I've never run across the Sorcery! series, so I can't really make that call. Possibly?
... *googles*
Ok, I'm looking at the Shamutanti Hills book
... *reads*
I would not make that comparison. Ballad Singer, at least at this stage, feels more like a standard CYOA than a full fledged gamebook.
Inkle's Sorcery games do this thing where the first is standard CYOA and then the sequels slowly expand into full-fledged RPGs with branching quests, a deep magic system, overlapping plots, and a good deal of freedom on how you progress while keeping the choose your own adventure book wrapping. They funneled a lot of the branching design into 80 Days, as well.
This seems like it may be trying to advance the design by wrapping the CYOA design with external menus and systems.
there's something about open world games that can make them a big beal in the moment and then just kind of fade away
anyone else remember mercenaries: playground of destruction?
I loved it. Collecting cards was just so satisfying, and it had the best "enemy outposts as puzzles" design I have ever seen. The sequel was underwhelming, mostly because it bloated out and lost a lot of the more heavily scripted/designed enemy placement and replaced it with standard issue open world sandbox chaos.
Researching these old gamebooks has taught me
- there are two Steve Jacksons out there, which confuses and amuses me
- the digital versions on steam look pretty neat
- there's a more involved version of Warlock of Fire Mountain with a tabletop aesthetic
I'm very interested in the prettified, digital release of Sorcery!
I might pick up Warlock, but ultimately I'm having some trouble getting past the name Zagor. It's... not great.
The Clay Conductor's storyline may now always be completed, even if it requires him to be forthright about his feelings.
A Spider-Sweeper may now always sweep the well, as is proper.
Captains will no longer accidentally stumble upon spiders at Langley Hall. Let it be known that Langley Hall is almost certainly not inhabited by spiders.
If Lord Rochester invites you to race to Titania, he will now actually turn up.
Cricket matches are now a little less soothing.
Patch notes were something I always loved about WoW.
Kinda weird how no games even attempted to replicate the nemesis system even if people really raved about it back in the day
AC:Odyssey pretended it had one, but it was a very shallow imitation (just like many other facsimile elements in that game)
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
the nemesis system requires a huge amount of assets (models, voice clips, custom movesets) and requires a really big testing team as well for it to work
Even then a player may only engage with 1% of the possible outcomes
It's not viable for a lot of studios and dev budgets
Kinda weird how no games even attempted to replicate the nemesis system even if people really raved about it back in the day
AC:Odyssey pretended it had one, but it was a very shallow imitation (just like many other facsimile elements in that game)
The secret element to the Nemesis system comes from Mordor being a game where your deaths occur in story and as a game mechanic, which provides a solid hook for highlighting and showcasing the enemies that kill you. Nemeses can kill you multiple times, get resurrected themselves, and level up alongside you. It can become a race to finish them for good before they got more powerful than any other boss. I still remember one particular archer with poison arrows who made my life hell for a huge chunk of the game, then left me missing him after I finally decapitated him for good
Odyssey struggles because, without the mutual resurrection system, the mercenaries are just mooks with names. Some are harder than others, but none really stick around long enough to make an impact. I think that shows why it has been a trickier system to implement than it first appears.
Kinda weird how no games even attempted to replicate the nemesis system even if people really raved about it back in the day
AC:Odyssey pretended it had one, but it was a very shallow imitation (just like many other facsimile elements in that game)
I had fun with it even if I had to do most of the storytelling on my own.
There was one dude with a dog, and his backstory was very clearly saying this guy is John Wick. So I refused to fight him, but the game kept sending him to kill me. So I'd be sneaking through an enemy base and hear the horns go off announcing John Wick is here for my head. At which point I have to go loud and rush whatever my target was, and set off any kind of distraction I can find. So it'd usually end up with the place on fire with lions or bears running around smashing dudes around while I escape on a zip line.
