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

[Victor Pflug]

I tried to be semi-nice!

Oh yeah - I bet you say that when you throw the ladies a neg too :D

Perhaps I myself overreacted...

The big question is can fork come up with some MS Paint magic for me?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

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.

This is all well and good but what is your stand on elves?

 

[Lagole Gon]

This is the second-weirdest american australian dev thread I've ever visited.
Guys, I think we had enough shitposting. Let's return to normal(ish) discussion.

 

[Victor Pflug]

This is the second-weirdest american australian dev thread I've ever visited.
Guys, I think we had enough shitposting. Let's return to normal(ish) discussion.

I second that notion and declare myself having calmed down with several drinks.

I'll try to come up with some new shit which isn't just... Shitposting :D

Ummm... Here's a sprite!

 

[hello friend]

View attachment 22492

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.

It clearly is. What else could it be? Buddy, I'm not sure I appreciate your attitude. That's not how you make friends.

Jesus Christ if I wanted my eyes to bleed I'd just look at some NFTs

The cigarette is a nice touch tough

And what's more, I think I did a great job considering MS Paint only comes with 18 default colours (incl. black, white, and grey). Back in cavemen times they were using root and berry juices and bits of coal and people make a big hoopla about that - those do NOT look like the animals depicted. But that's all water under the bridge, my friend. I'm nothing if not magnanimous. I painstakingly made a third drawing, knowing that I would receive nothing but mockery and yet struggling on, driven by the harsh demands of my muse and the artist's fire raging in my belly.

Pearls for swine, smh

 

[PlanHex]

Jokes on you fuckface. Check it out:

Zero tracing.

Dude thank you so much for the awesome reference materiel!

You want your royalties paid in Ethereum or Bitcoin?

View attachment 22485

This could be one of the kickstarter tiers.
$50 (or whatever) backers get shitty mspaint characters in the game.

Though backer content is usually never a good thing, so maybe not...

 

[Zariusz]

Jokes on you fuckface. Check it out:

Zero tracing.

Dude thank you so much for the awesome reference materiel!

You want your royalties paid in Ethereum or Bitcoin?

View attachment 22485

This could be one of the kickstarter tiers.
$50 (or whatever) backers get shitty mspaint characters in the game.

Though backer content is usually never a good thing, so maybe not...

Maybe in form of some optional scrapyard where deformed and makeshift robots survive from scraps. And they could be like those background street robots in Primordia, no dialogue just electronical sounds or weird repeated recording, they dont even need to move.

 

[Jarpie]

Victor Pflug As the line goes in The Other Side of the Wind

It's alright to borrow from each other, but what we must never do is to borrow from ourselves

written by the great man, Orson Welles.

 

[ItsChon]

Project looks great and the art is very nice as well. Will definitely follow the project and looking forward to finding out more.

Just a word of advice, there is a certain way you need to carry yourself when dealing with people on the internet. Don't take anything personal, and address only the people that are worth addressing. It's a skill that takes time to acquire, but it's really not hard to deal with even the worst people. Whenever you engage and give people acting up a reaction, you're only encouraging them, and tbh, it makes you look bad versus whoever was being an asshole, whether or not they had a valid point to make or not.

 

[hello friend]

thanks mom

 

[Tacgnol]

Incidentally, despite the fact Victor Pflug refused to share the name of his porn star "muse" with me, I'll still admit this looks cool. Primordia was awesome and I'm sure this will be too.

 

[Neuromancer]

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.

Reminds me of a guy, whose grandma had an old television set, where the Simpsons were green. :D

Maybe you painted Strangeland in rainbow colours on you monitor?

 

[Michael Faragher]

This is all well and good but what is your stand on elves?

Ah, the real questions. Must have an inferiority complex, or they wouldn't insult humanity like a man saying "I'm so much better than that dog over there."

Incidentally, despite the fact Victor Pflug refused to share the name of his porn star "muse" with me, I'll still admit this looks cool. Primordia was awesome and I'm sure this will be too.

Now there's a Kickstarter reward.

Anyway, it's silly to ask this on the RPG Codex, but it seems quite a few people think dropping point and click and fully leaning on RPG elements is the way to fully realize the world. Does making this a full RPG (of unknown type, but certainly conversation trees and turn based combat of some sort) change opinions? It would certainly mesh better with the tactical map system.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

This is all well and good but what is your stand on elves?

