The Cave: Ron Gilbert's Double Fine Game (A Tim Schafer Production) (Not Double Fine Adventure)

[Nappi]

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/10/a-puzzling-glimpse-of-ron-gilberts-new-double-fine-game/

Looks dark. I will hate it.

[Kolzig]

Hmm, there is however no mention when that press event will be.

I like the two headed babies skeleton!

[MrHoatzin]

Too cartoony but not cartoony enough! :tdown: :tdown:

[syntheticgerbil]

Was saying other things.

Edited May 11, 2014 by syntheticgerbil

[TheLastBaron]

Eh, I like it, but it's certainly not anything to judge the game off of, its just a piece of art and also a puzzle which makes it harder to see things.

[David]

I already hate your game marketing collateral!

[Murdoc]

Like the art style so far, hope it carries over into the game... and its DoubleFine so it most likely will.

[MrHoatzin]

I already hate your game marketing collateral!

Wow. That article is almost ten years old. Insane!

This is what the DFA forums kindof sound like

[syntheticgerbil]

Nope wrong thing I said.

[SiN]

Excited!

@synth, different game. Double Fine Adventure Game is not Ron Gilbert's New Adventure Game .

Am I alone in feeling like I don't want to participate in any of this ever?

Totally agree!* I'd rather leave the devs to it (I funded their project because I trust them!) and get a surprising new game when it's done. I do like to read about its development after I'm done with the game, though.

(* See also: paid betas. You want me to file bug reports for your game, AND pay you for it? Shouldn't that work the other way around?!)

[toblix]

Regarding the paid beta, I don't see the big problem. If there are people willing to pay for it before it's done, who enjoy playing an unfinished game, reporting stuff they find, etc. what's the problem? How is this not a win-win strategy? I see how it may contribute to the growing acceptance for releasing an unfinished product (see internet-connected consoles) but I'm not sure that's necessarily a negative, especially for smaller developers.

[SiN]

Oh yeah, totally. I'm just saying that *I* don't want to.

So when I see, "PREORDER NOW EARLY BETA ACCESS!!!!" I just think, "nope, I'm not your free beta tester" and move on. Others are free to see things differently.

[toblix]

Ah, okay. I'm reluctant to partake in betas in general, since I prefer my first experience with a game as polished as possible.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Awesome! (I can't believe the negativity -- are you guys being serious?)

[AlfredJ]

I already hate your game marketing collateral!

This article is something I love.

Looking forward to this, but mostly because it's another Double Fine game. It's cool that Gilbert is working with Schafer again, but he hasn't really released anything that impressed me after Monkey 2. I couldn't stand Deathspank, the voice acting in that game alone was enough to stop me from finishing it.

[Thrik]

I really like that art style, reminds me a bit of the LucasArts fan art Jayel (He is Dan Lee, right?) used to put together. Not sure what exactly I'm meant to be looking at, though — is that a pirate, a scientist, and a knight?

With the concept also featuring things like gangsters I'm thinking this might be a 'choose your class' type game, which is a feature often found in genres I'm not particularly keen on. But we'll see!

[Nappi]

I really like that art style, reminds me a bit of the LucasArts fan art Jayel (He is Dan Lee, right?) used to put together. Not sure what exactly I'm meant to be looking at, though — is that a pirate, a scientist, and a knight?

With the concept also featuring things like gangsters I'm thinking this might be a 'choose your class' type game, which is a feature often found in genres I'm not particularly keen on. But we'll see!

Maybe he has been working on Costume Quest 2 all these years.

ThunderPeel: no.

[ThunderPeel2001]

This is what the DFA forums kindof sound like

You're not kidding! I'm really worried that the moaning loud-mouths will have an input on DFA -- they've driven out all the reasonable people.

[Tanukitsune]

It looks like it could be about paranormal activity? I know the two-headed baby is their mascot, but that and the buried UFO is the kind of stuff you can read in Weekly World News.

I'm excited!

[Ben X]

You're not kidding! I'm really worried that the moaning loud-mouths will have an input on DFA -- they've driven out all the reasonable people.

I thought that at first, but having seen how bad it is and given up on the forums almost immediately (with the exception of a few threads like that one posted by Chris and linked to here recently), I'm pretty sure Tim et al will have had a similar reaction and are ignoring most of it. Even if the forums were 90% reasonable discussion, I'm sure DF are confident enough of their own tastes and decison-making that they wouldn't be swayed too much by them.

[Ben X]

ThunderPeel: no.

It doesn't look any darker than, say, Maniac Mansion, though (I assume we're talking subject matter here, not light contrast or something). Were you a fan of that game?

[Nappi]

It doesn't look any darker than, say, Maniac Mansion, though (I assume we're talking subject matter here, not light contrast or something). Were you a fan of that game?

I was just making a joke of deciding how I feel about the game based on less than a piece of concept art. Both the subject matter and the visual style look fairly dark and I have no problem with that.

I haven't actually finished Maniac Mansion. I played it for a bit at some point, but it felt old (even by old adventure game standards) and somewhat uninteresting so I quit. Day of the Tentacle I loved of course, but I assume it is a completely different beast.

[Jake]

Besides I already own the game

No you don't.

This is Ron Gilbert's project, which is wholly separate from the Double Fine Adventure.

