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Well, for starters it's kinda one of those things you won't really get until you play to the real end. That's a huge part of the appeal of the preexisting VN tradition 999 is following, getting to understand the situation and characters by exploring all angles. Bad endings aren't punishment, they're perks in that they grant you new information (Shibuya Scramble is a really good example of this). And one big feel-good moment in 999 is the moment when you get how all the bad endings fit into the broader narrative (one of the things about that saga and the writer's previous games is that the multiple routes thing isn't just a meta-mechanism but often actually has a narrative justification, which is less common for the genre). I guess you could say a simpler way to understand the format is Higurashi/Umineko where the almost completely linearized presentation doesn't give you a choice and makes going through all the bad endings before introducing you to the good ending part of the narrative. Basically to get it you've gotta free yourself from the idea bad endings are bad or even a failure state, instead they're narrarive beats (and in the case of 999 it is actually impossible to get the good ending from the get go). Beyond that 999's big thing was merging said VN format with escape room puzzles, which were all the rage at the time and opened the game to an audience that otherwise wouldn't consider VNs as games. Chev fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Mar 7, 2020 |
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Mar 7, 2020 14:52
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Petiso posted:I don't get the love for 999, personally. Did a playthrough and got what I believe is the second-to-worst ending (if the endings are ordered from best to worst from the left) without really understanding what I did wrong. Did a second one trying to make completely different choices and got the worst one, and once again I have no idea how my choices influenced anything. It's been sitting in the shelf since then. The plot is layered in a way where a lot of very insignificant things are actually large choices that determine branches and as Chev notes it's designed for you to hit the bad endings and learn from them. The PC version is a LOT nicer for this as it has a that lets you jump back to any branch you've unlocked. Also the order of the branches at the bottom is not what you think. Most of the endings are bad endings.
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Mar 7, 2020 15:15
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iirc, the "preview" at the end of the credits on a playthrough will actually show you a better route to take next time so you're not stumbling blindly through them.
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Mar 7, 2020 15:22
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Which puzzle, out of curiosity? The brain scanner puzzle, You are supposed to copy a pattern that isn't actually visible on the PC version, so I spent a very long time getting frustrated about a puzzle that makes no sense.
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Mar 7, 2020 16:02
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I think 999, at least in its original incarnation, was the weakest of the trilogy. Haven't gotten around to the remake yet. But yeah, play 999 first if you want the whole thing, I only said VLR because I think it can stand alone without 999. It's significantly better with 999, but outside of a few things the two have largely unrelated plots. Now, if I'd said play Zero Time Dilemma without the first two then that would be crazy.
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Mar 7, 2020 17:34
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IShallRiseAgain posted:The brain scanner puzzle, You are supposed to copy a pattern that isn't actually visible on the PC version, so I spent a very long time getting frustrated about a puzzle that makes no sense. They added a button to show the pattern that'd be at the bottom in the original, didn't they? The one labeled "hint".
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Mar 7, 2020 17:37
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Beat Whispers of a Machine, thought it was great. The reactive storyline and the way your powers will change based on solutions/dialogue responses was great, albeit there really weren't too many opportunities to tweak it. Still, it's a fun little game that's totally worth it if you like sci-fi adventures, and the augmentation setup in it is really drat cool and fun. Makes me want more games set in the same universe.
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Mar 8, 2020 01:51
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Fuzz posted:Beat Whispers of a Machine, thought it was great. The reactive storyline and the way your powers will change based on solutions/dialogue responses was great, albeit there really weren't too many opportunities to tweak it. Still, it's a fun little game that's totally worth it if you like sci-fi adventures, and the augmentation setup in it is really drat cool and fun. Makes me want more games set in the same universe. I liked the branching augmentations, my only problems with them was the choices just stop past the third day when you have a full power set. Also the moment you see the Blue-infused baby in the tank on Day One, it's pretty obvious that the ending is going to be a choice of reprogram the baby, raise the baby, or turn over the baby to someone else. Still, it's a solid story in an interesting world and I'd also love to see a sequel.
