How You Can Make a AAA Game Like Today's Developers

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

How You Can Make a AAA Game Like Today's Developers

Yahtzee takes on AAA games, particularly Lords of the Fallen, and how to send in the clones.

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[SnakeTrousers]

I've always sort of wondered who this type of visual design is meant to appeal to. I can deal with the huge burly guys with tiny heads and all, but why do they also need to be covered in ridiculously over-designed armor? Incedentally, why can't more games have reasonably proportioned weapons? Maybe it's a result of being raised by a D&D/SCA nerd but I've never been a fan of the whole giant-spiky-paddle approach to weapon design in fantasy games either.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I've always sort of wondered who this type of visual design is meant to appeal to. I can deal with the huge burly guys with tiny heads and all, but why do they also need to be covered in ridiculously over-designed armor? Incedentally, why can't more games have reasonably proportioned weapons? Maybe it's a result of being raised by a D&D/SCA nerd but I've never been a fan of the whole giant-spiky-paddle approach to weapon design in fantasy games either.

Me neither. In fact, in most games I will usually just go for the standard long sword. I don't like weapons that are all twisted, brittle looking, or warped pieces of metal. They just look so...stupid. Like I'd end up hurting myself more than my enemy if I used that thing. I don't care if the damage is three times greater than what I'm using. I was so happy when The Enchanter was added into Diablo III because it meant I could finally change my appearance and my weapons to not look like a complete fool.

A perfect summary of Lords of the Fallen, Yahtzee. I did enjoy playing the game, but it is generic down to its core. The developers say that they're already planning on making a sequel. Here's hoping that they listen to this very common criticism and work to fix it.

 

[Just Ebola]

It's a fun twist of fate that a lot of titles made (independently) with tools like RPG maker are often better than AAA games like this. Mad Father, Ib and such. Even when it's a lot smaller, the creators vision comes through much clearer.

I still consider copying Dark Souls lazy, rather than making something with it's own identity.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Digressing for a moment, I've had an idea for a while now to write a story set in one of these 'hardcore fantasy' worlds, but from the perspective of the guy whose job it is to carve skulls in things. I imagine it being quite an artisan's trade. You know how, in olden days, certain craftsmen had very specific jobs, and often took their surnames from it, like how a Cooper was a guy who made barrels, and a Fletcher made arrows? It'd be like that. John Skuller, in his little workshop directly between the armorer and the dungeon architect.

I want to play a dungeon crawler where your job is to fill up the chests after the adventurers have gone through, so it's ready for the next people. You start out with a whole bunch of equipment and items, but as you get to each chest you have to put stuff into them. Since you start out with good stuff, it's easy to kill all the enemies, but by the end you've put all your weapons and armor into the chests and have to high tail it out of there with nothing.

You earn money/exp/whatever based on how well you stocked the chests (weak items should be closer to the dungeon entrance, better items should be in the far chests or the "hidden" chests), so you can't just save your good stuff for last to put the chests close to the exit.

Your employer is of course a Dungeon Master.

 

[Sylocat]

Digressing for a moment, I've had an idea for a while now to write a story set in one of these 'hardcore fantasy' worlds, but from the perspective of the guy whose job it is to carve skulls in things. I imagine it being quite an artisan's trade. You know how, in olden days, certain craftsmen had very specific jobs, and often took their surnames from it, like how a Cooper was a guy who made barrels, and a Fletcher made arrows? It'd be like that. John Skuller, in his little workshop directly between the armorer and the dungeon architect.

I want to play a dungeon crawler where your job is to fill up the chests after the adventurers have gone through, so it's ready for the next people. You start out with a whole bunch of equipment and items, but as you get to each chest you have to put stuff into them. Since you start out with good stuff, it's easy to kill all the enemies, but by the end you've put all your weapons and armor into the chests and have to high tail it out of there with nothing.

You earn money/exp/whatever based on how well you stocked the chests (weak items should be closer to the dungeon entrance, better items should be in the far chests or the "hidden" chests), so you can't just save your good stuff for last to put the chests close to the exit.

Your employer is of course a Dungeon Master.

I can dig either of these ideas, or maybe some hybrid of them. It'd be like a cross between Recettear and (the good iterations of) the Dungeon Keeper franchise.

 

[Evonisia]

Darksiders aesthetic of the armour with a generic fantasy land covered in snow instead of grass or dirt, oh joy.

I always enjoy snow as an environment, but I've found that on occasion it's used to be lazy with the design. Now I suppose one could argue that just having grasslands or dirt is just as boring, but snow allows everything to be all bright and shiny and shit, so if there is a fault in the design you're screwed.

Make snow a nice little rare treat like in Halo 3, not overcrowd it like Lost Planet 3 or (it seems) this game. Maybe you can also be creative with it like Rayman Origins was. They needed an obligatory ice level because it's based off the 2D Mario games, so they made it be a refreshments district with cherries kept in ice packages, and suspicious red fluid flowing all around.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

I've always sort of wondered who this type of visual design is meant to appeal to. I can deal with the huge burly guys with tiny heads and all, but why do they also need to be covered in ridiculously over-designed armor? Incedentally, why can't more games have reasonably proportioned weapons? Maybe it's a result of being raised by a D&D/SCA nerd but I've never been a fan of the whole giant-spiky-paddle approach to weapon design in fantasy games either.

I'm the audience for that; I've always liked the design of Warhammer (40K to a lesser extent), even if it is totally ludicrous. It might come from modeling, where every detail you put on the character was important mechanically (including grenades, sword, the colours of certain things, etc.) and the fact that some people keep Lords and special characters around for a long time, occasionally redoing them if something memorable happened during a game and they wanted to reflect it in the model and turn it into a story. So I'll freely admit it looks silly, but that I like how silly it looks.

