Interview Gamebanshee: Feargus Urquhart Interview

[yaster]

NOOOO, it's Demonicon - it says so in the link, on the linked page, in google... though it's still Das Schwarze Auge

made by guys behind Gorasul and Last days of gaia... and modern Simons the Sorcerer. Except for the graphics doesn't sound good.

 

[Elzair]

NOOOO, it's Demonicon - it says so in the link, on the linked page, in google... though it's still Das Schwarze Auge

made by guys behind Gorasul and Last days of gaia... and modern Simons the Sorcerer. Except for the graphics doesn't sound good.

So it's another piece of Eurotrash from Carsten Strese? Man, how is that guy still in business?

 

[janjetina]

But what I thought was very interesting about the reviews is that one review will completely hammer us on something and then we have another review that loves that system. Like the mini-games. Every modern game has mini-games, you know.

An outright lie. Good games don't have minigames. Just imagine Civilization V with minigames.

And what’s cool about our mini-games is that you don't necessarily have to do them. There are ways to get past them.

Are there? An alternative being more popamole? The part of AP I managed to wade through before choosing the option with optimal consequences (uninstall) was as linear as it gets, and it was either sneak and do shitty hacking minigames or do the popamole.

And then the RPG system also lets you upgrade skills to make them easier. One reviewer will have totally got that and explained it, and even pointed out that you don’t need to do them. And then another review basically said it was the dumbest thing ever. They hate them. They’re stupid. Why would anyone even do them. It’s lame. With no other context whatsoever.

I invested maximum number of points in Sabotage and Stealth, just to avoid popamole combat and complete the annoying minigames with as little pain as possible. It didn't help much. How do the minigames work for those who haven't invested in Sabotage? They must be a source of endless frustration.

Minigames cause the loss of suspension of disbelief. Can anyone honestly compare matching letters on a seizure inducing screen to cracking a security system? Also, no matter how short they are, they interrupt natural flow of a game - the game is suspended and the player is forced to play another game - a minigame.
Minigames are intrinsically simplistic (by requirement of being moron friendly and short, so they don't detract from the game too much (but they still do), you can't put in a chess minigame in your game) and highly repetitive. Minigames, being twitch based, repetitive, and detracting from the game, are intrinsically a negative play experience.

Additionally, minigames waste development resources that should be spent in other areas (when Obsidian is concerned, the neglected areas are systems design, particularly character system, combat system and exploration, level design, interface design and quality assurance). It seems that mr. Slam Dunk has learned nothing from KOTOR 2, where Avellone pointed the pazaak minigame as a great resource sinkhole largely responsible for the flaws of KOTOR 2.

Is making a RPG, i.e. a game where the outcome of PC's actions are heavily influenced by an intricate character and skill system, instead of resistance to seizures and twitch skills simply beyond Obsidian's abilities?

Alpha Protocol is a game with simplistic character system that barely influences gameplay, horrible interface, horrible minigames, horrible popamole combat system and horrible dialogue system. Those things make up a large majority of gameplay. Intelligence gathering, good writing and C&C are just a minor part of the gameplay. Spending countless hours wading through the sewage to reach a few seconds of fun is not my idea of having a good time.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

There must be some market research out there showing that minigames are absolutely necessary nowadays.

 

[Lockkaliber]

You could completely skip the minigames by using EMP's.

 

[J1M]

How exactly did Pazzak fuck over KOTOR2? Why would they have had to spend significant development resources on a minigame that already existed, was already fun, and already balanced by another developer for them?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

You could completely skip the minigames by using EMP's.

So you really want to tell me you were able to carry enough EMPs to skip all the minigames? A fucking minigame every 5 meter? Stop the lies, start the truths.

 

[Darth Roxor]

You could completely skip the minigames by using EMP's.

So you really want to tell me you were able to carry enough EMPs to skip all the minigames? A fucking minigame every 5 meter? Stop the lies, start the truths.

Well, if you devoted every inventory slot to EMPs, maybe that would be possible, but you'd go bankrupt after two missions.

