Adventure Gamers - Forums

Oh man I was so pumped to get on a new Bill Tiller adventure, but this Kickstarter is absolutely not friendly for people who didn’t play the original game like me. I would even say that it actively discourages people from pledging to the project. I mean, I started the pitch video and what I saw was a 4 minutes of unpolished low-res 3D animations with unfunny, annoying characters with bad voice acting. The video gave me the impression that this is the extremely low budget game for mobile platform targeted to pre-teen gamers, which is the worst possible directon for a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Please someone tell me what are the positive aspects of this video game pitch, because I see none.

I want Bill Tiller to succeed, but not with this. I just wish that he would team up with some talented writer and produce a mature game like The Dig, Full Throttle or Monkey Island.

ah, me too.  I think they put the price too high on the real copies of the game for collectors.  I just did the cheapest digital copy, as I thought they were crazy asking like what was it… like 100 dollars for a cd copy of the game?  Just my opinion. but, it looks bleak and that discourages me, as I was really hoping for this game.

I hope the Year One Kickstarter succeeds, however I am not pledging because I don’t really like the CG style art. I much prefer animated games like LSL Reloaded. I think most people prefer that style of art as well, especially for the demographic that spends the most money pledging to Kickstarters who are a little bit older, and grew up with sprite based games and animated adventures instead of Nintendo 64 and PS1.

That’s not to say I would never pledge to something like this, but if I have a choice between a CG game and something like LSL or Armikrog or even City Quest, my money is going to those games before a CG style game of which there are already a ton of.

I notice that the $100 pledge reward is listed as a boxed copy of the game “circa 1997”, which is kind of funny because 1997 was the last year of the first animated adventure game boom, after which there was a dry spell that lasted 11 years, and it is in fact Kickstarter that helped revive the animated adventure game genre because it transferred the choice away from the big game companies and gave it to the adventure game fan. People are now voting on what games they want made and they overwhelmingly vote in favor of animated adventure games. If I was a developer I’d think I’d pay attention to that, and if I were to ignore the track record and try do a CG adventure Kickstarter anyway, I would certainly not try and nostalgically market it to people were were adventure gamers in the mid-90s.

Udvarnoky - 27 June 2013 09:14 AM

I assume you’re talking specifically about paper-drawn animation for 2D characters, since A Vampyre Story remains a 2D adventure game with gorgeous hand-painted backgrounds, with 3D models being used for characters and props only.

I like that the backgrounds are handpainted, and for that reason I bought the first Vampyre Story, but the characters and props are half the game.  You can see the polygons clearly in the main characters shoulders for instance and that kind of CG style is just unappealing to me. I never liked the nintendo 64 either.

Udvarnoky - 27 June 2013 09:14 AM

And by “games” I assume you mean “game,” since as far as I know The Curse of Monkey Island is the only title on Bill’s resume that actually boasted that kind of character animation, being a super-expensive project from the genre’s golden era specifically intended to rival an animated film in production values.

I mean exactly what I said, “games”, because he worked on FUll Throttle and The Dig as well, and I gaurantee had he done a Full Throttle 2 kickstarter with the same animation style he would have easily gotten $200,000, and probably would have gotten that $200,000 in the first week alone.

Udvarnoky - 27 June 2013 09:14 AM

And I assume that by “famous” you really mean “not famous,” because his name hasn’t proven capable of generating even a fraction of the press/financing that Schafer/Lowe/Tørnquist have.

Do you think the Neverhood is more famous than Monkey Island or Full Throttle? Not by a long shot, yet Doug TenNapel succeeded with his Kickstarter and Bill Tiller didn’t. People look at the games more than the people who make them, and the people who donate money to adventure game kickstarters like traditional animation and claymation better than CG. We (the demographic who donate most to kickstarter) grew up with the LucasArts games, animatronic movies like Gremlins, and original NES, we did not grow up with Nintendo 64 and Pixar. Maybe in several years when the Nintendo 64/Pixar generation get good careers and have disposable income they’ll be able to donate the most and dictate what games get funded, for now though, it’s my generation who mostly fund kickstarter and we prefer traditional animation to CG.

