think, necessary) go back and edit all of that on our budget.

The 720 resolution and OGG format on the videos is pretty standard and used on a lot of AAA titles. The issue with making it larger is that is can just not run well on slower machines. Even on the demo, we have had a few people whose laptops just couldn’t handle the videos and crapped out. It’s a matter of balancing as good a look as possible while not leaving out a large portion of your audience.

Moebius is a game that gets deeper every chapter, and I think the story is very strong. I’m super proud of this game, and proud what the team has accomplished with it. My hope is, when people finish the epilogue, they’re just left with a great feeling. It’s not that everything is perfect, but that the impression it leaves you with at the end is so positive and warm and fuzzy that that’s what you remember.

In the end, it’s a subjective experience. Some people may not like Moebius, either the graphics or the story. Some may complain it’s not like game x or y. But I’ve gotten a lot of great comments in the past few days about the demo, so I’m hopeful that a lot of people will. We’ll see!

Jane

tomimt - 02 April 2014 02:20 AM

In the end I’d say it looks the way it looks because of the lack of resources rather than something that they aimed for and that’s the vibe I got from Jane’s Pinkerton Road message as well.

It’s true that she did acknowledge some of the graphical rough edges, and the budgetary limitations, but she also stated in no uncertain terms that she’s happy with it, and very proud of it and excited to show it off.  The message is a clear celebration of Pheonix Online’s work.

Jane’s post is classy in supporting Phoenix Online and I do agree that the budget they’ve worked on is tiny. I’d guess 300k after rewards which would average to around 30-40 man month for good salaries (and inside this, we have to account for PR work and a lot of other work which does not directly contribute to the game development). So yes, the budget is small and what’s been done is really good considering that…

As said too, I know I’ll enjoy it, the story is going to be great, the music is great and most of the background art is good and even better than a lot of budget titles.

The reason I’m harping on the character models and animation is 1) that the combination of the very unnatural proportions and the animation somehow creeps me out and me and I regularly notice it instead of just being drawn into the story 2) I believe that it might end up hurting the product sales which means less budget for the next game by Pinkerton Road.

If Malachi’s character model’s proportion had been a bit less unnatural (like for example Erica Reed’s in Cognition), I think I wouldn’t have noticed and probably wouldn’t have talked so much about it. I also don’t mind usually much lower quality graphics, it’s more the unnaturalness that bothers me.  I guess just a certain number of people like Ozzie and me directly notice this while some people might not see what the big fuss is about. I just hope that we’re in the minority and that this doesn’t affect sales too much.

I also criticize the QA for the demo because it might turn off potential buyers and hurt sales which ultimately is bad for everyone that wants more games from Pinkerton Road.

All that said, as Jane says, we’ll see how it goes and I do sincerely hope that it will be a huge success and that people will look past the few issues and just focus on the story, the puzzles and the music which after all are the meat of any adventure games.

maladroid - 02 April 2014 02:53 AM

I am not calling Jane a liar or anything but would you expect her to say otherwise, even if, in her heart of hearts, she wasn’t satisfied with the end result?.

True…but I certainly wouldn’t expect her to still be working with Phoenix Online for the GK1 if she overall wasn’t happy with the Moebius result. True?

tomimt - 02 April 2014 02:20 AM

In the end I’d say it looks the way it looks because of the lack of resources rather than something that they aimed for and that’s the vibe I got from Jane’s Pinkerton Road message as well.

A bit of both from what Jane said. Don’t see you can read any more into it.

Doom - 02 April 2014 08:26 AM

I also disliked that the hero refuses to pick up certain items unless he is sure he needs them. I hate this modern game mechanics with all my heart, it is cheap, and it’s disappointing to see Jensen making use of it.

Have you played GK2? Does it also use “modern game mechanics” then? Because Gabe refuses to pick up certain items there too till it’s clear why he needs them. Seems sensible to me - the packrat (and kleptomaniac) adventure approach is not one I’m a fan of. But whether you like it or not, please don’t make out it’s a new approach which JJ is only now copying.

giom - 02 April 2014 09:12 AM

So yes, the budget is small and what’s been done is really good considering that…

Glad to see one of the critics can show balance and realise that. I do know what you mean re the character models, and yes, I do find them slightly offputting too, but that’s something we’ll all have to live with

I just finished playing the first two chapters and I regret it ... because now I have to wait until the fifteenth for the rest! Arrrrgh!

The character models and rigging do seem awkward in places, but I can’t say it bothered me much. The characters and story are engaging, and the soundtrack is excellent. (Especially loved that Malachai has a bitchy remark for every single piece of furniture and painting in the game. And the wire coat-hanger.)

Doom - 02 April 2014 02:12 PM

I don’t remember GK2 that well, although it had many design faults typical for FMV games that limited Jane’s imagination (which is why I’m not a fan of it

Don’t agree with GK2 in general, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that whether it’s an FMV game or not has nothing to do with whether Gaby chose to take things for zero reason. JJ chose nearly 20 years for him not to do that in GK2, hence to describe it as “modern game mechanics” is totally innacurate.

Doom - 02 April 2014 02:12 PM

What I do remember is that Gabriel immediately steals a hanger in GK3.

Mmmmmm…that’s meant to be a good thing? Realism in adventure gaming? When was the last time you decided to steal a coat hanger?

Doom - 02 April 2014 02:12 PM

Yet Malachi refuses to do so in the same circumstances by saying “I don’t need it right now”.

Now IF the wording makes it clear that he will need it in the future, then that’s flawed. But if it’s just “why do I want that?” (as with other objects which are indeed never needed) and give the player no impression that will change, then it seems extremely sensible to me (plus being a tricky puzzle at the relevant point). I don’t know when I last went around picking up coat hangers for no reason. Oil can? Depends on the situation I suppose. In some adventures, it would make sense for a character to take some along.

Doom - 02 April 2014 02:12 PM

making things linear for no particular reason.

I don’t see how one is really any more linear than the other. In both cases you need to use the coat hanger to solve a future possible. Just in one of them your character only pick it up when it’s logical, in the other case your character acts like a mad kleptomaniac (though the best serious adventures always tried to give such actions an element of logic).

yeah… that “you cant pick up things until you have a reason to” thing bugged me. Especially when its like “theres some change here. You cant pick that up until you think of a reason to have change, and surely you dont have change already in your wallet, even though youre a millionaire and logically there should be countless ways for you to get a couple of quarters”