 

[janjetina]

How exactly did Pazzak fuck over KOTOR2? Why would they have had to spend significant development resources on a minigame that already existed, was already fun, and already balanced by another developer for them?

When you have 9 months to develop a game, anything that consumes development time is problematic, especially when it doesn't add quality to the game.
Just ask Chris Avellone:

In the Obsidian ranks as far as K2 is concerned, I think we probably wasted time with the mini-games (we should have dumped those)

I probably should have bit the bullet and cut the mini-games as well, they were an unnecessary distraction in development and I don’t think they added to the value of the role-playing experience in comparison to other mechanics in the game.

so it was on us. The game probably could have stood to cook for a few more months, but I should’ve been more responsible with the feature set. Looking back, I wish we’d cut minigames and one or two companions.”

 

[Fat Dragon]

Do the boring minigames every 5 seconds, or micro-manage EMP grenades the whole game while never getting to use any other gadgets because of it.

Wow, that's some solution to a problem, replace annoying busywork with a different kind of annoying busywork. Neither is fun for the player.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Do the boring minigames every 5 seconds, or micro-manage EMP grenades the whole game while never getting to use any other gadgets because of it.

Wow, that's some solution to a problem, replace annoying busywork with a different kind of annoying busywork. Neither is fun for the player.

How on earth did you fail to work out that EMPs stack?

I'm genuinely confused - I'm pretty sure the stacking is automatic, even.

 

[Azrael the cat]

How exactly did Pazzak fuck over KOTOR2? Why would they have had to spend significant development resources on a minigame that already existed, was already fun, and already balanced by another developer for them?

When you have 9 months to develop a game, anything that consumes development time is problematic, especially when it doesn't add quality to the game.
Just ask Chris Avellone:

In the Obsidian ranks as far as K2 is concerned, I think we probably wasted time with the mini-games (we should have dumped those)

I probably should have bit the bullet and cut the mini-games as well, they were an unnecessary distraction in development and I don’t think they added to the value of the role-playing experience in comparison to other mechanics in the game.

so it was on us. The game probably could have stood to cook for a few more months, but I should’ve been more responsible with the feature set. Looking back, I wish we’d cut minigames and one or two companions.”

Not a very useful comparison. The 'minigames' in KoTOR2 were (a) the podracing tracks, (b) the turret sequences and (c) Pazaak.

None of these are minigames in the same sense as 'match the codes to open a door'. Pazaak might have been similarly low on resources, but that was largely inherited from KoTOR1. Creating new racetracks and race events with quests tied in and new obstacles/mechanics would have been a bigger task than creating all the minigames in AP, Bioshock and FO3 combined - it's actually a small racing game, i.e. a genuine game, not a text-based sequence-matcher.

Similarly, the turret 'minigame' wasn't a minigame in the sense that we think of now. These days you'd just call those optional action sequences - again, I would have thought the graphics and mechanics would have taken much more resources than the modern minigame.

I actually agree with your point, incidentally. Just saying that KoTORs were actually before Obsidian fell into the same minigame hole as everyone else - minigames then meant actual games, not crappy number+text puzzles. Opening locks, hacking computers and so on was a straight skill+resource check in the KoTOR games. Minigames were substantial but completely optional - they didn't even need to be 'bypassed' via resources. They were also more substantial, and hence should have been omitted in KoTOR2 given that they weren't part of the main game's mechanics.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

You could completely skip the minigames by using EMP's.

herp derp?

 

[Fat Dragon]

Do the boring minigames every 5 seconds, or micro-manage EMP grenades the whole game while never getting to use any other gadgets because of it.

Wow, that's some solution to a problem, replace annoying busywork with a different kind of annoying busywork. Neither is fun for the player.

How on earth did you fail to work out that EMPs stack?

I'm genuinely confused - I'm pretty sure the stacking is automatic, even.

I did know EMPs stack. A whopping 2 per item slot, whereas the other grenades can be stacked to 5. Don't know why they made it so limited, my guess is they wanted the player to have to play through some of those shit minigames.

Like I said, limited carrying capacity. I'm not sure how you misunderstood me there, but oh well.