bertram_tung Three things:
(1) I tentatively agree, but for certain purposes, quantity and quality aren't separable. Many adventure games benefit from "breathing room." Thus, a gem of a small adventure (and who's to say SL's a gem!) is at least arguably inferior to a solid but flawed larger game simply by virtue of the latter's size. You develop a different relationship with a longer game, as the protagonist becomes a familiar companion/surrogate, the designer's puzzle logic starts to become more apparent, and the length of the journey gives meaning to its end. So, I think the fact that SL may be quite a bit shorter than Primordia is definitely a downside. That is offset, to some extent, by the fact that I think SL's visuals and coding are stronger than Primordia's. The writing is my own so I can't judge it.
(2) I would not describe the game as 2/3 finished. It might be more, in that the last third has most of its assets in place, its basic design in place, etc. It might be less, however, because (a) we might need to tear things apart and rework them depending on testers' reactions (or add additional content); (b) it still needs VO, which is a pretty significant undertaking; and (c) things always move in fits and starts, and while right now Vic, James, and I are all going at this full tilt, I am relatively sure one of us will fall out of alignment soon enough (that's the way of the world).
(3) The game is weirdly personal in a way that even Primordia, already a very personal game, isn't. Primordia is basically a concrete (i.e., solid) world, and so no one would ask, "Is it plausible that it would be populated with robots arguing about X, Y, Z?" SL is a psychological world, and thus the question naturally comes up, is it a plausible psyche? For instance, someone might ask, "Why would a psyche be a hodgepodge of Norse mythology, the Bible, Edgar Alan Poe, etc., etc.? That doesn't seem credible." To which I can only say, I can vouch for at least one mind obsessed with such trivia in such proportions. Primordia is a game about principles, but they are pretty universal principles. SL is more a game about regrets, and regrets are always more personal, and while they aren't all my own regrets, those that aren't are adjacent to mine (i.e., the regrets of people I've loved and admired). With regard to puzzle design, I've written before that even when the designer thinks he's being logical, he can only design from his own logic, and thus the real question is how much his idiosyncrasies and the player's overlap. Here, I wonder to some degree whether there will be much overlap between my thematic idiosyncrasies and the player's. While everyone ought to be able to respond to Primordia's question of how a
person robot should face the standard adversities of nature, other people, god, and himself, I am skeptical that as many people will care that MRY feels regretful about things.
But, anyway, as long as my contribution to the game isn’t horrible, the sheer strength of Vic's art and James's coding* will make for a good experience.
(* In Primordia, James's work was basically only visible when he screwed up -- that is, there weren't any real coding tours de force from the player's standpoint, only invisibly functional code and visibly nonfunctional code. But in SL, James has done some really astonishing things in terms of visual effects and usability (a simple example: being able to use the scroll wheel to change selected item) that will let players better appreciate that the work of our trio has always stood on a tripod.)
Is this is still AGS under the hood? I guess it's a very helpful engine for 2D adventures, but pretty stiff if you want to add features.
pc user. (It's basically a fullscreen window with no borders, thus no res changes and alt-tab works like a charm).
