Turn-Based Tactics The Lamplighters League - turn-based tactics in pulp 1930s setting from Harebrained Schemes

[v1c70r14]

There is a certain type of person, an archetype, that these devs fit into, and they're worse than steampunk nerds with their cogwheel tophats. The word pulp is all over their marketing, it's in the thread title, and they poorly make these supposed references to it within the game, but I'm not sure if anyone involved with developing this game, writing about the game or that will play the game have ever, or will ever, pick up and read a story that was actually printed on pulp paper. No shame in that, many of the stories were poorly written and made specifically for superficial mass appeal. Quick to read escapist stories to forget your daily urban slog, featuring men of action and stunning women, exotic locales and cultures and whatever wish fulfillment people wanted to dream about that was far removed from the routine of their lives.

I'm not going to read all the marketing material for a game I'm not ever going to play, it looks like a cheap phone game, but I never saw them namedrop any actual pulp stories or writers in the sections I skimmed about the game. The thing about those cheap stories that they claim to be fans of go against just about all of the sensibilities of the current year. What I don't understand is what the point of this pretend is. Just about any genre of pulp would not just be uninteresting to them but wildly offensive. Even the stories that aren't about a macho Western guy having an exotic adventure and saving the girl, but stories written to appeal to women would make any of these developers see red and raise their blood pressure significantly.

What they seem to mean by pulp is 80's and 90's Hollywood, like The Mummy or Indiana Jones, except stripped of things from that now archaic period that have become a big no-no. If even that, maybe we are lucky if one or two of the developers are old enough to have watched Atlantis: The Lost Empire by Disney growing up. Judging by the visuals of the game it was more DreamWorks than anything else.

What's ironic is that actual pulp stories were extremely diverse and had much more imagination than whatever this is, some of them are so good they stand the test of time and nobody is making video games out of them.

 

[Lemming42]

I cannot tell what your objection is; the word "pulp" obviously refers to a vast range of recognisable character archetypes and stock plot devices, which the game is drawing on. As you point out, films like The Mummy and Indiana Jones were considered to be inspired by pulp, and are sometimes classed as examples of "pulpy" adventure fiction themselves (where "pulp" is used in the way the devs are using it, to refer to deliberately over-the-top, cliche-heavy, adventurous tales of derring-do).

Secondly, I don't think it's even true that "just about any genre" of pulp is offensive today - stuff that was shit at the time is shit today, and stuff that was forward-thinking and imaginative remains so. Even a lot of Victorian-era short sci-fi/adventure/ghost stories, written before the golden age of "trashy" pulp, are still popular today, and don't necessarily contain any elements that most people would find offensive. And, again as you point out, many stories stand the test of time and are even touchstones of popular culture - to the point where I don't know where you'd get the impression that the devs would be unfamiliar with them.

It's like if someone said "we're going to start a folk band inspired by traditional American music" and you replied with "yeah, but I bet you'd find the lyrics of minstrel songs offensive! I bet you won't be writing similar lyrics today!" Well, yeah, obviously.

 

[negator2vc]

What a generic cartoony art!

Also one quick check on the twitter & personal site of most of the developers is all the info one needs to
see that that there is zero chance for the game to have good characters and story,
especially ones inspired by pulp stories

some quick examples of the supposed narrative designers
https://twitter.com/therealanthea
https://antheacarns.com/
https://twitter.com/JillScharr
Between the pronouns and rainbow flag on their twitter and the modern 'Artistic Philosophy' on Carns' site you really need any more proof?
And they aren't the only ones on the team with 'modern' views.

 

[Roguey]

Also one quick check on the twitter & personal site of most of the developers is all the info one needs to
see that that there is zero chance for the game to have good characters and story,
especially ones inspired by pulp stories

The snippets they've shown so far seem fine. They are being moderated into not going all-out.

 

[Norfleet]

There are not words that can adequately describe how much I despise tactical games with set pre-made characters.