Udvarnoky - 27 June 2013 09:14 AM

It is my informed guess that characters are 3D because it accelerates (and consequentially curbs the cost) of the animation process and he has better access to experienced 3D animators.  Frankly of AVS’s flaws I can’t say the character animation is among them.  It’s expressive and quite high quality.  I don’t know how much doing the character animation like CMI would have upped the budget, but considering that AVS1 undersold, Ghost Pirates maybe broke even, and this Kickstarter has raised a little over $50k, I daresay upping the budget to satisfy such a specific and baffling requirement from you (even though you speak for everyone) isn’t the most strategic move Bill can make at this juncture.

Ask Al Lowe, Broken Sword or Doube Fine if it’s not the most strategic move. People are willing to fund more if they like what they see from a game. With Kickstarter developes don’t need to worry about the budget, make a game that we’re interested in and we’ll give you the money. People aren’t interested in another CG adventure, CG adventure games are a dime a dozen.  We want traditional style animation games like what we grew up with, that’s why LSL Reloaded got over $600,000 and DOuble FIne got over a million because they’re giving people traditional style animated adventures and meanwhile Bill Tiller’s kickstarter is failing epically.

We also need to face facts that Bill is not particularly good at the PR game, getting his name out there and talking to journalists. Even when I was writing a piece on him for IGN, I wasn’t allowed to contact him directly, and everything had to be done through email and edited before it was sent to me.

And that’s for the largest gaming site on the web, before AVS came out, actively seeking him out and trying to give him some hype. If I wasn’t a fan trying to give him some positive press, I never would have put up with that.

There are people that know how to get out there and promote and those who don’t.

AdorableMogwai - 27 June 2013 05:59 PM

I never liked the nintendo 64 either.

I’m not getting the correlation here.

AdorableMogwai - 27 June 2013 05:59 PM

I mean exactly what I said, “games”, because he worked on FUll Throttle and The Dig as well, and I gaurantee had he done a Full Throttle 2 kickstarter with the same animation style he would have easily gotten $200,000, and probably would have gotten that $200,000 in the first week alone.

1) Bill Tiller did not have a substantial role on Full Throttle; I don’t believe he was part of the dedicated art team.  The hypothetical of him starting a Full Throttle 2 Kickstarter is particularly ludicrous because even the project leader, Tim Schafer, doesn’t have the rights to it.

2) It’s the clear that by “animation style” you simply mean “2D animation.”  The Dig and The Curse of Monkey Island are worlds apart as far as the caliber of the animation is concerned.  I guess I attach more importance to that than you do.

3) Those speculative dollar amounts of yours are laughable and not rooted in any kind of reality except the one where your personal preferences and the path to assured financial reward are one and the same.

AdorableMogwai - 27 June 2013 05:59 PM

Do you think the Neverhood is more famous than Monkey Island or Full Throttle? Not by a long shot, yet Doug TenNapel succeeded with his Kickstarter and Bill Tiller didn’t.

Even if it was demonstrable that Neverhood is less famous than Monkey Island or Full Throttle, it’s completely immaterial because this is neither a Monkey Island nor a Full Throttle Kickstarter.  And Bill’s contribution to the Monkey Island series was as lead background artist on a single game.  Yet you’re implying that Bill’s name is somehow equivalent to Monkey Island?  You’re stretching logic to cruel levels of stress here.

AdorableMogwai - 27 June 2013 05:59 PM

People look at the games more than the people who make them, and the people who donate money to adventure game kickstarters like traditional animation and claymation better than CG. We (the demographic who donate most to kickstarter) grew up with the LucasArts games, animatronic movies like Gremlins, and original NES, we did not grow up with Nintendo 64 and Pixar. Maybe in several years when the Nintendo 64/Pixar generation get good careers and have disposable income they’ll be able to donate the most and dictate what games get funded, for now though, it’s my generation who mostly fund kickstarter and we prefer traditional animation to CG.

You have unnecessarily and bizarrely perverted this into a generational divide argument, revealing that you have an axe to grind.  You have also identified yourself as the voice of a majority you cannot possibly hope to speak for, and you’re making crazy assumptions.

I also daresay you’re showing a pretty high amount of disrespect for the art of animation in general by seemingly dismissing quality as secondary to the very principle of a developer utilizing the style of your choice.  2D animation can and has been done both badly and superbly.  The same goes for 3D.  I get that 2D has inherently more appeal to you, as it does for many of us, but the way you’re expressing that preference is an inoculation against all credibility.

