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Trenchmouth - a Point and Click Adventure - to be or not to be?

Should I Kickstarter fund Trenchmouth?


  • Total voters
    33

Michael Faragher

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 14, 2022
Messages
22
Location
Wisconsin
Actually, Fork, yes, I do worry about witch-hunts. Not personally, but professionally. Professional trolls, social media personalities, and clickbait reporting can all very drastically change a narrative.

Cyberpunk 2077. A lot of people say it sucks, but so many people say that and follow up with "I never played it because I heard it sucked." Heinlein takes a lot of flak but only from people who have never read one of his stories. Kipling and Lovecraft are posthumously tried in the court of public opinion for being average men of their time.

The narrative eclipses the work. We see that with the Enhanced Interrogation discussion, where someone pulls out rectal hydration and now every single conversation about the topic requires addressing the elephant, which only reinforces the hose up ass hydration. It's a classic way to turn nothing into attention. "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

Like this thread. One person posed a single concern and things went off the rails. I say this with all seriousness, it's only because this place is more reasonable than Twitter that this didn't turn into a dog pile.

Am I afraid of iconography? No. Am I afraid someone may be offended? Only professionally. One does not harass the opposition (and everyone is potentially the opposition). As much as it may amuse me to tip some sacred cows to get more eyes and hopefully more sales, I'd rather the game stand on its own.

Sorry for the utter wall of text. I just wanted to point out that at some point, if you're doing business, you must become the ambassador to your product. Otherwise you just end up with Daikatana level advertising.
 

warcrimes666

Educated
Patron
Joined
Aug 8, 2017
Messages
93
Everything shown so far is of a very high quality. I've never done any kind of investment or preorder but I would consider making the effort to do so in this case potentially if you decide to experiment with that path as I want to play this game. I would argue that this is the world you should craft a full rpg in but secondarily, please consider additional systems in the vein of Quest for Glory if you are not already. This kind of additional complexity in systems or length should be a key ingredient in your next project. You guys have shown ample competence and pride in craft already, what I would like to see now personally is more of a cherry on top approach of a longer and/or more complex game. Primordia and Strangeland were excellent but in my view ultimately too short. This world you are putting together deserves a 10-20 hour game.

You have also experienced probably the primary pitfall of 'crowdfunding'. The incessant chirping of mongoloid shit for brains should have no bearing on your vision, your work, or what you choose to post here. Your art shows high creativity and high skill. Only garbage pickers that can draw stick figures at best would even comment on such a thing. Consider what it takes to aquire the dumbfuck tag on this eternal and prestigious forum and let the irrelevant drivel roll from your back like water in this and in all things. You're dealing with the extreme ends of both sides of the bell curve in this arena and you generally don't tell a worm in the dirt what you had for breakfast for obvious reasons.

Do what you need to do to make this game and thank you for sharing your work.
 

Michael Faragher

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 14, 2022
Messages
22
Location
Wisconsin
I would argue that this is the world you should craft a full rpg in but secondarily, please consider additional systems in the vein of Quest for Glory if you are not already.

We've had that exact discussion regarding Quest for Glory. I love the idea, but the amount of work spirals dramatically. I'll need to talk to Mark about his experience in writing for RPGs.

I'd love to go full RPG or QFG, but I worry the scope would overwhelm us. The Coles and Sierra were at the top of their game, and they still had many more people working on it. I think you're right. I'm sure we'll discuss it again, I need to do some more research on available engines so I'm not writing my own again.
 

Lagole Gon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 4, 2011
Messages
7,279
Location
Retaken Potato
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Pathfinder: Wrath
I'm torn on this.
On the one hand, some of this tracing is lazier than the tracing I did in my student years. And I find it hilarious.
On the other hand, I want to support the old and noble tradition of tracing over softcore porn models. It's a dying art.

aejprhbuwo281.png
 

Victor Pflug

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
261
I'm torn on this.
On the one hand, some of this tracing is lazier than the tracing I did in my student years. And I find it hilarious.
On the other hand, I want to support the old and noble tradition of tracing over softcore porn models. It's a dying art.

Why don't you go make a game then if you're so good at tracing? Why is it always up to me - do you guys do anything but talk shit all day?
 

Victor Pflug

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
261
Like funny fuckin jokes aside this is my Strangeland folder with it's 20k art + SFX files all made by hand from scratch. 20 fuckin thousand. Thats super funny ass shit I'm lazy - you go try making 20, 000 pieces of art and not cutting corners.

You know what? Don't buy it then. Torn. Pfff. Jesus christ I heard it was bad here but fuck me.
 