It's funny because I also came into this thread to voice the same opinion and also found my words to be lacking. No permadeath = no buy. If there is no risk of death there is no tension and if there's no tension I'm just a grown man playing with virtual action figures.

What if there are set, pre-made characters...that can actually permanently die and affect the ending you get? What if the difficulty is such that many of them probably WILL die?

 

[v1c70r14]

It's like if someone said "we're going to start a folk band inspired by traditional American music" and you replied with "yeah, but I bet you'd find the lyrics of minstrel songs offensive! I bet you won't be writing similar lyrics today!" Well, yeah, obviously.

I'm not sure what it says about you that when I wrote that the current year mindset is antithetical to driven macho men going on pulp adventures and women being heterosexual you go "we don't do minstrel shows anymore either" but it does say something.

Secondly, I don't think it's even true that "just about any genre" of pulp is offensive today

It should be obvious that I didn't mean that it is offensive to the majority of people but to the woke self-branded pulp fans that the developers are. The beef I have with it is that they don't just hate the kind of story they would print back then, but also the people writing them and reading them. What you go on to say after the part quoted above is that not all stories featured some sort of exotic stereotypes, like the Qing dynasty era occultist that I made fun of the game coming close to with the terrible art direction they got going, which by the way wasn't entirely inaccurate either, just the distance twisting conceptions like how modern Chinese people might have a warped image of Americans. But that wasn't what I was talking about at all.

They not only lack the red blooded character it takes to appreciate the stories for men, or the feminine graces that are required to take a liking to pulp stories for women, but they hate the people and the period they sprung up in. To take your folk music idea, these are people that hate not just the American country tunes and songs being brought over from Europe, but they have a vicious spiteful anger towards the people that would have sung and listened to that kind of thing to begin with. Most consumers wouldn't have any problem with Agatha Christie's novels if they were printed in the form they originally appeared in without redactions for the ministry of political correctness but since controlling culture gives these people power they aren't going to let that happen. Roald Dahl wasn't exactly a pulp writer, but his descriptions of obese women and ugly witches were too much for these types, so when they say they like pulp, and I mean stories that appeared in pulp magazines, which the developers seem to want you to think is what they are going for, you have to be a bit skeptical.

So what I mean when I say pulp stories are offensive to these people is that not only were they often written by and for White heterosexual men, but that almost everything about them would give them an aneurysm. A milktoast family man with bland nerdy tastes like Brandon Sanderson who complies with whatever current year ideology they demand from people already piss them off to no end by mere account of who he is, I can't imagine anything about pulp would go down well with people like the devs of this game.

The mystery to me is why they like to pretend otherwise, it's not a case of Lovecraft's persisting popularity despite how many ideological rules he broke, where they need to take his out of copyright work and shit on it. You won't find many people reading the kinds of stories that the 80's and 90's references they seem to be going for were already parodies of. So if few listen to folk, they hate folk and the folk singers, what's the point of going "This new game was inspired by folk music, those old tunes were inspiring, you know the ones. Can't mention any titles. Remember that one exaggerated and ironic piece released last year? We built our entire aesthetic based on that single track. We sure do love folk music and this is a folk music game."

 

[Lemming42]

The mystery to me is why they like to pretend otherwise, it's not a case of Lovecraft's persisting popularity despite how many ideological rules he broke, where they need to take his out of copyright work and shit on it. You won't find many people reading the kinds of stories that the 80's and 90's references they seem to be going for were already parodies of.

Well, that's the thing, right? It's hard to present a lot of these tropes and character archetypes without some level of either parody or reimagination these days - you wouldn't really be able to unironically write a Humphrey Bogart style detective in a trenchcoat and fedora anymore without audiences laughing out loud. I'm not totally sure why that is - maybe because the idea is simply so cliche after being regurgitated for so many decades that it's somehow innately funny now, or maybe because a lot of "tough" detective characters were already unintentionally funny at the time and, now that the era has passed, that effect is amplified greatly.

