Fronzel Neekburm

You're completely right, tomimt! Which is why it would be cool if TGA could, for example, release an updated Alpha Demo, as that would showcase the fruits of that labor. After all, the Space Pope himself stated in the playthrough video (which was released some 8 months ago) that they'd made some substantial improvements and that they'd release updated demos further down the road.

I'm totally aware of that. However, Chris Pope stated in his demo playthrough video that they're primarily concerned with bugfixing and that most of the stuff seen in the Demo (which you rather adequately describe as "a huge lack of pretty much everything") will stay the same. Which is why it's important to point out that the Demo (which I would presume to be the opening part of the game) wasn't particularly exciting for a number of reasons. Frankly, if players get bored to tears by a opening scene that doesn't do too good a job at sucking you into the game, it won't bode well for the rest of the game. Like I said, I know it's unfinished, but due to the recent announcement that they're about to take things to the next level by having in-game dialogue recorded, I felt compelled to get my concerns off my chest before it's "too late".

Uh, that's kinda strange to assume I didn't like them. Anyway, just my two cents about the screenshots you posted: Screen 1: Not a particularly good comparison, as there's a lot to do in the SQ5 screen (which is obvious, since you'll be staring at that screen a lot), while there's next to nothing to do in the SV screen. SQ5: - talk to Flo - talk to Droole - initiate self destruct-sequence - push these other two buttons that I forgot what they do in the game SV: - click on the door repeatedly in the vain hope that your desperate clicking will eventually be registered by the game Screen 2: In terms of emptiness/boredom, they're pretty much the same. Personally, I prefer the SQ4 screen, at least that one doesn't involve swiping puzzles. Same thing goes for the close-up of the cart Didn't care much for the desk close-up either. All these items could have been scattered around the station, but instead, it was all crammed into a single location. I dunno, it just feels lazy and fan-servicey. Same goes for having Roger Wilco having a not so subtle cameo this early in the game. Takes all the potential for "Where's Waldo?"-fun right out. I haven't changed my opinion on the pipe puzzle/room. It neither looks interesting, nor does the kind of puzzling you could possibly do in this room seem particularly appealing. Your mileage may vary, of course. Most of the other locations, I've never seen before, so thanks for that! Some of them actually look kind of neat. The toilets, whether intentionally or not, are a work of genius. What a nightmare vision to have to sit on one of those, in plain sight of the other "occupants". Seem more like escape pods to me. Actually, this one reminds me of one of the locations in Westwood's Blade Runner game. If you won't be able to push anybody into the toxic brew in the finished game, then uninstall immediately, 0/10 - Would not back again & reported to Kickstarter support for scamming! :angry: I agree with that, even though we haven't seen much of it. I was also surprised by the level of quality of Ace's animations in the Demo If the place is being deserted, why not add some little details into the environment that would actually suggest that people fled this place in a hurry? While we're at it, why not change the name of the ship to Nostrodoomus for that little extra bit of foreboding?

Why, thank you, Doctor. I‘m a bit disappointed in myself to have missed the chance to go for the obvious „Teach‘em the Hardway!“-pun. I still have to insist it‘s not the „art style“ I have a problem with. If I say „Broken Age looks like a fucking children‘s game!“, then that‘s disagreeing with the art style. If I say „This location looks empty and boring“, then that has nothing to do with the art style (unless empty and boring was a deliberate aesthetic choice - I sincerely hope not!) By the way, I hate it when backers try to force their vision on a game they backed. This was especially bad with Moebius. Unfortunately, some of the most dimwitted backer suggestions were accomodated in the final game (such as only being able to pick up objects once you really need them) - features which were subsequently harshly critizised both by players and the gaming media. On the other hand, people said from the very beginning that the animations sucked bad, but those weren‘t changed. Which, again, led to all sorts of criticism. Like MusicallyInspired said, feedback is important. And so is being able to distinguish valid criticism from bullshit nitpicking and listening to the former. All I ask that the TGA snazz things up a bit. And consider dumping a feature that is almost universally disliked (the only people I remember who seemed cool with the controls were Frede and drdrslashvohaul, one other guy was cautiosly optimistic while adding that he didn‘t see much of a point to it and Troels pointed out that they might be put to good use and that he was going to make sure this won‘t turn into Broken Sword).

