Tags: Barkley 2: Revenge of Cuchulainn; Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden; Eric Shumaker; Kickstarter; Tales of Game's
Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden appeared out of nowhere in 2008 and took the internet by storm, soon becoming a hit indie title. Basketball-themed, humorous and parodying traditional JRPGs and the RPG Maker community, Barkley was one of the most unorthodox and best-written PC RPGs of recent years. And now that 4 years have passed, a sequel has been announced and a Kickstarter is to be launched next week by Tales of Game's (sic), the team behind the first game. The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 – Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie – Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa, TMROTNN:EFN7-ROC:TOGOTM-C2OTHBS for short, is an unlikely title for a game. But then again the sequel itself was long considered unlikely by those who enjoyed the first game.
You may know that the core person behind Barkley, Eric "Chef Boyardee" Shumaker, goes by the name of cboyardee on the RPG Codex forums and posted about the sequel's development in the Codexian Game Development Thread. So I guess, the developer being a Codexer, it should come as no surprise that while the first game was more of a (faux-)JRPG, Barkley 2 is going to be much more of a WRPG: non-linear, with complex character development and choice and consequence. In this interview, we talk to cboyardee about the game's concept, fully non-linear gameplay and C&C, class-changing character development and character creation that lets you influence not just the character's statistics but also the state of the world, and other exciting matters (such as Arcanum influences on Barkley and Barkley 2). Have a snippet:
Be sure to check out the game's screenshots and read the interview in full: RPG Codex Interview: Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden 2 (Soon on Kickstarter)
Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden appeared out of nowhere in 2008 and took the internet by storm, soon becoming a hit indie title. Basketball-themed, humorous and parodying traditional JRPGs and the RPG Maker community, Barkley was one of the most unorthodox and best-written PC RPGs of recent years. And now that 4 years have passed, a sequel has been announced and a Kickstarter is to be launched next week by Tales of Game's (sic), the team behind the first game. The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 – Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie – Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa, TMROTNN:EFN7-ROC:TOGOTM-C2OTHBS for short, is an unlikely title for a game. But then again the sequel itself was long considered unlikely by those who enjoyed the first game.
You may know that the core person behind Barkley, Eric "Chef Boyardee" Shumaker, goes by the name of cboyardee on the RPG Codex forums and posted about the sequel's development in the Codexian Game Development Thread. So I guess, the developer being a Codexer, it should come as no surprise that while the first game was more of a (faux-)JRPG, Barkley 2 is going to be much more of a WRPG: non-linear, with complex character development and choice and consequence. In this interview, we talk to cboyardee about the game's concept, fully non-linear gameplay and C&C, class-changing character development and character creation that lets you influence not just the character's statistics but also the state of the world, and other exciting matters (such as Arcanum influences on Barkley and Barkley 2). Have a snippet:
When you say the game is going to be non-linear, what kind of non-linearity do you have in mind? Does it mean that Barkley 2 is going to be a fully open world game where you can go anywhere and (attempt to) do anything right from the start, or that it's going to have multiple routes through the game and multiple ways to solve quests? To what extent is your character build going to determine what you can or cannot do?
Let me give you three examples of how this game is non-linear -
First, the world itself is completely open. You can go anywhere you want or do anything you want so long as you are strong or clever enough to handle the challenges. This doesn't mean it's recommended! Think Gothic.
Second, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. For instance, the very first part of the game is all about getting out of Tir na Nog, this awful megacity that the main antagonist, Cuchulainn, is corralling dwarfs into. You can do this by escaping through the sewers or this whole goofy quest where you impersonate the newly-appointed governor or through other ways.
Lastly, many of the choices you make with your character are permanent and irreversible. You can change classes, but the statistics you distribute and the choices you make for your character last forever. There are a lot of very big choices that change the entire game. For instance, over the course of the game, you can acquire robotic parts. If you acquire enough, you permanently become a robot and you can never change back. This affects mechanics - robots equip items entirely differently and have a different set of skills - as well as how certain people react to you and even the endings available to you.
I don't know if there will ever be times where your character build, or the distribution of your base stats, will ever stop you from completing things but there is a lot of content available only to certain classes. I mentioned the robot thing before. The content available to you is based more on the choices you make with the world than the choices you make with your character's statistics - but there may be times when certain options are only available if you have X amount of piety or luck or whatever.
About the complex character development - can you elaborate on how it's going to work? What new RPG mechanics does Barkley 2 have in store compared to the first game?
You start the game by creating your main character, going through a very long and detailed creation process that was inspired by games like Megatraveller 2, Darklands and Ogre Battle. You make choices at different stages of your character's development that determine not only personal statistics like their alignment, attributes and class, but also crazy things about the world, like whether certain things exist (the legendary Blue Duergar...), character names and the game's starting time (which is a lot more important than it sounds!)
When you level up, you get to distribute points into your attributes and sometimes your class changes. I don't want to say how or why your class changes, but it's pretty simple and it spoils the fun of figuring it out on your own. Classes give you passive abilities that boost your stats and active abilities you can use during combat, so they act more as a way to increase your available tactics than as something you rely on, but you may find there are some classes or abilities that help your particular play style more than others so you try to build your character around them. That said, there are certain classes that have plot or quest significance and a few that drastically alter gameplay. This is a game that highly encourages experimenting, so mess around. You really can't ruin your character, there is no "optimal build".