Ah, the real questions. Must have an inferiority complex, or they wouldn't insult humanity like a man saying "I'm so much better than that dog over there."

Incidentally, despite the fact Victor Pflug refused to share the name of his porn star "muse" with me, I'll still admit this looks cool. Primordia was awesome and I'm sure this will be too.

Now there's a Kickstarter reward.

Anyway, it's silly to ask this on the RPG Codex, but it seems quite a few people think dropping point and click and fully leaning on RPG elements is the way to fully realize the world. Does making this a full RPG (of unknown type, but certainly conversation trees and turn based combat of some sort) change opinions? It would certainly mesh better with the tactical map system.

I think market reality is such that an RPG has a much higher chance of being funded than a PnC just because it’s a much more popular genre.

But they’re also much more complex in terms of systems, and you run the risk of introducing core gameplay elements that are just straight-up not fun. As much as I love Quest for Glory I’m not going to defend its consistently crap melee combat; the games would be better without it, ergo it should have been cut, but most RPG fans would riot at the notion of an RPG without combat. Unavowed is another example of a PnC that introduced RPG elements (the party mechanic) that weren’t particularly fun or thought through and ended up dumbing down traditional aspects of PnCs.
In general I think an RPG should have a strong and clear design vision at the outset of the project. What RPG elements are being emphasized by this project? C&C? Tactical combat? Build variety? Complex itemization? Rewarding exploration?
Hemming and hawing about whether to make an RPG or a PnC seems a little like debating between going snorkeling in Hawaii or taking a deep-sea submersible to explore the wreck of the Titanic; you can do either one, but one is a helluva lot more difficult and you better have done your proper preparation.

Although all that said, Unavowed sold very well and was highly regarded most places outside the Codex, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

 

[hello friend]

Whatever you guys go with in the end, the most important thing is that the puzzles are hard enough without relying on moon logic. I have many fond memories of playing adventure games where I'd be stumped for a long time, so frustrated I'm almost angry, only to solve the puzzle and feel like a total idiot for not realising the solution sooner. Obvious only in hindsight, that's the bread and butter. Most modern adventure games never give me this feeling, because you're never really stumped. You just jump through the hoops to advance the story. And that's not a very high bar, because I'm a little dumb so I feel like these indie devs (not you fine people of course) could be trying harder.

I'll most likely buy this game whether point and click or RPG, unless initial hivemind impressions are that it's terrible.

 

[Michael Faragher]

I think market reality is such that an RPG has a much higher chance of being funded than a PnC just because it’s a much more popular genre.

But they’re also much more complex in terms of systems, and you run the risk of introducing core gameplay elements that are just straight-up not fun. As much as I love Quest for Glory I’m not going to defend its consistently crap melee combat; the games would be better without it, ergo it should have been cut, but most RPG fans would riot at the notion of an RPG without combat. Unavowed is another example of a PnC that introduced RPG elements (the party mechanic) that weren’t particularly fun or thought through and ended up dumbing down traditional aspects of PnCs.
In general I think an RPG should have a strong and clear design vision at the outset of the project. What RPG elements are being emphasized by this project? C&C? Tactical combat? Build variety? Complex itemization? Rewarding exploration?
Hemming and hawing about whether to make an RPG or a PnC seems a little like debating between going snorkeling in Hawaii or taking a deep-sea submersible to explore the wreck of the Titanic; you can do either one, but one is a helluva lot more difficult and you better have done your proper preparation.

Although all that said, Unavowed sold very well and was highly regarded most places outside the Codex, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Well said. When Wrath of the Righteous dropped and I played the campaign mode, I suddenly became very conscious of the issues with our implementation. at this point we haven't reached minimum viable product, and I'm willing to turn the gameplay loop to the ground if this isn't working. This is basically a question of sunk costs. Do we stay the course because we've already invested six months, or do we consider it a false start? The plot, art, audio, etc. can be transferred over, we're probably only losing a month or two of actual coding, but this kind of thing has kept games in development hell before.

I had a game I made to MVP, but it wasn't fun. The fundamental gameplay loop didn't work, so it got discarded. A game should be fun. I mean, even just saying "RPG combat" means Final Fantasy, Bard's Tale, Gold Box, Fire Emblem, or even Destiny of an Emperor, making armies into characters. It's a fundamental choice, but even that's just one part of it all.

