A game should never have tacked on modes, I totally agree. Focus on what's fun and only do stuff if it's awesome. You're more or less on the same page as we are.
If you can't make it to PAX the simple solution is just to show up in Boston and play it here!
<runs into the room>
Free beer! Where?
...dammit I got tricked again.
@ Criminal: We'll probably have some form of multiplayer in the game, but to be honest we're still pretty early in development and haven't figured out the scope of the game yet. So I can give you a definite maybe!
Yup, I actually address that pretty early on in the post mortem. I think it's bittersweet point #1 or #2. We definitely got hammered on it, and probably deserved to catch some flack considering how standard it is nowadays. However I'm still not convinced it was entirely a mistake as I'm not sure we could have finished the game if we had tried to include it.
That said, future versions of SBS will definitely have online multiplayer, so never fear!
Awesome feedback.
@ Price: We don't set the price in Europe. If it was up to us we would just do a straight conversion between $15 US and all other currencies. If you still think $15 US is too high then I'm sorry, but I personally think it's worth at least that much. Innovation isn't cheap!
@ Online Multiplayer: We've been getting that complaint a lot, I hear you. I'm rethinking my stance on couch play being the end all.
Don't worry! I'll come back around and comment/troll/lurk now and then. Plus I'm sure I'll write some more posts for N4G down the line.
We never considered burning everything down to the ground because we never had that option. Our ship was sinking, and it was either we keep bailing and hope for the best (hint: we would have sunk) or get a new boat, going in a new direction, and hope for the best. Luckily the latter plan worked out, it could just have easily failed.
To keep going with the ocean analogy, when we started discussing going from iteration 4 to iteration 5 there was almost a mutiny. People were ask...
Good question. When we released the plan was for it to be local multiplayer only - the game is really fantastic when played locally, and we didn't want to make an inferior networked version.
However, we've been getting a lot of fans requesting this so I'm rethinking my stance on the issue. I've always felt that if a lot of people tell you something you should listen, especially if it's people who like our game and care enough about it to ask for a feature....
Yar, I be here in the comments, replyin' to yer queries.
Interesting side note: we considered putting this level into SBS as an unlockable easter egg, and then bailed on the idea as the level is mega tedious. Who would ever want a boring easter egg?
Yeah, it's the robot miniboss that guards the armor upgrade in Mega Man X (yes, I'm a huge MM nerd). And SimTower was a hilariously addictive game that should have been called SimElevator.
I think it's funny that we borrowed so much stuff from other games in order to make our original prototypes - when you only have 3 coders and no artists you really have to make do with whatever you can. It's not a long term solution since you obviously can't release a ga...
Generally when prototyping a robot I start by teaching it how to love.
Cat, thanks for posting this. I'll be hanging out in the comments as usual answering questions, kicking asses, chewing bubble gum, etc.
Final Fantasy 12 is the best game in the series. I actually believe this (not kidding).
Consider yourself fed.
Also I am lurking here in the comments, happy to answer questions and feed trolls.
Alright, we're doing it! I spoke to Cat and this is going to happen. Over the next few days I'm going to go and write about the design process behind the game with a series of posts. It'll show the arc we took, what we kept and cut, and basically how we went from a bunch of clowns who didn't know what they were doing to a bunch of clowns with a game on PSN :)
Thanks for the encouragement, and I'm glad a lot of you are enjoying the game!
Cool! Sounds like a lot of you would be interested in the design angle - I'll talk to Cat and some other N4Gers and see if I can make it happen. Stay tuned!
@Holeran: Sorry you're disappointed, that was my call. Basically we strongly believe that online multiplayer doesn't make sense for this game - if you want you can read a full article I wrote on the subject here: 5532d ago 6 agree0 disagreeView comment
I'd say you have a pretty good chance of it Cat.
Something I've actually been kicking around with Cat is the idea of posting the design story behind the game here on N4G - actually getting into the nuts and bolts of each of the early designs for the game that DIDN'T make it, showing video, etc.
Would you guys want to see that? I honestly have no idea if people besides game dev nerds like me would be interested in seeing that.
Thanks for the write up Cat! As always I'll be here in the comments, answering questions and feeding trolls.