The Motivations of Death
Yahtzee proposes a very different game involving the Grim Reaper.
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Yahtzee proposes a very different game involving the Grim Reaper.
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The Motivations of Death
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
No, dear Yahtzee. Trying something new is unappealing to the *publishers*, the guys who give the developers their money and get to say "No man, don't bother establishing character motivations or an arc or anything. We gave you this money so you can make heads fly off more spectacularly, now get to it chop chop."
In some ways your concept seems like a more fleshed out concept of the whole life/death realm going on in Soul Reaver. I'm know really interested in playing a game like that.
Still, even if the motivation was spotty I still enjoyed Darksiders 2 for it's combat. Yeah the story was rather silly, but it's certainly an easy thing to ignore.
Still, even if the motivation was spotty I still enjoyed Darksiders 2 for it's combat. Yeah the story was rather silly, but it's certainly an easy thing to ignore.
Reminiscent of Piers Anthony's On A Pale Horse, but a video game. Oh, and in the middle of an actual war. I like it.
And yes, I expect a big part of the problem lies with the publishers, but still ... a really creative team should be able to make this work and still sell it to the suits.
And yes, I expect a big part of the problem lies with the publishers, but still ... a really creative team should be able to make this work and still sell it to the suits.
What you did there, I see it.CyricZ said:
OT: time and time again Mr Croshaw comes up with great ideas for games that shame most of the game industry and we never get to play these games. Can we just hurry up and get cloning sorted? Then we could have a million
I was thinking the same thing, the new "Death" is the person who kills the old "Death"...the7ofswords said:
Man a videogame series using some of the ideas from Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" would be awesome... though just like the books the Satan storyline would be the best
I love that he's clearly come up with an actual original game concept whilst just writing out a weekly column.
My concern would be that the reaping aspect would be too repetitive. This is a flaw inherant within any game which revolves around shirking off "work" to play the game proper: the game fundamentally has portions that feel like work. Then again, Pandora's Tower made this kinda work by wrapping it around time-based level progression ala Majora's Mask. Heck, there's two examples of games that work shirking responsibilities into things in the same genre as Darksiders.
Or if I were more cynical, I'd just point out that MMORPGs are popular.
My concern would be that the reaping aspect would be too repetitive. This is a flaw inherant within any game which revolves around shirking off "work" to play the game proper: the game fundamentally has portions that feel like work. Then again, Pandora's Tower made this kinda work by wrapping it around time-based level progression ala Majora's Mask. Heck, there's two examples of games that work shirking responsibilities into things in the same genre as Darksiders.
Or if I were more cynical, I'd just point out that MMORPGs are popular.
This actually sounds pretty rad. The shifting thing is a new twist on Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver's material/spectral plane mechanic.
It doesn't any sense from a storytelling perspective though. If your guy is Death, and your role is to reap souls, and people are dying every second all over a presumably large warzone, even things like teleportation and fancy scythe-fu won't be able to account for the sheer backlog of souls to be reap'd that would build up.
It doesn't any sense from a storytelling perspective though. If your guy is Death, and your role is to reap souls, and people are dying every second all over a presumably large warzone, even things like teleportation and fancy scythe-fu won't be able to account for the sheer backlog of souls to be reap'd that would build up.
I think that every time Yahtzee comes up with a good idea for a game he should just create a kickstarter for it (considering that he himself has complained about publishers sinking far to much money into a given game), and then these games that obtain the needed support could actually get made.
I see it now: funding goal 1 he gets 1 programmer himself, and we get a timeline of a couple years.
funding goal 2 he gets 2 additional programmers, and a timeline of a year.
funding goal 3 he gets a level designer, and maybe an artist/modeler/animator, but we still have to wait a year.
If Yahtzee publicly announces his idea for a game, but expresses no explicit interest in that game idea, and in many cases just says that he wishes it was made; does he still own the idea?
I see it now: funding goal 1 he gets 1 programmer himself, and we get a timeline of a couple years.
funding goal 2 he gets 2 additional programmers, and a timeline of a year.
funding goal 3 he gets a level designer, and maybe an artist/modeler/animator, but we still have to wait a year.
If Yahtzee publicly announces his idea for a game, but expresses no explicit interest in that game idea, and in many cases just says that he wishes it was made; does he still own the idea?
wouldn't that mean that you'd be flicking back and forth between deathrealm and the real world with the speed of a woodpecker?
I really fail to see how "Oh no, I don't wanna be damned" is a better motivation than "I want to save my bro from damnation". Gameplay-wise, attaching a minigame to every kill on a war-wide scale sounds just tedious, repetitive and not fun. Setting-wise, we're just following murderers, asshole murderers, a protagonist probably jaded (probably already by the setting alone, but even more so during the game) and completely detached divine bureaucrats (that can keep the game linear and steer the plot completely freely).