Spoiler

 

[Veylon]

I want to play a dungeon crawler where your job is to fill up the chests after the adventurers have gone through, so it's ready for the next people. You start out with a whole bunch of equipment and items, but as you get to each chest you have to put stuff into them. Since you start out with good stuff, it's easy to kill all the enemies, but by the end you've put all your weapons and armor into the chests and have to high tail it out of there with nothing.

You earn money/exp/whatever based on how well you stocked the chests (weak items should be closer to the dungeon entrance, better items should be in the far chests or the "hidden" chests), so you can't just save your good stuff for last to put the chests close to the exit.

Don't forget resetting the traps, messing up the puzzles, and flipping all the levers the wrong way.

Also don't forget that somebody's got to put all those monsters in there in the first place. Maybe you've got some cages to haul in, open up, and escape before the inhabitants awake from their tranquilizer-induced naps.

 

[JennAnge]

I don't think even the most generic of the AAA studio committees have yet to gather the courage to spitball a game called SHADOW OF THE SHADOW. But wait. It will come. Oh yes, it will come.

It will feature skulls. Oh yes.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I to am excited for the upcoming release of Shadow of the Shadow and wish to contribute to its kickstarter.

 

[Neonsilver]

Digressing for a moment, I've had an idea for a while now to write a story set in one of these 'hardcore fantasy' worlds, but from the perspective of the guy whose job it is to carve skulls in things. I imagine it being quite an artisan's trade. You know how, in olden days, certain craftsmen had very specific jobs, and often took their surnames from it, like how a Cooper was a guy who made barrels, and a Fletcher made arrows? It'd be like that. John Skuller, in his little workshop directly between the armorer and the dungeon architect.

I want to play a dungeon crawler where your job is to fill up the chests after the adventurers have gone through, so it's ready for the next people. You start out with a whole bunch of equipment and items, but as you get to each chest you have to put stuff into them. Since you start out with good stuff, it's easy to kill all the enemies, but by the end you've put all your weapons and armor into the chests and have to high tail it out of there with nothing.

You earn money/exp/whatever based on how well you stocked the chests (weak items should be closer to the dungeon entrance, better items should be in the far chests or the "hidden" chests), so you can't just save your good stuff for last to put the chests close to the exit.

Your employer is of course a Dungeon Master.

Sounds like an interesting idea. It also sounds as if the typical rpg town started some kind of scam to improve their economy by luring adventurers to them with a fake monster invasion or something.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So my game is gonna be 'Shadow of the Titan'. I'm thinking an open-world zombie game, with crafting and Portal jokes. And the protagonist will be a woman with a blocky not necessarily Minecraft inspired body.
Now all I gotta do is get it on Greenlight with the word 'Nostalgia' somewhere in the description.

 

[bliebblob]

Don't forget to add a cloth hood! How else are players supposed to know the protagonist likes brooding?

 

[Llarys]

Shadow's Shadow: A dark, gripping take on the "you are the villain" story, has you hunting down a great monster, using all of your wicked powers at your disposal to defeat all of the enemies, and people, that stand between you and your target. But no matter how hard you try, you never can seem to reach your target, this mysterious, "Shadow." Once you reach the climax of the tale, you'll realize the Shadow has done nothing wrong, that there was a greater darkness all along...the Shadow's Shadow: The one who was always one step behind him, destroying everything in his wake.

You.


Pre-Order Now for the Shadow's Shadow's Shadow DLC bonus Mission.

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm stuck on the title making part.

"The Mystical Hero's Glorious Epicically Divine Conquest of the Damned Fallen Demonic Shadow Titans............ of Amalur...: The Reckoning!"

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"Digressing for a moment, I've had an idea for a while now to write a story set in one of these 'hardcore fantasy' worlds, but from the perspective of the guy whose job it is to carve skulls in things. I imagine it being quite an artisan's trade. You know how, in olden days, certain craftsmen had very specific jobs, and often took their surnames from it, like how a Cooper was a guy who made barrels, and a Fletcher made arrows? It'd be like that. John Skuller, in his little workshop directly between the armorer and the dungeon architect."

Here's me throwing all the moneyz at my screen, just to be able to add that to Mogworld and JAM on my shelf!!!
Seriously, you'd better secretly be almost done with that novel/free short story or I'll be quite sad!!!

 

[Hawki]

If people copy Dark Souls, I can't say I'm surprised, but I don't see that as a bad thing. As Yahtzee points out, we've had our era of Doom clones, GTA clones, and I'd raise him with WoW clones, and more recently, DotA clones. Remember when everyone was trying to copy WoW? Remember how everything seems to be a MOBA now? I don't see either of that as bad in itself, because by the end of it, MMOs that came out after WoW are still around, and there's been some MOBAs that have broken the DotA mold (e.g. Smite and Heroes of the Storm).

So yeah? Dark Souls clones? I'm fine with that. Going by history, by the time the phase is over, we'll be left with some good products while the chaff will be forgotten.

Caveat in that I haven't played DS or LotF, so feel free to take everything I said with a grain of salt.

 

[fieryshadowcard]

At first I was disappointed that I didn't make the first Shadow of the Shadow joke, but then I realized SEGA might always be waiting for a Shadow the Hedgehog sequel where Shadow gets a sidekick. It will be known as Shadow's Shadow.

 

[Darth_Payn]

So my game is gonna be 'Shadow of the Titan'. I'm thinking an open-world zombie game, with crafting and Portal jokes. And the protagonist will be a woman with a blocky not necessarily Minecraft inspired body.
Now all I gotta do is get it on Greenlight with the word 'Nostalgia' somewhere in the description.

Dammit, you are going to make ALL the money with that idea!

OT: more funny and clever stuff from Yahtzee; I love it. This article sounded like a more harsh review than the ZP video.