(This is going to be a fun messaging/PR experience for Double Fine! I bet a good chunk of the world will be confusing Ron Gilbert's New Game with the Double Fine Adventure basically for the next 6 months.)

I thought that at first, but having seen how bad it is and given up on the forums almost immediately (with the exception of a few threads like that one posted by Chris and linked to here recently), I'm pretty sure Tim et al will have had a similar reaction and are ignoring most of it. Even if the forums were 90% reasonable discussion, I'm sure DF are confident enough of their own tastes and decison-making that they wouldn't be swayed too much by them.

As someone who has worked at Telltale for 6+ years I can confirm: it's surprisingly simple to tune out a bunch of very loud adventure game fans. Adventure game fans are a tough bunch because in reality, they don't actually know what they want. Well, except for the ones who literally want a time machine, who want nothing but literal SCUMM games built in the SCUMM engine with SCUMM-era mechanics and logic, warts and all. I don't think there are many, if any, adventure game developers who actually want that. They want the good things from that era to bubble up to the top as much as possible, and the bad things to be left in the past (or to be reinvented or tweaked into something better), but what "the good things" and "the bad things" are is largely subjective, especially when you start breaking things down into more granular, and more abstract bits.

Rabid fans solution to the "what is a good thing/what is a bad thing from that era" often seems to be "just give me the good and the bad, because its what I used to like," which goes against their (hopefully true, and often stated by them) core wish of seeing the developers of the games they like being given an opportunity to be creative and grow and create new work. "I'd love Tim Schafer to do what he does best, and make a new adventure game for the world, but before he starts, I want to make sure that he builds it inside this 20 year old box I've been staring at for years to the point where I recognize every nook and cranny, fallen in love with every piece of spit and tape, every crease and tear, can spot any bit which doesn't fit from a mile away and won't abide it because I love the box above all else. Anyway you don't know how excited I am to see a master at work on his craft for the first time since my childhood!"

The best way I've ever managed to deal with fan response when working on a game is to treat everything they're saying like a question to be answered (and to allow that answer to be "no"), or to treat the things said as problems to be solved, not as solutions in and of themselves. If someone tells me they like insult swordfighting in Monkey Island, or they like convincing people to gather a crew, or they like the island maps, or they like collecting pieces of eight, that doesn't mean a new Monkey Island game needs to have insult swordfighting and all those things verbatim. You have to look at why people like them, what they do for the game (or the genre) and what made them work when you break them down. What role were they serving?

When fans say, "I love insult swordfighting, do more of it!" the last thing you want to do is literally put in more insult swordfighting. That seems like the exact recipe for a Bad Sequel Trap. It should, however, make you want to try and design another challenging systemized puzzle which uses adventure tropes in a clever way. One of the things Monkey Island seems to secretly do when its at its best, is use the base mechanics and "language" of SCUMM games to do light versions of RPG or traditional puzzle game systems. Monkey Island has a monetary system, Monkey Island has an overworld map, it has treasure hunting through maze/dungeon navigation, it has some simple laser/mirror puzzles and riddles like where you're chained up in leChuck's lair, or the gambling club puzzle, and it also has the simple leveling up mechanic of insult swordfighting.

It's probably sacrilige to use Tales of Monkey Island as an example for anything in a thread about Double Fine, but whatever, it's a game I worked on and it has a pretty similar fanbase so I'm going to anyway. The third chapter of that game, Lair of the Leviathan, is often cited as the strongest in the series, and I think the above reason is why.

Though I think they were sometimes a little too on the nose, and a little too bunched up back to back structurally, the dating game, pirate face-off, voodoo noun/verb possessions, and manatee translation puzzles in Lair of the Leviathan all hit on this secret "systemize your shit!" pillar of Monkey Island's design structure, without ever touching insult swordfighting. And, surprise, it was many fans favorite episode. No fan is going to say "I like it when Monkey Island's puzzle structure introduces systemized gameplay in the tradition of a light RPG, but does it using the vocabulary of the graphic adventure," but I think I will know that's at least part of what they mean when they say "I like insult swordfighting." (They'll of course also mean: "I liked to feel clever while choosing between a bunch of funny dialog," but that's all of Monkey Island, when done right.)

Man I was going somewhere with this but I didn't. There might be a point in there somewhere. It's not "Your fans are trying to tell you things, and you should listen to them, but there is often a disconnect between what they are asking for and what they really want and need, there is a line between hearing suggestions and feedback and taking orders, and they are your fans because they like what you do so trust your judgement even though people are watching!" but that's close. Video games!

Edited May 11, 2012 by Jake

[ThunderPeel2001]

Man I was going somewhere with this but I didn't. There might be a point in there somewhere. It's not "Your fans are trying to tell you things, and you should listen to them, but there is often a disconnect between what they are asking for and what they really want and need, there is a line between hearing suggestions and feedback and taking orders, and they are your fans because they like what you do so trust your judgement even though people are watching!" but that's close. Video games!

This is absolutely true, but my concern is that they'll be listening to the loudmouths rather than anyone else, because the rest of us have left the forum.

[Erkki]

Ok so I'm lazy and didn't bother going beyond the default thread limit to look for the DFA thread, and since it came up here as well:

I haven't read a single thread on the Double Fine Adventure forums. Should I? Will I miss any of the rewards if I don't go there? I don't really care about having early access to the game or documentary -- like Toblix, I'd prefer to experience it all when it's polished and released.