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Mar 8, 2020 02:00
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Chev posted:They added a button to show the pattern that'd be at the bottom in the original, didn't they? The one labeled "hint". Yes, but that makes it not actually a puzzle, and hint implies something that you use if you are stuck on the puzzle, not that you need it to actually to complete the puzzle.
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Mar 8, 2020 02:06
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John F Bennett posted:What are some adventure games that have a complex, multi-layered mystery to uncover with lots of plot twists along the way and grand story-telling. Primordia (this game has an incredible setting and I personally think the story owns, however some puzzles are 100% bullshit). You can often get it for peanuts on sale too.
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Mar 8, 2020 03:06
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John F Bennett posted:What are some adventure games that have a complex, multi-layered mystery to uncover with lots of plot twists along the way and grand story-telling. I’d say the Broken Sword series kinda sorta fits this description. Even if the mystery ultimately boils down to templars are evil lol.
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Mar 8, 2020 03:27
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Neddy Seagoon posted:I liked the branching augmentations, my only problems with them was the choices just stop past the third day when you have a full power set. Also the moment you see the Blue-infused baby in the tank on Day One, it's pretty obvious that the ending is going to be a choice of reprogram the baby, raise the baby, or turn over the baby to someone else. Oh yeah, the whole story is pretty predictable mostly except for that one part, but still... It's a drat fun ride, and worth trying a couple times since the other power combos have completely different solutions to some of the problems.
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Mar 8, 2020 14:24
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Zenithe posted:Primordia (this game has an incredible setting and I personally think the story owns, however some puzzles are 100% bullshit). Primordia has a really awesome setting and it's sad the dev team never made another game in it.
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Mar 8, 2020 14:29
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Yes, but that makes it not actually a puzzle, and hint implies something that you use if you are stuck on the puzzle, not that you need it to actually to complete the puzzle.
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Mar 8, 2020 14:43
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Chev posted:Although I agree the choice of word wasn't the best, that doesn't make the puzzle impossible to solve or not a puzzle. It is mechanically intact from the DS version and your only hang up is your interpretation of the label on the button that switches screens. Yeah, if it's the one I'm thinking of the solution was always visible on the second screen. You just had to figure out how it was supposed to look for you.
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Mar 8, 2020 14:49
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Do Not Feed the Monkeys is currently breaking its own golden rule by feeding actual monkeys with a 60%-off charity sale. It's a good game, go observe some Cages, jot down notes, and remember; Do not interact with the Monkeys. No matter how tempting it may be...
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Mar 11, 2020 05:42
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Zenithe posted:Primordia (this game has an incredible setting and I personally think the story owns, however some puzzles are 100% bullshit). Also, while cool as a side-kick, your companion tended to give out solutions (or very spoiler-y hints) to puzzles which made me weary about talking to him; probably not the intended outcome. Other than that, the game was indeed great, and I'd like to see more from that team in a similar sci-fi, dystopian setting.
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Mar 11, 2020 10:01
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AbstractNapper posted:
Strangelend, upcoming title, possibly neither sci fi nor dystopia but looks good. Supposed to be released sometime this year. quote:Strangeland’s a bit, well, strange, in that the whole thing is confined to a dream-like carnival, which makes it feel much smaller than Primordia, even though the actual number of rooms, puzzle interfaces, characters, and so forth is probably roughly comparable. The art is spectacular (no surprise), and benefits from four times the pixels that Primordia had in terms of resolution. But the real leap forward, I think, is in the code. There are dozens of features, from striking visual effects to behind-the-scenes conveniences, that make Strangeland really exceptional. Without James’s code wizardry, there would have been no way to achieve the warped and unnerving scenario that the game requires.