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Victor Pflug

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
261
Everything shown so far is of a very high quality. I've never done any kind of investment or preorder but I would consider making the effort to do so in this case potentially if you decide to experiment with that path as I want to play this game. I would argue that this is the world you should craft a full rpg in but secondarily, please consider additional systems in the vein of Quest for Glory if you are not already. This kind of additional complexity in systems or length should be a key ingredient in your next project. You guys have shown ample competence and pride in craft already, what I would like to see now personally is more of a cherry on top approach of a longer and/or more complex game. Primordia and Strangeland were excellent but in my view ultimately too short. This world you are putting together deserves a 10-20 hour game.

You have also experienced probably the primary pitfall of 'crowdfunding'. The incessant chirping of mongoloid shit for brains should have no bearing on your vision, your work, or what you choose to post here. Your art shows high creativity and high skill. Only garbage pickers that can draw stick figures at best would even comment on such a thing. Consider what it takes to aquire the dumbfuck tag on this eternal and prestigious forum and let the irrelevant drivel roll from your back like water in this and in all things. You're dealing with the extreme ends of both sides of the bell curve in this arena and you generally don't tell a worm in the dirt what you had for breakfast for obvious reasons.

Do what you need to do to make this game and thank you for sharing your work.


Hey I appreciate it - ya'll don't need to praise my work - I don't think it's brilliant or anything. Maybe mildy brilliant... The earlier negative crits were actually super helpful, even comments of "too brown" I appreciate :D

Nah it doesn't bother me any more than when a blowfly comes into my apartment. It's like a niggling annoyance if anything - like why the fuck are you here bro? Can't you just be polite and kindly fuck off from my pizza pockets etc etc... It's all good. It'd just be nice to not have to wade through all the drooling idiots to get to the nuggets of genuine criticism, negative or otherwise.
 

hello friend

Arcane
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
7,847
Location
I'm on an actual spaceship. No joke.
I'm torn on this.
On the one hand, some of this tracing is lazier than the tracing I did in my student years. And I find it hilarious.
On the other hand, I want to support the old and noble tradition of tracing over softcore porn models. It's a dying art.

Why don't you go make a game then if you're so good at tracing? Why is it always up to me - do you guys do anything but talk shit all day?
Jokes on you fuckface. Check it out:

Trenchmouth.png


Zero tracing.
 

Durq

Novice
Joined
Jul 20, 2019
Messages
35
I love the art of Primordia and Strangeland and would love to see a new game from Victor Pflug.

But I hate the crowdfunding model. Way too many crowdfunded projects (video games and physical products) become absolute fiascos. Some crowdfunded projects have been outright scams. Others end up being mismanaged to hell and get delivered years late (or never) and are inferior to what was originally advertised.

I don't know what the solution is, but I hope there's another way.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,101
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
I would argue that this is the world you should craft a full rpg in but secondarily, please consider additional systems in the vein of Quest for Glory if you are not already.

We've had that exact discussion regarding Quest for Glory. I love the idea, but the amount of work spirals dramatically. I'll need to talk to Mark about his experience in writing for RPGs.

I'd love to go full RPG or QFG, but I worry the scope would overwhelm us. The Coles and Sierra were at the top of their game, and they still had many more people working on it. I think you're right. I'm sure we'll discuss it again, I need to do some more research on available engines so I'm not writing my own again.

Hey this is something else you should try to talk to Blackthorne about.

Also Fizzii and Radiant, but I don’t think they really visit these boards anymore (wonder why, eh?).
 

Michael Faragher

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 14, 2022
Messages
22
Location
Wisconsin
I would argue that this is the world you should craft a full rpg in but secondarily, please consider additional systems in the vein of Quest for Glory if you are not already.

We've had that exact discussion regarding Quest for Glory. I love the idea, but the amount of work spirals dramatically. I'll need to talk to Mark about his experience in writing for RPGs.

I'd love to go full RPG or QFG, but I worry the scope would overwhelm us. The Coles and Sierra were at the top of their game, and they still had many more people working on it. I think you're right. I'm sure we'll discuss it again, I need to do some more research on available engines so I'm not writing my own again.

Hey this is something else you should try to talk to Blackthorne about.

That's a good idea. No use re-inventing the wheel; we can at least get guidance as to what worked and what didn't. Thanks!
 

Victor Pflug

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
261
eryeyye.gif


Is that a hat?

I should have just showed TM to my nieces - they're only 6 but I think they'd come up with better than this. Plus the feedback and insults would probably be a little more high brow if nothing else.
 

Victor Pflug

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
261
Vic, enough. Please. There's a line where we're the assholes, and I'm afraid we may not notice it at this speed.

I'm just trying to get more badly drawn reference materiel - I'm not actually mad :D

Okay okay I'll chill.

