KickStarter Geneforge 1 - Mutagen - remake from Spiderweb Software

[Terra]

And despite his lengthy article and comments about cohesive art (lol, I think the ratty little boat moored at the docks in G1 original stuck around until G4 and stuck out like a sore thumb in that game as it was in a completely different style to everything else in the game), he somehow managed to obtain the Queen's Wish character renders at the incorrect angle for his new game. How the heck that happened is beyond me but QW was anything but cohesive and who knows how he managed to spend as much on art as he claims to and still end up with... that.

Mutagen's aesthetics are... ok, for what it is, it could have been so much more, a little magic with shaders and you can even get some nice looking faked lighting in his 2d iso engine, but there's just no desire there to do much of anything to improve the graphics.

I'll be interested to see if he tries to kickstart G2-5, given he has an overwhelming amount of his assets for the whole series made for him already, given his fondness for asset reuse, all those terrain tiles, props & creations he had made for Mutagen will be reused in each new title. And that's fair enough to some extent in terms of cohesion. So given that, I'd be interested to see what amount he asks for, because it seems to me it'll just go straight in his back pocket. (Though while I'm critical of Jeff, credit where it's due, Jeff is at least a finisher, you'll get a finished game out one of his KS projects, which is more than I can say for some of them).

 

[Doktor Best]

Reused assets or not, Mutagen looks and plays better than the original. Mission accomplished i'd say.

I couldn't give less of a fuck about nice graphics when i'm getting a competently written, mechanically solid, nonlinear, faction based rpg with plenty of interesting c&c for 14 bucks.

 

[JDR13]

You have to love the Vogel apologists. He could literally sell them shit in plastic bag, and they would somehow find a way to praise it.

 

[V_K]

Codex is full of graphics whore, who'd have thought.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Codex is full of graphics whore, who'd have thought.

I don't think it's really about graphical intensity. Vogel's games are just aesthetically dull, and very samey.

 

[Rafidur]

Last time he tried to change up the graphics we got this.

Please don't encourage him.

 

[Dayyālu]

And he was proud of it! And he paid good money for high quality art assets!

H I G H Q U A L I T Y

 

[Raghar]

Main problem is these multiple skin color people. If he really wants to please, he should used same skin sets for every group, and matching set for NPCs. And he should rewrite story for black to really behave like blacks. He would have to add a quest where main characters would have to seduce mages to stop refusing to create a safe drug fungi that would be relatively easy to harvest and plant, and be accessible for everyone.

 

[Lutte]

That honestly looks worse than many RPGmaker tilesets.

 

[V_K]

RPGMaker tilesets may look good in screenshot, but the two-frame animation ruins a lot of it. Not to mention any graphical improvements to RPGMakers drain PC resources worse than Witcher 3.

 

[Terra]

As a serious question, Jeff has his existing audience and is a known quantity which ensures at least some level of guaranteed buy-in whenever he releases something new, but if a new team/individual put out a new commercial game looking like QW, assuming the story/mechanics at least matched a typical Spiderweb game, would it sell? I'd be quite reluctant to launch a new product with those QW visuals personally but for Jeff it's at the very least acceptable. It's quite easy to pick out a game slapped together out of stuff from the Unity Asset Store for example, with your immediate visual clue being clashing art styles and to be frank QW often manages to achieve the 2D equivalent of that. I think Vogel talked about how QW had several artists he tried to wrangle into a cohesive vision.

Genuinely wondering here, there's not many small/one-man shops putting out rpgs (completely excluding rpg maker titles here) but QW is far from pleasing in a visual sense and it makes me wonder if he's kept afloat by long-time fans that'll buy anything he puts out or if the bar for visuals/aesthetic cohesion is really much lower than I imagine.

Queen's Wish looks like Jeff fell for a succession of Nigerian-prince tier freelance-artist scams and decided to sell the final product anyway.

 

[Saduj]

It isn’t going to appeal to people who value graphics above other concerns but the game looks fine.

 

[Doktor Best]

You have to love the Vogel apologists. He could literally sell them shit in plastic bag, and they would somehow find a way to praise it.

What would he have to apologize for? Where did Vogel touch you?

I mean i bought Geneforge 1-5 and Avernum 1-6 for the price of a sack of potatoes, yet i had more fun with those games than with most AAA titles. Yes they are butt ugly, yes that is a valid flaw, no it does not ruin the enjoyment of playing them. It is pretty obvious by now that Vogel is a man completely devoid of any aesthetic talent. If he were, he would be a much much richer man and his games would not be as cheap as they are.

