Adventure Gamers - Forums

Although I completely agree that the character art in LSLR is wildly inconsistent, and Replay would do well to invest in bringing on a concept artist for some contract work, I have to say… it all looks so much better than the Adventure Mob demo they showed when I backed. So I can’t really act like I’ve been short-changed in any way.

I am starting to dislike the “become a character” Kickstarter rewards. In RPGs with hundreds of NPCs, it’s not so bad, but in some of these adventure games, it’s concerning. I’m especially worried about Tex Murphy where these people might actually have to act…

Fien - 08 March 2013 06:22 AM

I don’t know… they were willing to make a game for 300,000 dollars and now they’re unable to stick to a budget of 3 million?

It’s not like they were going to make this game for $300,000. Just that they would try to make something. Something that would have likely been pretty disappointing, by the way. The interesting thing about this project compared to the others is that Tim literally didn’t have a concept in place until after the campaign ended and they knew the budget. So it’s quite literally a completely different project.

But one of the promises of this project was to show the realities of game development that PR departments don’t let you see, and this is one of them. Like Tim said, this situation has happened with every game he’s ever made, so why would it be any different this time around?

tomimt - 14 March 2013 01:55 PM

I feel the same. While it’s nice easter egg for the backer, in the end it might not fit fluently in the game world, especially when all the characters are cartoony, yet they need to be made so, that the backers recognice themselves.

In the case of Larry, it’s especially uncomfortable, because the backer characters just stand there staring straight at the camera, rather than acting like they belong in the scene. They look like a kid who realizes he’s in the shot of a news camera and just stands there goofily waving to his mom.

This could probably have been handled better.

The animations of the backer characters in Lefty’s are pretty much as they’ll appear in the final. While most of them ARE looking at the camera, they’re ALL also drinking and/or doing other things.

In retrospect, yes, it might’ve been handled better…we could have gone for more 3/4 looks instead of straight-on. But these people paid a lot of money to get their *faces* specifically into the game. If we only did profiles, they might feel cheated, and it’s hard to place people into *Lefty’s* (which is where our backers paid to have themselves placed), with Lefty’s traditional layout (which we didn’t feel comfortable changing) and have them face the camera.

We also divided the art into two categories: realistic and cartoonish. In the LSLs, there’s ALWAYS been a visible dichotomy between the cartoonish look of Larry (and most of the characters) and the important women, who have always been approached a lot more realistically—or, at least, illustratively—to keep them looking actually desirable.

When we decided to recreate the game, we had a choice of either making the Kickstarter backers cartoonish like Larry, or realistic like the women. We decided to go for the realistic look so that they’d be more recognizable as the donors. This created a situation where we had a thorough mix of styles right in Lefty’s (Larry, Lefty, and the Babe cartoonish, and the KS backers more realistic) that a lot of people are finding jarring. We understand that, and people may not agree with our decisions, but it’s not as if we didn’t put a lot of thought into these decisions.

If we had the budget, we might go back and change some of our decisions, but hindsight is 20-20, and we don’t have the budget. As far as we concerned, we blazed a major trail here, and if we (and others) learn from our pitfalls, so much the better.

Our hope is that the game will succeed at what it promised to do, in spite of the flaws.

Josho - 14 March 2013 02:52 PM

The animations of the backer characters in Lefty’s are pretty much as they’ll appear in the final. While most of them ARE looking at the camera, they’re ALL also drinking and/or doing other things.

Yes, but who just drinks and grins and stares at a spot in the upper corner of the bar? Shouldn’t they be talking to each other or looking at the juke box or something?

I get all the concerns about the backers needing to be displayed clearly in this small scene, I’m just saying that these rewards might sometimes be at cross purposes with the games. I’d rather not see backer cameos in future projects.

That said, the game looks a lot better than I was expecting when I backed, so I’m very happy overall.

Josho - 14 March 2013 02:52 PM

The animations of the backer characters in Lefty’s are pretty much as they’ll appear in the final. While most of them ARE looking at the camera, they’re ALL also drinking and/or doing other things.

But they’re very fascinated with whatever is happening along the upper front wall of that bar… Maybe there should have been a TV worked into the scene with a sporting event on.

We also divided the art into two categories: realistic and cartoonish. In the LSLs, there’s ALWAYS been a visible dichotomy between the cartoonish look of Larry (and most of the characters) and the important women, who have always been approached a lot more realistically—or, at least, illustratively—to keep them looking actually desirable.

Completely agreed with regard to the women, but a lot of the other characters are pretty inconsistent too. The drunk outside the bathroom is realistic, but the thug is super exaggerated, and a lot of characters are in-between. It just feels like the hand of 5 different artists rather than a single character designer. I’m curious if that was actually the case or not.