I know, right? I mean, it‘s been almost 20 years since their last game (more than that since their last game together), so even with no plot details available at the time of the KS campaign, I figured that if they had that much time to come up with ideas, the two guys butting their heads together would no doubt result in some kind of supernova of awesome. The demo on the other hand was kind of the exact opposite of that, it just felt dull, uninspired, lifeless and devoid of purpose. Somehow, none of the locations you mentioned ever bothered me. Sure, much of SQ1 and 2 looks boring as hell by now, but they get a free pass for being 30 years old. And the SQ2 remake you worked on looks perfectly alright to me. Besides, my biggest gripe would still have to be the superfluous swipe controls and insipid puzzles. Sure, I know that it might be tempting for the TGA to open up a new market... ...but if that‘s done at the expense of the game, I think it‘s better if people speak up about it while there's still time instead of going into „It‘s too early to tell“-mode. The team should have a very clear idea of where the project is going by now and it would be interesting to know if any of the criticism levelled at the Alpha Demo has been heeded. Looking forward to the next update, then.

Alrighty then, a few questions to those in the know: Have the puzzles from the Demo been redesigned? Have the locations been changed in any way? Are there plans to do any of that? If none of that‘s the case, it‘s kind of foolish to speak of "early work“. By the way, thanks to MusicallyInspired for understanding that one can have a passionate debate about stuff you care about without treating criticism as either sacrilege or a personal affront.

C‘mon, there‘s gotta be a better way to discredit my point. Why not just say „You just prefer cluttered locations! I prefer clean locations.“

No need for a reminder, I‘m perfectly aware that the demo was an early, early pre-embryonal build. But if your gut reaction isn‘t so much "This is really buggy and unfinished, but it looks promising and I‘m kinda having fun.“ as it is "Save for the music, I find this utterly unappealing.“ - that‘s when you inevitably start to worry. Which is why it would be nice to get some actual info as to where this project is headed. Whether I‘d have something to look forward to, or if it‘s going to be „more of the same, but without the bugs“.

Fuck delays! I wasn‘t even talking about that. MusicallyInspired said that it would „take far longer to put the level of detail that's in a prerendered image into a painted background“. Fair enough, but is it really too much to ask to put some interesting props into the locations? You know, computer consoles, wires, headphones, potted plants, mirrors, side doors, ugly-ass rugs, and so forth? Even a couple more blinking, beeping, and flashing lights would work wonders. I don‘t think that has anything to do with style preferences either. I don‘t care that this project is over a year behind and unlike those backers that are already starting to pick up their pitchforks, I‘m quite convinced that something will be released eventually. All I worry about is whether the game that comes out at the end is going to be one worth playing. I don‘t want to rain on anybody‘s parade here, but (Full disclosure!) the Alpha demo has left a serious dent in my faith in this project and the sort of hyper-defensive reactions you get for bringing up the slightest bit of criticism isn‘t exactly helping me regaining that faith.

Then I guess they should start using prerendered backgrounds. Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but I always thought that painting stuff would be a lot faster and easier than 3D-modelling stuff.

Sorry, but that's beside the point. Entirely. I love artworks of rich environments and I love finding all the little details in them. And I love it even more when the game has something funny to say about the little details I found. I couldn't care less HOW a piece of artwork is created, all I care about that these artworks don't feel like lifeless voids of nothingness.

So, today someone used the general discussion forum to shamelessly plug his own sci-fi point&click project. The sad thing is, the graphics he posted actually serve as perfect illustration as to why I'm somewhat disappointed with the locations that were in the SpaceVenture Demo. Exhibit A What I was hoping for: What I got: Exhibit B What I was hoping for: What I got:

By Jove, I hope they do listen! I know it sucks when you face the possibility of having to cut stuff that you put hours and hours of work into, but when the overwhelming majority of people (Forum users, mind you! A much more forgiving and forgetting bunch than the general public.) tell you that a particular feature in the game is shit, then you better toss that shit right out the window instead of wasting even more time on figuring out how to somehow make it work.

Actually, it seems that everyone posting here is directly involved in making the game. (Except for you and me, that is)

Been playing Among the Sleep and it's fucking marvellous! The first (and only) time so far I really regret not backing a Kickstarter campaign (they held their fundraiser about a year after the initial Kickstarter boom, when I was already avoiding new Kickstarters since I was still waiting for all the other projects I backed to deliver and due to becoming wary of the practices of some of the indie devs, especially when it comes to releasing DRM-free versions to the general public). Only downside is the short length. It's a game that will leave you wanting more, both in a good and in a bad way.