 

[ghostdog]

Genuinely wondering here, there's not many small/one-man shops putting out rpgs (completely excluding rpg maker titles here) but QW is far from pleasing in a visual sense and it makes me wonder if he's kept afloat by long-time fans that'll buy anything he puts out or if the bar for visuals/aesthetic cohesion is really much lower than I imagine.

He is kept afloat because those first games he made are genuinely good RPGs.

Also, he is an one man studio, he doesn't pay other people for assets, or work and it costs very little for him to "remake" those games and sell them again and again.

 

[V_K]

Genuinely wondering here, there's not many small/one-man shops putting out rpgs (completely excluding rpg maker titles here) but QW is far from pleasing in a visual sense and it makes me wonder if he's kept afloat by long-time fans that'll buy anything he puts out or if the bar for visuals/aesthetic cohesion is really much lower than I imagine.

QW currently has fewer Steam reviews than Horizon's Gate - and that is a game with 16bit-style pixel art.

 

[JDR13]

You have to love the Vogel apologists. He could literally sell them shit in plastic bag, and they would somehow find a way to praise it.

What would he have to apologize for? Where did Vogel touch you?

I mean i bought Geneforge 1-5 and Avernum 1-6 for the price of a sack of potatoes, yet i had more fun with those games than with most AAA titles. Yes they are butt ugly, yes that is a valid flaw, no it does not ruin the enjoyment of playing them. It is pretty obvious by now that Vogel is a man completely devoid of any aesthetic talent. If he were, he would be a much much richer man and his games would not be as cheap as they are.

I've tried several of his games, and I think they're lacking in more than just aesthetics. But good for you that you got them for potatoes.

My point was that his fans somehow get excited about whatever he puts out regardless of how regurgitated it is.

 

[Tacgnol]

I think he is in his mid fourties so he has to work for at least another 20 years.

I think Jeff is in his early fifties. He seems to have a pretty comfortable existence judging by his comments and blog posts over the years.

I don't think he's in much danger considering his strategy seems to have been working for the past 25 years and counting.

 

[V_K]

I think he is in his mid fourties so he has to work for at least another 20 years.

I think Jeff is in his early fifties. He seems to have a pretty comfortable existence judging by his comments and blog posts over the years.

Guys, typing "Jeff Vogel" into google takes 10 seconds. He's exactly 50.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Man this one is so good. Experiencing the series for the first time. I had only played Queen's Wish before and thought it's p.boring and uninspired, but this one is so original.

 

[sebas]

Is this worth playing on a difficulty higher than normal?

 

[Dayyālu]

Is this worth playing on a difficulty higher than normal?

I'd say yes. Combat is trivially easy on Normal and many enemies have simpler patterns, while on Veteran they fully employ abilities an' shit. It goes from playing on autopilot to have to plan some fights honestly, even if "planning" means prebattle buffing and proper use of debuffs and positioning.

Torment is too much for me honestly.

That said, breaking through the Front Gate with a completely meme composition of several waves of suicide Pyro-roamers because I could was fun.

 

[Rafidur]

Veteran seems like the intended experience, I really had to abuse the game to win on torment.

 

[zapotec]

For me it's more difficult than avernum / avadon so i am sticking to normal.
Especially i don't like going back to town for healing hitpoints and essence while mana regenerates instantly after combat, i guess that the Agent class becomes overpowered later on, am i right?


I don't understand why he added a 3km long hotbar but i can't activate items in the inventory screen.

 

[Dayyālu]

I don't understand why he added a 3km long hotbar but i can't activate items in the inventory screen.

Please understand

Engine hard

That said, I'm open to suggestions about the last step of the cockatrice quest. I'm not a particularly optimization-prone player, but for fuck's sake what the fucking fuck 16 birbs with double turns and 90-100 cone damage output and random debuffs

Do I need to go heavy into Ur-Glaaks or something, even Dominate spam (that solved nicely West Gate) does nothing because endless birbs

 

[Hobo Elf]

For me it's more difficult than avernum / avadon so i am sticking to normal.
Especially i don't like going back to town for healing hitpoints and essence while mana regenerates instantly after combat, i guess that the Agent class becomes overpowered later on, am i right?


I don't understand why he added a 3km long hotbar but i can't activate items in the inventory screen.

Yep, but much later. I've finished Mutagen twice; once as a shaper, then as a solo agent. Magic is extremely potent, but I don't particilarly reccomend you go the solo route like I did since it makes combat too rng reliant (miss once? You died!).