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Mar 11, 2020 11:21
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AbstractNapper posted:There's a specific puzzle that I hate in Primordia, which is quite early on, very important for the story to unravel properly, easy to fail without the option to recover from, and quite bullshit. You can progress even if you failed the puzzle and end the game, but you'll be left with many questions unanswered iirc. Ohh, I know exactly which puzzle you mean; Trying to trap the AI, whoops popped the AI's active cell... oh well, let's move on and think nothing more of it! 
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Mar 11, 2020 11:23
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SimonChris posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDXZ_hsHUVw Has anyone played this? I looks cool.
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Mar 12, 2020 21:08
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Holy poo poo:quote:Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition will feature a "polished and premium restoration" from Nightdive Studios via the company's proprietary KEX game engine, which it has used to restore Turok and System Shock for contemporary platforms, among other titles. The game will feature updated character models, animations and cutscenes, as well as widescreen resolution support, keyboard and controller customization and more. The original foreign language translations (which include German, French, Italian and Chinese) of the original game have also been sourced for the Enhanced Edition. Day one purchase for me. Sounds like the perfect balance between lightly enhancing and respecting the original. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 02:34
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I'd like to see some screenshots first.
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Mar 14, 2020 02:41
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Megazver posted:I'd like to see some screenshots first. Yeah. Screenshots, media, more info. I've been working on the ScummVM Blade Runner engine for more than two years now (technically only more than one in official capacity as a ScummVM developer, and one before that for subtitles and restored content support), and this sounds a lot like potential empty marketing talk. There's quite a lot more to say, but better to wait and see what this is actually going to be.
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Mar 14, 2020 12:51
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Until we see screens I'm gonna bet on the same ugly upscale filter they're using on C&C Remastered.
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Mar 14, 2020 13:22
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They weren’t lazy with System Shock or Turok, I don’t know why you’d think they would be lazy with Blade Runner.
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Mar 14, 2020 13:44
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Chev posted:Until we see screens I'm gonna bet on the same ugly upscale filter they're using on C&C Remastered. That's happening because they don't have any higher quality sources to work from. There is a chance ND found original tapes.
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Mar 14, 2020 14:46
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Chev posted:Until we see screens I'm gonna bet on the same ugly upscale filter they're using on C&C Remastered. I know this is off-topic, but as a longtime C&C fan I might have to get this, just because I don't think I ever managed to get my hands on the Red Alert expansion packs, plus the chance of seeing some unused footage of those cheesy FMVs is too good to pass up.
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Mar 14, 2020 15:19
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Mokinokaro posted:That's happening because they don't have any higher quality sources to work from. No, it's wholly reverse-engineered and they admit as much. They specifically say in that article that the source code went bye-bye in the move out of Las Vegas.
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Mar 14, 2020 15:21
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All the models being voxels probably helps a great deal in their recreation and they wouldn’t need to worry about textures either. If it’s anything like the Grim Fandango remaster they’ll upscale the backgrounds and maybe add fancy effects like colored lights.
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Mar 14, 2020 16:07
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al-azad posted:All the models being voxels probably helps a great deal in their recreation and they wouldn’t need to worry about textures either. If it’s anything like the Grim Fandango remaster they’ll upscale the backgrounds and maybe add fancy effects like colored lights. The models are not exactly using voxels. It is something voxel-lite or voxel-like, which I believe was a "pass" on the original voxel asset to make it lighter. They are comprised of horizontal slices and all of them were highly compressed to the point that it is hard to recognize details sometimes. A few models got more optimized compression that others, but still details were lost.That was an issue of how the models looked, even at the time that the game released. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17171287 They need the original assets to have high resolution models. Or maybe they can experiment with AI upscaling and manual cleaning up each animation frame but that's a lot of work for a dubious result.
