Wadjet Eye Unavowed - Dave Gilbert's RPG-inspired urban fantasy game

[Blackthorne]

This is early development. Dave knows what he's doing - so, I'm looking forward to it and seeing what comes out in the next few months. God, if I talked about every project I had in the early dev project, I'd get declined from ass to breakfast. By the way, I'd like to announce our next game, "Shitlords". You can guess what it's about.


Bt

 

[DaveGilbert]

I'd play it.

 

[Jaesun]

By the way, I'd like to announce our next game, "Shitlords". You can guess what it's about.


Bt

 

[Redlands]

This is early development. Dave knows what he's doing - so, I'm looking forward to it and seeing what comes out in the next few months. God, if I talked about every project I had in the early dev project, I'd get declined from ass to breakfast. By the way, I'd like to announce our next game, "Shitlords". You can guess what it's about.


Bt

Is the full title going to be "Shitlords: Declined From Ass To Breakfast"?

 

[Straight elf]

Well Hepler is known for her opinions such as that we need games designed by "people who don't like games" to make the product appeal to women, ignorant musings about dead white men who need to make space for :incloosive: writers, and working on shitty games. I actually see where she is coming from, but it's a very different approach from the one I'd like to see. So for now I tend to be less hyped about the game then I was before I learned about Jennifer's involvement.

 

[index.php]

Jennifer Hepler is a symbol of everything that's wrong with modern gaming. Even if this game will be The Best Thing Ever, she will cost you a lot of sales.

 

[Arch-Vile]

Dave should have a developer tag under his username, by the way.

 

[Infinitron]

Dave should have a developer tag under his username, by the way.

Crooked Bee Wadjet Eye Games

 

[DaveGilbert]

Dave should have a developer tag under his username, by the way.

I mostly lurk on these forums - I've made a whopping 15 posts since I joined several years ago - but I won't say no!

 

[Lyric Suite]

Jennifer Hepler is a symbol of everything that's wrong with modern gaming. Even if this game will be The Best Thing Ever, she will cost you a lot of sales.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Dave should have a developer tag under his username, by the way.

I mostly lurk on these forums - I've made a whopping 15 posts since I joined several years ago - but I won't say no!

Done already.

 

[m_s0]

Jennifer Hepler was responsible for Orzammar in Dragon Age Origins. It had the most lore and the most detail of any area in the game. Her qualifications speak for themselves. I know she made some controversial statements a few years ago. And funny enough, it was those statements (about wanting to skip the combat in Bioware games) which inspired the game I'm writing now. A branching narrative without the combat is essentially a very detailed point-and-click adventure, and ever since I've been chomping at the bit to make that game. I was always too busy/swamped/dealing with family stuff. But earlier this year I started working on it. I designed a number of characters, details about the world, and some basic plot points I wanted to hit... but I realized very quickly that it was way too big for me to handle alone and I would need some help. Since Jen Hepler basically inspired the idea (and I knew her when we were kids), it seemed only right to approach her first. And she said yes.

Essentially, Jen is handling the basic design (the locations, the story arcs, what the individual goals are) while I am handling the writing (the dialog, the interactivity, the things the player actually does). We're still in the very early stages of it all, but so far it's a partnership that's worked out well.

I question her grasp on video game design based on the comments she's made in the past. And that's not including the one where she admits she doesn't like video games.

For instance, her solution to 'combats are boring' in a crpg is to implement a way to skip through the combat and not, say, to implement a path which will allow the player to avoid combat as a valid choice within the game. That's a critical difference and while it potentially may not matter if you're not planning to implement combat anyway, in terms of actual game design it reveals her logic to be as shoddy as her rationalization for it.

Not stoked to learn of her involvement, to put it mildly, but feel free to shut me up with a great game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Jennifer Hepler was responsible for Orzammar in Dragon Age Origins. It had the most lore and the most detail of any area in the game.

Like that makes a difference when the writing in the game was uniformly shit for start to bottom.

Her qualifications speak for themselves.

No, this is the shit that speaks for itself:

 

[Infinitron]

I think this is the point where Dave decides to not engage with stuff like that.

 

[evdk]

Keep this shit away from the adventure forum ffs

 

[Lyric Suite]

One does not just insult dead white writers (I.E., the ones who actually wrote all the masterpieces) and expect not to get a reaction from me. First time i actually saw that quote, so i was triggered pretty hard. This identity politics shit is making people insane. Tolkien? Lol fuck that dude, he was both white and male, how boring. Now, Stephenie Meyer bro. Just, wow. I mean, she has a vagina, isn't that just amazing?