I stopped engaging with it early on, and when I came back to it, I didn't get much out of it bc most of 'em had lame loot or were dudes (I wanted an all-female crew). And even the ladies had weak stats
Kinda weird how no games even attempted to replicate the nemesis system even if people really raved about it back in the day
AC:Odyssey pretended it had one, but it was a very shallow imitation (just like many other facsimile elements in that game)
The secret element to the Nemesis system comes from Mordor being a game where your deaths occur in story and as a game mechanic, which provides a solid hook for highlighting and showcasing the enemies that kill you. Nemeses can kill you multiple times, get resurrected themselves, and level up alongside you. It can become a race to finish them for good before they got more powerful than any other boss. I still remember one particular archer with poison arrows who made my life hell for a huge chunk of the game, then left me missing him after I finally decapitated him for good
Odyssey struggles because, without the mutual resurrection system, the mercenaries are just mooks with names. Some are harder than others, but none really stick around long enough to make an impact. I think that shows why it has been a trickier system to implement than it first appears.
A Dark Souls could do it.
Crackdown is literally a series that basically pops out a clone of you whenever you die, so it'd fit there too. (Not saying they would have had enough time/resources to implement it, just that it'd be a good fit.)
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Crackdown 4 probably shouldn't happen unless they have some radically different ideas about what to do with that series
Researching these old gamebooks has taught me
- there are two Steve Jacksons out there, which confuses and amuses me
- the digital versions on steam look pretty neat
- there's a more involved version of Warlock of Fire Mountain with a tabletop aesthetic
I'm very interested in the prettified, digital release of Sorcery!
I might pick up Warlock, but ultimately I'm having some trouble getting past the name Zagor. It's... not great.
The digital versions of Sorcery are great. They take great efforts to actually make them good games instead of straight adaptions of the books. It's also fun to see them get more confident with each sequel.
Inkle is a cool studio, overall. 80 Days is great, and Heaven's Vault looks like it could be pretty amazing:
Yeah I’m guessing the Nemesis system didn’t take off because the entire game has to be built from the ground-up around it, and can’t just be slotted into existing engines like a battle royale mode can
i've also heard that if you want a really diverse version of it, it's significantly more resource intensive on the actual machine than it looks, so that also plays into the "if we're going to put all this effort into something it should be something the players experience more fully" angle
The nemesis system is shadows of mordor was also really well integrated into the combat system.
Like, having resistances and weaknesses made sense with the arkham combat. In something like a shooter, even in one that has numbers snc resistances and whstnot like borderlands, it might not be as fun to have enemies who just have even more resistances to certain rlements etc
Nemesis system in an open world Borderlands since it has those respawn machine?
Oh, or Bioshock.
Man, Bioshock would have been so much cooler if the enemy that killed you got stronger every time you respawned. They could earn one of your plasmids.
Plus, it would be kind of bittersweet if it filled in more detail about them the more times they killed you. Instead of them getting promoted like in Mordor, they could be remembering more about their former selves.
A nemesis system with cyborgs would be incredible. Your enemies would start human but gradually lose body parts. And their remaining parts would be their weak points. But if you take advantage of those weak points then you're just giving them a sick arm cannon the next time you face them.
I started playing my copy of AC: Black Flag Ubisoft gave out for free some time back.
I can't tell if most of the higher up developers responsible for the boat stealth tailing missions thought it was funny or years of AC development had rendered them incapable of seeing the absurdity of enemy boats having line of sight almost exactly like individual human characters would.
Every game after AC1 makes Altair look more like a chump. It takes years of training to do things like use the assassin blades well unless you are a pirate. You can pretty much learn it in an afternoon then.
Couscous on
+1
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I love Black Flag*
*The sailing parts
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LuvTheMonkeyHigh Sierra SerenadeRegistered Userregular
Well now I have to go listen to the sea shanties again.
I’m playing Metro Exodus and, man, I do not remember the voice direction and sound design being this bad in previous games.
Everyone feels like they’re constantly talking over each other, like the timing for every line has been offset by half a second. And it sounds like everything is playing through a sponge from the end of a hallway, regardless of the actual environment.