I replayed Crimson Skies recently and it works beautifully as both a piss-take of adventure stories of decades past as well as a gleeful reproduction of many of the tropes found therein. Simultaneously a love letter to a bygone type of fiction and a fond mockery of it - which I imagine is the sort of thing most people today would come up with if you asked them to produce something in the vein of 1920s/30s pulp adventure stories.

I think ultimately the "pulp inspiration" in this game is the same as if some hypothetical dev team had said "our game is inspired by golden age sci-fi" and it had, you know, ray guns and flying saucers and spandex goldfish-bowl-helmet spacesuits and rocketships with fins, green aliens with silver spacesuits and little radio antennas on their heads. It's just a mash-up of aesthetics, character archetypes, and themes that most audiences will find instantly recognisable whether or not they're familiar with any of the historical works that popularised those visuals and cliches, because they've long since entered the popular imagination in both original form and parody form. Would it really warrant a reaction of "well, I bet you've never read the original Buck Rogers! Also, I think you hate white people and heterosexuals"?

By saying "this game is pulp-inspired", they can assure that everyone will go into it thinking "gangsters, adventurers, heists, shootouts, punch-ups, tommy guns, 1920s/30s", and thus be on immediately familiar territory when starting the game for the first time.

That said, Harebrained Schemes are shit writers and Dragonfall and Hong Kong were both absolutely insufferable so I don't imagine we're in for anything particularly interesting in the story department here. Hopefully the story is unintrusive and easily breezed past so players can just get straight into the tactical combat.

So if few listen to folk, they hate folk and the folk singers, what's the point of going "This new game was inspired by folk music, those old tunes were inspiring, you know the ones. Can't mention any titles. Remember that one exaggerated and ironic piece released last year? We built our entire aesthetic based on that single track. We sure do love folk music and this is a folk music game."

Again, I have to say that I can't tell what you're actually objecting to in the game itself - you imagine that the devs have a "vicious spiteful anger" towards "white heterosexual men" and "heterosexuality in women", and that they lack "red-blooded character" and "feminine graces", which is all very amusing but what's it got to do with what we know about the game so far? What specifically do you see that you object to, and what would you want them to do that they're not doing, in terms of utilising the pulp inspiration?

 

[Rosey]

Will I be able to play as a phrenologist? Studying my enemy's skulls to determine their weak points is based and redpilled.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Dragonfall and Hong Kong were both absolutely insufferable

 

[dsndo]

There are not words that can adequately describe how much I despise tactical games with set pre-made characters.

It's funny because I also came into this thread to voice the same opinion and also found my words to be lacking. No permadeath = no buy. If there is no risk of death there is no tension and if there's no tension I'm just a grown man playing with virtual action figures.

What if there are set, pre-made characters...that can actually permanently die and affect the ending you get? What if the difficulty is such that many of them probably WILL die?

The problem is that judging by what I've seen from the trailer and looking into the narrative leads on this project I suspect that I would want all 10 characters to die and to die immediately.

 

[negator2vc]

That said, Harebrained Schemes are shit writers and Dragonfall and Hong Kong were both absolutely insufferable so I don't imagine we're in for anything particularly interesting in the story department here.

I can understand if someone didn't like the combat system of those games which definitely had flaws but the Dragonfall's writing was very good and the only problem with Hong Kong's writing was its quantity (too much bla bla bla between missions).

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamebanshee.com/news/127469-the-lamplighters-league-developer-diary-3-and-previews.html

PC Gamer:

Individual or small groups of enemies patrol the map or stand guard, each emanating an awareness ring that represents Lamplighters' light stealth system. "Each of our characters has a limited number of real-time takedowns that they can use to sort of soften up the enemy," says Rogers. Choosing which troublesome enemies to pick off is part of the opening phase, as is the work of scouting and positioning your trio. Sometimes there'll be environmental actions you can take, like smashing through a crumbling wall to open up a flank. You're setting the table for the turn-based fight to follow, a twist I like.