On the one hand, we‘re being told that SpaceVenture recording sessions may start as soon as June. On the other hand there‘s a lot of talk of the new narrative editor that enables the Two Guys to make on-the-fly changes to the game text. I hate to break it to you, but if you start recording the voice overs next month, that pretty much negates the whole prospect of making quick changes to your text. I can only speak for myself, but I‘d prefer if they‘d wait with the voice recordings until they have a definite and finished script, or better yet, have already released a finished beta build that is only missing the voice work. Since there are apparently a bunch of fairly high-profile voice actors involved, I don‘t think that having them record their lines of dialogue over and over again will do the game‘s budget any good.

Could be. I enjoyed Ep I and II for what they were, trashy fun. I had higher hopes for Ep III, especially considering the high praise it got upon release (with many people calling it a return to form). It turned out to be just plain trash that had every last bit of fun surgically removed. There is, for example, this whole killing children business. Call me uptight, but when you kill a child, that basically makes you irredeemable scum in my book. When Luke says "I feel the good in you, the conflict." in "Return of the Jedi", it now makes me want to answer "Nah, man! The guy‘s a childkiller. Let him rot!“ It‘s out of character even for Vader. It would‘ve been more suitable if the emperor had killed the children, while Anakin is standing idly by. That also would‘ve tied in nicely to the scene of the emperor torturing Luke at the end of "Return“. But what do I know...

(...although I'm not sure exactly how Abrams could possibly come up with something that's even worse than Episode III)

I‘m on the same page with Collector regarding his assessment of post-Abrams-Trek When I say that Nemesis is the worst Trek film, that‘s not taking the "reboot" (God, I hate that industry buzzword some corporate asshole came up with to sugarcoat the word remake) into account. Even as action films I find them aesthetically displeasing and juvenile. Lens flares aside, they look like someone ate a box of fruit loops and puked them onto the cellulloid. And why does it have to be that dumb? In fact, one of the reasons I reassessed Generations was because I watched "Into Darkness" recently and found it to be extremely fanboyish. I mean, the Abrams Treks feel like really bad, juvenile fan-fiction. Generations - while being pretty bad in its own right - feels like the exact opposite of the Abrams movies. (Surprisingly enough, I did enjoy Into Darkness quite a bit. It was nothing to write home about, but at least they tried. It was a definite improvement over the endless painful barrage of stupid that was '09.) The story of TWOK might not seem overly deep or anything, but there certainly is at least some level of sophistication to the writing and the whole thing is delivered with such larger-than-life gusto. It might not seem very thought-provoking on the surface, but it certainly is a story that stays with you. Motion Picture, on the other hand, pretends to be deep, when in reality, it‘s basically a glorified re-telling of "The Changeling". I don‘t even think that TMP managed to add any additional layers or managed to unearth some deeper meaning that wasn‘t already there in the TOS episode. The whole premise of the movie seems to rest on the idea that a race of highly evolved machine beings are incapable of rubbing some dirt off a NASA probe. The writing itself is easily some of the worst in the entire series. Kirk is an insufferable douche for most of the film. There‘s this painfully obvious attempt at trying to generate suspense by throwing numbers at the viewer: "The cloud is definitely a power field of some kind. It measures - OMG! - over 2 AUs in diameter!" or "Twelfth-power energy field" - "Twelfth-power!" Sorry, but that‘s just hogwash and the film is full of this sort of borderline self-parody. I remember somebody (Shatner?) saying that they didn‘t have a finished script when they started filming, but were confident that they had enough talented people on board that somebody just had to come up with something great at some point. But that never happened, so they just filmed whatever they saw fit to film that day and this approach shows in the movie. While raising some interesting questions on a very superficial level, "Final Frontier“'s level of sophistication basically begins and ends at Kirk asking „If god is really almighty, can he create a stone that‘s too heavy for him to lift?“ If I had to give an example of what I‘d consider genuinely deep Star Trek, I‘d pick episodes like TOS' "Charlie X" and "Arena" (Yes, I find the lizard dude episode way smarter than TMP), TNG‘s "The Drumhead" and "The Offspring" or DS9‚s "Duet" and "Hard Time". And if those shouldn‘t do the trick, there‘s always the original "RoboCop" if you‘re looking for a good fix of cerebral sci-fi. Good lord, sorry for the endless ramblings! Speaking of Star Trek I just go on and on and on and on never letting anyone else have a word until I start foaming at the mouth and fall over backwards,,, AAaaahhhh!

