The Gamer's Quarter

ApM

Idle Thumbs has an excellent interview about Bad Day LA.
Look at these screenshots. The main character is homeless.

I, for one, am intrigued as hell.

SuperWes · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:08 am Post subject:

I am intrigued as well. Not so keen on the stage structure he mentions in that interview you linked, but I'll get over it. Here's a video that really shows off the neat art style they're using.

I feel terrible talking about nothing but the strage structure and visuals, but I'm too lazy to go into why the game actually looks interesting at the moment. It's certainly a few steps away from Alice.

-Wes
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Mister Toups · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:19 am Post subject:

Tim has an update on LPN about this somewhere.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

I like how the graphical style looks like something I would have doodled in my notebook during a junior high Geometry class.

I really mean that.

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:42 am Post subject:

the premise looks interesting.

though i'm not really sure what the premise is.
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Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

SuperWes · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:20 pm Post subject:

I think the bigger question is how that game idea and theme intrinsically relate to good gameplay. I mean, it definately should create some interesting situations, but interesting situations layered on to uninspired design only gets you so far.

-Wes
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dark steve · . Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110

Holy hell, Kozyndan art direction!

Fuck yes!

ApM · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:09 pm Post subject:

Well, he's definitely making some interesting design choices. On easy mode, which if he has any balls at all will be the default, you can't die. That alone is a monumentally foward-thinking step.

I mean, I'm not holding out hope for something as brilliant as Psychonauts, say. But it sure looks like he has an idea of what he wants to accomplish.

And it's almost certainly the first videogame to use the word fapping.

dark steve · . Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110

Funny you say Psychonauts, that's the first thing I thought of. It's looks like they're shooting for something progressive in that way.

ApM · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:14 pm Post subject:

Well, my problem is that I don't know enough about American McGee's work to know if he understands how to weave story and gameplay like Tim Schafer does. I'd love to be optimistic and believe that he does, but, I mean, I've played a demo of Alice, once, and if the reviews are any indication, nobody seems to actually understand what made Psychonauts so awesome. (Except me! I'm totally writing The Only Good Review Of Psychonauts for next issue.)

If your only method of interacting with your surroundings is to shoot stuff, that'll be disappointing. He seems to... not want to make a game solely about shooting stuff, though. So I'm cautiously optimistic.