VentureBeat:

The game has a lot of procedural generation when it comes to the placement of enemies or patrol routes, making the missions replayable. You can hide in tall grass. You can set traps, like tossing a firebomb into a pool of oil. You can distract enemies, but when you go hot, they will converge on you.

Rock Paper Shotgun:

The size and type of an enemy group is only one part of the puzzle, though. Each enemy also has their own individual armour and stress levels, which you'll need to break both of to do mega damage. Some of the guards onscreen have an armour of 18 or 20, so we already know they're going to be tough to takedown, but stress is only accumulated when they're attacked - and when they reach maximum stress, they're effectively staggered for a turn so you can really lay into them. You'll need to be careful, though, as the same rules apply to you, so you'll need to keep your weaker characters out of harm's way behind a plentiful supply of full and half-height cover.

Digital Trends:

The spy theming pairs with that idea naturally. One of my characters, for instance, is a “sneak” named Lateef whose able to instantly knock out enemies if he can sneak up on them before being spotted. It’s a basic ambush idea that’s standard in a lot of tactics games, but its given a natural thematic flair here. Lateef has a few more special abilities too, like the ability to stay invisible in cover and nimbly clamber up walls. It helps that I can split the party up at any time during exploration too, allowing me to sneak into an area with just Lateef, take down an enemy or two before an encounter starts, and get out.

Shacknews:

In a hands-off demo shown at GDC 2023, The Lamplighters League combines multiple genres together. While the game primarily features turn-based combat on a grid like X-COM, it has sections of real-time infiltration, a character-driven story, and a deck-building mechanic for extra skills. It also makes several nods to tabletop games like Pandemic and Arkham Horror, in that you have a limited amount of time to prevent several evil entities from ending the world. Specifically, you have around 35 weeks to stop three groups of the Banished Court — Nicastro, Marteau, and Strum — by stealing their treasure.

 

[Lemming42]

That said, Harebrained Schemes are shit writers and Dragonfall and Hong Kong were both absolutely insufferable so I don't imagine we're in for anything particularly interesting in the story department here.

I can understand if someone didn't like the combat system of those games which definitely had flaws but the Dragonfall's writing was very good and the only problem with Hong Kong's writing was its quantity (too much bla bla bla between missions).

It's probably just down to personal taste, but I thought every companion in Dragonfall was very annoying. The way they'd ramble on about themselves and all of them had some convoluted backstory was just funny. I know that's a standard template for RPG stories in general but it never gets any less funny when you walk up to one of your crew and say "hi" and they're like "MY DAUGHTER WAS KILLED BY NEO-NAZIS. THAT'S THE NIGHT I SWORE TO BECOME A CYBERJACKER. ALSO I'VE PINPOINTED THE LOCATION OF A GROUP OF ASSASSINS WHO KILLED MY BEST FRIEND AND FORMER GAY LOVER, CAN WE GO TAKE THEM OUT? BY THE WAY, I HAVE AIDS. ALSO THE CULT WHO KIDNAPPED ME AS A CHILD ARE STILL OPERATING, WE NEED TO STOP THEM". Mate all I said was "hi". Combine that with the slang-y, quippy dialect that everyone has in Shadowrun and something about it all just puts me to sleep.

The main storyline in Dragonfall was okay, though. I honestly couldn't tell you what happens in Hong Kong, I just remember there being way too much blabber, like you say, and none of the companions making much of a strong impression despite talking about themselves at great length. I liked both games for the quick and streamlined dose of turn-based combat they offered, but not so much for the stories and characters.

 

[AndyS]

I cannot tell what your objection is; the word "pulp" obviously refers to a vast range of recognisable character archetypes and stock plot devices, which the game is drawing on. As you point out, films like The Mummy and Indiana Jones were considered to be inspired by pulp, and are sometimes classed as examples of "pulpy" adventure fiction themselves (where "pulp" is used in the way the devs are using it, to refer to deliberately over-the-top, cliche-heavy, adventurous tales of derring-do).