That's even more dull than Warhammer's grimderp, at least that had aliens and magic and was set in spaaaace.
As for the game itself, I didn't play the first one so from the beginning of the intro I just assumed everyone got mythological themes simply because it sounds/looks cool (heck even your skills have weird names) and Death's more powerful Reaper form is like overclocking and a shape tough to maintain. Otherwise he's just one of the council's elite henchmen, all of them part of a race so broken they needed to be exterminated save for the four that are now under direct supervision from above.
I really don't get what's so hard to understand in this game, it seemed pretty straightforward to me. Did the first game wage war on braincells?
That's even more dull than Warhammer's grimderp, at least that had aliens and magic and was set in spaaaace.
As for the game itself, I didn't play the first one so from the beginning of the intro I just assumed everyone got mythological themes simply because it sounds/looks cool (heck even your skills have weird names) and Death's more powerful Reaper form is like overclocking and a shape tough to maintain. Otherwise he's just one of the council's elite henchmen, all of them part of a race so broken they needed to be exterminated save for the four that are now under direct supervision from above.
I really don't get what's so hard to understand in this game, it seemed pretty straightforward to me. Did the first game wage war on braincells?
I don't think it was really the point to have Death's motivations detailed. He seems like a pretty introverted guy with a lot of secrets but also with a very strict code of ethics. I liked that. And what was revealed was that he's a very big supporter of balance and justice. So much in fact that he killed his own kind to protect both. Does it seem strange then that he would try to free his brother? It's his brother, balance is in danger and it's a right thing to do.
So I guess the whole sub plot about the Nephilim went right by yahtzees head or he really indeed just didn't give a flying fuck to the point of pretending it wasn't part of the story when it was THE VERY CORE of Death's motivation. Darksiders fiction is one you must be invested in to care. Of course it all seems like tired boring nonsense if you don't because you're pretending that only 20% of what you are being shown and told is there.
It's like Yahtzee is basically complaining about his own super jaded super cynical reaction to things and instead of pointing the blame at himself he points it at the content creators.
I like Yahtzee and I've been a fan of his videos since he started but his attitude to "other peoples bullshit" when it comes to storytelling often rubs me the wrong way. Dismissing creative fiction completely just because you'd rather be experiencing hypothetical Story X or Story Y just seems like a really poor way to review and critic anything. But then it's probably good I've always watched his reviews more so for entertainment at seeing a cynical guy yell about things he hates that actual well thought out critique.
It's like Yahtzee is basically complaining about his own super jaded super cynical reaction to things and instead of pointing the blame at himself he points it at the content creators.
I like Yahtzee and I've been a fan of his videos since he started but his attitude to "other peoples bullshit" when it comes to storytelling often rubs me the wrong way. Dismissing creative fiction completely just because you'd rather be experiencing hypothetical Story X or Story Y just seems like a really poor way to review and critic anything. But then it's probably good I've always watched his reviews more so for entertainment at seeing a cynical guy yell about things he hates that actual well thought out critique.
Was the sub plot in the actual game?, if so, I see where you're going. But if the core motivation of the protagonist was in a tie-in book or something other than the game itself then it's bad storytelling. I'm all for expanding universes, it gives them more life. But the story of a particular work should (ideally) be able stand on its own.LazyAza said:
Things are messed up man. The seals were broken even though they weren't supposed to, and you know War got framed for something he didn't do. Then all of humanity died and since thats probably one of the pillars of all existance everything is about to tip over and fall into a black hole. And Death has to do ... well something.
It's not the deepest of settings but it's a sequel to an action game about pulling levers and jumping on platforms. Thats not the best context to make innovation.
I agree though that physically killing stuff with sharp ojects seemed to fit War better. But it's about antropomorphed God-like beings, these things rarely makes sense. Old Norse mythology is just as nonsensical in the same way. And I suppose the same holds true for Greek mythology and myths in other religions with polytheism. You just have to go with the setting that Gods are almost like human beings.
It's not the deepest of settings but it's a sequel to an action game about pulling levers and jumping on platforms. Thats not the best context to make innovation.
I agree though that physically killing stuff with sharp ojects seemed to fit War better. But it's about antropomorphed God-like beings, these things rarely makes sense. Old Norse mythology is just as nonsensical in the same way. And I suppose the same holds true for Greek mythology and myths in other religions with polytheism. You just have to go with the setting that Gods are almost like human beings.