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Mar 14, 2020 16:27
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Voxel models (or voxel slice models in this case) don't upscale anywhere near as gracefully as polygonal models do, that's most certainly the reason they're "updating" them in the first place. They don't even get to reuse skeletal animation data, Blade Runner's animation really was handled like 3d "sprites" with baked voxel frames AFAIK. So I'm really curious to see how they'll update them. Standard approach would be grabbing one frame and using it as a sculpt base for a classically animated model, but maybe they have a voxel version of their upscale algorithm, which could be comically interesting (if you've even seen smoothed versions of, say, red alert 2 or tiberian sun vehicles). EDIT: yeah as you can see a character model like that would only result in a blurry mess upscaled, so they're definitely sculpting new ones based on whatever high res promo renders they can dig up. Chev fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 16:32
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Perhaps I should say that for a significant period of time Night Dive Studios (NDS) was in communications with the ScummVM team (...) and we had a pretty good understanding (and "tangible" samples) of what they were doing then up to about late November 2019. Then GOG release happened and, a few months later, the cooperation or plans thereof with NDS ended (...). It's the team's decision not to disclose further details about any of that yet. However, they now need to show that they are reverse engineering the code themselves (an effort which is already completed, tested and publicly released by ScummVM, and which took years), then using their own bug fixes and enhancements (not ScummVM ones), and then doing the "remaster" on top of that. That is a LOT of work to be done within a year (or less than, depending when they plan their release -- they are vague about that too). I just hate to read inaccuracies like this crap: "Additionally, the original foreign language subtitles have been recovered from the code as well" https://screenrant.com/blade-runner-game-pc-ps4-xbox-one-nintendo-switch/ Which is 100% bullshit. There's no subtitles in the sources, there's not even subtitles support. We implemented the subtitles support from scratch, then build tools to help fan localization teams, and completed and shared a full English transcript which has gone under multiple refine passes, then cooperated with amazing fans in the community for the French and Spanish versions currently available (and a few others that are still in the works). (...) AbstractNapper fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 16:55
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I didn't doubt for an instant that their "painstaking reverse-engineering" consisted of opening the scummvm github page, but that subtitle thing is a whole new level. What's with all the (..) though? I imagine it's an abridged quote from somewhere else? Chev fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 17:19
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It seems awfully fishy that after what seems to be a torturous ordeal getting BR to work in ScummVM that all these different companies come out of the woodwork offering the game for sale. Sounds like exploitation but 
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Mar 14, 2020 17:43
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Chev posted:What's with all the (..) though? I imagine it's an abridged quote from somewhere else? Sorry about that. No, it's that there's quite more additional stuff to write there, but it's not the time and I want to wait for more information on what NDS is doing now with the project.
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Mar 14, 2020 18:40
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I see, thank you!
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Mar 14, 2020 18:59
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There’s only one company, Night Dive, and their shtick has always been clearing the rights of murky properties. They started with System Shock 2 years back and their release was built on the fan made dark engine update.
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Mar 14, 2020 19:53
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Captain Scandinaiva posted:Has anyone played this? I looks cool. I backed this and unfortunately the game is horrendously badly clued and the voice acting is abolutely laughable.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:49
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So I have 11 and 13 year old girls cooped up in the house along with an Xbox one x and a computer I can hook up to the tv if needed. I’d like to introduce them to adventure games to not only help keep them occupied but also get them reading. Any suggestions? Can be free or pay. I liked adventure games some as a kid, but I can’t subject them to some of the moon logic ones I had to stumble through. I hate that kind of puzzle and so will they I’m sure. No cat mustaches please  probably a hint system if they get stuck would be helpful... Any suggestions? Thanks everyone!
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Mar 20, 2020 03:13
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namlosh posted:So I have 11 and 13 year old girls cooped up in the house along with an Xbox one x and a computer I can hook up to the tv if needed. At that I age we got our first not poo poo computer and I devoured the Humongous games. Putt-Putt is geared towards grade schoolers but Freddi Fish, Spy Fox, and Pajama Sam are fun and a little challenging but not absurd. Chances are you probably bought a Humongous bundle or have a bunch of Telltale games on Steam. E: I’d also look into Phoenix Wright. The original trilogy is on multiple platforms. al-azad fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Mar 20, 2020 |
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Mar 20, 2020 04:27
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