Technically, Indiana Jones and The Mummy aren't inspired by pulp fiction, they're aping matinee serials and other old movies. Where Indiana Jones (at least in the original movie) succeeds where so many fail is that it takes the basic concept of old cliffhanger serials but everything else is played straight. The characters take everything seriously and act accordingly instead of the whole thing feeling inauthentic because it's hung up on broadly played "get a load of this shit, would ya?" schtick.

 

[gurugeorge]

I think ultimately the "pulp inspiration" in this game is the same as if some hypothetical dev team had said "our game is inspired by golden age sci-fi" and it had, you know, ray guns and flying saucers and spandex goldfish-bowl-helmet spacesuits and rocketships with fins, green aliens with silver spacesuits and little radio antennas on their heads. It's just a mash-up of aesthetics, character archetypes, and themes that most audiences will find instantly recognisable whether or not they're familiar with any of the historical works that popularised those visuals and cliches, because they've long since entered the popular imagination in both original form and parody form. Would it really warrant a reaction of "well, I bet you've never read the original Buck Rogers! Also, I think you hate white people and heterosexuals"?

By saying "this game is pulp-inspired", they can assure that everyone will go into it thinking "gangsters, adventurers, heists, shootouts, punch-ups, tommy guns, 1920s/30s", and thus be on immediately familiar territory when starting the game for the first time.

That said, Harebrained Schemes are shit writers and Dragonfall and Hong Kong were both absolutely insufferable so I don't imagine we're in for anything particularly interesting in the story department here. Hopefully the story is unintrusive and easily breezed past so players can just get straight into the tactical combat.

Although I did basically enjoy those Shadowrun reruns, I agree with you there. For all their flaws, they're still okay games, just not very resonant, a bit throwaway (I don't think I ever bothered even once digging into the stats of abilities, etc., it didn't seem to matter much). And that's the nature of their Battletech foray too, and it's probably going to be the nature of this game as well. Kind of ok in parts, nearly something good, but basically shallow, throwaway. (It's interesting to me as a musician how the music actually holds up a big part of the atmosphere of those games too - again, the music is sort of urging you to think of the game as more epic than it actually is.)

But observing the exchange with you and v1c70r14, I think part of his point (at least) is that there's something tawdry and smelly about using references as mere signs like you say in the previous two paragraphs. Like, the reduction of everything to pavlovian consumerist tags. Culture generally is rank with that sort of thing these days (cf. the sequel/prequel/remake/reimagining, etc. syndrome in movies too).

AndyS above actually puts it quite concisely: the retro thing (as in the example AndyS uses of the matinee callbacks of Indiana Jones, and even Star Wars before that) only really works if you kind of take it seriously, get into the spirit of the thing, but the people who make up Harebrained (let's face it) would never be able to do that, they couldn't possibly reactivate the feeling of how it feels to be a young male being thrilled by a pulp story of some brave, competent White guy facing down the inscrutable chinks, even if as kids they felt something similar themselves, even if the sunlit nostalgia of that is part of the reason they're making the callback, and even if doing so would make the game actually quite interesting and remarkable.

They have to treat the whole thing as empty signs and references, because that's just what you have to do, that's all that's left if you take the heroic White guy and his adoring mate out of the picture. It's the politically correct thing to do, and probably what their education tells them is the right thing to do, and what their dinner party friends would be horrified if they didn't do.

 

[Lemming42]

Harebrained (let's face it) would never be able to do that, they couldn't possibly reactivate the feeling of how it feels to be a young male being thrilled by a pulp story of some brave, competent White guy facing down the inscrutable chinks, even if as kids they felt something similar themselves, even if the sunlit nostalgia of that is part of the reason they're making the callback, and even if doing so would make the game actually quite interesting and remarkable.

