So how about that Quiet Man? EDIT: I wrote a whole bunch more so read it!

Drathnoxis

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He's all quiet and everyone hates him. Thoughts?

Personally I think the dev's were making a game with sound and near the end of development they realized that the story didn't turn out that well and the combat wasn't very engaging. So as a saving throw they stripped out all the sound to try and get people interested. Because it really wasn't presented as a game designed around there being no sound.

EDIT:

I just saw a playthrough of it with the audio and, you know, I don't think it was really all that bad. There were actually some really nice music tracks. Granted I didn't play the game myself, I watched Supergreatfriend stream the game and then play it again with audio just now. That's always going to improve the experience. But I had a pretty good time with the game, and the story wasn't thaaat bad. It was dumb, oh man was it dumb, but it was dumb in a way that was fun to watch. Also for the gimmick, I'm surprised how well it worked for me. It was actually pretty interesting seeing it come together with audio and seeing how close our guesses were. But that's going back to how I experienced the game, that initial playthrough without audio would have been rough if SGF wasn't adlibbing his own interpretation of what the characters might be saying.

I've seen people say that it makes less sense with the audio, but I think everything has pretty much been answered sufficiently by the end. Most of the actors were pretty good, with the exception of the cop who is AWFUL! Visually he fits the part, but he just RUINS every scene he's in once he opens his mouth. Part of it is the he's given the absolute worst lines, but the actor really can't do anything with them.

It's really kind of baffling how some things actually made it into the final script. Like:

The scene where his mom is shot. I don't even understand how anybody could read that and think it was a good backstory. There isn't a single part that makes any sense. It's a fight over a stupid pair of shoes for one thing, which is by itself ridiculous. Then he runs over and waves at the guy with the gun for... some reason, I don't even get it. Then the mom get's shot by Taye and the other guy picks up the gun and starts claiming he did it! WHY?! And THEN the dad blames Dane for his mother's death! There isn't a single part of this that makes sense. It's just so dumb. If it had been reworked earlier in development it really could have been a decent story. Not an amazing story, or even good, but decent. There's still plenty of cringey, bad lines, but it could have been decent if that one scene had been reworked.

The execution of the whole 'deaf' thing was just strange in every respect. It was strange in how they chose to initially present the game without even letting the player understand things that the character can understand. And it was strange with audio when the character can understand things that he really shouldn't be able to given his disability. He is a phenomenal lip reader, and can perfectly understand people even when they aren't facing him. But then there's a couple times when he clearly cannot see someone's face (when they're wearing a mask) and he's able to respond to what they are saying. There were many, many times when I thought "is he really deaf?" and I don't think that was what the developers were going for.

In the end it wasn't well executed, the story was kind of dumb, the combat got a little repetitive, and some of the acting was pretty bad. But I still enjoyed it. Some people have called it The Room of video games, which I don't think that's really true. There's some production value here. The fight choreography is pretty good, some of music is really nice, and some of the scene's and characters come together really well. I quite like the big punch-ups with all the important characters at the end, it's all very shonen. The gimmick actually does make the game more interesting if you can manage to make it past the first audioless playthrough. All together it comes to be a very enjoyable bad game.
 

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I heard about this. It sounds like the had an idea and half way through realised it was bad. Instead of dumping, they published. Sounds like a greenlight project

Not touching it myself
 

Lufia Erim

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Drathnoxis said:
He's all quiet and everyone hates him. Thoughts?

Personally I think the dev's were making a game with sound and near the end of development they realized that the story didn't turn out that well and the combat wasn't very engaging. So as a saving throw they stripped out all the sound to try and get people interested. Because it really wasn't presented as a game designed around there being no sound.
It's pretentious as fuck. Honestly it's a novel idea, but the execution is horrible.

It would have been bearable if the gameplay was fun, and not a copy paste mashfest.

I legitimately like the idea of playing a game with no audio and trying to piece together what is going on and discuss it on forums and such and then coming back a week later to replay it with audio to see how much we got right. But like i saod the excution was horrible.

Anyone remember when Dark souls first came out , and i mean like the first two weeks of dark souls 1, and everyone was discussion Theories and strategies and just talking about the game and helping each other out ( way before it became mainstream and the Git Gud crowd took over)? I feel like "The Quiet Man" had the potential to be something like that.Like a fun little community project.
 

EvilRoy

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It sucked. The idea of playing as a deaf dude and experiencing the world from that perspective is neat, but tgey bullshit you on it. At times the Quiet Guy says stuff or is otherwise clearly aware of what people are saying but we just get left out.

On top of that it takes a side trip to crazytown at the end, but not in the fun swery way. It starts fun then you get bored.
 

Drathnoxis

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EvilRoy said:
It sucked. The idea of playing as a deaf dude and experiencing the world from that perspective is neat, but tgey bullshit you on it. At times the Quiet Guy says stuff or is otherwise clearly aware of what people are saying but we just get left out.

On top of that it takes a side trip to crazytown at the end, but not in the fun swery way. It starts fun then you get bored.
I don't know, the way almost every character had to put on that stupid mask was pretty great. I was praying that girlfriend mom was going to put it on too, just before the credits rolled.
 

Mikejames

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It's the type of project that I can't help but feel a little sad about, because even if the final product is a pretentious mess, you know that there was someone early on in development who genuinely wanted to try making something creative. But whether there were production issues or the idea was simply half-baked, it didn't pan out.