You posted about the sequel's development in the Codexian Game Development Thread, and when we discussed this interview you told me that, while Barkley was a straight up JRPG, Barkley 2 is going to be more of a WRPG, "fully non-linear," with "complex character development and building mechanics" as well as some "serious choice and consequence." What motivated you to expand the game's concept like that? Do you believe Barkley 2 may appeal to the Codex crowd?
It's weird, because the idea for Barkley 1 and Barkley 2 developed simultaneously. We talked about Barkley 2 a lot as we made Barkley 1 and we even drew ideas from it. For instance, the characters of Cyberdwarf and Cuchulainn were originally from Barkley 2 and we put them in Barkley 1. To me at least, this whole game feels like a very organic extension of the first. This is what we always had in mind from the beginning.
At the same time, we want to do very new things (not just for the series, but RPGs as a whole) with this game and differentiate it from the first in some ways too. It does feature a completely open world, much deeper character development and a very different combat system - so mechanically it is very different, but the tone and themes and humor are very much coming from the same place.
I think there will be people who will pass over this game like mondblut because it's an action RPG, and that's fine. This isn't a turn-based game so it's not going to be everyone's thing here. I like turn-based games more too, but turn-based games with one character suck, so we decided to make it the best ARPG we possibly could. I think people who like games about exploration, choices and mystery will enjoy this!
Let me give you three examples of how this game is non-linear -
First, the world itself is completely open. You can go anywhere you want or do anything you want so long as you are strong or clever enough to handle the challenges. This doesn't mean it's recommended! Think Gothic.
Second, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. For instance, the very first part of the game is all about getting out of Tir na Nog, this awful megacity that the main antagonist, Cuchulainn, is corralling dwarfs into. You can do this by escaping through the sewers or this whole goofy quest where you impersonate the newly-appointed governor or through other ways.
Lastly, many of the choices you make with your character are permanent and irreversible. You can change classes, but the statistics you distribute and the choices you make for your character last forever. There are a lot of very big choices that change the entire game. For instance, over the course of the game, you can acquire robotic parts. If you acquire enough, you permanently become a robot and you can never change back. This affects mechanics - robots equip items entirely differently and have a different set of skills - as well as how certain people react to you and even the endings available to you.
I don't know if there will ever be times where your character build, or the distribution of your base stats, will ever stop you from completing things but there is a lot of content available only to certain classes. I mentioned the robot thing before. The content available to you is based more on the choices you make with the world than the choices you make with your character's statistics - but there may be times when certain options are only available if you have X amount of piety or luck or whatever.
About the complex character development - can you elaborate on how it's going to work? What new RPG mechanics does Barkley 2 have in store compared to the first game?
You start the game by creating your main character, going through a very long and detailed creation process that was inspired by games like Megatraveller 2, Darklands and Ogre Battle. You make choices at different stages of your character's development that determine not only personal statistics like their alignment, attributes and class, but also crazy things about the world, like whether certain things exist (the legendary Blue Duergar...), character names and the game's starting time (which is a lot more important than it sounds!)
When you level up, you get to distribute points into your attributes and sometimes your class changes. I don't want to say how or why your class changes, but it's pretty simple and it spoils the fun of figuring it out on your own. Classes give you passive abilities that boost your stats and active abilities you can use during combat, so they act more as a way to increase your available tactics than as something you rely on, but you may find there are some classes or abilities that help your particular play style more than others so you try to build your character around them. That said, there are certain classes that have plot or quest significance and a few that drastically alter gameplay. This is a game that highly encourages experimenting, so mess around. You really can't ruin your character, there is no "optimal build".
You posted about the sequel's development in the Codexian Game Development Thread, and when we discussed this interview you told me that, while Barkley was a straight up JRPG, Barkley 2 is going to be more of a WRPG, "fully non-linear," with "complex character development and building mechanics" as well as some "serious choice and consequence." What motivated you to expand the game's concept like that? Do you believe Barkley 2 may appeal to the Codex crowd?
It's weird, because the idea for Barkley 1 and Barkley 2 developed simultaneously. We talked about Barkley 2 a lot as we made Barkley 1 and we even drew ideas from it. For instance, the characters of Cyberdwarf and Cuchulainn were originally from Barkley 2 and we put them in Barkley 1. To me at least, this whole game feels like a very organic extension of the first. This is what we always had in mind from the beginning.
At the same time, we want to do very new things (not just for the series, but RPGs as a whole) with this game and differentiate it from the first in some ways too. It does feature a completely open world, much deeper character development and a very different combat system - so mechanically it is very different, but the tone and themes and humor are very much coming from the same place.
I think there will be people who will pass over this game like mondblut because it's an action RPG, and that's fine. This isn't a turn-based game so it's not going to be everyone's thing here. I like turn-based games more too, but turn-based games with one character suck, so we decided to make it the best ARPG we possibly could. I think people who like games about exploration, choices and mystery will enjoy this!
Be sure to check out the game's screenshots and read the interview in full: RPG Codex Interview: Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden 2 (Soon on Kickstarter)
in my pants right now.