Why are they not capable of doing this? I don't think the race and sex of the protagonist are central to what they're trying to get from the concept, nor is the race of the antagonists. You can replicate the sense of adventure, risk and derring-do in old pulp stories in plenty of ways. To use Crimson Skies as an example again, it recreates the swashbuckling and heroic nature of old adventure stories perfectly while still remixing the conventions of the genre enough to feel fresh and adding in new sorts of characters you might not have seen often in those original stories. I don't think you have to be a heterosexual white man to be excited by roguish heroes engaging in risky adventures; everyone enjoys this kind of thing because it's exciting, hence the widespread success of some of the popular pulp-inspired things you mention such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Another obvious example is Desperados (both the original and Desperados 3), which recreates scenes and ideas from old Western films while deliberately going to places and incorporating characters and ideas that those films wouldn't have done. As a result, they evoke the feeling of Westerns successfully while still feeling unique and fresh.

As with v1c70r14's comments, I can't tell what you're actually suggesting the devs should do, nor what you think they've presently done incorrectly. Which characters or concepts revealed so far are you objecting to and why?

 

[Roguey]

AndyS above actually puts it quite concisely: the retro thing (as in the example AndyS uses of the matinee callbacks of Indiana Jones, and even Star Wars before that) only really works if you kind of take it seriously, get into the spirit of the thing, but the people who make up Harebrained (let's face it) would never be able to do that, they couldn't possibly reactivate the feeling of how it feels to be a young male being thrilled by a pulp story of some brave, competent White guy facing down the inscrutable chinks, even if as kids they felt something similar themselves, even if the sunlit nostalgia of that is part of the reason they're making the callback, and even if doing so would make the game actually quite interesting and remarkable.

They've repeatedly stated that they're not doing Millennial-cliched self-aware and insecure writing.

 

[gurugeorge]

AndyS above actually puts it quite concisely: the retro thing (as in the example AndyS uses of the matinee callbacks of Indiana Jones, and even Star Wars before that) only really works if you kind of take it seriously, get into the spirit of the thing, but the people who make up Harebrained (let's face it) would never be able to do that, they couldn't possibly reactivate the feeling of how it feels to be a young male being thrilled by a pulp story of some brave, competent White guy facing down the inscrutable chinks, even if as kids they felt something similar themselves, even if the sunlit nostalgia of that is part of the reason they're making the callback, and even if doing so would make the game actually quite interesting and remarkable.

They've repeatedly stated that they're not doing Millennial-cliched self-aware and insecure writing.

The publicity so far doesn't inspire hope. But we'll see.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

Lol, the diversity of the crew has reached new limits. Looks like you get a tranny in there even.

Nothing screams 1930s pulp adventure like troons

Since Infinitron "citation needed" me.

I honestly can't tell. Looks like a bearded female, but I guess it could be a male, considering the body. But then you have the hair, it looks like it has the hair in a bun in a typical Asian style. You decide.

It is not a coincidence that the character is androgynous. Both HBS and Paradox are pretty woke after all.

 

[gurugeorge]

Harebrained (let's face it) would never be able to do that, they couldn't possibly reactivate the feeling of how it feels to be a young male being thrilled by a pulp story of some brave, competent White guy facing down the inscrutable chinks, even if as kids they felt something similar themselves, even if the sunlit nostalgia of that is part of the reason they're making the callback, and even if doing so would make the game actually quite interesting and remarkable.

Why are they not capable of doing this? I don't think the race and sex of the protagonist are central to what they're trying to get from the concept, nor is the race of the antagonists. You can replicate the sense of adventure, risk and derring-do in old pulp stories in plenty of ways. To use Crimson Skies as an example again, it recreates the swashbuckling and heroic nature of old adventure stories perfectly while still remixing the conventions of the genre enough to feel fresh and adding in new sorts of characters you might not have seen often in those original stories. I don't think you have to be a heterosexual white man to be excited by roguish heroes engaging in risky adventures; everyone enjoys this kind of thing because it's exciting, hence the widespread success of some of the popular pulp-inspired things you mention such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Another obvious example is Desperados (both the original and Desperados 3), which recreates scenes and ideas from old Western films while deliberately going to places and incorporating characters and ideas that those films wouldn't have done. As a result, they evoke the feeling of Westerns successfully while still feeling unique and fresh.