If we had the budget, we might go back and change some of our decisions, but hindsight is 20-20, and we don’t have the budget. As far as we concerned, we blazed a major trail here, and if we (and others) learn from our pitfalls, so much the better.

Our hope is that the game will succeed at what it promised to do, in spite of the flaws.

Like I said, the game looks better than I had hoped, so I’m not too worried about that. It’s just something that could be improved when you do LSL2.

I really like the backgrounds, though.

Frogacuda - 14 March 2013 06:32 PM

But they’re very fascinated with whatever is happening along the upper front wall of that bar… Maybe there should have been a TV worked into the scene with a sporting event on.

In retrospect, that would’ve been a fine idea. But it never occurred to us that people would be bothered by it, because it’s never seemed to bother anybody in the previous iterations of LSL1, where the babe has *always* faced front, and so has Larry.

Completely agreed with regard to the women, but a lot of the other characters are pretty inconsistent too. The drunk outside the bathroom is realistic, but the thug is super exaggerated, and a lot of characters are in-between. It just feels like the hand of 5 different artists rather than a single character designer. I’m curious if that was actually the case or not.

Nope, every single character was done by one artist, Alex Kotkin. The drunk outside the bathroom is realistic because he’s a Kickstarter contributor. The thug is exaggerated because he’s a standard LSL1 character (like Lefty, or the Come ‘n’ Go clerk, etc.), not a Kickstarter contributor. So it’s entirely consistent: the important women and the KS people are realistic, *everybody else* is exaggerated and very much in keeping with the general thrust of their appearances in the previous versions.

Like I said, the game looks better than I had hoped, so I’m not too worried about that. It’s just something that could be improved when you do LSL2.

Exactly. Of course, LSL2 is going to have its own difficulties. It’s a much bigger game than LSL1, and has never been done as a point-and-click before. So we’ll have our hands full.

I really like the backgrounds, though.

I’m glad! I’ve felt that Colin Merlo, who did every single one of the backgrounds, has done an absolutely brilliant job. We were tremendously lucky to get him.

Josh

Edit to include: P.S. I agree with you about disliking the whole “put yourself as a character in the game” gambit, and I think I would avoid offering such a thing again. It’s the kind of reward that—like releasing an alpha or beta version to the public—sounds great in theory, but I certainly found it much more problematic than anticipated. More lessons learned.

Josho - 14 March 2013 07:01 PM

LSL2 is going to have its own difficulties. It’s a much bigger game than LSL1, and has never been done as a point-and-click before.

Actually there’s a fan remake of LSL2 which kept all the original graphics but turned it into a point and click.

I think it was released in about 2004. I remember it was the only way I could finally get to play the game as I hate text parsers with a passion.

The guy did a really good job; you should take a look if you can find it.

Edit: I think this is it here.

Very, very cool, Jatsie…I knew nothing about this (and I don’t think Al does, either—or at least, if he did, he’s forgotten—otherwise he would’ve mentioned it in our discussions of the conversion of LSL2 to PNC).

Thank you!

Josh

Frogacuda - 14 March 2013 01:25 PM

I am starting to dislike the “become a character” Kickstarter rewards. In RPGs with hundreds of NPCs, it’s not so bad, but in some of these adventure games, it’s concerning. I’m especially worried about Tex Murphy where these people might actually have to act…

It’s a concern that this is a reward in the first place, and that people are actually paying for it. Usually people want to be *paid* for having their picture placed somewhere, it’s called modelling and it’s counted as work. Who are these people paying for this?

I don’t have an opinion on the nature of the existence of the reward in question.

However, I find it a bit erroneous (and cynical) to view this as people paying money to have their faces or likenesses in the game. Rather, the backers at these very high levels are people who, for all I could imagine, can easily afford such a high donation and also care deeply about the project/developer. The reward is just that - a reward for those who pledge maximum amounts to the project to help it succeed.

inm8#2 - 14 March 2013 11:50 PM

I don’t have an opinion on the nature of the existence of the reward in question.

However, I find it a bit erroneous (and cynical) to view this as people paying money to have their faces or likenesses in the game. Rather, the backers at these very high levels are people who, for all I could imagine, can easily afford such a high donation and also care deeply about the project/developer. The reward is just that - a reward for those who pledge maximum amounts to the project to help it succeed.

Beautifully said.

I was extremely pleased to back the project because I am a huge fan of the series and designers Al Lowe and Josh Mandel. The rewards are sort of like thank-you’s from the developers, It’s also fun seeing yourself permanently in a game like this, even if it is in only a minor way. But the real reward is knowing that you helped contribute to bringing back one of adventure gaming’s greatest series.