I’m playing Metro Exodus and, man, I do not remember the voice direction and sound design being this bad in previous games.
Everyone feels like they’re constantly talking over each other, like the timing for every line has been offset by half a second. And it sounds like everything is playing through a sponge from the end of a hallway, regardless of the actual environment.
I've not played Exodus, so this is second-hand, but I hear Russian voice with English subtitles is the way to go.
Black Flag was the game where they almost made an incredible sequel to Sid Meir's Pirates, but then stapled a AC game to it and didn't go all in. I wish they'd made the other game since the AC portions were fun, but would have been more enjoyable if they just made a great Pirate Game and didn't have to always have an assassination target everywhere.
+3
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Black Flag is still one of my favorite ACs
In large part because Kenway is a massive dickhead who doesn't give a fuck about the Assassins or Templars
I’m playing Metro Exodus and, man, I do not remember the voice direction and sound design being this bad in previous games.
Everyone feels like they’re constantly talking over each other, like the timing for every line has been offset by half a second. And it sounds like everything is playing through a sponge from the end of a hallway, regardless of the actual environment.
I've not played Exodus, so this is second-hand, but I hear Russian voice with English subtitles is the way to go.
Patrick Klepek used to always say to do that. Then after Waypoint did a 101 for the games the rest of the crew dunked on that advice as terrible because you lost a ton of the ambient dialogue that they thought was one of the stronger points.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I cannot believe that the remake of Sid Meier's Pirates has been hanging precisely at lazy grabbing level for the past 15 years with no takers. 4 out of 5 Pirates of the Caribbean movies have been released since then, to increasingly bewildering levels of financial success, without anyone else deciding to just make a game where you go around the Caribbean committing straight up piracy.
I feel like I'm living in some weird parallel universe here.
I’m playing Metro Exodus and, man, I do not remember the voice direction and sound design being this bad in previous games.
Everyone feels like they’re constantly talking over each other, like the timing for every line has been offset by half a second. And it sounds like everything is playing through a sponge from the end of a hallway, regardless of the actual environment.
I've not played Exodus, so this is second-hand, but I hear Russian voice with English subtitles is the way to go.
I cannot believe that the remake of Sid Meier's Pirates has been hanging precisely at lazy grabbing level for the past 15 years with no takers. 4 out of 5 Pirates of the Caribbean movies have been released since then, to increasingly bewildering levels of financial success, without anyone else deciding to just make a game where you go around the Caribbean committing straight up piracy.
I feel like I'm living in some weird parallel universe here.
They're was an actual PotC game in the works, but it got canceled. Sounds like a victim of Disney downsizing.
Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
Pirates seem like such fertile ground for video game shenanigans too, it is such a mystery to me that it's such an unexplored setting/time period. the golden age of sail in general is like this massive gap in the gaming industry that's just lousy with potential.
that's honestly my dream game studio: historically inspired RPGs, some realistic, some not, with a sideline in actually fun and interesting educational games ala the old Oregon/Amazon/Yukon trail games. engage the player with the setting, immerse them in the period, and they'll learn by fucking accident!
and then you can always do seasonal DLC for that stuff. "Oregon Trail: Tall Tales Trail! Edition" where you come across folk heroes like Pecos Bill and fearsome critters like the hidebehind! Fun and wacky, but also still a really cool window into american folklore!
I’m playing Metro Exodus and, man, I do not remember the voice direction and sound design being this bad in previous games.
Everyone feels like they’re constantly talking over each other, like the timing for every line has been offset by half a second. And it sounds like everything is playing through a sponge from the end of a hallway, regardless of the actual environment.
I've not played Exodus, so this is second-hand, but I hear Russian voice with English subtitles is the way to go.
Patrick Klepek used to always say to do that. Then after Waypoint did a 101 for the games the rest of the crew dunked on that advice as terrible because you lost a ton of the ambient dialogue that they thought was one of the stronger points.
Yeah there seems to be so many people talking over each other in Exodus that trying to track everyone would be a reading nightmare.