As with v1c70r14's comments, I can't tell what you're actually suggesting the devs should do, nor what you think they've presently done incorrectly. Which characters or concepts revealed so far are you objecting to and why?

Yeah but how old is Crimson Skies? Can a game play it relatively straight like that nowadays?

 

[Darkozric]

What a generic cartoony art!

It is not a coincidence that the character is androgynous. Both HBS and Paradox are pretty woke after all.

Crooked-teeth Rex Crowle will love this shit.

 

[Harthwain]

AndyS above actually puts it quite concisely: the retro thing (as in the example AndyS uses of the matinee callbacks of Indiana Jones, and even Star Wars before that) only really works if you kind of take it seriously, get into the spirit of the thing [...]

They have to treat the whole thing as empty signs and references, because that's just what you have to do, that's all that's left if you take the heroic White guy and his adoring mate out of the picture. It's the politically correct thing to do, and probably what their education tells them is the right thing to do, and what their dinner party friends would be horrified if they didn't do.

Here are some details about the whole pulp thing:

Besides having one of the longest names in gaming history, the title is unique in its mashup of turn-based combat and its 1930s pulp adventure set in an alternative universe.

Gitelman is an industry veteran and Harebrained Schemes has worked on titles like the Shadowrun trilogy, Battletech and Crimson Skies. The latter was also set in the 1930s and Gitelman said he loved the timeframe.

I asked if it was inspired by Indiana Jones, but Gitelman said he went back to the original source material in the pulp adventure comics of the era. The idea was to create a rich narrative alongside deep tactical gameplay.

“People say it’s like Indiana Jones or it’s The Mummy,” Gitelman said. “But we went back to the pulp fiction, the primary source materials.”

Source: https://venturebeat.com/games/the-l...kes-turn-based-strategy-to-the-1930s-preview/

 

[LarryTyphoid]

The closest I've ever gotten to "pulp" is playing Ultima: The Savage Empire and listening to some The Shadow radio shows. But the look of this game really doesn't illustrate the time period at all. It's not like you can't make it cartoonish looking; Team Fortress 2's look is often described as "pulpy" (when everybody isn't wearing hot pink cosmetics, that is), and most everyone likes how that game looks.

 

[Lemming42]

Yeah but how old is Crimson Skies? Can a game play it relatively straight like that nowadays?

I can't think of any reason why Crimson Skies couldn't be released today - Nathan Zachary's egotism might be perceived as even more easily mockable these days, but he was designed to be a funny, larger-than-life caricature from the start.

Same for the rest of the cast - the stereotypical sneering British imperialists, the dimwitted-but-heroic flapper on your crew, the cold Russian love interest, the greedy corporate fat-cats. People like these character types and recognise them as an amalgamation of tropes from decades' worth of fiction, and it never really gets old to see them regurgitated; to keep things fresh you just need to write them with a knowing wink, which Crimson Skies already did.

 

[AndyS]

The closest I've ever gotten to "pulp" is playing Ultima: The Savage Empire and listening to some The Shadow radio shows. But the look of this game really doesn't illustrate the time period at all. It's not like you can't make it cartoonish looking; Team Fortress 2's look is often described as "pulpy" (when everybody isn't wearing hot pink cosmetics, that is), and most everyone likes how that game looks.

The tricky thing is that people like to treat it as a genre when it's really just a medium whose nature dictated mostly fast-moving, tightly-plotted short stories. I'm in the middle of playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance and that game reminds me of pulp fiction in the sense that it reminds me stories by historical pulp writers like Harold Lamb or maybe H. Bedford Jones. Like if Lamb had lived long enough to help craft video games, KCD is very much the sort of thing he'd do. But most people wouldn't think of it that way because to them it's just historical fiction.