But I'm one to stress every decision until it's made, then it's just work to get done.

Bottom line, it needs to be fun, yeah.

 

[Michael Faragher]

Whatever you guys go with in the end, the most important thing is that the puzzles are hard enough without relying on moon logic. I have many fond memories of playing adventure games where I'd be stumped for a long time, so frustrated I'm almost angry, only to solve the puzzle and feel like a total idiot for not realising the solution sooner. Obvious only in hindsight, that's the bread and butter. Most modern adventure games never give me this feeling, because you're never really stumped. You just jump through the hoops to advance the story. And that's not a very high bar, because I'm a little dumb so I feel like these indie devs (not you fine people of course) could be trying harder.

I'll most likely buy this game whether point and click or RPG, unless initial hivemind impressions are that it's terrible.

Thanks, and yeah, moon logic never appealed to me. It's like a pixel hunt, it's not challenging, there's no skill, it's just aggravating. Yes, a game is harder if you keep turning off my monitor, but that's not a gameplay element. It's exactly as you described, if it makes you go "oh, wow, how didn't I get that?" then it's a good, challenging puzzle. I hate "I would've never thought of that" moments. It's lazy.

 

[HorribleHombre]

Although all that said, Unavowed sold very well and was highly regarded most places outside the Codex, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Nah, Unavowed had unusually high production values for an indie adventure game, but was ultimately a pretty mediocre product. All the marketing hype about RPG elements got it attention, but the implementation wasn’t anything different than what Maniac Mansion did. Not to mention the whole “origin” thing had no influence on gameplay whatsoever (no origin-specific puzzles or scenarios aside from the intros)

So if you’re going to bring in RPG elements, just make sure they’re more than just surface elements. The art looks good, so all you need are good puzzles and you should be fine.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Unavowed is another example of a PnC that introduced RPG elements (the party mechanic)

It didn't feel like an rpg element per se, more like your choice of what tool you would take to solve a problem.

 

[Victor Pflug]

I think market reality is such that an RPG has a much higher chance of being funded than a PnC just because it’s a much more popular genre.

Yeah I agree there. The other reality is Trenchmouth I think kind of lends itself better to that type of game anyway. A lot of the ideas I have are very literally mechanical in nature and would serve better as enemies, items and literal battlefields too I guess.

Oh and look thanks for everyone with positive and negative crits - I'll try to keep my shit together. I guess for a minute it was nice not to have to kiss ass on Twitter generally speaking.

hello friend Look I'll graciously admit you're improving a lot - the golden tuna and gigantic zippo lighter is just Dali-esque. I also like the dead squidman and his hovercraft lol 4/5 stars

 

[hello friend]

That's a tank you arsehole

 

[ERYFKRAD]

That's a tank you arsehole

What is a tank if not a giant ugly zippo.

 

[lightbane]

It didn't feel like an rpg element per se, more like your choice of what tool you would take to solve a problem.

It was inspired by Biowarian rpgs. Namely, by having fake choices, SHIT writing, one-note characters (remember the ex-alcoholic medium who talks about how he's ex-alcoholic 24/7?), blatantly ripping off something better (the agency wants to be Harry Dresden but better and fails at that), lazy writing (the agency is old but there's only been like 3 members in all this time so that the MC can step in and do everything), and so on.

The LP done here is quite informative.

 

[lightbane]

Been playing LISA The Painful. This one has Kickstarter characters, but they don't stand out too much compared with the usual crowd of the game itself. So, it seems self-inserts characters CAN work if you force whoever pays for them to strictly follow the game's art style, rather than shoving their fursona or their ugly faces outright.

 

[Tacgnol]

Been playing LISA The Painful. This one has Kickstarter characters, but they don't stand out too much compared with the usual crowd of the game itself. So, it seems self-inserts characters CAN work if you force whoever pays for them to strictly follow the game's art style, rather than shoving their fursona or their ugly faces outright.

Main thing is for the devs/artists to maintain complete control over any content that is produced. If backer content doesn't fit the setting it needs to be either rejected or modified to a state that it does.

A lot of the backer fanfic shit that ended up in Pillars should have been rejected outright.