I’m playing Metro Exodus and, man, I do not remember the voice direction and sound design being this bad in previous games.
Everyone feels like they’re constantly talking over each other, like the timing for every line has been offset by half a second. And it sounds like everything is playing through a sponge from the end of a hallway, regardless of the actual environment.
I've not played Exodus, so this is second-hand, but I hear Russian voice with English subtitles is the way to go.
I played both with that and it's great. As for the ambient dialogue well, they ain't exactly well written games so I never felt like I was missing that for my atmosphere.
So I have finally joined the playing Night in the Woods party. I really enjoyed it. The endgame
Was a little surprising, the cult stuff was weird, and while interesting, seemed kind of disjointed.
Something else I was not expecting Gregg friendship spoilers
Was for Gregg's anxiety "I'm shit May" to both:
a. happen, as I somehow missed the warning signs
and
b. hit a lot of fucking sore spots and buttons for me as a person when it comes to my anxiety. I was almost in tears after that section. Fuuucck.[/spoilers]
Also, to keep in rambling about the nemesis system, the systems of strengths and weaknesses were good in Mordor because, despite the fact that there was a levelling system, all players generally have the same bag of tricks, and then the nemesis system takes away ,some of those tricks and makes you think on your feet with what you've got
And this includes everything in mordor. So being able to isolate nemeses, being able to stealth, but also making you judt have to sometimes decide to run the fuck away from this boss etc
In something like borderlands, with its focus on builds, and on generally killing everything for xp and loot, i dunno if it'd quite be possible to maintain that same balance
I'd actually be curious to see if a nemesis-esque system could work in a more linear game
Posts
Inkle's Sorcery games do this thing where the first is standard CYOA and then the sequels slowly expand into full-fledged RPGs with branching quests, a deep magic system, overlapping plots, and a good deal of freedom on how you progress while keeping the choose your own adventure book wrapping. They funneled a lot of the branching design into 80 Days, as well.
This seems like it may be trying to advance the design by wrapping the CYOA design with external menus and systems.
anyone else remember mercenaries: playground of destruction?
I loved it. Collecting cards was just so satisfying, and it had the best "enemy outposts as puzzles" design I have ever seen. The sequel was underwhelming, mostly because it bloated out and lost a lot of the more heavily scripted/designed enemy placement and replaced it with standard issue open world sandbox chaos.
- there are two Steve Jacksons out there, which confuses and amuses me
- the digital versions on steam look pretty neat
- there's a more involved version of Warlock of Fire Mountain with a tabletop aesthetic
I'm very interested in the prettified, digital release of Sorcery!
I might pick up Warlock, but ultimately I'm having some trouble getting past the name Zagor. It's... not great.
Patch notes were something I always loved about WoW.
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
AC:Odyssey pretended it had one, but it was a very shallow imitation (just like many other facsimile elements in that game)
Even then a player may only engage with 1% of the possible outcomes
It's not viable for a lot of studios and dev budgets
The secret element to the Nemesis system comes from Mordor being a game where your deaths occur in story and as a game mechanic, which provides a solid hook for highlighting and showcasing the enemies that kill you. Nemeses can kill you multiple times, get resurrected themselves, and level up alongside you. It can become a race to finish them for good before they got more powerful than any other boss. I still remember one particular archer with poison arrows who made my life hell for a huge chunk of the game, then left me missing him after I finally decapitated him for good
Odyssey struggles because, without the mutual resurrection system, the mercenaries are just mooks with names. Some are harder than others, but none really stick around long enough to make an impact. I think that shows why it has been a trickier system to implement than it first appears.
A Dark Souls could do it.
I had fun with it even if I had to do most of the storytelling on my own.
There was one dude with a dog, and his backstory was very clearly saying this guy is John Wick. So I refused to fight him, but the game kept sending him to kill me. So I'd be sneaking through an enemy base and hear the horns go off announcing John Wick is here for my head. At which point I have to go loud and rush whatever my target was, and set off any kind of distraction I can find. So it'd usually end up with the place on fire with lions or bears running around smashing dudes around while I escape on a zip line.