Just send more jpegs pls

Bonus points if they're in the form of an NFT
 

Strig

Learned
Joined
Oct 29, 2021
Messages
863
Location
Between the pages of Potato's "Republic"
Actually, Fork, yes, I do worry about witch-hunts. Not personally, but professionally. Professional trolls, social media personalities, and clickbait reporting can all very drastically change a narrative.
Cyberpunk 2077. A lot of people say it sucks, but so many people say that and follow up with "I never played it because I heard it sucked." Heinlein takes a lot of flak but only from people who have never read one of his stories. Kipling and Lovecraft are posthumously tried in the court of public opinion for being average men of their time.
The narrative eclipses the work. We see that with the Enhanced Interrogation discussion, where someone pulls out rectal hydration and now every single conversation about the topic requires addressing the elephant, which only reinforces the hose up ass hydration. It's a classic way to turn nothing into attention. "Have you stopped beating your wife?".

Mate, what even are these examples? Cyberpunk was quite literally broken and barely playable at launch, on top of that there was a nontroversy with an ingame ad "making fun" of trannies and no sane person even batted an eye (even if CDProjekt made a mistake and went on to explain themselves). "Enhanced interrogation" is a polite term for torture, always was, whether it's with a hose up some Hadji's ass or with a car battery connected to a subject's scrotum. Neither case had "the narrative eclipsing the work". I'll give you the writers, most people upset about them are barely literate, yet still as an example they don't fit. Lovecraft is only gaining in popularity, Kipling's works are still widely read or adapted, and Heinlein was definitely a right-winger (and he did write at least some of his fiction as a sort of manifesto) just not the kind the nitwits think he was. The only thing I can get from this is: "if the work is good not many things can change that".

Like this thread. One person posed a single concern and things went off the rails. I say this with all seriousness, it's only because this place is more reasonable than Twitter that this didn't turn into a dog pile.
Am I afraid of iconography? No. Am I afraid someone may be offended? Only professionally. One does not harass the opposition (and everyone is potentially the opposition). As much as it may amuse me to tip some sacred cows to get more eyes and hopefully more sales, I'd rather the game stand on its own.
Sorry for the utter wall of text. I just wanted to point out that at some point, if you're doing business, you must become the ambassador to your product. Otherwise you just end up with Daikatana level advertising.

If you worry about people, and I'm using this term fairly loosely here, being offended and starting a witch-hunt then you already lost the battle. Firstly, they live rent free in your head and you police your behaviour to fit their (a)moral standards. Secondly, if you react to their faux outrage you're only giving them ammunition as they are never satisfied. If you start explaining yourself and protesting that you're not this or that and how much respect you have for something or other it means that you have been defined by your opposition's conceptual apparatus and railroaded into their belief system. And again, that means you lost any initiative you had, not to mention your credibility. The only way to deal with internet mobs is to ignore them. If someone asks "have you stopped beating your wife?" you just say "no, she likes it" or "yes, we switched, now she beats me" and treat both the question and the person asking it accordingly — as a joke, because that's what they are. Global village idiots to make fun of.

tl;dr if game good controversy can't hurt
if game shit everyone has a fit


Hey I appreciate it - ya'll don't need to praise my work - I don't think it's brilliant or anything. Maybe mildy brilliant... The earlier negative crits were actually super helpful, even comments of "too brown" I appreciate :D

I really like both the idea for the game and the execution thus far. I enjoyed Primordia but I admit I couldn't really get into Strangeland, the narrative is not really my cup of tea. The art was good though. As for everything being too brown — personally I think you could work on your values because you do have a proclivity for muddy colors. That would be my main criticism. Apart from this awesome work. With a caveat. Don't even think about leaving Trenchmouth logo like that. Strangeland's is atrocious enough, don't make the same mistake twice. :argh:
 
Last edited:

Michael Faragher

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 14, 2022
Messages
22
Location
Wisconsin
I would argue they are perfectly apt examples. I enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 start to finish on an XBox One with fewer problems than Fallout 3. I'd forgotten about the non-controversy until you brought it back up. Enhanced interrogation is a very narrow selection of techniques we feel comfortable using on our own people in training.

Both of these are controversies you allow to live rent free in your head. You make valid points, but you also fall prey to the very things you discuss.

It's insidious. Lay out anything remotely in the public consciousness and someone will show up saying "obviously you're wrong."

I appreciate your concern, but it's handled.
 

Victor Pflug

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
261
As for everything being too brown — personally I think you could work on your values because you do have a proclivity for muddy colors. That would be my main criticism. Apart from this awesome work. With a caveat. Don't even think about leaving Trenchmouth logo like that. Strangeland's is atrocious enough, don't make the same mistake twice. :argh:

Hahaha... Yeah Strangeland's logo is pretty shit I'll grant you that. I really should have got the Primordia logo guy (the only part of Primordia I didn't paint) to do it. Not sure what I was thinking. I think I was thinking Twin Peaks had a cool simple logo I'll steal that. :D

I think I need a new monitor - I looked at Primordia on someone else's screen a while back and it looked really different to what I see on mine. But I still curse anyone that blows out the gamma settings and makes it look like hot garbage lol.
 

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