I never thought about it this way, but yeah, that's a pretty cool way to interpret the ending. Maybe I'm just jaded and cynical, but most of the scenes you brought up (especially the ending with escape hatch starting to sing) just felt sappy to me. Full disclosure: As a kid I LOVED Final Frontier. Even now I'd say it's nowhere near the worst Trek film. Then you should definitely watch it again! Can't never get enough of that beautiful film! Two cons I could get come up with off the top of my head: - It has spawned a "Director‘s Edition“ on DVD that adds a bunch of superfluous shit. Theatrical Cut 4 da win! - For whatever reason, the on-set audio sounds sounds like it was recorded on a phonograph cylinder Other than that, TWOK is so good I‘m inclined to go into full on hipster-mode and claim that they ruined Star Trek by bringing that pointy-eared bastard back! ;)

I can't agree with that assessment, as it would imply that there are cons to "The Wrath Of Khan". Surely, you don't mean to imply that, do you? :angry: I agree with you that Nemesis has a good story - well, the story as such isn‘t very good either, but the basic idea for the story (under different circumstances, you might have grown up to become your own worst nightmare) definitely is. The main reason for Nemesis getting more hate would be [aside from randomly killing off the most beloved character of the series and handling it in a way that doesn‘t affect you -or even the crew themselves- in any way whatsoever, while haphazardly introducing some escape hatch character that nobody gives a flying fuck about - you brought up the word "engaging", which is excellent because that's basically the complete opposite word of how I would describe how Data's death was handled] that while Nemesis does have its few good qualities, the bad parts are just so horrendously and offensively bad, that you can‘t help but intensely dislike the film. Insurrection on the other hand is just one big bog of boredom. It‘s pretty bad, but it never gets offensively bad. But it also never gets good either. Personally, I don‘t consider myself much of a Roddenberry purist either. I mean, the guy basically had total creative control of "The Motion Picture“ and that one might well be the worst Trek film apart from Nemesis. The only redeeming qualities are excellent visual effects, some of which still look marvellous today, and Goldsmith‘s majestic score. Personally, I have a soft spot for that one. Saw it in the theatre back in '96 and I'd still say that this was the most fun I've ever had watching a movie in the theatre. Putting down the nostalgia goggles I'd also have to agree that it might have deviated too much from what TNG stood for. Not sure if I'd call it overrated, though. It's certainly not underrated.

Funnily enough, I saw Nemesis only a few days ago. It really is mind-bogglingly lame. Whenever I see Tom Hardy in a movie (which is rarely, because I make it a point to not watch movies featuring Tom Hardy), I want to scream "Fuck you, Shinzon! You killed Star Trek, you asshole!" How that guy ever had anything resembling a carreer after this film is a mystery. Oh yeah, and then there's this whole Data issue... You'd think that it'd be hard to come up with a lamer death than Kirk having a bridge dropped onto him, but somehow Nemesis' writers succeeded. Chapeau! :y: Insurrection is complete dreck, but it's not nearly as bad as Nemesis (which in turn is nowhere near as bad as the '09 reboot). Hell, even Frakes seems to hate it from the bottom of his heart. I have to admit though that Generations is starting to grow on me. Braga (watch any of his better TNG episodes, and you'll notice the guy writes Twilight Zone episodes in disguise) & Moore get points for pulling one of the most epic trolls in history, by turning what was supposed to be the ultimate fanboy nerdgasm into a film about two old guys who are unhappy with the choices they made in life. Plus, Generations has Caligula play the bad guy (always a big plus, no matter how shitty the film. This is important to remember, because Caligula plays in a lot of shitty films, including the aptly shitty Caligula). On the downside: bridge dropping, although that also could be interpreted as a part of the big Braga/Moore master plan of subverting fanboy fantasies. So much for my unsolicited opinions on TNG at the movies. Have a nice day! :) edit: Oh, by the way: Happy 1000th post, pcj!

Dat edge

Hey guys! Did I miss someth... Oh. *turns around and walks away*

Thumbs up, Troels! This better be on a "Dark Matter" level of anticlimactic! Why settle for less? B)