Crackdown is literally a series that basically pops out a clone of you whenever you die, so it'd fit there too. (Not saying they would have had enough time/resources to implement it, just that it'd be a good fit.)
The digital versions of Sorcery are great. They take great efforts to actually make them good games instead of straight adaptions of the books. It's also fun to see them get more confident with each sequel.
Inkle is a cool studio, overall. 80 Days is great, and Heaven's Vault looks like it could be pretty amazing:
Oh, or Bioshock.
Like, having resistances and weaknesses made sense with the arkham combat. In something like a shooter, even in one that has numbers snc resistances and whstnot like borderlands, it might not be as fun to have enemies who just have even more resistances to certain rlements etc
Steam // Secret Satan
Man, Bioshock would have been so much cooler if the enemy that killed you got stronger every time you respawned. They could earn one of your plasmids.
Plus, it would be kind of bittersweet if it filled in more detail about them the more times they killed you. Instead of them getting promoted like in Mordor, they could be remembering more about their former selves.
I can't tell if most of the higher up developers responsible for the boat stealth tailing missions thought it was funny or years of AC development had rendered them incapable of seeing the absurdity of enemy boats having line of sight almost exactly like individual human characters would.
Every game after AC1 makes Altair look more like a chump. It takes years of training to do things like use the assassin blades well unless you are a pirate. You can pretty much learn it in an afternoon then.
*The sailing parts
edit: weathy? hm.
Everyone feels like they’re constantly talking over each other, like the timing for every line has been offset by half a second. And it sounds like everything is playing through a sponge from the end of a hallway, regardless of the actual environment.
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
I've not played Exodus, so this is second-hand, but I hear Russian voice with English subtitles is the way to go.
Black Flag was the game where they almost made an incredible sequel to Sid Meir's Pirates, but then stapled a AC game to it and didn't go all in. I wish they'd made the other game since the AC portions were fun, but would have been more enjoyable if they just made a great Pirate Game and didn't have to always have an assassination target everywhere.
In large part because Kenway is a massive dickhead who doesn't give a fuck about the Assassins or Templars
Patrick Klepek used to always say to do that. Then after Waypoint did a 101 for the games the rest of the crew dunked on that advice as terrible because you lost a ton of the ambient dialogue that they thought was one of the stronger points.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
I feel like I'm living in some weird parallel universe here.
But...but... The Blum
They're was an actual PotC game in the works, but it got canceled. Sounds like a victim of Disney downsizing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean:_Armada_of_the_Damned
that's honestly my dream game studio: historically inspired RPGs, some realistic, some not, with a sideline in actually fun and interesting educational games ala the old Oregon/Amazon/Yukon trail games. engage the player with the setting, immerse them in the period, and they'll learn by fucking accident!
and then you can always do seasonal DLC for that stuff. "Oregon Trail: Tall Tales Trail! Edition" where you come across folk heroes like Pecos Bill and fearsome critters like the hidebehind! Fun and wacky, but also still a really cool window into american folklore!
Yeah there seems to be so many people talking over each other in Exodus that trying to track everyone would be a reading nightmare.
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
I played both with that and it's great. As for the ambient dialogue well, they ain't exactly well written games so I never felt like I was missing that for my atmosphere.
Something else I was not expecting Gregg friendship spoilers
a. happen, as I somehow missed the warning signs
and
b. hit a lot of fucking sore spots and buttons for me as a person when it comes to my anxiety. I was almost in tears after that section. Fuuucck.[/spoilers]
Edit: fixed use of wrong tag to hide spoilers
And this includes everything in mordor. So being able to isolate nemeses, being able to stealth, but also making you judt have to sometimes decide to run the fuck away from this boss etc
In something like borderlands, with its focus on builds, and on generally killing everything for xp and loot, i dunno if it'd quite be possible to maintain that same balance
I'd actually be curious to see if a nemesis-esque system could work in a more linear game
Steam // Secret Satan