 

[MRY]

Ultimately, it seems to me that the only thing that will meaningfully "speak for itself" is Unavowed. Ms. Hepler's qualifications or opinions are not so extraordinary that they should prompt a sane person to either pre-purchase or boycott the game. Just be patient. Either she and Dave will work magic with Unavowed -- and Dave has for years left many fans and many professional reviewers spellbound -- or they won't. If it's a stellar adventure game, why in the world would you care about her views regarding RPG combat? If anything, you should be delighted that she found her way to a genre that is not reliant on combat. If the game's lousy, why in the world would you care about whether Orzammar had a rich backstory or not?

I mean, I enjoy the fun of

and

but at the end of the day, the Codex is, and should be, about judging the product and not succumbing to either hype or hate.

Also, though I am of course thoroughly biased here, I happen to think that Dave is, more than anything, the Dr. Dre of adventure games*: he's excellent at finding talented people, making the most of their talent, and becoming a billionaire in the process. (Well, maybe not the last part.) As one does in the Chateau d'If: "Wait, and hope."

(* For those of you who might think to cite The New Guyz in response, may I point out that Dre himself had The Aftermath. Even Homer nods.)

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Lyric Suite]

Also, though I am of course thoroughly biased here, I happen to think that Dave is, more than anything, the Dr. Dre of adventure games*

I actually had to google the reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre

Dude, just, what?

At any rate, Hepler's "qualifications", such as they are, may or may not be relatively above average considering the current standards of this industry, but that goes more to the discredit of the latter than anything else. And her opinions are quite extraordinary. I'll grant you that her presence isn't going to make or brake this game, but come on. As stupid as her idea about skipping combat was, at least that was somewhat understandable in lieu of her being a writer rather than a game developer. But that stuff about the "old white guys" is inexcusable. Many of those old white guys constitute the very foundation of her craft.

 

[Jaesun]

Mr. Gilbert, Lyric Suite is a complete fucking moran, just ignore him. Just FYI.

 

[Lyric Suite]

You guys just can't handle the troof.

 

[MRY]

I actually had to google the reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre

Dude, just, what?

The guy is a great producer, talent scout, and collaborator. It seemed like an apt analogy, one that would also be humorous given that one is a gangta rapper and the other is a nebbish developer. Seems to have fallen short.

And her opinions are quite extraordinary. I'll grant you that her presence isn't going to make or brake this game, but come on. As stupid as her idea about skipping combat was, at least that was somewhat understandable in lieu of her being a writer rather than a game developer. But that stuff about the "old white guys" is inexcusable. Many of those old white guys constitute the very foundation of her craft.

The question is whether they are "so extraordinary that they should prompt a sane person to . . . boycott the game." Suggesting that Stephenie Meyer's books "bridge all demographics in their appeal" is ludicrous (data for movies is better than for books, but 80% of Twilight moviegoers were women, which is extraordinarily skewed). Incidentally, I assumed she was talking about George RR Martin in her post, not Tolkien -- DA:O always seemed obviously inspired by Martin, notwithstanding its Tolkienish races. In either case, her point about what kind of stories should be presented to audiences seems narrow-minded and silly. Obviously lots of people buy and enjoy Tolkien's work and Martin's work; Twilight has sold about 120 million books, ASoIaF about 60 million, LOTR about 150 million, though I have no idea how many of those were recent.

But even if her views are mistaken and wrongheaded, I haven't seen anything so extraordinarily pernicious as to justify boycotting the game if it's a good one. Even many "inexcusable" ideas fall enormously short of what would justify boycotting a good game, just as there is little reason to buy a bad game simply because the developer has very wise views. Except in extreme cases, it seems to me that it is the game that matters, not the person who made it or what she believes. If a wonderful game can spring from her, then let her make games, whatever beliefs lie behind their creation.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Lyric Suite is completely right. Hey DaveGilbert, asshole, if you want to make a shit product that doesn't sell you can listen to the brownnosers here, or silently acknowledge the legitimate issues good users have generously pointed out. I know deep down that's what you're doing ;-)

 

[Alex]

I mostly lurk on these forums - I've made a whopping 15 posts since I joined several years ago - but I won't say no!

Well, since you are here...

Seriously, the Blackwell series ending... What were you thinking? I half expected I would see this after the credits rolled:



Only with Joey instead of Polterguy. And then the next game he would go after the Sardini family. The game would even start with Rosa waking up with a headache and Joey trying to wake her up and the events of the previous game would never be referenced again.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Nobody said anything about boycotting the game over her mere presence. But you cannot expect us not to have certain misgivings regarding a person who went out of her way to promote the decline.

The guy is a great producer, talent scout, and collaborator. It seemed like an apt analogy, one that would also be humorous given that one is a gangta rapper and the other is a nebbish developer. Seems to have fallen short.

The point i was making is that rap is shit. I thought this was obvious.