AdorableMogwai - 27 June 2013 05:59 PM

Ask Al Lowe, Broken Sword or Doube Fine if it’s not the most strategic move. People are willing to fund more if they like what they see from a game.

It is an not an apples-to-apples comparison.  There’s also consistency with a previously released installment of the franchise to consider.  To say nothing of the fact that the game looks freaking stunning.  But I guess that screenshot doesn’t matter because, these kids today who grew up on Nintendo 64, or something.

Udvarnoky - 28 June 2013 12:03 AM

You have unnecessarily and bizarrely perverted this into a generational divide argument, revealing that you have an axe to grind.  You have also identified yourself as the voice of a majority you cannot possibly hope to speak for, and you’re making crazy assumptions.

I also daresay you’re showing a pretty high amount of disrespect for the art of animation in general by seemingly dismissing quality as secondary to the very principle of a developer utilizing the style of your choice.  2D animation can and has been done both badly and superbly.  The same goes for 3D.  I get that 2D has inherently more appeal to you, as it does for many of us, but the way you’re expressing that preference is an inoculation against all credibility.

*claps*

Thank you on behalf of everyone for saying what needed to be said! 

Udvarnoky - 28 June 2013 12:03 AM

The hypothetical of him starting a Full Throttle 2 Kickstarter is particularly ludicrous because even the project leader, Tim Schafer, doesn’t have the rights to it.

Doug TenNapel didn’t have the rights to do a Neverhood sequel either, yet that didn’t stop him did it? They could have easily made a Full Throttle sequel and just changed the name and characters a little, it’s called being pragmatic.

Udvarnoky - 28 June 2013 12:03 AM

You have unnecessarily and bizarrely perverted this into a generational divide argument, revealing that you have an axe to grind.

I think the generational divide is legitimate. There’s a whole generation of kids who grew up watching the CG Star Wars prequels like “Clone Wars” and they actually think that’s an improvement over the first Star Wars trilogy.

You’re right about one thing though, I do have an axe to grind. I watched over the years as traditional animated adventure games almost went extinct and were replaced with CG mediocrity just because it was cheaper for the big companies to make them that way. Well guess what, with Kickstarter the big companies aren’t making the decisions anymore, people like me are making the decisions by choosing what to fund. And I’m deciding right now that the CG “Clone Wars” era of adventure gaming is over. We’re going back to the original trilogy now, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Udvarnoky - 28 June 2013 12:03 AM

You have also identified yourself as the voice of a majority you cannot possibly hope to speak for.

I don’t need to speak for the majority, where the Kickstarter funding goes does that for me. Traditional style games that harken back to the pre-CG era are having huge success, meanwhile CG games like Vampyre Story Year One are getting ignored.

And developers know what demographic contributes most to kickstarter, that’s why they all have the “1997 style computer game box” as a reward tier. Bill Tiller even has it as a tier his Vampyre Story kickstarter. But he made a huge mistake because he failed to realize our generation don’t want Nintendo 64, we don’t want Clone Wars, we don’t want Shrek, what we want are games with traditional styles of animation.

TimovieMan - 28 June 2013 07:05 PM

]Except that Kickstarter isn’t really producing a lot of high-res traditional animated adventures now, is it?

If we are to just count the Broken Sword game, LSL reloaded, and Double Fine’s adventure (which they indicate is going to be traditional like DOTT) just those three games are equal to the number of traditional animated adventures produced in the five years spanning 2002-2006 COMBINED.

By that dreary historical standard, Kickstarter is producing a ton.

If we count Armikrog, and also the other traditional animated adventures which aren’t “high res” (at least I don’t think they are, I’m not 100% sure what that word means in this context and I’m a bit confused why you used it since no one was talking about “high res” to begin with) like Quest for Infamy, City Quest, etc, then traditional animated adventures are experiencing a boom comparable to the mid-1990s.

AdorableMogwai - 28 June 2013 08:42 PM

If we are to just count the Broken Sword game, LSL reloaded, and Double Fine’s adventure (which they indicate is going to be traditional like DOTT) just those three games are equal to the number of traditional animated adventures produced in the five years spanning 2002-2006 COMBINED.

Double Fine’s game uses a sort of “paper doll” animation, not frame by frame traditional animation, and looks nothing like DOTT. And the new Broken Sword is cel-shaded 3D rendered to 2D textures.