So it had an interesting idea at the start, and that's about it. Part of me assumes that the story is as nonsensical as it is because of last minute changes that were trying to drum up discussion over the "plot" and build up potential interest in an update that might actually explain things.
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

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Haven't played it but I've seen several videos about it and the general consensus seems to be of a game with a novel premise, but execution that is questionable at best.

I wonder if this is another case of bad project management by the dev and/or lack of oversight by the publisher, or perhaps the dev's enthusiasm blinded them to the game's problems. And by the time people noticed it wasn't panning out, enough time and money had been spent that Square felt it was better to quietly release it and maybe recoup some costs.

I feel a future episode of Matt McMuscles Wha Happun? in the works.
 

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Chimpzy said:
Haven't played it but I've seen several videos about it and the general consensus seems to be of a game with a novel premise, but execution that is questionable at best.

I wonder if this is another case of bad project management by the dev and/or lack of oversight by the publisher, or perhaps the dev's enthusiasm blinded them to the game's problems. And by the time people noticed it wasn't panning out, enough time and money had been spent that Square felt it was better to quietly release it and maybe recoup some costs.

I feel a future episode of Matt McMuscles Wha Happun? in the works.
Sounds accurate. It looks like a worse version of the Bouncer; a Square brawler game that has not aged well. Ironically Gaming Brit, loves the Bouncer, despite have many problems certain modern games (cutscene ratio is higher than gameplay) have or The Order: 1886. Then again, at least the Bouncer had gameplay and some enemy variety. But similar to the Quiet Man, had rushed production to meet a deadline and some gameplay features outright removed: weapons and interactable environments.
 

EvilRoy

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Drathnoxis said:
EvilRoy said:
It sucked. The idea of playing as a deaf dude and experiencing the world from that perspective is neat, but tgey bullshit you on it. At times the Quiet Guy says stuff or is otherwise clearly aware of what people are saying but we just get left out.

On top of that it takes a side trip to crazytown at the end, but not in the fun swery way. It starts fun then you get bored.
I don't know, the way almost every character had to put on that stupid mask was pretty great. I was praying that girlfriend mom was going to put it on too, just before the credits rolled.
I had a decent laugh when we got going with that, but either I did the mask combat section really wrong, or it went on for at least a thousand years and I was too pissed off to enjoy the batshit that followed.
 

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Majestic Manatee said:
Jim Sterling played it so you don't have to.
And for that, thank god for him.

I only watched Jims "review" of it and the "Soundless but only sometimes" thing is wierd. It sounds like more of a gimmick then trying to actually depict deafness in anything close to a realistic way.

The only comparison I can think of off the top of my head is Hellblade and at least there it sounds like they put a lot of effort into trying to depict Paranoid Schizophrenia through the gameplay, even if the game still has issues.
 

Drathnoxis

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I just saw a playthrough of it with the audio and, you know, I don't think it was really all that bad. There were actually some really nice music tracks. Granted I didn't play the game myself, I watched Supergreatfriend stream the game and then play it again with audio just now. That's always going to improve the experience. But I had a pretty good time with the game, and the story wasn't thaaat bad. It was dumb, oh man was it dumb, but it was dumb in a way that was fun to watch. Also for the gimmick, I'm surprised how well it worked for me. It was actually pretty interesting seeing it come together with audio and seeing how close our guesses were. But that's going back to how I experienced the game, that initial playthrough without audio would have been rough if SGF wasn't adlibbing his own interpretation of what the characters might be saying.

I've seen people say that it makes less sense with the audio, but I think everything has pretty much been answered sufficiently by the end. Most of the actors were pretty good, with the exception of the cop who is AWFUL! Visually he fits the part, but he just RUINS every scene he's in once he opens his mouth. Part of it is the he's given the absolute worst lines, but the actor really can't do anything with them.

It's really kind of baffling how some things actually made it into the final script. Like:

The scene where his mom is shot. I don't even understand how anybody could read that and think it was a good backstory. There isn't a single part that makes any sense. It's a fight over a stupid pair of shoes for one thing, which is by itself ridiculous. Then he runs over and waves at the guy with the gun for... some reason, I don't even get it. Then the mom get's shot by Taye and the other guy picks up the gun and starts claiming he did it! WHY?! And THEN the dad blames Dane for his mother's death! There isn't a single part of this that makes sense. It's just so dumb. If it had been reworked earlier in development it really could have been a decent story. Not an amazing story, or even good, but decent. There's still plenty of cringey, bad lines, but it could have been decent if that one scene had been reworked.

The execution of the whole 'deaf' thing was just strange in every respect. It was strange in how they chose to initially present the game without even letting the player understand things that the character can understand. And it was strange with audio when the character can understand things that he really shouldn't be able to given his disability. He is a phenomenal lip reader, and can perfectly understand people even when they aren't facing him. But then there's a couple times when he clearly cannot see someone's face (when they're wearing a mask) and he's able to respond to what they are saying. There were many, many times when I thought "is he really deaf?" and I don't think that was what the developers were going for.

In the end it wasn't well executed, the story was kind of dumb, the combat got a little repetitive, and some of the acting was pretty bad. But I still enjoyed it. Some people have called it The Room of video games, which I don't think that's really true. There's some production value here. The fight choreography is pretty good, some of music is really nice, and some of the scene's and characters come together really well. I quite like the big punch-ups with all the important characters at the end, it's all very shonen. The gimmick actually does make the game more interesting if you can manage to make it past the first audioless playthrough. All together it comes to be a very enjoyable bad game.